It began like every other Michigan Tuesday.
Wake up. And immediately struggle to shake off the hangover.
Down some coffee. Rub bloodshot eyes into hesitant focus. Get human again behind the twin hits of caffeine and tobacco. Shuffle across the constriction of a boulevard apartment seeking more nourishing stimulation. Because something had to get the sludge moving again.
Force a cold body into a hot shower. Just to feel a different sensation. And to steam an uncooperative body back into adult movement. That aging, fragile meat bag still yelping internally from the abuses absorbed the night before.
Even a brain left pickled from the unanticipated liquid poisoning could still comprehend that it was probably the closest to a baptismal that the attached Mittened maniac will ever find. So it was best to just embrace the temporary absolution. And let the reinvigoration of less toxic liquids wash some of the sin away from bare skin.
The anticipation of tin monsters coming in hot from the mother hub threatened. There would be a whole crew looking to me for their nightly operational guidance. And a ramp full of abused equipment waiting their turn to dance in the nightly ballet of our gateway chaos.
So I had to prepare myself for that responsibility.
The pressure is to always show up early. Because somehow, being on time feels late. And that’s just not how we do things, here in the land of brown label scheduled efficiency.
End up working the better part of an hour for free. Because it makes for a more gentle start. And sometimes, you need that breath of a more leisurely pace to help get things rolling.
So it was worth the monetary sacrifice, selling that extra little bit of my soul for a few minutes more of peace.
That awful day started as they always do.
With the same styrofoam cups of podded coffee. Shared with the same plasticine coworkers. The ones habitually gathering out by a guard shack not quite ready for all the wandings. Because the “early starts” haven’t yet shuffled in. So we could only gun our smokes while waiting for the operation to fully fire up.
Pinballing around the offices. Grabbing radios. Gathering printed pages of meaningless rubbish; strapping on gloves and ramp gear. Greeting coworkers with a raised middle finger. Because at my gateway, I have purposefully bent that particular gesture into a reappropriated sign of affection.
Eventually wandering over into the control room. The cobbled together electronic heartbeat of our operation. The place where the cameras all keep constant watch. And the radios clatter endlessly with the gibberish of ramp life.
A phone rings; a terrible call.
The announcement of our worst nightmare.
Because a plane went down.
One of ours.
Details were sketchy at first. We just knew that it was catastrophic. That punch in the gut realization triggered familiar flashes of other terrors. The one back when the towers fell. Because that had been an unexpected cataclysm, too.
And I have been in this business long enough to know that things change forever whenever brave souls fall out of the sky.
We knew the investigators would begin sifting through the rubble of our tragedy. Eventually tell us in bulleted PowerPoints what we can do better. Because like with all disasters, I am sure lessons will be learned. Future losses of other aircraft possibly averted. Maybe lives saved.
But all of that meant precious little in those first few terrible hours.
Because we had lost family.
And that fucking hurt.
We knew that particular airplane well, having worked it countless times. Worked it in the sweltering haze of a burning Michigan summer; worked it in the worst bites of a freezing 517 winter.
We worked it enough times that I gave her a nickname—”The Wobblin’ Gobblin.” Because we had learned all her quirks—the shitty top deck roller pad that made swinging cans even more of a struggle. The temperamental nature of her lower pit doors. How much her three engines always struggled to spool up whenever the temperature dropped back down. And the peculiar way she always seemed to shimmy after sticking the landing on 28 Left.
Looking back now, I think that maybe she was trying to tell us she was getting tired. Because it’s a brutal, unforgiving game that we play. One that often punishes soft flesh. And fatigues more rigid alloys.
As strange as it might sound, I am convinced that airframes have a soul. Because they sure as fuck have personalities. And no amount of impeccable maintenance can ever repair a spirit when it’s time to finally expire has come.
In the course of her career, N259UP soared closer to Heaven than most. Danced with more gentle angels in the skies above a struggling country. And in the end, with decades of reliably transferring critical care cargo behind her, she ultimately saved far more lives than she ended up taking.
More times than not, when she rolled out of parking position 2, she carried the mark of a ramp fox scrawled on her right landing gear door. Because a fox always signs his work. And she was a damn good airplane worth working.
Her rumbling, tri-engine howl will continue to rattle in the memories of those who knew her. And hearts will remain forever heavy for the families of those she took with her on a final flight to that next place.
It is a brutal, unforgiving game that we play.
And unfortunately, on that tragic November Tuesday, we fucking lost…
