It turned out that the person lending the private jet to Dr. Adams was not from Texas. He was a billionaire from Utah. The pilot, co-pilot and flight attendants were family and friends of the owner of the jet. It was obvious from their actions that the man put a high value on poise and character. Any airline would be glad to have these crew members as employees. They all worked for the billionaire but volunteered for this flight. When one of us asked for something, it seemed as though they knew the request was coming and were merely waiting for it to be verbalized. They actually accomplished the seemingly impossible task of providing better service than ANA. Actually, the comparison is unfair, because the ANA flight attendants had a much greater number of passengers to attend.

I was brought into the plane on a stretcher with medicine bags on hangers. I didn’t need to be knocked out on this flight. I was relaxed by the medication going directly into my veins. I lay there and watched movies with Amie. I usually watch movies vicariously. I live them. This has enabled me to have a great number of varied experiences despite my young age. I have been stuck on an elevator during a hurricane while I was pregnant. I’ve had half my family gunned down by a rival mob. I’ve had my presidential plane taken over by traitors, etc. There are at least two results of this. First, I remember movies in great detail. Second, after a movie that involves a great amount of drama, I feel exhausted from the stress. My mom says she just “watches” a movie. I think I get a lot more out of a movie than she does. If I start watching a movie that I can’t get into, I get bored and quit watching it. Even if I’ve already seen a movie and I know exact what going to happen, I still feel the suspense and the stress.

Watching movies on this flight, however, I was too drugged to get stressed. I would watch for a while, then let my eyes close for a while, open my eyes and watch Amie for a while. While I was on drugs, she would have been even more beautiful, but that wasn’t possible. I was relaxed…I was going home…I was happy. My life couldn’t be better.

Suddenly, the pilot’s intercom clicked to life. “SAFETY BELTS EVERYONE…NOW!”.

Everyone was already seated, but I heard a click from the safety belt of one of the flight attendants. There was a humming sound that got louder and higher in pitch. Time stood still for a couple of seconds … then the humming quickly increased in volume to an ear-splitting level and became a “whoosh”, and the sound began to decrease in volume and lower in pitch. The change in pitch was similar to the way a whistle of a passing train changes pitch as it passes. Our plane began spinning. We seemed to be out of control. Anything that was not fastened was thrown around the cabin. Coffee cups, paper plates, and napkins were floating through the air. The air masks dropped and were whipped around. I finally managed to grab my mask and looked at Amie. She was holding her mask to her face and was reaching to help with mine when I got it. It seemed forever that the plane spun and headed down toward the ocean.

I prayed. “Oh, God please let….”

Then…quiet. The tumbling stopped. All the flying debris fell to the floor. What happened? Were we still going down? No! We had leveled out and were flying again! No one spoke. Everyone was too shocked to talk. We waited for the pilot to speak. After several seconds, he spoke, “Ladies and gentleman, what we just experienced was a very close encounter with a commercial jet. That jet passed us on its way down and has now crashed into the ocean. Had that plane’s trajectory been just a few yards different, we would have been involved in a mid-air crash. It would have been very unlikely that anyone on either plane would have survived. Given the speed at which the plane went down, it’s unlikely that there will be survivors of that crash. We all should thank God for sparing us as well as praying for a miracle for the people on that plane, and praying for the families of those passengers. The loss of lives will certainly be great and tragic. There will be much heartbreak and sorrow. We don’t understand why those dozens of lives were lost, but God saw fit to spare the few of us on this plane. Even though we don’t understand…we should be thankful now and for the rest of our lives. Our flight will continue. We are not equipped to attempt any rescue. First responders are on their way. When we land, we will likely all be debriefed about what we heard and saw. We probably can’t provide much useful information, but the investigators will want to get any and all information they can. Please try to relax. This was an extremely unusual event. Our plane’s instrumentation shows no damage, but we will be very careful to watch for any indication of possible problems.”

Again, I prayed. Not a beautiful prayer intended for people to hear… but a message from my lips to God's ear, “ThankyouGod. ThankyouGod. ThankyouGod. ThankyouGod. ThankyouGod. ThankyouGod.” I don’t know how many times I said it, but I wanted God to know I was sincere.

In times of stress, a person can think unusual thoughts or notice things that seem trivial. I noticed that the captain referred to his passengers as “Ladies and gentleman”. He was under more stress than any of us, yet he referred to us in that manner because the people he was addressing, the passengers and flight attendants, consisted of 6 females and 1 male. Even though he, minutes ago, had the lives of nine people depending on his ability to steady a large piece of machinery which was tumbling through the air at hundreds of miles an hour, he was still in control enough to be certain that one letter in a sentence was correct, i.e.: “gentleman” with an “a” instead of the usual “gentlemen”. I couldn’t help but be in awe of anyone so cool. He didn’t learn that in flight school. He had to have been taught self-discipline from the time he was very young. I wanted to thank this man. I wanted to even see such a man. God saved us, but He used this man, giving him decades of preparation for the few seconds required for him to complete a task that very few people on earth could have handled.

The flight attendants were cleaning up the spilled cups, etc. They acted as though we had just run into a bit of bad weather. I guess the “poise” that I mentioned earlier ran deeper than I thought. They weren’t smiling, though. We had just passed within a few hundred feet of many people who were now dead. Their relatives would soon be getting phone calls from “the authorities” which would change their lives. They would be incredulous … the first stage of grieving. The press would be putting microphones in their faces, asking, “How do you feel?” and snapping pictures. I wondered if any of the pictures would include a wide-eyed child wondering where her parents were.

With that thought, my brain sent a message to my heart. My heart forwarded that message to my eyes. My eyes responded by activating the tear ducts. Since I was lying down, the tears ran back into my ears. Amie looked at me and just said, “Yeah. I know.” Did I see a tear in her eye? She could be vicious when attacked, but she was actually a sensitive person in her own way.

I lay back and thought about what I would tell the “authorities”.

Authorities: “What did you see?”

Me (making my eyes as big as I can): “I didn’t see nuffin’”.

Authorities: “What did you hear?”

Me (making my eyes as big as I can): “I didn’t hear nuffin’”.

I know they have a job to do, but I don’t like bureaucrats, and would relish a chance to piss one off. I get the word “nuffin” from … where else … a movie! Gone with the Wind, “I don’t know nuffin’ about birfin’ no babies!”

I smiled at the thought of a frustrated, angry bureaucrat. I lay back, closed my eyes and waited for the confrontation.