Soon after takeoff, I noticed that we had turned around. I told my husband we were headed back to the airport and he, assuming my usual lack of directions, told me I was wrong. I was vindicated when the captain announced that there was smoke in the forward cabin and we were headed back to SFO. We didn't have time to dump fuel.
We were instructed on how to assume the crash position and I started stuffing everything from my purse into my pockets. In the event of an emergency, leave all bags behind but I figured as long as it was on me, I could take it off the plane.
The flight attendants yelled, "BRACE, BRACE, BRACE" and we assumed the crash position. We came to a smooth landing and immediately, fire engines appeared. We were told not to deploy the emergency chutes--darn, I wanted to remove my heels (not that I was wearing any), jump, slide and move away from the plane. Surprisingly, all the passengers remained calm and we walked down the stairs.
We were stranded on the tarmac, waiting for buses. The buses finally arrived after 30 minutes and we were taken to an abandoned terminal. I was surprised SFO did not have better emergency contingencies--after all, this is San Francisco, not some 3rd world country. Actually, 3rd world countries probably would've handled it better since there's less air traffic.
Next, the long process of getting rebooked. Because we were on frequent-flier tickets, we were low priority. We were rebooked on a red-eye flight to Newark, an all-day layover, another red-eye flight to Rome then on to Athens. That's how I learned to call the 800 number as soon as there's a hint that the flight might be cancelled so I can get decent flights. After all, it's hard to re-book an entire plane-load of passengers.
Luckily, my husband comes from a large family and they live everywhere. We visited his sister in Burlingame while we waited for our flight to Newark. The flight was uneventful.
When we arrived in Newark, we thought we'd confirm our flight to Rome but the Alitalia counter was still unstaffed. We thought since we had just been booked, it'd be okay and took the shuttle into Manhattan to visit another of his sisters.
In the late afternoon, we boarded the shuttle back to Newark. I heard the driver call his dispatch and mumbled that there was something wrong with the bus. I couldn't believe it! How could we have such terrible luck.
He pulled the bus over, waited a few minutes and started the engine again. We traveled a little further down the road then he pulled over again. By now, we were within range of the airport. He started the engine again and we finally pulled into the terminal.
At the Alitalia desk, we were told that there were no seats for us. I must have been really pathetic when I explained our entire journey thus far. She took pity on us, punched in a few things and came up with 2 seats for us.
We had an uneventful flight, arriving in Athens 36 hours after we were scheduled.
2006
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