Not much fazes you after 20,000 hours in the cockpit.
At least that’s what my friend Mark says, between bites of chocolate chip pancakes during our pre-mountain bike carb load. Mark’s been a commercial airline pilot for 42 years, which pretty much makes him the guy you want to sit next to when talk turns to scary flights.
“What’s the worst experience you’ve ever had flying?” we asked, fully expecting something about lightning strikes or emergency landings.
Mark thought about it for moment and grinned. “Well, there was this one time on a flight from Salt Lake City to Jackson Hole. Only I wasn’t flying the plane. I was a passenger.”
It turned out to be the ride of his life.
Imagine you’re floating the Weber River on an inner tube. The sun’s shining. The water’s gently rippling around you. And then you hit rocks. Big ones. The tube spins out of control. You bounce, you get dunked. All of a sudden, you’re not drifting gently down the stream. You’re fighting to stay upright.
Now, swap the river for the sky, the rocks for the Tetons and your inner tube for a fully loaded Saab 340 turboprop. On the leeward side of a mountain range, air doesn’t just graciously drift. It churns, drops and tosses you like a rubber duck in a wave pool. That’s turbulence. And not the little bump you feel when a flight attendant pauses mid-coffee pour. This is the kind where even veteran fliers grip the armrests and start calculating how far it is to the nearest gate.
Mark’s flight that night was on a small 35-seat plane with two young pilots up front. It was a night hop out of SLC into JAX for a ski race with his airline club. The crew had mentioned a “few bumps on arrival,” but as they prepared to land, the weather told a different story.
Jackson sits on the leeward side of the Tetons, mountains that tower 6,000 feet above the airport. That night, winds over the peaks topped 100 mph. It was, as Mark later put it, “not exactly the friendly skies.”
The approach began even with the tops of the mountains. As the turbulence built — negative G, positive G, updrafts and downdrafts, Mark had his forearms wedged under the armrests in a bicep curl you don’t see in the gym. This one was meant to stop his head from crashing into the ceiling. The headrest flaps floated up like flags, then slammed down as the G-forces shifted.
Passengers screamed and moaned. The flight attendant’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates. Mark turned as he heard a voice behind him shouting over and over, “Hairball, man! HAIRBALL!”
“Hey, aren’t you Tommy Moe?” Mark asked, instantly recognizing the Olympic gold medal ski race legend.
“Yeah, man,” Tommy replied. “Hairball, man. “HAIRBALL!”
Between jolts, Tommy leaned forward and asked “Dude, do you think we’re going to make it?”
Mark replied, “I fly for a living, and I’m pretty sure we can. But it’s not a good place to be. We can bend some metal here. Hopefully, the pilot goes around.”
Finally, the pilots pushed the throttles to max power. Mark felt the climb begin and heard the change in engine pitch. They’re doing the missed approach, he told himself, watching his magnetic compass for the turn that would take them back to SLC. They cleared the valley and landed safely.
An ambulance was waiting. Two passengers were taken off on gurneys — one from a possible heart attack, the other so shaken they couldn’t walk.
After the flight, Mark poked his head into the cockpit to debrief the young pilots. The autopilot had disconnected repeatedly. They’d been hand flying the plane like a bucking bronco, fighting to keep it on the glide slope. Finally, they’d made the call to get out of there.
The next morning, about half the passengers reboarded for Jackson. Tommy Moe was not among them. Word was, he’d rented a car.
“Tommy Moe was a champion downhiller — just fearless,” Mark said. “But it’s scary when you’re not in control. I can relate. As a pilot, I wanted to be in the cockpit applying my plan — which would’ve been let’s get the hell out of here!”
Listening to Mark, I started to think: Hairballs are everywhere. The moments you know will be messy and intractable. Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do but tighten your seatbelt, grip the armrests and … let go.
Because fear isn’t always about the hairball itself. It’s about realizing you’re not in control. Even the bravest can get rattled — Olympic gold medalists, veteran pilots, the people who seem to stay strong no matter what.
Sometimes, you ride the bull. Sometimes the bull rides you.
And maybe that’s the point of hairballs. Whether you’re battling G-forces or a Super G course, you can’t always muscle your way through. You have to let go just long enough to trust the process. And maybe end up with a wild, tangled and completely unforgettable story.
Kate Sonnick is a freelance writer who also likes mountain bikes and the occasional hairball story. Send ideas, love letters and pancakes to [email protected] and follow @katesonnick on Substack.