A RC Tank!
One year ago, me and Joe, my 2-year-old son took a flight to L.A in the morning. When our L987 left the airport, everything was seemed so normal and pleasant. As I looked around, the only child on the plane was my little boy, he was very exciting for his first flight. Our seats are beside the window. After the plane took off, Joe can’t wait to see the view from outside. I untied his seat belt, he was so agitation when seeing we were above the cloud.
5 hours of flight is a little long time for Joe, soon, he fell asleep. Half hour before land on the destination, the aircraft was suddenly amiss, and began strongly bumping up and down. It’s obvious unmoral than I ever went through. Quickly, Joe was waken up in the turbulence. All the experienced travelers started looking around with knowing grins.
Something must be wrong. Minutes after we were airborne, our plane began dipping wildly. The pilot soon made a grave announcement. “We are having some difficulties,” he said. “At this time, it appears we have no nose-wheel steering. Our indicators show that our hydraulic system has failed. We are not so sure our lading gear will lock, so the flight attendants will prepare you for a bumpy landing. If you look out the airplane, we want to have as little on board as possible in the event of a rough touchdown.”
From his word, clearly implied we were about to crash. The flight attendants helped people get into position and comforted those who were already hysterical. As I looked at the faces of other travelers, I was stunned at the changes I saw in their faces. Many looked visibly frightened now. Even the most stoic looked grim and ashen, their face looked gray in color, something I’d never been seen before. Everyone lost composure in one way or another.
From grownup’s panic, Joe started to realize something fearful happened, although he was unable to understand the pilot’s words.
All around, people cried. Many wailed and screamed, a few of the men held onto their composure by gripping armrests and clenching teeth, but no matter how strong they are, their fear was written all over them.
“Mommy, are we going to die.” Joe nervously asked me. Suddenly my head turned into blank. I’d never been such perplexed, I was like a helpless child, hold his tiny body very tight and don’t know what to do. Maybe, it is my dread scared him, he began to cry. From his tears, I saw a innocent expression. I start to clear my throat, and tried to calm down my mind. In the deep of my heart have a faith, we will go through this, we will be safely landing the ground.
In order to dispel his scare, I took out a gift box from my backpack, the box was supposed to be opened on his 2-year-old birthday party which is the next day. It’s an RC tank I bought from Toy-match.com. Tomica toys are always his favorite. Every time it would stop him from crying. I put the RC tank into his hands. Soon, he stopped crying like usual and began to twiddle it. While seeing him intent to the toy and seemed untouched by the sounds of grief and fear around him, I was brought to calm up by some unexplainable strength, I guess it’s a invisible faith.
For no earthly reason, our landing gear held and our touchdown was not the tragedy it seemed destined to be. It was over in minutes.
Reviewing the chaos scene, I finally realize how people said: every mother has enormous instinctive courage to protect their child.