Delta Airlines FAIL

8 posted on June 8, 2010

POSTED IN: Blog Posts

We’re finally back home after 10 days of travel. Let me tell you, there is nothing like falling asleep in your own bed after being away so long. Last Monday, we flew out Dallas for some church planting connections. We met some amazing people and experienced some insightful counsel but my story actually starts before we left.

We dropped our children off with Grandparents in Michigan before we left. It was easier and cheaper to hop on a connecting flight from Flint to Detroit to Dallas than it was to drive all the way down to Detroit and leave from there. And so, my parents dropped Lisa and I off at Flint Airport at 6 AM for our connecting flight.

Upon checking in we learned that our flight had been delayed due to “insufficient pilot sleep.” Frankly, I’m glad they have some kind of system in place to prevent pilots from falling asleep in-air but that also meant that we were going to miss our connecting flight in Detroit. Upon pressing the lady behind the counter further she offered a solution: they would put us on a shuttle van and drive us (and 8 other passengers) out to Detroit in time to make our connecting flight. Works for me, I thought.

About 15 minutes later they load 10 of us up in a van and we’re on our way. It’s early in the morning still so everyone is pretty quiet. 20 minutes into the ride I heard the distinctive “br-br-br-br-br” of our van driving over the rumble strips on the side of the road. I looked around and everything looked ok so I chalked it up to the driver accidentally veering too far over.

10 minutes later I was sending a text when I again heard the rumble strips and looked up to see our van veering way off the road. Behind me several of the other passengers in the van yelled, “DRIVER!! WAKE UP!!”

Our driver was falling asleep at the wheel with a van full of people!! The rumble strips and the screaming passengers woke him up. He was so disoriented that he thought everyone was yelling for him to turn the radio down so he began fiddling with the radio.

All of us were now very much awake and decided it would be in our best interest to keep our driver talking so he didn’t kill us all. As we began firing questions at him we found out that he worked 6 12-hour shifts a week!

20 minutes of questions and conversation later, he dropped us off at Detroit airport. I was never so glad to get out of a vehicle in my life.

I joked with one of the other van passengers (it’s amazing what a near-death experience does to bond you with complete strangers) and said, “A little ironic don’t you think…we miss our first flight because of insufficient pilot sleep and almost get killed driving to the connecting flight because of insufficient driver sleep!”

TWEET THIS

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 at 9:33 am and is filed under Blog Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

12 Comments

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June 8, 2010

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1 Nick said:

Wow! I’m glad you all are okay.
Did anyone offer to drive the van the rest of the way?

I hope the church planting thing went well.
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June 8, 2010

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2 Bill (cycleguy) said:

Glad you got home safely. Now maybe we can do some planning on meeting to ride?
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June 8, 2010

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3 Sean said:

What a trip and what a week. Glad to meet you and your amazing wife in Dallas. Let’s stay in touch and I will connect with you before I come to Indy!

Blessings on your vision for the kingdom!
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June 8, 2010

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4 JD said:

Oh my word, Brad…. I hope someone let Delta know about this. I worry about the driver, I’m sure he’s just trying to make ends meet in this economy, but at the cost of his safety and that of others? Not good… not good.

Glad you’re all safe!
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June 8, 2010

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5 Brad Ruggles said:

Yeah, we let Delta know by filling out a feedback form on their site. It was extremely unsafe in my opinion to put 10 people in a van with a driver who was so noticeably tired. He even told us he had been sleeping in the van in the parking lot when he got the call to come pick us up.

Crazy stuff.
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June 8, 2010

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6 Curtis Honeycutt said:

Glad you’re still alive!
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June 8, 2010

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7 Brad said:

At least if a pilot falls asleep, there’s autopilot to keep you alive.

They always say the drive to the airport is the most dangerous part of the flight.
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June 8, 2010

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8 Laura Carney said:

Make sure you raise a big, ugly, stinky stink with Delta about that…people’s lives are at stake…very uncool! Glad you guys haven’t encountered anyone else who is so tired they….zzzzzzzzzzzzz…
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June 8, 2010

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9 Josh said:

please tell me that “Jesus Take the Wheel” by Carrie Underwood was playing when he fiddled with that radio…
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June 8, 2010

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10 Brad Ruggles said:

Ha ha, that WOULD have been awesome if that song had come on the radio!
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June 10, 2010

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11 Sherri Campbell said:

WOW. All’s I can say is WOW. Actually there are a few things I could say, as well. I gotta get my brother Dick, who is a Capt with Southwest Airlines to see your article. THIS IS chilling and the public has to have more SAFETY rights in force. Geeze!
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June 11, 2010

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12 Zack (@zacharyb) said:

FUNNY!

Thanks for sharing.