joy
so we go out west of OKC and just fly around and dodge the other storms for a while, so the biggun can move off the airport...there's a few of us out there, all deciding wtf to do, and finally a Southwest 737 decides to be the guinea pig and go first...we look at our gas guages and we have to try it soon or we have to go somewhere else...so we start headin back towards the airport...
we find the thinniest of corridors heading straight at the airport, cept the in order to land it has to be a tailwind (and at 10 knots, thats the max we can do)...so we wiggle our way to OKC, lightening all over the place, rain, turbulence...the captain keeps asking if I want to land with a tailwind on a wet runway, and I say I'm not flying through the nasty shit on the other side...
airport in sight and we set up to land, get down to the runway and the storms had shifted to over the airport again, and it's pouring like a mofo, so I get in the flare and just plant her on the runway...I don't want to float fown the runway much because I already have that tailwind pushing me...I hit the reversers and then the brakes, and even with anti-skid, I'm sliding back n forth a bit...we slow to a decent speed and exit the runway, no problem...get to the gate, and just about everone on the flight was thanking me, saying "great job" or whatever, which was nice...way more compliments than the time I brought the plane back to the airport on one engine, lol
fast forward to the next day:
we're sitting in OKC getting the plane ready to go back to Chicago...and I look to my right and see all these firetrucks rush up to another regional plane's cargo hold, and begin to fight a cargo fire...nice...hadn't seen a plane on fire before...it happened to be a box or something on fire, and turned out to be just a small fire, but smoky...
so I'm watching that, and the gate agent comes into the cockpit, and says, "we have a report of a suspicious passenger on this flight" and givse us these details
male
arab descent
on a 1 day trip to ottowa
walking around pacing
he said,"he didn't want people to know he was on this flight"
I'm looking at the fire 2 planes away, and thinking this isn't a good idea
the gate agent and chimes in and says, that he is with his wife and 3 kids...and that doesn't make much sense for a terrorist...they need relatives to repeat his "glory" when he completes the mission...then I thought, well they stone their wives to death if they look the wrong way...
I was about to say "keep him off" when the captain says, it should be okay to the gate agent, then looks at me and says, what do you think?
"uhhhh, I don't think so."
"no?"
"Dude, it's already 1pm...who leaves now to go on a ONE day trip all the way to canada when they have to change planes as well?"
"hmmm"
The Captain leaves to go check it out
So I'm sitting there watching the firemen again, wondering how to persuade the capt into keeping them off...
he comes back after a while, and says "you can relax, it's all taken care of"
"how's that"
just as he went back up to the gate agents, a UPS pilot came to our plane to jumpseat to chicago to pick up his trip, but he was also a FFDO (Federal Flight Deck Officer) meaning he was packing his 9mm with him, and would be riding behind them in the back...so they coordinated what was going on, and off we went to Chicago...
We got to chicago, with no problems of course (otherwise you would have seen it on the news) and I finally saw them, and he was a doting father taking care of his kids, but it still didn't help much...in a profession where you talk/hear/think about 9/11 every single day of your life, it's impossible not to racially profile people...
Nothing like having the #3 most dangerous job in the world and get paid less than an Asst Mngr at Burger King...
and then later someone dumped my lunch on the floor, and my soup broke open and spilled all over...DAMMIT!
