Flight 421: A Short Story

It was the day after my sister's Quinceanera, and all my family was here. They were leaving back to their homes Monday morning, so keep in mind it is Sunday. All of our parents were talking outside and saw that us kids didn’t really have anything to do, so they decide to take us to a river that was 5 minutes away from my aunt's ranch. We packed up all our food and stuff and went right away.

I was watching TV at home like any other day when my phone rang. It was my friend calling to ask me if I wanted to go on a vacation to Dog Island. My mom said” I can go if I want to”, so I said” yes”. It was still a while before we left but, my mom made me pack anyway. I knew it would be one the best weeks ever.

Flight is a novel about a teenage Native American boy, named Zits because of his face, gets moved around from foster home to foster home, “crashing” through each one, and has closed his mind to the idea that some foster parents are trying to help him. Then, later in the book, after he shoots thirty or so people in a bank, is transported through time and different bodies, and learns how to turn his life around with the knowledge he acquires from what he sees and does in these different bodies. In one especially striking scene, Zits has traveled into the body of a young Indian boy at war. He wakes up in the middle of a large Indian camp. He then realizes that it is an old war camp, from the battle called “Custer’s Last Stand”. Zits remembers that in this battle the Indians prevailed against Custer’s cavalry. Then, as he stands in the middle of the camp, the father of the boy whose body he’s in comes over. Since Zits never had a real dad, the love this man is showing to him, even just something small, feels tremendous. Zits thinks as the man picks him up and hugs him, “As long as I’m this kid, this man is my father. And since I never knew my real Indian father, I feel like I’m going to explode. I want to hug this guy forever and forever” (64). This quote quite clearly shows that Zits needs someone to love him desperately, and that he will latch onto any small amount of affection he gets.

As he said the the plane lurched forward, and they went speeding down the runway. “Well

We had a 3p.m. flight out of Portland, ME, to Seattle, Washington, stopping once in Newark, New Jersey. Once we go to Portland, our flight was delayed an hour. Once we landed in Newark, the plane came to a screeching halt on the runway, made a sharp right hand turn that about threw us out the window, and we arrived at the gate.. We scrambled off the plane as fast as we could, vacuumed down our supper and ran for the gate that had our connecting flight to Seattle. We were seated on the plane where we proceeded to sit for a half hour because of maintenance with the aircraft. While en route to Seattle from Newark, there was a thunderstorm that had us bouncing up and down in our seat. The captain only took off the fasten seat belt sign a couple of times. This was my first time ever on an airplane. The turbulence had me worried slightly...The flight to Washington, although it was rough, started my love for flying to destinations. We arrived in Washington around 11 p.m., my cousin was there to pick us up at the

On July 19, 1989 United flight 232, a DC-10 aircraft took off from Denver’s Stapleton International Airport on route to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. The DC-10 aircraft was manufactured by McDonnell Douglas. It has three General Electric CF6-6 engines, two that were wing mounted and one that was tail mounted. The number two engine, located on the tail, had a pre-existing defect introduced when it was manufactured. It was known as a hard alpha inclusion which causes cracks to form early in the lifetime of the fan disks. However, the cracks were too small to detect by the naked eye and overtime grew to a size large enough to bring the plane down on that fatal day.

On July 19, 1989, United Airlines, Flight 232, a McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 experienced a catastrophic failure of the No. 2 tail-mounted engine during cruise flight. The separation, fragmentation, and forceful discharge of stage 1 fan rotor assembly parts from the No. 2 engine led to the loss of the three hydraulic systems that powered the airplane's flight controls. The flight crew experienced severe difficulties controlling the airplane, which subsequently crashed during an attempted landing at Sioux Gateway Airport, Iowa. 111 people were fatally injured (NTSB, 1991).

In the summer of June 2014,I woke up at 4:30 Thursday morning and got ready, packed our suit cases in the trunk of my car. Then I woke up my 4 daughters and they got ready really quick. Funny how for school they drag to get up from their bed and get dressed. But that day they didn't even hesitate to get up because they knew we were on vacation. Me and my girls were really excited to take our first road trip to the beautiful beach of South Padre Island . Of course it is gonna be a long drive but we were excited because we will be sight seeing and singing along to the radio. My family lives about 35 minutes from the beach, in a little town not to far. So when we all got in the car ,I drove to a gas station to fill up my car with gas for our trip and to grab a strong cup of coffee with hazelnut creamers.

One bright spring morning in July I was awoke by a ray of sunlight. I bounded out of the bed cause I knew today was going to be a great day because we were going to Magic Springs. I ran across the room and woke my brother up and told him to get ready. When we got ready my mom took me to my grandma’s house and we waited at my grandma's anxious to get to Magic Springs.

It all started when my mom and dad told me that we were going to Hawaii. I was elated, and I couldn’t wait to go! After a long two weeks, we were on our plane to Hawaii. Arriving around midnight, we picked up our rental car and stopped for some pizza. With my stomach full, I dozed off, and was waken an hour later as we arrived at our condo. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow.

The night before we left for ecuador we were invited to spend the night at Renbrook. That night was the beginning to our bonding, we got pizza and watched a movie and everyone had a great time. Even though we had an early morning flight the next day, we still stayed up until 12 because we were having so much fun. The next morning was rough we had to wake up at 4 to drive to John F. Kennedy airport. We took two flights one to Columbia and then one to Ecuador. When we got to ecuador we first went to our hotel a small one but very nice considering we were in a third world country. For the next week we would be bonding, going on bike rides, walking in caves, and white water rafting. The first week was so fun and I learned so much about everyone on the trip including some new things about myself. After the first week was over I was completely immersed in the ecuadorian culture and the other people on the trip felt like family to me. I did not know it yet

The plane landed a couple of hours later in Canton, Georgia out in an open field. Everyone had woken up from their rest. Linde, Ellie, and Kaylans' parents greeted us on the landing strip as we got out of the plane. I said goodbye to them as they drove away in their cars. My parents and I were the only ones remaining. We got into our own car and drove away from the strip, away from the plane, away from everything.

At first I didn’t understand what was going on, but as I went in for a hug she kept stepping back until her back was pushed up against the wall as if I was a diseased rat. She then screamed. My parents rushed in the room and dragged me out of the room for they knew exactly what was going on, she had forgotten who I was. Traumatized from that event I started to distance myself from her, and as I started getting farther and farther away from her, her death started to get closer and closer to

Pilot error falls under the unsafe act of the HFACS model. In the NTSB report it is stated air traffic controller in Little Rock, AK warned the American Airlines dispatcher that there was a storm heading to Little Rock but the dispatcher was confident that the pilots could make it before the storm hit. As they proceeded to fly, they were in contact with the air traffic controller in Little Rock, AK who was sending them reports of the current weather conditions. Several times they had to change their flying path to land on a certain runway since the storm was a factor in this incident. This only caused the pilots to have a heavy workload in keeping track of certain storm elements such as the rain, the clouds and the wind. By having these distractions it can be concluded that the pilot was not able to determine his exact location while

“No I’m okay,” I replied. “Thank you though.” We went on with the rest of our plane ride. Before landing our pilot did a little overview of the ocean and Florida, even though we couldn’t see, the lights from Florida looked amazing! When we got off the plane and everyone was tired at 2:00 in the morning and we got our rental car and headed off to the hotel. Of course we jumped in bed when we got there and slept until morning.