WSJ thing - Part 4
They eyed their own leftovers from lunch. "We haven't touched these
sandwiches, but they're ice cold," Capt. Stabler said. Ms. Ward bagged them
up and returned to the passenger.
"Ma'am, this is what we're doing about feeding your children," she said,
thrusting the sack at the woman. (Later, Ms. Ward would notice that the bag
had never been opened.)
Sharon Friedman had settled down since her tears, but she faced a new
quandary. Her five-year-old boy was thirsty. But she was holding back the one
remaining bottle of water she had in case she ran out of formula for her
three-month-old daughter, Shayna. It hurt to deprive one child over the other.
But Ms. Friedman now feared that they would have to spend the night on the
plane.
Her sister-in-law, Amy Friedman, Scott's wife, also had an infant,
seven-month-old Madison. She had enough formula for one more bottle and
she had two diapers. When another mom asked her for a diaper, Amy turned
her down. The guilt stung.
By now, flight attendants were about as fed up as anyone, and they took an
unauthorized emergency step: They started encouraging passengers to send
letters of complaint to John Dasburg, Northwest's chief executive. "Do it for
your peace of mind," Ms. Ward told some passengers. One attendant held up
the in-flight magazine, open to page 4, pointing to Mr. Dasburg's picture and
his letter to customers. It touted Northwest's "wide range of new benefits" and
closed: "Have a Happy New Year." Another attendant urged Ms. Duran, the
private pilot: "Write and tell him what a chickens--- operation we're running."
Dr. Goldstein, the ophthalmologist, wasn't impressed.
"I don't think Dasburg knows or cares what's going
on in Detroit," he told his wife, Diane. "I want to talk
to him."
The Goldsteins figured Mr. Dasburg must live in one
of the nicer suburbs of Minneapolis. Mrs. Goldstein's
uncle lives in one of those suburbs, Edina, Minn.
They called Edina directory assistance on their cell
phone. To their amazement, they found a listing.
The doctor dialed at once and got Mary Lou
Dasburg, the CEO's wife, who said her husband
wasn't at home. "I'm currently on one of your
husband's planes in Detroit," Dr. Goldstein, 35, said.
"There are 30 planes on the ground here. He needs to
know." As the two talked, passengers in nearby rows leaned in to listen.
According to Dr. Goldstein, Mrs. Dasburg promised to call flight operations
herself to find out what was going on. (Mrs. Dasburg confirms the call.)
In Row 9, Seat D, Christina Wade, the real-estate agent, had been growing
increasingly anxious. She was obsessing on the obvious fact that few planes
were moving. She'd had a couple of Bacardi and orange juices. She snapped.
"I've had enough of this!" she screamed. "I have to
get off this plane. I'm going to open this door!"
Crying hysterically, she put on a cashmere
pants-and-sweater set over her shorts and T-shirt and
gathered a credit card, her cigarettes and her cell
phone. She prepared to pull the emergency-exit lever
next to her seat and leap into the night.
"No, don't do it!" her husband, John, urged. "No!
No!" some passengers pleaded. Others made plans to
follow her out the door.
Flight attendants positioned themselves in front of the
exits, and warned that bailing out would be hazardous
and illegal. "An FBI holding cell would be nicer than
this plane," Ms. Wade snapped.
"How about a Valium?" Ms. Ward said. She knew that some of the physicians
on the plane had some of the tranquilizers. "I can get you a Valium."
"I don't want a Valium!" Ms. Wade roared. "Get me off this f------ plane! I'm
jumping!"
Capt. Stabler heard the uproar and raced back from the cockpit. He knelt in
front of Ms. Wade, touching her shoulder. "Really, we don't want to open any
doors," he said.
Ms. Wade curled up in a ball on the floor next to the emergency exit and wept.
John Wade, 31, tried to lift his wife back into her seat. "Honey, please get out
of that corner," he implored. "It's making you claustrophobic."
She wept on, but finally was coaxed back into her seat. Capt. Stabler returned
to the cockpit. But Ms. Wade, terror rising again, quickly resolved anew to bail
out. She knew pulling the emergency lever would deploy the emergency slide;
she figured she could handle the 20-foot drop to the tarmac.
