After a productive trip to Boulder, I was trying to get back to Providence. While the airport is convenient, there are some drawbacks to using a smaller airport. If everything is going well, there are no issues. Today was not one of those days.
I got to the airport early. I thought it would be best to see if I could go standby on an earlier flight. While I knew that there was no earlier flight to Providence I could catch, I thought it would be better to get to Chicago so that I could avoid missing that flight. With air travel nowadays, you can never be too sure. Unfortunately for me, the airline wanted $75 to be on the standby list. Since I couldn't really justify the additional cost for the gain of only about 90 minutes to wait in Chicago, I decided to stick to my original flight.
My original flight was loaded and ready to go without any issues. We start down the runway. Just as the wheels are starting to inch off the ground, the pilot suddenly slams on the brakes. The aircraft decelerates quickly and we are still earthbound and slow to a stop about 100 yards from the end of the runway. The pilot announces that there was a microburst just ahead and he didn't want to take any chances. Sadly, he blew out the brakes and the plane would have to be towed back to the hangar.
We actually had to get off the plane onto buses back to the airport. Here is a photo:
We ended up arriving at O'Hare three and a half hours late. They put me up in a hotel for what will be about six hours before I have to catch my return back to Providence.
It's just another glorious chapter added to the wonders of modern air travel.
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