brian's blog

So pretty much all the Waterloo kids back home have their marks and know they've graduated. Way to go. Now the healing can begin.

For many, this means time off relaxing. For others, it's a trip home. But for one friend of mine, it's a flight to Florida turned somewhat terrifying. And it didn't show up in the news at all, so consider this a brianblog.com exclusive! I am now an accredited news source.

Since I'm a lazy reporter, though, I'm just going to copy/paste the entire account he sent me:

• On Sunday, April 24th, CanJet flight 824 was supposed to leave Toronto for Sarasota FL at 10:30am
• Got a phone call at 7:00am saying the flight was delayed until 1:55pm
• A lot of people mumbled about not getting the call, because they had already left for Pearson. Their day would get a lot longer than they thought!
• During the wait at the gate (Gate 15B in terminal 3) the time changed to 2:40pm
• They announced on the plane that the plane had flown through a thunderstorm the day before going to Sarasota, so they had to perform a full maintenance check. It flew back in the morning, instead of last night, hence the wait.
• About five minutes after takeoff, a funny smell spread through the plane and some people claimed to see white smoke coming out of the front bathroom
• Fire alarms started ringing
• The flight attendants should never play poker. Their faces told the story, full of concern and white. I guess that's what happens when a fucking fire alarm goes off on an airplane.
• We turned around, landed safely, and were greeted on the ground by about 15 firetrucks/rescue cars. I counted 3 or 4 firetrucks on my side and some rescue vehicles. Who knows about the other side.
• Funny thing is that for an emergency, they didn't stop the plane and kick the doors down. They went back to the gate and we got off in an orderly fashion, and took our sweet time. It took about 10 minutes to get everyone off the plane.
• Anarchy in the lounge. People could not get a refund, they could only get a "credit" for a future plane ride with CanJet, which I had now dubbed CRAPJET. [Ed: Maybe "Can'tJet?"]
• They eventually quieted us down by giving us an $8 meal ticket.
• A sandwich at "the toast of Toronto" cost me $9.11 and one Powerade bottle cost me $3.90
• Thanks for the $8 ticket; it covered 2/3 of my meal
• Later, they announced that they were checking the plane. That was about an hour into the wait. Maybe around 4:00pm.
• About 6:00pm, two hours later, they announced the pilots were taking the plane up in the air to test it out. Noticed the attendants were NOT on!
• At 7:00pm, they announced the plane was not safe, but LUCKILY, they had a plane in from New York.
• I noticed that there was one poor man (middle-aged with his wife) in a wheelchair for the entire day, one old lady in a wheelchair with nobody to help her, and an old dude beside me who was talking to his wife on a cell phone about kidney dialysis. My back pains didn't seem to matter anymore; they had a tough day.
• Passengers from the NY plane got off, they transferred out luggage and we waited some more.
• Boarded the plane finally at about 9:00pm
• Free peanuts and a soda on the flight. ETA 2 hours 32 minutes.
• Landed and left the Sarasota airport at about 11:40pm

It sounds like he's more upset that he didn't get a bigger meal voucher than the fact that his plane seemed to be on fire.