Ms. Wade's sister was also on the plane. Christina walked back to her and
simply announced: "I'm going to jump." Christina went back to her seat -- and
began loudly setting deadlines: "If we're not moving in 15 minutes, I'm gonna
open the door!" By now, her husband was blocking the exit nearest her, while
flight attendant O'Keeffe guarded the one across the aisle.
Only Scott Friedman seemed to get through to her. Sitting a row ahead of Ms.
Wade, the 37-year-old dermatologist pleaded, "I've got a baby. It's 23 degrees
below zero. Once the cabin temperature equalizes, what am I going to do with
my baby?"
Amy Friedman didn't entirely share her husband's view. Earlier in the flight,
she had asked him whether "one of us could fake a heart attack or something"
to get them off the plane. "Honey, if she blows the door, I'm all set," she
whispered to her husband. "I've got blankets." She thought the Friedmans
could swaddle their child and follow Ms. Wade down the chute.
Ms. Wade teetered between panic and control, setting deadlines, talking on her
cell phone. She threatened again to pop the door. "Are you sure you want to do
that, Chrissy?" said her husband. "It's a long way down." She called a local
radio station and bellowed: "We're trapped ... I can't believe this bulls---!"
It went on, and it made for macabre theater. Mr. Post, the newlywed from
Kalamazoo, walked up to observe. "I'm glad she's not my wife," he thought to
himself. Sharon Friedman's five-year-old, Gordon, climbed up in his seat to
watch. "Why is she yelling?" Gordon inquired. "Why can't we just open the
door?"
Meanwhile, word of Dr. Goldstein's call to Minnesota had spread. Ms. Ward
heard about it, and headed straight to the cockpit.
"Some guy back there just talked to Mrs. Dasburg," she told Capt. Stabler.
His eyes widened. "How? I want to talk to him."
Dr. Goldstein was summoned to the cockpit. His stomach tightened. There
was probably some rule against calling the chief executive's wife. Capt. Stabler
asked what he had done. "I called Dasburg's house," he confessed. "His wife
said he wasn't home."
"Fantastic," the captain exclaimed. "Give us that number."
Capt. Stabler dialed quickly on Capt. Miller's cell phone. It was past 9 p.m. and
the plane had been pinned for more than six hours. Mr. Dasburg himself
answered.
"We're out of food, out of water," Capt. Stabler informed his boss. The
captain's voice was steely, commanding. "Lavatories aren't functioning. We've
got a passenger threatening to pop the chute. It's minus-30 windchill. There
are active taxiways. It would make a very bad news story for Northwest.
You've got to do something."
Capt. Stabler got the impression that, despite the many planes' hours-long
ordeal in Detroit, Mr. Dasburg did not know how critical things were. The
captain elaborated. He felt that if a door opened, there would be 50 people out
on the frozen runway. According to Capt. Stabler, Mr. Dasburg replied: "This
should never have happened to you guys. We'll get you out of it right now."
Mr. Dasburg, 56, and Northwest decline to comment on any phone
conversations. Northwest says "senior executives" were well aware of the
crisis.
Capt. Stabler quickly got on the gate radio and told the other stranded pilots: "I
have just talked to John Dasburg and something is going to get done." He also
told his passengers. "We've called the top dog," he said. "Hopefully, something
will get done."
Few in the cabin seemed to believe it. But 20 minutes later, at 9:25, gate radio
crackled. "1829? Do you have direct access to Fox 5?" That would be F-5, the
gate that had been empty for hours. Capt. Stabler had asked several times if he
could dock there, but had been told by ground control that the jetway was
malfunctioning. (Northwest says it was never broken, but that the path to it
had been blocked by another plane, a contention disputed by Flight 1829's
pilots.)
The captain cranked up the engines and eased the plane into motion. Suddenly,
gate radio exploded with complaints from other pilots: "Why does he get that
gate? We've been waiting longer!" Ms. Wade, the would-be jumper, also
erupted again. "He's just driving around to placate me," she yelled.
