12 hours from DFW to SEA, and one lame engine

Posted on | October 17, 2007 |

Wow… I think we set a record on Monday – 11 hours and 45 minutes to get from DFW to SEA.

Things started out slow – lightning was too close to allow the ground crew to fuel the plane for over 2 hours. We finally pulled back, and were number 9 on the runway. Then some switch was going random, so back to the gate we go. Another 45 minutes, and we taxi again.

We begin to roll down the runway, and all hell broke loose. Right after the front end of the MD-83 lifted, there was a huge bang outside. We were in the last row of the plane, so we were right beside the engine intake. We found out later a fuel compressor blew inside the engine. As we passed through 2K feet, we hit a wind shear, and the right engine “burped”, according to the captain – less air pressure at the front of the engine than at the rear. It would “burp” again two more times. We hit turbulence worse than I can remember. I was pretty sure we were on our way down – the power in the engine was going up and down pretty randomly, and it was loud, loud, loud. We finally leveled off, and the captain came on and told us we weren’t going to Seattle in that plane. We turned around, and dropped back down into the turbulence. With potential damage to the engine, it seemed the pilot was reluctant to apply reverse thrust, so we were moving down the runway for a long time. We deplaned, and had to wait for another two hours to get another plane, get everything moved over, and get everyone onboarded again…

Through all of this the flight crew was absolutely fantastic. They were calm and professional throughout the ordeal. They maintained their humor at all times. They took damn good care of us. We finally took off around 2pm DFW time… This time, things went a heckuva lot smoother, all the way home

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