oceancityrealtor's Blog

Now,my study is not really a study, but an experience that may or may not support anything in the unreleased NASA domestic air safey study? I just find it coincidental and somewhat topical, so read on.

On our way home from a wonderful, and highly recommended, third trip to the Turks and Caicos Islands, we were approaching Charlotte International Airport to catch a connecting flight to Reagan. A gorgeous Saturday the 20th of October, on an otherwise uneventful USAir flight. The landing gear was down, and being a REALTOR, we were at the perfect altitude for me to look at several partially completed housing developments surrounding the airport. I made this statement to my lovely wife, who politely, blew me off with a random head nod acknowledgement (she was filing her nails you know?).

Just about at the same moment the engines gunned or roared to what sounded like enough horsepower to propel us into space. The nose went from a landing angle to a liftoff angle in no time (pretty impressive if not for the fear). The landing gear came up and we were also in a turn to the right, a pretty sharp one at that. Needless to say, my wife stopped filing her nails and her attention, as everyone else on the flight was directed at "what the heck is goin' on?" thoughts? My thoughts went from a few seconds of fear to relative calm (I rationalized it as ...hey I can't control any of whatever is happening) figuring if I heard a loud bang or a sudden thump...I wouldn't have been "blogging" anymore.

Well safely back in a circling pattern high above Charlotte the very calm, confident Captain addressed his shaken group of vacationers. Sounding as if this was almost routine (and I liked that in his voice) he stated somthing like this," Well folks our fantastic air traffic controllers informed us that there was a plane still on our runway, while we were at approximately 500 ft from landing..." Well fifteen minutes later we were safely on the ground, ...I quess that part is obvious because of this long winded post.

Fast forward to later that evening at my moms house in Rockville (after my dissapointment in Marylands loss to Virginia), watching the Fox news and hearing about this "near miss report from NASA?" Well, that is topical, isn't it??

www.awisemove.net

By the way, when we were on the ground at Charlotte taxiing in, I saw ,as did the guy in front of me, two fully marked up PAN AM jets....I thought they were long out of business??? Any info on this...just curious?