Arkansan: At Florida airport after shooting, silent daze, confusion

People stand on the tarmac at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after a shooter opened fire inside a terminal of the airport, killing several people and wounding others before being taken into custody, Friday, Jan. 6, 2017, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
People stand on the tarmac at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after a shooter opened fire inside a terminal of the airport, killing several people and wounding others before being taken into custody, Friday, Jan. 6, 2017, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

It was about 1 p.m. Central time Friday when American Airlines Flight 1961 landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida.

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The cabin was full of cruise-goers escaping wintry weather at home and readying for a dayslong glide through 70 degrees of ocean breeze.

But as the plane -- one of several flying the Charlotte, N.C., to Fort Lauderdale leg that day -- reached the eastern coast of the Florida Peninsula, emergency crews on the ground were responding to America's latest mass shooting.

Flight 1961 landed far from its assigned terminal. Passengers' phones buzzed with news of the mayhem they had just landed in, and for the next seven hours they waited on the airplane, not allowed to leave.

[INTERACTIVE: Airport map, traffic details, history of attacks]

From the passenger window, Elaine Wade from Arkansas could see only emergency lights and other stranded planes scattered on the tarmac.

The Fayetteville resident, along with her husband and several friends, had tickets on the Coral Princess cruise ship for a 10-day excursion in the Caribbean Sea.

As they waited, a Fort Lauderdale airport terminal was in chaos. A male passenger from a different flight had taken a gun out of his checked luggage and opened fire in the baggage claim area, killing five people and wounding several others.

Encapsulated on the plane, Wade and her fellow travelers were distanced from the unfolding attack and its immediate aftermath. Police SWAT teams swarmed the airport, and paramedics rushed to aid victims.

Finally, the passengers on Flight 1961 were allowed to leave the plane and were led through the airport. Wade said that's when the news reports she had been reading about on her phone became real.

"Outside the airport was the worst. It was much worse than being stranded on the plane," Wade said in a phone interview Saturday, still rattled from the previous day's events.

Amid the smell of antiseptic used to clean up the gore, the passengers filed past camouflaged armed guards and crowds of people, all with "the look of trauma and fear and shock," silently huddled with their phones around electrical outlets, she said.

Luggage lay strewn about the terminal, abandoned in the moments of panic. A child's suitcase lay beside a dropped cupcake -- just one memorable detail among so many.

"It's just beyond horrific and surreal," Wade said through tears Saturday. "I can't believe this is what America has come to. I just can't.

"Just seeing thousands and thousands upon thousands of people -- no one has any idea of the next step to take," she said. "Probably no one [there] has ever been through anything like this before. And everybody needs transportation, and there's none available. Yet, we've been told that buses will pick us up and transport us to this pier where we can hail a cab. And getting to that next step was just unbelievable frustration. It took hours."

Buses eventually arrived to shuttle people into Fort Lauderdale. They had to weave through a maze of cars abandoned along the interstate and its entrance ramps near the airport.

Fort Lauderdale was oddly calm, Wade said. It was as if news of the killings hadn't yet made it to the city. At her hotel, a wedding was taking place, the hotel staff was as typically professional as ever, and the atmosphere was palpably serene, she said.

"That kind of contrast was so confusing. How does [an airport shooting] happen, when just a few miles down the road, in this hotel, people are celebrating marriage and life," she said. "The contrast was overwhelming."

On Saturday, Wade spoke from aboard the Coral Princess. Its departure had been pushed back because of delays related to the shooting.

She was still shaken, she said. She described feeling guilt when her thoughts turned to the shooting victims.

"I woke up this morning thinking how different I would feel if I just said 'I'm not going,' and stayed [in Florida] and tried to help someone. I don't know what form that help would have been in, but it really doesn't feel right," she said of continuing her trip.

"My thoughts are still with those people."

A Section on 01/08/2017

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