In that post, I also mentioned that Sunday was perhaps one of the craziest days of my life. And indeed it was!

The reason?

I was flying back from Orange County – only a 4-hour direct flight – but boy did things take several wrong turns.

So, in this post, I’m going to share with you how a 4-hour flight turned into 9 hours, as well as, some lessons we can all learn about dealing with the unexpected.

Sunday – 5:30am (Pacific time)

I get up bright and early after going to bed at 1am so I can get to the airport for my 8am flight. In retrospect, I would have been better off waking up at 6:30am and showing up 30 minutes before my flight because I had already checked (thank you iPhone!) and only had a carry-on bag. Plus, the airport was 5 minutes from the hotel. Oh well. I was awake and feeling good.

8am (pacific time)

I was thrilled, yet again, to get the best seat in the house! I had a window in the emergency exit row with no seat in front of me. I was literally lounging – it was great. I also had this seat on the way to the OC so I was thrilled to get it again. Actually, the guy beside told me that he had reserved it but then changed his seat and then it was “gone” when he tried switching back. I offered to trade him but he said it was all good.

Just before taxiing to take off, the flight attendant comes over and ensures that the passengers in the emergency exit rows are OK with dealing with an emergency procedure. I said, “No problem, I’ve done it several times!”

Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut!

The flight then takes off, with the steepest climb I’ve ever experienced in my life – I thought we were going into space! Apparently, there’s some rule in the OC that planes have to “get out” as fast as possible. I can understand because it was pretty noisy down there due to all the air traffic – I wouldn’t be a happy resident in that area.

[Note: I'm now going to switch over to EDT to make things easier. It's 3 hours ahead of pacific time]

11am – 3pm (EDT)

Although I had a great seat, this one was of the consistently bumpy flights ever. Nothing crazy but just constant low-grade turbulence. Kind of like driving on the terribly maintained streets of Toronto!

3:30pm (EDT)

As we approach Pearson airport in Toronto, I’m thrilled to look at my watch and see that we’re about 20 minutes early. Yes – I might actually get to watch the end of the world cup final!

3:35pm (EDT)

Within about 2 minutes and just a few hundred feet short of landing, the plane, all of a sudden, revs the engine and climbs back into the clouds!

“What the heck is going on?” is what most of us were thinking. A few moments later the pilot comes on and says that we had to abort the landing because there was some very dangerous thunderstorm activity and unpredictable winds right over the airport.

Damn, I wasn’t going to get to watch the world cup final. But I guess it’s better to be alive!

Anyways, you could tell the pilot was in a hurry to get out of the area. And thankfully so. As we cleared a ridiculous t-storm, you could tell the clouds were “angry”. Dark grey cumulus clouds charged with tons of humidity and just waiting to pop!

So the plane circled ALL the way around the storm, which took about 45 minutes, and then decided to land in nearby Hamilton.

4:45pm (EDT)

We land in Hamilton – which is just 1 hour’s drive from Toronto. It’s pretty funny that we were pretty much the only airplane sitting on an empty tarmac surrounded by cow pastures. Nice change of scenario from the crazy Toronto airport.

6:00pm (EDT)

We get refueled and the pilots get a new flight plan to head back to Toronto now that the storm had passed. I’m thinking that this is going to be the quickest flight of all time – maybe 10 minutes at best!

6:20 (EDT)

Wow, we’re already on the landing pattern for Toronto. We get within a few hundred feet of landing when…

Once again…

The plane pulls up and climbs back up into the sky!

Now, everyone starting to get a bit worried. After all, the sky was completely clear and the sun was shining through.

The pilot comes and tells us…

“Well, as you can see, the weather is beautiful, but now we’re having a problem with the landing gear. We’re going to circle around and do some manual work to get everything in working order.”

Holy cow.  I had a friend who went through a similar situation in Texas and it didn’t sound like too much fun. But I had a feeling that everything was going to be fine.

6:45pm (EDT)

The pilot comes back on says that they’ve fixed the problem and that the landing gear is good to go. Finally, we approach the runway and…

This time we actually land! Hallelujah!!!

So I send Amy a text to pick me up at 7:15pm. But then…

The plane stops on the tarmac and just sits there. The pilot comes back on and tells us that due to the storm there are a ton of planes on the ground (aka. traffic jam) and that we don’t have a gate.

7:00pm (EDT)

After 15 minutes of not moving, I send Amy another text telling her to just come and pick me up at 7:45pm (we only live about 15 minutes from the airport). I realized that we weren’t going to be moving for a little while.

But then…

The planes starts rolling. Yes!

7:15pm (EDT)

Now, we’re right at the gate and still nothing. What’s going on?

The pilot comes on again and says that we’re just 100 feet from our gate but that there’s no ground crew to take us in!

We sit for another 20 minutes just feet from our final destination. Might as well hold a piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie in front of me and tell me I can’t eat it!!!

7:40pm (EDT)

At last….

The plane arrives at the gate, the ground crew is there, and we finally deplane.

I walk my butt off to get to customs and out the door as fast as possible because I know that Amy’s waiting for me any second now!

7:50pm (EDT)

I’m out of the airport in just 10 minutes!

Oh how I love traveling with only carry-on and having no line up in customs. It’s the best.

All in all, what was supposed to be a routine 4-hour direct flight turned into one of the longest and most eventful flights I’ve been on.

Dealing with the Unexpected

Now, you might expect most of the passengers (including myself) to be pretty anxious to run off the plane or get pissed off for the 4.5 hour delay but…

The exact opposite happened!

It was absolutely amazing. No one complained. No one was pushing and shoving to get off the plane. It was awesome. Maybe because it was the weekend or maybe it was because everyone was just happy to have landed safe and sound? I know I was.

After all, is there really any point in getting frustrated? I didn’t have a connecting flight. Many people did but they didn’t lose their marbles.

In these kind of “uncontrollable” situations your best bet is to just CHILL. Because you have absolutely no control over the outcome it simply isn’t worth stressing yourself out. Save your adrenals!

Note: Mom, if you’re reading this…I learned a lot from those early morning drives with you. I’m just happy you weren’t on this flight. You would have lost it!

So the take home message here is that sometimes in life, there are situations that are beyond our control. And it’s how we deal with these situations that defines them (and us all). What would have been the benefit of freaking out?

None.

Would freaking out have made the plane land or made the thunderstorm go away or got the ground crew to our gate sooner? NO.

So what’s the point?

You might as well sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Heck, I got in an extra 4 hours of reading – that’s pretty good!

=> Have you ever been in a similar “uncontrollable” situation? What did you do? Let me know in the comments.