The plane edged forward. A woman in the front of the coach cabin stood up
and opened an overhead bin. Mr. London from Toronto got up to reclaim his
seat in the back with his family. "Just what part of 'Sit down and fasten your
seat belts' don't you understand?" Ms. Ward erupted. "If we lose this gate,
you'll have a whole airplane full of people who won't be happy with you."
Capt. Miller heard her, stormed out of the cockpit and glowered at the standing
passengers. Both sat down.
The jet was towed into the angled parking spot, and ground workers dug out
snow from the jetway wheels and stairs. After a few false starts, Flight 1829
docked. The door opened. Capt. Stabler made his final announcement: "I
sincerely apologize. There were decisions that weren't made, and improper
decisions. We have a great group of passengers."
The passengers, numb and exhausted, moved slowly. Many stopped by the
cockpit to thank the pilots and shake their hands. But First Officer Patchett
thought a few flashed "the look of death."
It was 9:42. They had been on the tarmac for 6 hours and 57 minutes. They
had left St. Martin 30 hours and 34 minutes before.
In the crowded, trash-strewn terminal, Ms. Wade told Scott and Amy
Friedman that she hadn't blown the door because of their baby. Mr. McCoy
apologized to the man he had cursed. Mr. London ran back onto the plane to
retrieve his wife's purse, and decided to snap a few photos of a trashed
lavatory. Others vowed lawsuits, and indeed, one of the Flight 1829
passengers who signed Mr. London's list, Tim Koczara, a builder from Grosse
Pointe Woods, Mich., later became the first named plaintiff in a suit filed by
Detroit law firm Charfoos & Christensen against Northwest and other
defendants.
Capt. Stabler walked purposefully to the Northwest gate-control office to try
to talk to the manager he had yelled at hours before. But there were 20 people
buzzing around; the crisis was still on. The captain went home.
It was 10 p.m. Out on the tarmac, five other planes still waited.
Illustration by K. Daniel Clark
1. In the cockpit, Capts. Peter Stabler, Robert Patchett and Chuck Miller struggle to avert total
anarchy and plead with Northwest officials to bring Flight 1829 in.
2. The first-class galley, where flight attendant Nikki Ward encounters a heart patient who
begs to be freed. Four hours into the flight, Ms. Ward notes things could be worse: "No one
has to eat each other."
3. In Row 5, Sonya Friedman, a psychologist, and Barbara Ruskin chat about Mrs. Ruskin's
fear of flying. Mrs. Ruskin is comforted--for a while.
4. Sharon Friedman, Sonya's daughter, breaks down in Row 7 after five hours on the
tarmac. Later she worries about which of her two children to deprive of water.
5. In Row 14, Dr. Bill Goldstein irks others with his bickering over seats, but his audacity is
welcomed in the end. At about 8 p.m., he begins hunting for Northwest CEO Dasburg.
6. Dr. Scott Friedman and his wife, Amy, in Row 8, Seats E and D, disagree over the best
course of action: Sit tight or jump?
7. More than five hours into the wait, Christina Wade, Row 9, Seat D, screams: "I'm jumping!"
The windchill factor outside is more than 20 below. Capt. Stabler tries to calm her, but some
passengers urge her on.
8. Honeymooners Doug Post and Dawn Chamberlain had endured roaches and foul smells at
their St. Martin hotel. They couldn't have imagined that life in Row 20 would be worse.
9. In Row 23, Stephen London eyes a nearby hangar and can't fathom why the jet doesn't
pull in and evacuate passengers. After five hours, he begins enlisting support for lawsuits.
10. From 32D, Leslie McCoy rebels against drink charges and -- at around 8:30 -- rages: "Get
me off this f------ plane!" Shortly thereafter, in 32 C, Eugene Pettis detects a sewage leak
from the right rear lavatory behind Row 26.
11. Stationed in the rear galley, flight attendant Barry Forbes calls for movies 30 minutes into
the wait and is astonished at the reaction. Hours later, he must stick his arm into a fetid
lavatory waste tank.
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