WSJ article - NW Airlines -- Part 2
From the right side of the plane, the passengers and
crew could plainly see the nearest gates, along the C
concourse, no more than 400 yards away. Many
were occupied; some weren't. Another gate, F-5,
was also visible about 900 yards away. It was
vacant. A Northwest maintenance hangar was only
250 yards away, visible from the left side of the
plane. Capt. Stabler tuned the cockpit radio to Northwest's "gate control," the
people who organize the parking of planes. Their message for Flight 1829: "Get
in line and expect at least a two-hour wait."
A groan rippled through the cabin as the captain announced the news. "Oh
jeez, come on!" passenger Michelle Duran, a 34-year-old computer technician
and private pilot from New Baltimore, Mich., said to herself. Flight attendant
Ms. Miller overheard a 12-year-old boy tell his brother: "There's no way I'm
spending two hours on this airplane."
A 757 cabin is hardly a commodious waiting room. It has a single, narrow aisle
that runs 115 feet from the cockpit door to the rear galley. Along the aisle are
35 rows of seats, most of them in the cramped three-and-three layout of
economy. The economy seats are 17 inches wide, as narrow as they get on
U.S. commercial jet flights. The interior of the aluminum tube -- navy-blue
carpet and seats, red, gray and dark camel accents and off-white walls and
bins -- is 7 feet at its highest point, and 11 1/2 feet at its widest. Holding tanks
for the plane's four lavatories have a total capacity of 55.5 gallons.
Capt. Stabler shut down the 757's two engines, using auxiliary power to keep
the jet heated and well-lighted. He opened the cockpit door and invited
passengers to drop in for a tour. Many did. The crew let it be known,
discreetly, that passengers could use their cell phones. Normally, airlines
prohibit cell phones for fear they will interfere with navigation equipment.
Still, there were early signs of rawness. A half hour into the wait, flight
attendant Forbes made an announcement: "Does anyone have any videos in
your carry-on luggage?" The 757 has an audio-video system but, to save
money, Northwest no longer shows films on most North American flights.
Three tapes were produced: an old "Star Trek" TV episode, "Citizen Kane" and
"The Princess Bride."
"Star Trek" went on. It was the one where an enemy device freezes people in
time, imprisoning them in an alien dimension. But with no headsets, the audio
had to be piped through the plane's public-address system, one volume fits all.
A passenger in economy griped loudly to flight attendants that the sound was
interfering with her reading. So the tape was yanked, causing a general outcry.
Capt. Miller, the hitchhiking pilot, was off duty but wearing his uniform.
Alerted by flight attendants, the 49-year-old pilot, a 15-year Northwest veteran,
marched back and demanded to know who didn't want the video shown. No
one spoke up. "OK, put the movies back on -- as long as they're G-rated," he
told the attendants. There were kids back there, Capt. Miller reasoned.
Following "Star Trek" came "Citizen Kane." It belonged to Jamie Hodari, a
17-year-old Bloomfield Hills high-school junior traveling with his younger sister
and two babysitters, and he loved the classic. But after 10 minutes, several
passengers started booing. "Who put this goofy movie on?" one demanded.
"Who would want to watch a black-and-white movie?" yelled another. "Citizen
Kane" got the hook. Jamie marveled to his sister about the spectacle of
middle-aged adults "acting like obnoxious kids."
"The Princess Bride" fared better.
As the two-hour wait slipped into two-and-a-half, the flight attendants had
wheeled out the already-depleted beverage carts. They didn't have any pretzels
or peanuts to hand out -- all the extras had gone off the plane in Tampa. Most
passengers remained fairly good-tempered. Ms. Miller, 37, a 13-year
Northwest veteran, watched a dentist organize a betting pool: How long would
it take to get to the gate? She laughingly declined an invitation to wager.
Nearby, a man with a bag of Doritos joked that they were for sale -- "$1 each."
Conversations were struck up. Mrs. Ruskin, the
guidance counselor, was sitting in Row 5 next to
Sonya Friedman, a psychologist, author and television
commentator from Bloomfield Hills. Eight other
members of the Friedman family were on the flight;
Dr. Friedman and Mrs. Ruskin chatted a lot about
Mrs. Ruskin's fear of flying. Four 20-something
passengers started a stand-up euchre game in front of
one of the lavatories. Christina Wade, a 32-year-old
real-estate agent from Ann Arbor, Mich., played
Scrabble with her husband.
Elsewhere, however, scattered small rebellions were
brewing. Initially, the crew refused to serve alcohol.
Some people provided their own from bags of
duty-free booze from St. Martin. Mr. Forbes, the
flight attendant, warned them that it was prohibited. But as time slipped by,
Mr. Forbes, 41 and a 19-year veteran, decided to let them drink.
The cabin crew eventually relented and served cocktails to those who
wandered into the galleys to ask. But in the economy cabin, they still charged.
At around 5 p.m., Dr. Goldstein, the ophthalmologist whose blustering over
seats had caused such a stir in St. Martin, headed back for a gin-and-tonic for
himself and a beer for his brother-in-law. Mr. Forbes asked for $7.
"I can't believe you're charging for this," Dr.
Goldstein spluttered. He paid, but steamed. Eugene
Pettis had a similar reaction after being hit up for $3
for a beer. "Come on!" the 67-year-old director of a
Detroit mental-health center groused to his seatmates.
"The least they could do is give us free drinks."
Exactly, thought his traveling buddy, Leslie McCoy.
He went to the galley and asked for a rum and Coke.
