Facing Fear —— Sky High
Zachary Mastoon thought he was finished with his fear of death. In the past few years, he had lost his mother to cancer and a friend to suicide. He'd been traveling in Thailand in December 2004 when a tsunami claimed more than 200,000 lives across South Asia； by chance, he was in another part of the country when the big waves hit. He believed that when his time came, he would take it calmly. But as he watched the news reports about JetBlue Flight 292, his eyes filled with anxious tears.
“Some of the experts were saying there could be a loud crash, a large fire,” he recalls. “Others were saying it's not a big deal at all.” For the 27-year-old electronic musician, the debate held more than academic significance： Zachary Mastoon was aboard the crippled plane, hoping he would make it home to Brooklyn, and the odds-makers were squabbling on his seatback screen.
On September 21, a mechanical glitch on a medium-sized airliner seized the attention of millions around the world. Among them were the plane's passengers, who followed the live coverage via satellite TV being fed to the cabin. Hurtling toward an emergency landing would be harrowing enough, even without the added stress of starring in a bizarre reality show. But that was where Zachary Mastoon and 139 others found themselves on an otherwise ordinary Wednesday afternoon.
Almost every air traveler has at some point wondered： What would I do if my plane ran into serious trouble？ How would my fellow passengers behave？ The ticket-holders on the 3：17 p.m. flight from Burbank to New York City, and their loved ones on the ground, had three long hours to grapple with such questions —— and their very real fear.
Experts say that when disaster threatens, about 50 percent of people manage to hold themselves together and function well； 25 percent go into shock and become withdrawn, and another 25 percent become hysterical. “For someone with a pre-existing issue —— a divorce or another difficulty —— this could be a trigger for a significant reaction,” says psychologist Robert Scott, the chief trauma specialist for the Los Angeles Fire Department. In general, however, says Dr. Don Nance, director of the Counseling and Testing Center at Wichita State University, “you cannot predict who is going to freak in those situations.”
The first signal that something was amiss occurred about 15 minutes after takeoff, when the pilot —— a calm-voiced North Carolinian named Scott Burke —— came on the intercom. “For those of you who may have noticed,” he said, “we are flying in circles.” The plane's front landing gear had failed to retract, Burke explained, and he would keep everyone posted as he investigated the problem. Few worried until he performed a low flyby of the Long Beach Airport air traffic control tower so that observers with binoculars could get a close look. Fire trucks and ambulances were lined up below, clearly visible from the aircraft's windows.
Moments later, a woman sitting toward the rear of the cabin yelled, “Hey, we're on TV！” While waiting for the pilot to report on the Long Beach tower's diagnosis, passengers began flipping between the all-news channels. That's how many first heard that the nose-gear wheels were skewed at a 90-degree angle, and that there was a chance the plane could spin right off the runway when it tried to land. Some wept or prayed. And many began reaching out to one another.
For Mastoon, hunkered in the rearmost row, help came in the form of a large plastic seltzer bottle. “Take a swig of this,” offered his seatmate, a 40-something real estate broker. “It's leaded.” The man had smuggled aboard a liter of vodka and tonic, and as Mastoon drank, his courage returned. There's two ways you can react to this situation, he admonished himself. You can be really negative and freak out, or you can say, This is completely out of my control. If I'm going to die, I don't want to spend my last two hours biting my nails and watching MSNBC. Mastoon took out his camera and snapped some digital photos of the televised image of the plane. Then he switched to Comedy Central, and spent the next two hours laughing at Jon Stewart.
At the front of the cabin, Lisa Schiff was floundering in the negative. An L.A. gallery owner with clients on both coasts, Schiff, 34, had never been a nervous flyer. But when the captain confirmed the wheel trouble and said the plane would have to make an emergency landing, she says, “I started to fall apart pretty quickly.” Panicking, she tried to call her mother on her cell phone, but couldn't get a signal. “I was aching to hear her voice,” Schiff recalls. “I wrote her a text message saying not to worry —— if something happened, I would be watching over her and my father and my brother.” She typed messages to other family members, to friends and business partners, to her boyfriend and an ex, even though there was no signal to send them with. She couldn't stop crying. The seat beside her was empty, and she felt utterly alone.
Suddenly, a hand touched her shoulder. A dark-haired young woman named Christiana Lund was smiling at Schiff over the headrest. “It's going to be all right,” said Lund, 25, an aspiring singer who had recently moved from Los Angeles to New York and was flying back with her cat. “Do you really think so？” Schiff asked. “Or are you just saying that to make me feel better？” Lund insisted that she meant it. Says Schiff： “She just reached around and held me for a while. It was the most comforting thing.”
