Traveling for work as he normally would, David Gindi took his seat on a small Air Canada flight from Toronto to Cincinnati on Oct. 24. He closed his eyes to rest before the flight took off and began to sleep.

About forty minutes into the flight, he was woken up by an announcement from one of the flight attendants, “Due to maintenance issues, we will be turning around and heading back to Toronto.”

In a rushed manner, the flight attendant began to make sure that the overhead bins were closed and check the aisles in a nervous fashion. David grabbed the flight attendant’s attention to ask if they will be rebooking the passengers on a different flight because he had a meeting to get to.

The flight attendant hastily replied, "Sir, that's the least of our problems right now.”

Just then, the look in his eyes gave it all away. There was fear. Real fear.

What David heard next sent his mind in a flurry of thoughts he did not expect to have on this ordinary night.

“Everybody, the plane is malfunctioning and we are losing control, make sure that your ties are off and there is nothing that can choke your neck,” said the flight attendant over the intercom, “Put your heads down, hands on the seat in front of you, and prepare for crash landing.”

Just then the whole plane went silent and the passengers were in complete shock. The hydraulics of the plane had failed mid-flight. This is what controls the balance, steering, and landing of the plane. For the next 40 minutes, all the passengers could hear was the flight attendant's emergency message, "Keep your heads down and hands above the seat in front you.”

David, an orthodox Jew, knew just what he had to do. He began to plead to God to save his life. David began saying tehillim with all his heart, trying to shake the heavens.

“There is so much I still want to do with my life,” David thought as he prayed, “So much room to grow spiritually.”

David had always planned to grow religiously, but wanted it to happen in a gradual and natural manner. David wanted take his time to understand the things he took upon himself so that they would be lasting and meaningful. In this frightening ordeal, David began to realize he may never get the chance to do so.

David also took time to do teshuvah in those scary moments. He focused on thinking of the things he’s done or didn’t do, saying it wasn’t intentional or against God.

“When we were going down, I was analyzing how I was as a person and a Jew. How I’m not doing as much as I could be and how I want to grow slowly. Now I want to take the energy of how I felt and how I was able to have an incredible connection in my prayer and use that to fuel my inspiration to accomplish these goals,” David said of his self reflecting during the incident, "For example, I want to push myself to go to minyan more and pray three times a day which is something that I've been wanting to do for a while."

He also noticed that his prayer and concentration in these moments were a lot more meaningful than what his day to day prayers were. Now David wants to try to incorporate more passion into his daily prayers. David also said Shemah on the airplane, preparing for the worst.

After a grueling forty minutes of thinking the worst, David and everyone on the flight received a true miracle.

“The plane began getting close to the ground and, happens to be, it was the smoothest landing that I have ever experienced,” David remarked in disbelief, “God must have heard 500 new prayers because we had 40 minutes to think about our lives coming to a possible end.”

David and his fellow Air Canada flight passengers were released onto the runway. One woman was put in a wheelchair until she was able to get over the shock, but they made it. They all survived without a scratch.

Frieda Schweky

Frieda@sephardic.org

Frieda Schweky is Sephardic.Org's official community events reporter. For inquiries and to get involved with our site, please contact Frieda via email.