Comparing flying to Spring Break with my flight to U.S.

By John Toth

The Bulletin

I was on my way to Spring Break in Miami with a friend.

We were going to do what all students do in Miami on Spring Break. We weren’t exactly experts in the subject, but we were going to give it a good try.

My friend had to tell everyone on the plane that it was the first time I flew on a jet plane.

Some of the passengers tried to reassure me that there is nothing to worry about because plane travel is very safe, safer than driving a car. I replied politely, but I had flown before, just not in a jet plane.

I had flown before, in 1967 in a four-propeller plane that was transporting immigrants to various countries in the West, the United States being the last stop. That was my stop; I was 11 years old.

I don’t know where this charter plane came from, what model or make it was. It looked like it had seen better days.

My mother and I were a last-minute addition to the passenger manifesto, since our visas were expiring, and we were granted political asylum by the U.S. We had to get out of Austria fast, and since we had a new country to go to, the International Rescue Committee, the non-profit American agency that sponsored us, arranged for us to be added to this full flight.

We waited on the tarmac in Vienna for a couple of hours for thunderstorms to pass. It was pouring down rain. My mother and I had never flown before and didn’t really know what to expect.

“We’re already in the air,” she said. I replied that I didn’t think so, because I still saw lines on the ground, and we weren’t moving.

The weather finally cleared up, and the plane full of immigrants on their way to new lives was finally able to take off. We sat in the last two seats in the back of the plane. When you’re a last-minute addition to the passenger list, you can’t be picky. We were just glad to be on the plane.

The plane started rolling down the runway and shaking. They probably didn’t feel much up front, but in the back I could feel every crack in the runway, and there were many.

We just looked at each other, as if asking,”Are we going to survive this flight to our new home?”

After the plane became airborne and gained altitude, the ride was pretty smooth, and we settled in - that is, until we flew through a bunch of storms. The plane began to shake again, like it was trying to fall apart.

“Try to get some sleep,” said my mother.

I was tired. It had been a very long and emotional day. We had to say goodbye to all our friends in Vienna and then take a taxi to the airport, where we hurried up, just to wait and then wait some more. But we were in the air and making progress. It was time for a nap.

I felt like I was falling. Was the plane losing altitude? Did one of those crosswinds finally finish it off, and were we just going to fall into the Atlantic Ocean? Or was I still asleep?

My mother was shaking my shoulder. “Wake up, they’re serving dinner.”

“I thought the plane was falling,” I said.

She laughed. “Not yet. It’s a little rough.”

I looked around. Nothing unusual was going on. The passengers who were not eating were smoking, most of them anyway. The fuselage was just one big cigarette.

I wondered why the plane couldn’t just fly around storms rather than into them? But what did I know? I was just an 11-year-old skinny kid on his first plane ride. I saw one of the pilots walk through the aisle on his way to the restroom. The back of his shirt was drenched in sweat. I started to worry more.

We made it to England, where we dropped off some passengers, then landed again somewhere in the Atlantic to refuel, probably Greenland, and made another stop in Toronto, Canada, where most of the passengers got off. A couple of dozen of us continued to New York. We landed in the rain.

By that time, though, we had spent 24 hours flying and were experts on riding through storms in a big shaky aluminum can with four propellers attached to it.

Compared to this flying adventure, the Spring Break jet airliner flight to Miami was a piece of cake seven years later, although I did partake in a bit of complimentary champagne (I was 18) and got a headache by the time we landed.

We landed in 1967 with two suitcases to our name. Seven years later, I was flying to Miami to party on Spring Break. Memories are made of this, precious ones in the land of opportunity.