Zachary Mastoon thought he was finished with his fear of death. In the past few years, he had lost his mother to cancer and a friend to suicide. He'd been traveling in Thailand in December 2004 when a tsunami claimed more than 200,000 lives across South Asia； by chance, he was in another part of the country when the big waves hit. He believed that when his time came, he would take it calmly. But as he watched the news reports about JetBlue Flight 292, his eyes filled with anxious tears.
“Some of the experts were saying there could be a loud crash, a large fire,” he recalls. “Others were saying it's not a big deal at all.” For the 27-year-old electronic musician, the debate held more than academic significance： Zachary Mastoon was aboard the crippled plane, hoping he would make it home to Brooklyn, and the odds-makers were squabbling on his seatback screen.
On September 21, a mechanical glitch on a medium-sized airliner seized the attention of millions around the world. Among them were the plane's passengers, who followed the live coverage via satellite TV being fed to the cabin. Hurtling toward an emergency landing would be harrowing enough, even without the added stress of starring in a bizarre reality show. But that was where Zachary Mastoon and 139 others found themselves on an otherwise ordinary Wednesday afternoon.
Almost every air traveler has at some point wondered： What would I do if my plane ran into serious trouble？ How would my fellow passengers behave？ The ticket-holders on the 3：17 p.m. flight from Burbank to New York City, and their loved ones on the ground, had three long hours to grapple with such questions —— and their very real fear.
Experts say that when disaster threatens, about 50 percent of people manage to hold themselves together and function well； 25 percent go into shock and become withdrawn, and another 25 percent become hysterical. “For someone with a pre-existing issue —— a divorce or another difficulty —— this could be a trigger for a significant reaction,” says psychologist Robert Scott, the chief trauma specialist for the Los Angeles Fire Department. In general, however, says Dr. Don Nance, director of the Counseling and Testing Center at Wichita State University, “you cannot predict who is going to freak in those situations.”
The first signal that something was amiss occurred about 15 minutes after takeoff, when the pilot —— a calm-voiced North Carolinian named Scott Burke —— came on the intercom. “For those of you who may have noticed,” he said, “we are flying in circles.” The plane's front landing gear had failed to retract, Burke explained, and he would keep everyone posted as he investigated the problem. Few worried until he performed a low flyby of the Long Beach Airport air traffic control tower so that observers with binoculars could get a close look. Fire trucks and ambulances were lined up below, clearly visible from the aircraft's windows.
Moments later, a woman sitting toward the rear of the cabin yelled, “Hey, we're on TV！” While waiting for the pilot to report on the Long Beach tower's diagnosis, passengers began flipping between the all-news channels. That's how many first heard that the nose-gear wheels were skewed at a 90-degree angle, and that there was a chance the plane could spin right off the runway when it tried to land. Some wept or prayed. And many began reaching out to one another.
For Mastoon, hunkered in the rearmost row, help came in the form of a large plastic seltzer bottle. “Take a swig of this,” offered his seatmate, a 40-something real estate broker. “It's leaded.” The man had smuggled aboard a liter of vodka and tonic, and as Mastoon drank, his courage returned. There's two ways you can react to this situation, he admonished himself. You can be really negative and freak out, or you can say, This is completely out of my control. If I'm going to die, I don't want to spend my last two hours biting my nails and watching MSNBC. Mastoon took out his camera and snapped some digital photos of the televised image of the plane. Then he switched to Comedy Central, and spent the next two hours laughing at Jon Stewart.
At the front of the cabin, Lisa Schiff was floundering in the negative. An L.A. gallery owner with clients on both coasts, Schiff, 34, had never been a nervous flyer. But when the captain confirmed the wheel trouble and said the plane would have to make an emergency landing, she says, “I started to fall apart pretty quickly.” Panicking, she tried to call her mother on her cell phone, but couldn't get a signal. “I was aching to hear her voice,” Schiff recalls. “I wrote her a text message saying not to worry —— if something happened, I would be watching over her and my father and my brother.” She typed messages to other family members, to friends and business partners, to her boyfriend and an ex, even though there was no signal to send them with. She couldn't stop crying. The seat beside her was empty, and she felt utterly alone.
Suddenly, a hand touched her shoulder. A dark-haired young woman named Christiana Lund was smiling at Schiff over the headrest. “It's going to be all right,” said Lund, 25, an aspiring singer who had recently moved from Los Angeles to New York and was flying back with her cat. “Do you really think so？” Schiff asked. “Or are you just saying that to make me feel better？” Lund insisted that she meant it. Says Schiff： “She just reached around and held me for a while. It was the most comforting thing.”