The plane crash in Toronto last week (and the amazing lack of casualties) reminds me of the time the Honolulu Symphony’s plane kind of crashed. This was back in the day when we actually did tour the islands, thanks to the Hawaii Department of Education. (Once that money was pulled from our budget in the early 1990’s, the tours stopped, unfortunately.) The plane came down quite fast- I was sitting across the aisle from our English Horn player, who has since left music to become a pilot- and his face told me what I feared- the pilot was about to make a major mistake. We approached the runway to the Kailua-Kona airport and were still way too high for most of the runway, finally touching down ‘long’- about 2/3 of the way down the runway, just like the plane in Toronto. Needless to say, the plane was also going too fast, having made such a quick descent, and was rapidly running out of runway. For some reason, the pilot decided to try to turn around, as if to taxi back to the terminal like he would do in a normal landing. All this did was to cause the plane to slide broadside right into a lava field! A bit more lucky than the plane in Toronto, by some miracle we stopped just before plunging into a jagged lava ravine- and then we just sat there. For a very looooong time. Eventually, men in shiny suits were seen clambering around outside, with all of us still in the plane and quite jittery. (“Anyone smell smoke?”) Probably the highlight of the whole incident was the sight of our featured soloist, a vocalist who also sang the theme song for the airline on a TV commercial, walking up and down the aisle with her infant child in her arms, singing that damned theme song. Finally a bus came and took us to the terminal- but we had to wait until the plane was unloaded- ‘in case there was damage to the luggage’- of which there was some, including some minor damage to the larger instruments like the basses. By the time we were released from the airport, tired and hungry (the airline didn’t feed us- curses on them still!) and arrived at the hotel, it was almost 6:30. The concert went on as scheduled at 7:30. The show must go on.

As long as I’m in full geezer mode, musing about the past, I might as well recount the story about the time the HSO travelled in the middle of a rare January tropical storm- 1980, I believe. We were going from Maui to Kauai, with a stopover in Honolulu. Back then, interisland travel by plane was like taking a bus, you just kind of showed up with your coupon and if there was room, you’d get on. Open seating, first come first served. The orchestra got to the airport quite early, and we split up into a few groups- some went into the bar, some went straight to the gate, some sat on benches and went to sleep. Those who went to the gate got onto an earlier plane than planned. Once this first group’s plane got into the air, the storm hit and a turbulent flight got us into Honolulu, but once there the rain was so heavy we had to wait on the plane for a half an hour before we could get off. (I was on that plane.) At this point some went back to home in Honolulu for the night (which I did, seeing as I had left my balcony door open and was worried about storm damage), and some went on to Kauai, where we had a concert the following night. Those poor folks that stayed in the bar had it pretty bad. They got onto their plane and into the air and endured the worst turbulence you can imagine. Once they got to Honolulu, they had to turn back to Maui as it was raining so hard they couldn’t land. More turbulence. A number of ‘flight emergency bags’ were utilized, I’m told. Once back on ground on Maui, some chose to stay another night on Maui rather than risk another flight, others went on a later flight to try to get to Honolulu. The group that elected to stay on Maui had the worst of it, as the roof of hotel they stayed in that night blew off in the middle of the storm, which made for a very exciting evening!

So that night, the orchestra was spread out all over the state, on three separate islands. Amazingly, the next night the concert started on time, with all hands accounted for (if a bit shook up from the weather)- but midway through the concert, the lights went out! As I recall now, 25 years later, eventually the lights went back on and the concert finished up. Back at our hotel, there was quite a ‘survivors party’ as we all exchanged horror stories.

Well, pardon the geezer attack. We look back now and call them the good old days, even if we experienced some stress along the way.