In Flight Mechanical Issue

 

A number of years ago I was flying over Ukraine, at night, and the plane I was in was hit by lightning. Over the years I’ve been on a number of planes that have done a go-around before landing, been on planes that landed on dirt runways in Africa, and once our plane landed in the wrong city.

But two weeks ago, I experienced a first in my air travel adventures. We took off from Charlotte and halfway to Atlanta the pilot alerted, “We have a mechanical issue. We have a faulty cargo latch and will be returning to Charlotte”.

After returning to Charlotte, repairing the latch, and leaving the gate a second time the pilot again came on the intercom. He announced we were heading back to the gate, again, “with another issue.” By this time, I’d been on the plane for over three hours and missed all possible connections to Mazatlan, Mexico that day. Unfortunately, there were no other flights that would get us there before missing two days of training. I was forced to reschedule.