About a plane, a year ago

[kate_schaefer]

Now that I've found that notebook (to be precise, Glenn found it, after I speculated about where and when I might have lost it), I'm going back through the entries. Here's one, as we landed in Minneapolis on our way back to Seattle from Wiscon in 2010: 

Seeing another plane engulfed in flames at the airport as one's plane lands provokes a certain amount of thought. Much of that thought is less than cogent. Shit, that plane's on fire. I hope my plane doesn't catch fire. I hope the people got out okay. How did that plane catch fire? Shit, that plane's on fire. Is my plane on fire? When can I get off? Damn, I have another flight after this one.

Shit. That plane's on fire. 

The thing I find most startling a year later is that I didn't search for news of the fire after we got home. I searched just now, and I find no record of it at all. Was I so tired that I imagined the whole thing? Is a flaming plane, however small, so common that it passes without note these days? Was this just the ritual destruction of a plane at the end of its useful life?

Inquiring minds don't seem to have a clue just now.

Comments

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

Training exercise? We noticed some partially-burned planes surrounded by fire equipment (not in use) at the Mpls. airport this year.

It would have been nice if the Capt. had made an announcement of such, though.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

Your search included the city's daily paper(s), one presumes. So that does seem odd.

Love, C.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

That must be it. A training exercise wouldn't be news in a big city.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

I think Luke must be right; it must have been a training exercise. I didn't find anything about an accidental fire, but I did find a number of puff pieces about what a great fire department the airport has. An airport fire department would necessarily have to set some planes on fire from time to time in order to practice putting them out.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I think it was last year that Hal saw and heard a plane coming in toward SeaTac that had an explosion in the rear engine, and started belching flame. He did find mention of it, but it was minor, and the claim was that the plane was not actually on fire. It's possible that there's a positive force to suppress such information unless it's too big to ignore.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

April '09, written up here. Useful for the comments, where my report is elaborated a bit from the original post, mostly because the P-I was downplaying it.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Technically, I suppose an engine emitting flame is not the same thing as a plane on fire, but it's quite a finely-split hair.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

Factiva shows nothing for "minneapolis and plane and fire" for 5/20/2010 through 6/10/2010, aside from, "A Texas-bound corporate jet has landed safely at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport after losing its front wheel during takeoff," on 5/28.

[e-bourne.livejournal.com]

Flying can seem so much scarier than driving. Yet more people die from car accidents than from plane accidents. Even when bad things happen to planes, usually people get out OK. Of course, we -really- bad things happen, we all hear about those unlucky people.

I suspect it's because we feel like we have more control in our cars. We have no control in a plane.

Total spit-balling middle of Friday afternoon speculation on my part.

I'm glad your plane was not, and never has been, on fire.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure. Of course, we may have control of the cars we drive, but we never have control of the cars around us, and those loonies could do anything at any moment.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Given the lack of reported incidents in several different dimensions of search, I have to assume it was a training fire.