In 2007, I was traveling with co-workers back from a client meeting in New York. We were flying on a Southwest plane from Islip to Chicago with a connection to St. Louis.
On the flight, I was reading The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb. In the book, he describes the 1,000 days of a turkey. For 999 days the turkey is fed, watered, and cared for by the farmer. The turkey thinks the farmer loves him. But then, on day 1,000, the farmer kills the turkey. The point of the story is that you can have all many data points suggesting one thing that a single event can overturn.
After reading the turkey story, I closed the book and pondered things in my life that might be like that. One thing that came to mind was flying. I thought: “I fly a lot for work, and I’m not anxious about it at all — each one of my hundreds of flights have gone well. But I guess that might not always be the case. Maybe this flight will end badly.”
A few moments later, there was a noise off the side of the plane – a sort of “boom” sound — and the plane shook. Then, it seemed like we started losing altitude. A few minutes later, the pilot came on the PA system and said, “No need to worry, folks, but our starboard engine has stopped working. We can fly on one engine, but we’re going to need to divert and land at Indianapolis because it’s the closest airport with a long runway.” I was stunned. Wow. An eerie silence came over the plane. I could hear some people praying.
The plane flew a bit crooked with just one engine, which made the landing difficult. But the pilots nailed the landing, and the passengers broke into cheers. As we taxied to the gate, a flight attendant said, “Here’s what we’re going to do: you can get off the plane, we’ll have a mechanic take a look at the engine, then we’ll re-board this plane and head to Chicago.” Everyone was silent. I was shocked that we’d get back on the same plane. Then, after a few moments, the flight attendant said, “Just kidding, there’s no way we’re continuing on this plane. After you de-plane, we’ll have updates on getting you to Chicago.” I really appreciate the Southwest culture that the flight attendants even joke about planes with failed engines.
My co-workers and I rented a mini-van and drove to St. Louis.
I often reflect on the coincidence that I had just read the turkey story and was contemplating how all my good plane flights didn’t mean that I wouldn’t have a bad one, and then my plane broke.
By the way, even if we lost both engines, we likely would have been ok. Here’s an IFOD: Can Airliners Glide?
