My Lucky Flight to Italy in 1975

I flew Alitalia in 1975 because my flight attendant discount ticket cost $69 round trip. My seat was over the wing in the middle of the center aisle. I barely noticed the older man and woman who sat on either side of me.

Two hours over the Atlantic Ocean, I looked across the plane to the left and out the window. Flames shot from the engine. I worked for United, so I wanted to run and tell the pilots, but I wasn't working the flight and I didn't know the Italian words for fire and engine. We dropped altitude and the flames ceased. The plane banked hard to the left and the pilot made a long announcement in Italian. In English, he said we were headed back to New York City.

Passengers gasped and went silent. In time, conversation erupted. I started to write a goodbye letter to my family but realized if I died so would my note. I remembered the time I took a break in the cockpit and asked the captain about engines.

"If there are four engines and one gives out, can the plane fly?" I asked.

"Oh sure," he said. "You just have to keep an eye on your instruments."

"What if two engines fail?"
"Hairy," he told me, with a drop in his perky tone.

"And three gone?" Silence. His thumb made a downward turn.

Surrounded by Italians who spoke no English, my knowledge barely helped my despair. I observed how other passengers coped. The wild eyed woman to my left clutched her rosary. The row of women in front of me wailed. Suddenly one of the women leaned over her seat and waved her arms at me, then pointed to the man on my right. Smiling and calm, he nodded beatifically. Boom went the light bulb in my head. My seatmate was a Catholic priest. I felt lucky. I liked priests. Every one of them I have met has been positive and accepting of my psychic abilities.

Two hours of ocean gave way to asphalt. We waited a few hours and 2/3 of us boarded again. I stretched out on the empty seats to my left and fell asleep.