Continental Flight 326

Nope, you didn’t see this flight # on the news this week although you should have!! We were flying on this flight from Houston to Baltimore on Sunday night after being at Leigh and Bo’s Wedding. The flight was going along just fine and the pilot announced that we were beginning our final decent into BWI. The flight attendants gather our cups and made a few more rounds to harass people about putting their chairs up.  It was slightly bumpy but nothing too bad. All of a sudden, we entered into 5 plus minutes of horrific turbulence. It was so bad that we all thought we were going to die. The flight had a movie playing which ironically was “The Pursuit of Happyness”. As the plane started to lose control the movie screens starting breaking up the picture which was quite unsettling. We didn’t need any more visual with our terrifying situation. As it got bad, a man in 6 or so rows in front of us stood up and decided to walk all the way to the front of the plane to use the restroom. People starting yelling at him to stay down and not to walk. Everyone in his row stood to let him out. The FA kept yelling from the back of the plane but he kept going. Meanwhile, people are beginning to cry, throw up, and scream. I happened to be one of the ones crying!  It was so bad that it was difficult to grip on to one another. There was a little boy in the row in front of us who was seated a few rows away from his parents. While his mom was getting sick his dad kept yelling up to calm the boy and make sure he stayed in his seat. The whole experience shook us really badly. I don’t think either of us have ever been on a plane and thought that we might die. I will say that there was not enough time to process the situation and to quote verses or have profound thoughts. The up and down and side to side was so bad that we would not have been able to help each other if someone had gotten injured. Needless to say we are not looking forward to flying in May or ever again for that matter. We were so thankful that Jackson was not born yet because I am confident that we could not have held on to him when things got so rough. We will definitely insist upon getting a seat for him when we move so that he can be buckled in…I highly recommend it for those of you with little ones!

We got diverted so it took a few more minutes to land. When the plane calmed down many people thought we had already landed. As people looked out the windows all we could see was fog and clouds. We were so scared that we couldn’t land. Finally we landed…still quite shaken..and so glad to be alive!!


6 Comments

  1. Wow! Mom and Dad hadn’t told me about all this! I’m so glad you guys landed safely. Did the pilots say what went wrong or what was going on?? Was it just bad turbulence? Did they talk over the PA at all? We’ll be praying for you guys when you fly again in May that God would calm you both and give you peace about flying.

  2. Wow! Mom and Dad hadn’t told me about all this! I’m so glad you guys landed safely. Did the pilots say what went wrong or what was going on?? Was it just bad turbulence? Did they talk over the PA at all? We’ll be praying for you guys when you fly again in May that God would calm you both and give you peace about flying.

  3. I had a VERY similar flight into El Paso just a few weeks ago. I have never had so much turbulence in my life. Thankfully people stayed seated though, that man is stupid. I have some funny stories about turbulence, but I will keep them to myself. I also have a plane story on my blog! Funny…

    J

  4. I had a VERY similar flight into El Paso just a few weeks ago. I have never had so much turbulence in my life. Thankfully people stayed seated though, that man is stupid. I have some funny stories about turbulence, but I will keep them to myself. I also have a plane story on my blog! Funny…

    J

  5. What they didn’t tell you was that is was just the pilots playing Dance Dance Revolution in the cockpit. And I can’t imagine what his experience must have been like once he was finally in the bathroom. ‘Nuff said.

  6. What they didn’t tell you was that is was just the pilots playing Dance Dance Revolution in the cockpit. And I can’t imagine what his experience must have been like once he was finally in the bathroom. ‘Nuff said.

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