I will try to be brief but brevity is not my forte. My husband and I arrived late morning in Washington, DC, before a late afternoon flight to Zurich, Switzerland on August 23. He wanted to take a trip to a nearby flight museum to do something with the time between flights. I was nervous–worried that we wouldn’t get back in time to board. Little did I know…But we took an Uber and went to see the Space Shuttle Discovery.

We made it back to the airport with plenty of time before boarding, and I was relieved that we weren’t late. However, an announcement came over the gate that there was some problem with the computer system on our plane and that boarding would be delayed about an hour. Actually, when I look back, I’m not even sure they told us the time it would take but that it was about an hour later before we could board, like 7 pm or something. Then, when we got on the plane, it seemed like it was taking a long time for the pilot to announce we were taking off. When he did make an announcement, or someone did, it was to say the computer was malfunctioning again and there would be another delay. Okay, everyone had gotten settled in and we were all ready to go but fine, fine, another little delay. In about another 45 minutes we were told if we wanted to deboard the plane we could, but it would delay things more. If we could continue to be patient, they were getting someone out to finally fix the problem with the plane’s computer. Sighs of impatience all around.

Finally the problem was fixed. Sighs of relief all around. Flight staff prepare for takeoff. Yay. We took off. In about fifteen minutes the pilot came on to say that the computer wasn’t working again and that he would have to turn the plane around and land back at Dulles Airport. By this time no one even made a sound. It was as if we had accepted that the flight was doomed. What an ominous beginning. What we didn’t fully understand was that without the computer, the pilot was basically going to land without navigation tools, at least that’s what I think. He said we’d land in about fifteen minutes but we seemed to be circling Dulles for 30 minutes or more. All of a sudden, the plane crashed to the runway without any announcement that we were landing. It was quite a jolt. All I could think was I supposed we should be grateful we were still alive.

My husband sat to my left on an aisle. I was in the middle. My seat companion to my right, a German woman, I believe, pointed to flashing red lights outside the windows on our right. Fire engines! After what seemed like a long time without any explanations, the pilot came on to say that as we could see the fire trucks had been called to the scene because we had landed with a full tank of fuel and had actually, I’m pretty sure I’m not embellishing, burned up the rubber on the landing wheels. I guess we were lucky not to have exploded and caught on fire. I think everyone realized this because there was very little complaining. Everyone kept quiet and orderly. The pilot said that we would have to change planes, and that soon a few “mobile lounges,” (the German woman to my left asked, “What is a mobile lounge? A BUS?” I laughed and said probably. Why did I picture some luxury lounge with free food and drinks for our troubles? Yes, it turned out to be a big bus that took us to the next gate.) And that didn’t happen until another hour passed. By now it must have been about 10:30 pm, and we would have to wait til 12:30 am to board the next plane.

Not a good start to our trip but again, I have to be grateful. Could have been much worse. We might have been statistics. Instead we just made it to Zurich a little later than we had planned.