Lounging on the beach

This emergency landing occurred on a red eye connecting in Trinidad on my way to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I usually look for late night flights or early in the morning, because when I arrive at my destination, I have the entire next day to myself, which is why I ended up on this red eye. 

Safely landed, fire trucks waiting outside

The 5-hour journey was about half way through and by this time meal service had ended and most of the passengers were flying high in dreamland. I was awakened suddenly after the lights had been turned on, and I heard the pilot announced that the plane would be making an emergency landing in Bermuda. Honestly, I was a bit confused because I didn’t know what had exactly happened. I think I asked someone the reason for our emergency landing, and their response was that they had smelled smoke. Now, this was a bit frightening, however, I wasn’t smelling anything. By the time everyone was up, the flight attendants were walking through the cabin offering water, I am assuming they did this to calm everyone down because there were some people around me who were panicking.

The pilot announced that we were landing, everything was done rather quickly and then as the plane made its descent into the airport I started to hear “BRACE, BRACE, BRACE!” I can’t say if it was a recording or if someone was saying it, but it echoed throughout the plane. Everyone around me assumed the brace position. This was when I really became fearful, because I had not paid any attention to the safety video or manual and had never done so on any of my previous flights, so I didn’t know what the brace position was. Who would have ever thought that they would actually assume that position or use any of the instructions an airline provide in their safety manual? Nevertheless, I figured it out by looking at my neighbor, and we landed quickly and safely. The flight landed in Hamilton Bermuda after 4 AM.

Guests waiting outside the airport for taxis to transport them to the hotel

At this time the airport was closed. So we had to wait until the immigration officers came before we could leave to go to our hotel, which the airline paid for. After leaving, I boarded a Taxi which took us to the Fairmount Hotel. I could remember the view from my room! OMG! It was to die for. But I knew that I did not have forever in Bermuda and made it my business to take advantage of every moment. I grabbed a huge breakfast, which was the moment I realized that people in Bermuda actually wore Bermuda shorts, lol. The staff wore them as dress shorts with jackets. After breakfast, while some people went to their rooms to sleep, I went to the beach, got a beach chair and soaked in the sun. After I left the beach and did some other activities, I ordered an amazing dinner and drink, all on Caribbean Airline.

The Fairmount Hotel

They didn’t know what was wrong with the plane so we had to wait for Caribbean Airline to send an engineer or a replacement plane. I did not complain because this landing that could have been a tragedy, however, turned out to be an amazing stopover in Bermuda.

View of the ocean