The passenger’s secret lust for flaming debris

Pinwheeling across the sky in a fireball of kerosene-fueled mayhem and cascading necessarily towards the fields below. Is how I imagined what might be occupying the mind of my window-seat passenger on my flight yesterday from Baltimore (BWI) to Philly.

I was seated next to a young woman strapped into a metal tube with no more than a few dozen East Coast commuters for a brief 18-minute traverse across the eastern seaboard by the pinking skies of a spring-time twilight. Never far from the lakes, rivers, and ponds below, a continuum of docilility yet to green slid beneath as we plied the laminar flow at low altitude.

A fascination with air disasters, she had, correcting me, after I suggested her condition resembled a phobia of (death by) flying. Quipping that our craft was nary large enough for a busload of varsity teenagers , she reassured me that it was in robustness and mechanical complexity far greater than the “cropdusters” she’s taken in the past for shorter hops. “And the backseat is four across” she said, as if to suggest that two rows of two was legitimate progress in the aviation department.

Pressing on, she told me she had seen every episode, nay, every season of Air Crash Investigations (a program unfamiliar to me but I accept at face these types of shows exist, if on cable). Every episode? And she told me, humbly not in triumph, that she could name the flight numbers and forensic footnotes of each of these air disasters. (Having viewed them more than once and quite possibly in binge-like manner, though she didn’t elaborate.)

I joked that for persons of her disposition there should perhaps be tele-visual programming along the lines of “happy takeoffs” and “smooth landings” and she laughed but only briefly, then appeared to nod momentarily as we passed over a barn and picket fence below, road integrity not discernible.

“So you have a morbid fascination with mid-air catastrophes and you’re terrified of flying? And you watch these shows… Why?!” Then suggesting it was perhaps to control her fears by means of knowledge and insight she replied that her show was much better than “Seconds from Disaster.” Which, I reasoned, was too architectural and well, too before the crash, to warrant a second viewing. (For the record, I do quite enjoy the architectural and design failure narrative.) She knew the flight numbers.

She slumped again and with more vigor, or whatever is its counterpart, as we commenced our descent into Philadelphia (or PHL, as I’m sure she thought of it). Recollections of Brad Pitt’s seat pocket inserts in Fight Club came to mind and on reflection I’ll say if an airline had those, I’d fly it. The plane swung and slipped more noticeably now, and feeling I might offer reassuring words, I refrained, knowing she had it covered and no way was there anything I could say to a passenger who knew the flight numbers of historic aviation disasters the way she did.

We landed fine if a bit too the left of center and in muted relief we thumped down the gangway and moments later she waved, saying “nice to meet you!” and I plodded on until an airport bar presented me with the opportunity to both taste a local brew and shoot the breeze with fellow travelers over Barcelona v Manchester City, second leg.

My next leg was a trying and delirious 5.6 hours home to SFO on a substantial Airbus something something. As I laid my head and seat back to gaze at the something nimbus below, I chortled more than once. I’m a professional people watcher (really) and am fascinated by what fascinates others. And for a while, truly, I must admit I wished I was in her head for this stretch through the sunset skies.