The Plane Broke

This is because of that "Asia's Mexico" comment, isn't it?

First of all, you should know more about the Manila airport. Specifically, it's insane. I went through no less than four security checkpoints. One of them is just to get into the airport. One of them is at the gate. Like, after you're through security and go try to find a seat to wait for the plane, you have to go through security again. And each one has different procedures, since adding confusion to the mix is such a great idea.

Anyway, back to the news about the plane being broken...

The plane's broken.

We boarded, all seemed well. Sure, it was 15 minutes late, but in the grand scheme of air travel 15 minutes is good. But this "good" was not to last. We finished boarding, we headed out to the runway, again all seemed well. Then, on the primary runway, just as the engines were revving up to speed and just as we were getting the initial burst of acceleration, the plane started vibrating.

So they cut the engines and we stopped. Makes sense, of course. Passengers started looking around at each other, wondering what's going on. As the engines fluctuated a bit here and there I began to wonder if they were just going to "try again." I'm really glad they didn't. I mean, I "try again" with stuff all the time. But I don't fly hundreds of people over an ocean.

We returned to the gate so they could have the mechanics take a look. Hopefully it was nothing, but we need to be certain of these things. After a few minutes at the gate, we were informed that they will need to run some tests on the engines which involves very high RPMs, so passengers will not be allowed on the plane at that time. So basically, get the hell off the plane.

It was disorganized, of course, but the deplaning was essentially painless. Within a few minutes of finding a seat in the boarding area (and, indeed, while writing this) we were informed that repairs are going to take an hour or two.

Don't get me wrong, I want the plane safe before I cross the Pacific on it. I've seen Castaway, I don't want that shit. But now I have some contingency planning to take care of, because I'm going to miss my connecting flight in San Francisco.