You almost lost this guy today…<\/p>\n
On my flight back from Louisville (I was a guest at the great WonderFest<\/strong> convention) to Burbank our pilot announced that one of the plane’s landing gear wasn’t lowering (code for “prepare for a crash landing”). He had to divert our plane from Burbank (runway not long enough) to LAX. You know you’re in trouble when your flight attendant straps in and starts to cry…<\/p>\n Fortunately, we had an ace pilot. He tried to manually lower the gear. He didn’t know whether it worked or not until his life-saving action was visually confirmed by the LAX fire department and Air Control (the pilot couldn’t see under the plane to see if what he did had worked; his instruments said he had failed).<\/p>\n Our entire cabin, a completely full flight, was absolutely silent on approach. I — and several other passengers — braced ourselves for the crash. We had a fire and police escort racing alongside the plane as we landed, their red lights flashing. When the landing proved successful (without crashing), our pilot got a huge round of relieved applause from the passengers — and we learned it was the pilot’s birthday!<\/p>\n Southwest offered to put us on another plane and fly us from LAX to Burbank Airport.<\/p>\n I instead opted to collect my luggage, get the hell out of there and take a taxi home.<\/p>\n Whew!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You almost lost this guy today… On my flight back from Louisville (I was a guest at the great WonderFest convention) to Burbank our pilot announced that one of the plane’s landing gear wasn’t lowering (code for “prepare for a crash landing”). He had to divert our plane from Burbank (runway not long enough) to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8TM5S-1d5","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1374,"url":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/2011\/10\/06\/venice-baby-tattooville\/","url_meta":{"origin":4655,"position":0},"title":"Venice! Baby Tattooville!","author":"Bill","date":"October 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The buffet breakfast at the White Hotel was fantastic; one of the best of our trip. After breakfast we took a taxi to the Brussels airport for our trip to enchanting Venice, Italy. I had booked us on SwissAir for both the trip from Brussels to Florence and from Florence\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Misc."","block_context":{"text":"Misc.","link":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/category\/misc\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/VeniceBlackMoonMask-450x499.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2834,"url":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/2013\/04\/23\/boston-survives\/","url_meta":{"origin":4655,"position":1},"title":"Boston Survives","author":"Bill","date":"April 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, this has been quite the weekend. If you follow my blog, you'll know that as soon as I heard about the tragic bombing I reassured the Boston Comic Con that I was NOT going to cancel. I just had to show my support for that great city and its\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Misc."","block_context":{"text":"Misc.","link":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/category\/misc\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/BostonBarricade-450x337.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5664,"url":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/2019\/07\/08\/untold-tales-of-hollywood-11\/","url_meta":{"origin":4655,"position":2},"title":"Untold Tales of Hollywood #11","author":"Bill","date":"July 8, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"John Milius saw an advance screening of 1941. He declared it the greatest comedy in the history of film. Steven put Kathleen Kennedy in charge of 1941\u2019s premiere. Kathy outdid herself. This premiere became the last great over-the-top Hollywood premiere ever produced. Kathy gave me and my girlfriend Alison Buckles\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Misc."","block_context":{"text":"Misc.","link":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/category\/misc\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5441,"url":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/2018\/10\/26\/james-karen-1923-2018\/","url_meta":{"origin":4655,"position":3},"title":"James Karen 1923\u20132018","author":"Bill","date":"October 26, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the most amazing bits of good fortune I've had working in the movie business was becoming friends with actor James Karen. Jimmy just passed away on Tuesday at age 94. He epitomized what we in The Biz call a \"working actor\". Jimmy worked constantly. If you live in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Misc."","block_context":{"text":"Misc.","link":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/category\/misc\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/james-karen-headshot-450x571.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":351,"url":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/2010\/04\/26\/calgary-comic-book-entertainment-expo\/","url_meta":{"origin":4655,"position":4},"title":"Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo","author":"Bill","date":"April 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Six appearances, six weekends in a row --- Whew! I'm happy to say this six weekend run ended with a bang. The Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo was incredible. I had one of the best times there that I've ever enjoyed at a convention. I flew into Calgary from LAX\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Misc."","block_context":{"text":"Misc.","link":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/category\/misc\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16,"url":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/2005\/07\/11\/byron-preiss\/","url_meta":{"origin":4655,"position":5},"title":"BYRON PREISS","author":"Bill","date":"July 11, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I am devastated by the news of the death of my dear friend Byron Preiss. I expected to be seeing him this Wednesday. We always had dinner together the Friday evening of Comic-Con at the Panda Inn in Horton Plaza. Byron always picked up the tab. This year I planned\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Misc."","block_context":{"text":"Misc.","link":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/category\/misc\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4655"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4667,"href":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4655\/revisions\/4667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.williamstout.com\/news\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}