Duct Tape Can Fix Anything... Almost.

Flying Denver Colorado to Boston Massachusetts:

4:15 scheduled leave time

4:00 boarded plane

5:15 disembarked plane (still in Denver)

6:00 boarded new plane

6:34 Liftoff! Followed by 3 hrs 50 minutes (estimated) in the air.

The reason? The plane broke while we were sitting there on the runway.

As we were waiting to get off the ground in the first plane, a couple of maintenance men came on the plane. Two of them. One of them knelt across that aisle from me and put a piece of tape across the emergency lighting that lines the walkway. Like Christmas lights in the floor. The second man stood and watched, unspeaking. The Captain got on the overhead.

"This is the Captain speaking. You may have noticed a couple of maintenance men boarding the plane. It seems that we have a broken lens cover in the emergency lighting. It's keeping some of the lights from working. You can see up here at the front of the aircraft that the lights are working perfectly, while there is a dark section on your left in the middle of the plane. Regulations require us to cover the lens with some special tape. Once this is all set we can fill out some paperwork and we can be on our way."


Yup. Christmas lights. One light goes out, they all go out.

The one maintenance man finished with the tape, which I could see clearly, and looked suspiciously like duct tape to me. He and the other guy, who didn't do anything but watch, who didn't even carry the tape, trooped out of the plane. I can only assume that the 2nd guy was supervisor, and like my own supervisor, doesn't do anything visible but claims to be an expert in all things related to the job.

About 25 minutes later we were informed that the plane we were on was unfit to legally fly, and would be left where it was on the tarmac as we disembarked and hiked down a few gates to where we would be boarding another plane, which would be arriving in approximately 30 minutes.

They should have sent three guys with the duct tape.

I've been traveling for like 8 hours, I need some sleep. 

Talk to you later!