Reply #45: Haiti, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras [View All]

[nannygoat]

and Belize (?). On the way back from one of my trips to Guatemala, my plane had to make an emergency landing in Belize (we lost an engine) so we had to stay on the plane on the runway until another plane landed that was large enough to pick all 100 of us up. Does that count?

That was one of the scariest experiences because we had just been served our breakfast and the plane started shaking really hard. The flight attendants then raced down the aisle and took the trays with our uneaten breakfasts back. Then they started talking to people seated near the doors asking them if they would be able to help other passengers out in the event it would be necessary. Any time the flight attendants made an announcement they would be crying. I really thought flight attendants were trained to not show emotion/fear. Added to that, most of the passengers were Roman Catholics and they kept crossing themselves.

The pilot then made an announcement that we would be making an emergency landing in Belize instead of continuing over open ocean (thank you!)... Everybody cheered and applauded when the plane finally landed in Belize. A short while later a diverted TACA plane (way better than the crummy Eastern plane we'd been on--no wonder they went out of business) picked us up but of course they didn't have food for an extra 100 passengers. Eastern wound up giving each of us a coupon for a meal at a restaurant in the Miami Airport. So generous, huh?