I, personally, am not quite smart enough to be scared of flying. I don’t have the imagination required to picture all the scenarios in which a plane flight could go horribly wrong and connect them with my current circumstances. It doesn’t matter how bad the turbulence is or whether I saw the pilot reading The Secret before boarding my plane (this honest-to-God happened to me at an airport in Louisiana), I cannot picture that something bad will happen to me. That might change if I saw the cowling fly off one of the engines mid-flight.
I can only imagine that the traditional calm boredom that dominates my flying experiences would be punctuated with loud and embarrassing shrieks of pure panic, but, of course, I am not Erik Haddad, who managed to maintain a sense of ironic detachment even as God stared straight into Erik’s eyes, wiggled his eyebrows, and pointed directly down to hell.
Haddad was flying over the Pacific Ocean on United Airlines Flight 1175 on Tuesday afternoon when a loud bang was heard and bits of the right engine began flying off at an alarming rate. Instead of making peace with his sins, regrets, and imperfect interpersonal relationships, Haddad decided taking a video that he could later upload with a pun for a caption was the way to go. Truly a man deeply committed to posting.
that looks bad, plane and simple ✈️ #ua1175 pic.twitter.com/EKXUxDBw9q
— Erik Haddad (@erikhaddad) February 13, 2018
But there was time for jokes, apparently:
I don’t see anything about this in the manual ✈️#ua1175 pic.twitter.com/yTECg9fxZw
— Erik Haddad (@erikhaddad) February 13, 2018
This video captured by another passenger on the same flight conveys at least a little bit more of the terror:
https://twitter.com/haleylora/status/963562001506029568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smh.com.au%2Fworld%2Fscariest-flight-of-my-life-engine-cover-blows-off-united-airlines-plane-20180214-h0w2ow.html
In a statement, United said that the plane made an emergency landing, with all passengers making it out unharmed:
Our pilots followed all necessary protocols to safely land the aircraft. The aircraft taxied to the gate and passengers deplaned normally.
Passengers reported that the plane shook violently until the plane was able to finally land, which I’m sure definitely helped maintain a sense of calm. The Federal Aviation Administration is currently investigating what caused the incident.
This is probably a wonderful time to revisit the stats on safety in commercial aviation (it’s very safe).
