What a Difference a Day Makes: How a brush with death made me appreciate life

Author and public relations expert, Terry Prone, describes a frightening experience on a US-Dublin flight, and talks about her surprising response to the incident — and how it proved a life-changer when dealing with nerve-racking encounters after that

Terry Prone: "I was surprised by how un-frightened I was. It wasn’t that I was brave, I just wasn’t frightened. And given that I’d spent my whole life being frightened, this was a life-changer."

It must be 20 years ago. I was heading home from visiting a client in the US, asleep in my reclined seat, when the lights came on and the pilot woke us up — there was smoke in the cockpit and the crew couldn’t establish its source.

Due to fly into Dublin, we were roughly an hour from Ireland — the pilot was going to try to make Shannon. That word ‘try’... like a threat. 

I thought, ‘Whoa!’ He wasn’t saying, ‘We’re diverting to Shannon,’ but ‘We’re going to try to make Shannon.’

The moment of real fear — that they couldn’t locate where the smoke was coming from. 

Which meant it was probably in the innards of the cockpit and that was seriously worrying. I’d have been getting into worry at that point except a stewardess, standing beside me, took my mind off it.

She was accompanied by a guy who looked like he did weightlifting for a living. I was in a bulk-head seat, right beside a door. Was I sure, the steward asked, that I could, if needed, move a 55lb door? I was not sure.

I was to take the weightlifter chap’s seat and he’d take mine. The stewardess was in sorting-out mode — I was to follow her down the aisle so I grabbed my stuff, followed, looking right and left as I went.

I was surprised by how un-frightened I was. It wasn’t that I was brave, I just wasn’t frightened. 

And given that I’d spent my whole life being frightened, this was a life-changer. What was happening was like a performance I just had the chance to watch.

Some of the passengers were crying, holding on to each other. One had taken out food. Roughly a third had gone back to sleep. I wasn’t as relaxed as that but I wasn’t crying and praying either.

Terry Prone: "The moment of real fear — that they couldn’t locate where the smoke was coming from. Which meant it was probably in the innards of the cockpit and that was seriously worrying."

What I did feel was a great sense of love for my husband and son. Maybe I should use a Sharpie to write a message to them, telling them I loved them? Or maybe not.

My mother was always very common-sensical about emotion, she had no time for people who cried on demand. So in any tight situation — like a fire in the cockpit — I was analytical. 

I thought, ‘If they didn’t know I loved them by then, a Sharpie message on a corpse fished out of the ocean mightn’t be the best way to let them know.’

There was a girl sitting beside me; we looked at each other, as if asking ‘Are you hysterical or calm? Do I need to do something for you or not?’ We both quietly agreed ‘Nah, we’re good.’ We never spoke a word to each other.

We were way down the back but could still smell the smoke. We couldn’t see it, which I found consoling. 

The pilot told us we were so many minutes away from Shannon Airport and that the crews there were alerted to our plight. 

I thought ‘It’s good it’s Shannon’ — I knew Shannon gets more planes in emergencies than any other Irish airport; pilots having a bad day are routinely told to head there... it’s kind of the aviation ED.

I figured they’d be experts — a small fire would be nothing to them.

I’ve always been fascinated by air incidents. Since my early teens, riveted by stories of crashes or disappearances. 

And I’m fascinated too by how people respond in disaster. Even at the end, when we all got off the plane, I was fascinated to see people losing it, people who up to then had been completely calm.

Anton Savage, Newstalk, pictured with Terry Prone at the launch of Ms Prone’s new memoir, I’m Glad You Asked Me That: The Political Years. Pic: John Byrne

One of my staff used to work for the London Underground, and was there the day a fire broke out. People died in that. They died because they followed habit and went where they usually went — they didn’t listen to instructions.

I think I’ve always had a very good sense of what I can do and what I can’t do. I knew I couldn’t move the 55lb door. 

I knew there was shag all I could do about the plane going down. There was no point panicking. I had a quiet resignation: ‘I could get killed, I hope it’s quick.’ That’s a feeling I always have on flights anyway.

I remember talking to the late Gay Byrne, who’d also been on a flight where something had gone wrong. 

And the two of us remembered no fear, no fear at all, just a conviction that there might be something we should do and what was it?

At Shannon, they put us on a bus to Dublin. There was a woman whose baby I ended up holding. 

She told me of the IVF agonies they had gone through to conceive her, how she and her husband thought she might be killed. 

I felt very sorry for them — it meant they had gone through a triple agony.

I applied the experience to a lot of things thereafter… some of the encounters I’d have been fearful of.

It didn’t take away my fear but it certainly made me realise: being nervous to stand up and talk in public is one thing — but it’s very different to being fearful you’re going to die.

And, really, the standing up in public doesn’t matter that much.

I'm Glad You Asked Me That, by Terry Prone

• Terry Prone’s latest book, I’m Glad You Asked Me That: The Political Years, is out now, €19.99 in hardback, in bookshops nationwide and online from redstripepress.com