Things were fine through the first half of the flight, although the captain had told us early on that there was a sick passenger on board, and that we needed keep the aisles clear. But there weren't any flight attendants running around, nor any pained screams, so I'd filed away the announcement and focused on watching an entire season of "The Office."But once our tiny plane icon crossed back over land, we were informed that said medical issue was serious enough that we needed to divert to the nearest airport. This meant the little plane would turn right, and head for the part of the map covered in white instead of green.
White was an understatement; the landscape was more like nothingness, just featureless, endless tundra covered in snow. The landing strip didn't appear until we'd all but touched down, at which time we rolled into an enclave of utilitarian buildings, garages, and assorted structures that looked like they'd be a part of a scientific mission, or maybe a military base.
We had arrived in Iqaluit.It was really cool (15 F, actually)...the only other airplane on the field was a battered DC3, every vehicle was a 4x4 that looked like it had never seen the inside of a garage, and there were absolutely no people walking around. I snapped a few pics and dug wondering why anybody would live there. Then two glistening, modern ambulances pulled up to the plane, the captain again told us to stay seated, and I utterly freaked out.I'd realized that I had no idea what was going on.
Sure, they'd wheeled some youngish-looking woman out of the plane, but that was the only information I (or any passenger) had received. A nervous flight attendant walked past now and then, but none of them admitted to knowing anything. We sat on the tarmac for almost 3 hours, getting "updated" now and then by the captain, who told us that there were "issues" with our flight plan.
Again, I know that the American team did their jobs professionally, and I never once had any overt reason to question any aspect of their efforts. But the implicit, or implied, issues that emerged from my own fevered imagination -- made possible by their inability to communicate anything truly relevant to the circumstances -- meant that one of any number of bad things had, or were happening:The passenger had died, because why would somebody in dire need of expert medical care get put down in some outpost of civilization?
She'd been felled by some terrible, unknown disease (or maybe just swine flu), and we'd been flown there to be kept in quarantineThe plane had been hijacked, and we were awaiting news that certain prisoners had been released from Israeli jailsShe was faking her sickness, and a bomb had been left on the plane as carry-onSomething bad had happened to Chicago (or the rest of the U.S.), and we were waiting to find out if we'd get offered asylum in the newly-independent country of Farawayistan
We'd flown through a time vortex, and it was really 1955I think the airline did itself a complete disservice by not getting on the intercom and giving us details, even if they weren't half as entertaining as my imagined ones. Like where we were, or why the place even existed. We were never told even what was wrong with the passenger. All we got was status, not explanation. Eventually, the plane took-off and we got to Chicago, only about 4 hours late.A little more communication would have may my brief Arctic sojourn a lot more relaxing.
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