"I'm not going to pay," he declared. Mr. McCoy, a
33-year-old artist for the Detroit Police Department,
got his drink on the house, and another rule went by
the wayside.
Time ticked by. Capt. Stabler played the outside man,
making announcements and chatting with passengers.
He often praised them: "You're being wonderful. You're so calm. We're all
stuck in this together," he said over the loudspeaker. Positive reinforcement
and a little all-for-one, he thought. Can't hurt.
Capt. Patchett mostly stayed in the cockpit listening
to gate radio. The 40-year-old, a 12-year Northwest
veteran, helped pass the time by tuning a second
radio to the day's pro-football games. Monitoring
other pilots talking to -- and arguing with -- the
hapless radio operator for Northwest in Detroit, the
flight-deck crew on 1829 could tell things weren't
improving. The 757 that was first up for a gate --
757s can fit only into certain jetways -- hadn't
budged for an hour and a half. Flight 1829 was 30th
in line.
Suddenly, there was motion. At about 5:30,
controllers ordered pilots on the Zulu taxiway to fire
up their engines. Some passengers cheered again as
the plane shook to life. It taxied north, with a line of
other planes. The jet had been moving for five minutes when it bumped to a
halt. In Row 8, Scott Friedman, Sonya's son, peered out the window. A
collective groan was rising from other passengers. It took a moment for Scott
to realize that the plane's little journey had resulted in it ending up almost
exactly where it had started.
"What the heck's happening now?" he demanded.
Capt. Miller was asking
the question himself up
in the cockpit. The
maneuver, it turned
out, had been meant to
let one plane -- one
plane! -- out of the
conga line. Capt.
Miller, anger rising,
broke out his cell
phone and dialed
Northwest's chief
Detroit pilot at the time,
Gary Skinner. "It's a
nightmare out here,"
Capt. Miller barked. He
handed the phone to
Capt. Stabler.
"Something has to be
done," Capt. Stabler
pleaded. But the chief
pilot was unable to
offer much help. Capt.
Stabler phoned
Northwest's
ground-service duty
manager. "We have
minimum people
working," the manager
reported. "Gates are
blocked and broken. I'm working with headquarters."
Capt. Miller was thunderstruck. "We have this phenomenal weather department
that can forecast turbulence all over the world," he snorted to the other pilots.
"Why didn't they see this storm coming?" An idea formed: "Why don't we just
turn around and get out of here?"
By now, more than three hours into the wait, many passengers were having
similar thoughts. Stephen London, a Toronto software engineer, kept looking
at the terminal, tauntingly close, and the Northwest hangar even closer. "Bring
the stairs," he said to himself. "Bring the bus. Dump the people."
The trapped pilots, in fact, were suggesting various avenues of escape. One
was to concentrate what ground workers there were on just a few gates, pull
the planes in, let the people off, and back the planes out again, with crew and
luggage still aboard. They thought of using the nearby hangars, and of using
other airlines' gates. "Forget protocol," Capt. Stabler urged over gate radio.
But ground control would not authorize any of the moves. (Northwest says it
considered these options and others. It says they were too dangerous -- it had
stopped snowing but the cold, wind and ice were fierce -- or were otherwise
unworkable.) Time after time, Capt. Stabler heard the radio operator reply:
"We're working on it. Copy that." After Flight 1829 had been stalled for about
four hours, Capt. Patchett heard the pilot of another plane announce that a
passenger was headed for diabetic shock in an hour. The response: "Roger
that."
Tempers were flaring on some of the tarmac-bound planes. A pilot of a
Northwest Airbus burst on to the radio, hollering: "I'm about to lose control of
the passengers!" In the cabin of Flight 1829, the mood also was souring. The
movies were long over. The beverages were almost gone. There was no more
airline food. It had gotten dark. The windchill factor outside was more than 20
below.
Rumors began washing over the now-dim cabin: A baby had been born on one
plane; a man had died of a heart attack on another; on another, passengers had
gone berserk and were tearing each other and the crew apart. Arielle Hodari,
Jamie's 15-year-old sister, felt a surge of dread when she heard the rumors.
"I'm scared," Arielle told her babysitter, sitting across the aisle in Row 15. "Is it
true?" Her babysitter shrugged; she didn't know.
Hunger and thirst intensified, presenting many dilemmas. Mr. Post, the
newlywed, knew his wife had some M&Ms, but she was reluctant to open
them while other people around her had nothing. Go ahead, eat them, he urged
quietly: "You can't share them with everybody."
Arielle unearthed a small box of Frosted Flakes in her backpack and jubilantly
announced the find to her babysitter. "I'd eat them in the bathroom if I were
you," her babysitter said softly. Arielle was scared again. She scooted to the
lavatory and ate the cereal.
Nicotine cravings weren't helping matters, and some people sneaked into the
lavatories for a smoke. Mr. Forbes, the flight attendant, didn't bother trying to
stop them. Passengers could smell cigarettes, and the smoke alarms were
beeping intermittently. Nobody complained.
The wait stretched on. The cabin seemed to shrink. Mr. Pettis, the clinic
director, was trying to read Toni Morrison's "Beloved" but couldn't
concentrate. Babies were crying. The children behind him kept kicking his
seat, and when he asked their mother to make them stop, she flared up. "If you
move your seat up, it will stop," she snapped.
It was past 7 p.m. now, and even the flight
attendants' reserves of cool were ebbing. Ms. Ward,
on top of everything else, worried about her own
17-year-old daughter, home alone in the blizzard. Ms.
Ward, a 28-year veteran, was tiring of the cascading
passenger complaints.
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