Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

I love thrill rides. Roller coasters are the best. The ups, downs, side to side, being thrown to the back of your seat feeling is a riot! But the great thing about roller coasters is that no matter how wild and crazy the ride may be you still have the knowledge that you will be safe at the end of the ride. This wasn’t the case yesterday as Lydia and I flew from Salt Lake City to Denver.

Yesterday, Colorado had at least 5 tornados reported with golf ball size hail. One of these tornados touched down about 10 miles from our house at the Southlands Mall causing all sorts of damage. The Southlands Mall is about 15 miles south of the Denver Airport and also happens to be right in the middle of the flight path for landing. This tornado was reported at the exact same time Lydia and I were flying over that area on approach for our landing.

Suddenly our plane took a nose dive towards the ground and then rolled almost 90 degrees to the left. I was staring straight at the ground through the window wondering if we were going to roll completely over in our Southwest 737. Simultaneously every passenger on the plane screamed in horror as we got closer to the ground. Thankfully the pilots were able to right the plane and bring the nose up and we safely landed 5 minutes later. I asked Lydia what she thought of the flight and she said that was the biggest “bump” she has ever experienced and it was a little scary. I kept a smile on my face and agreed with her while inside my heart was racing a million miles a minute.

I have been on many planes over the past 10 years while traveling for work. Turbulence has never bothered me. Sometimes I think it can be fun. But this was the first time I have ever been truly scared while flying. I don’t know if it was poor judgment by the pilot or bad communication from the airport tower, but why we tried to land in the middle of that kind of storm is a mystery to me. I’m just very thankful that no one was hurt and that we all got home safely.

Below is a link to a YouTube video of the damage that the tornado caused at Southlands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaH5LpMOxQ8