Handling the turbulence of life

With over 2 million miles own, I have experienced a lot of turbulence during those ights. Last month my wife and I were on a ight and for the most part it was a fairly smooth ight. However, during our descent the plane was violently rocked and had we not had our seatbelts on, we would have been tossed from our seats. In all my years of ying that was de nitely the toughest turbulence that I had ever experienced.

Over the years I have had the opportunity to sit next to many captains and pilots. As we would y through the turbulence, they would provide calming assurances that the planes are built to handle the turbulence and the pilots are trained to y us through

CHRISTY STEADMAN

Editor csteadman@coloradocommunitymedia.com

LINDSAY NICOLETTI Operations/ Circulation Manager lnicoletti@coloradocommunitymedia.com

ERIN ADDENBROOKE Marketing Consultant eaddenbrooke@coloradocommunitymedia.com safely. at has given me such great comfort over the years, a comfort that I tried passing along to some of the nervous yers I have had sitting next to me.

On one such ight as we were ying from Denver to Albuquerque, the turbulence was bad the entire ight as the pilot couldn’t nd an altitude where the air was smooth. e woman sitting next to me literally squeezed my forearm the entire ight, and I had never met her before. I didn’t mind and tried to assure her of the safety by sharing the stories pilots have shared with me, but she still held on for dear life.

Just last week I was ying on a Dreamliner, a massive airplane and super comfortable. e ight was full, and as we went through our ascent, the plane hit a pocket of turbulence and gave us a fairly good bounce up and down. ere were a few quick screams and gasps, but there was another sound I heard, children

SEE NORTON, P13

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