Hearing a 'Boom' and feeling a jolt on a plane is never a good thing......

Ya'll ain't gonna believe dis shit. So I was on a NWA plane (no, not N------ With Attitude, but North West Airlines) and it was early so I was asleep. I don't how long I was asleep when I heard a large boom and felt the whole plane jolt. HOLY SHIT, I'M GOING TO DIE!!!! I jolted upright and alert very quickly, my heart was racing, I look out the window and notice that we are still at the gate. What the?.....

We, at this time, I couldn't figure out what was happening. Did the luggage people throw a huge piece of luggage on the plane? Did a mechanic slam close a access panel? Did the 'reverse' truck driver start pushing the plane back too hard? After a few minutes the people in the rows in front of the right wing started chatting excitedly and pointing at the front of the wing. After a few minutes of this the flight attendants started leaning over the passengers and giggling/smiling in shock. After a few minutes of this, the pilot got on the line and said that a baggage handler hit the plane with a baggage cart. That right, he HIT the damn plane with the baggage cart. The captain said that people from safety/engineering were going to look at the wing (the damage was on the leading edge) to see if the plane was flight worthy. Now at this point, I thought: I went to school with a bunch of engineers. Heck, the industrial engineers and the aeronautical and aerospace engineers (AAE) shared a building at Purdue. The Purdue AAE School of Engineering was the best in the nation. Based on my experiences, if this plane leaves the ground, we all going to die.

Well, they didn't let the plane fly. One of the funniest parts of the whole deal was watching the maintenance workers, supervisors, engineers, safety personnel, airline officials, etc pull up to the air plane and watching their jaws drop. Having been a maintenance supervisor at a General Motors plant, it is quite an honor when a screw up makes a veteran guy's jaw drop. The general reaction of all of the people at the scene was: Oh My God, How The Hell Did That Happen.

After they told us the plane was "down" they moved us into a plane in the next gate over. As we exited the plane, we went to the window of the gate to look at the damage. I was expecting a small dent, perhaps a gash where the cart but a deep scratch / shallow dent into the wing. I was wrong. Where the leading edge of the wing meets the fuselage there was a massive dent. Imagine if someone backed into you car and crushed in the entire from quarter panel, then you're getting an idea.

Well, we got on the new plane. We were able to successfully load, fuel, disembark, and takeoff in this new plane. After we were halfway from Detroit to Montreal I had two thoughts:

1) Damn, I should have taken a picture of the dent with my phone, and,
2) I wonder what that is going to due to the guys insurance. That piece of the wing has to be getting close the 100/300/100 limits on most insurance.

Later all,

B
P.S. I've never traveled to Montreal without having a problem on one of the legs