Passenger tells of ordeal

JetBlue flight 292 passenger David Reinitz ripped a page from a

magazine as the plane prepared to make an emergency landing at Los

Angeles International Airport Wednesday and wrote out his will.

Once Reinitz saw a close-up of the plane’s twisted front wheel on

an on-board television Wednesday, he decided that was the time to

tell girlfriend Barbara Holliday how he felt about her.

“That was the moment when I no longer felt self-conscience to tell

my girlfriend that I love her on a videotape on a plane,” the Burbank

resident said. “To get to that point, I had never been there before.”

One of the 140 passengers aboard the flight bound for New York

City, Reinitz became emotional when recounting the incident that

riveted people to televisions nationwide Wednesday evening.

“A lot of my thoughts were with Barb and my mother and how hard it

would be to sit there and watch that plane knowing I was on it,”

Reinitz said.

Holliday, however, was not aware of what happened with Reinitz’s

flight until the drama was almost over. She reached Reinitz on his

cell phone just as the plane was touching down, Holliday said.

“When I realized he was on that plane, I hadn’t seen any of the

[television] footage,” said Holliday, who is a comedienne and a

comedy show producer. “I didn’t freak out as bad as if I had been

sitting at home.”

Twenty-four hours after that harrowing experience, Reinitz

appeared on stage at a comedy club in Pasadena.

His heart, however, wasn’t entirely in it.

“Can I go out and do my routine? I don’t know if that is where I

am at right now,” Reinitz said while sitting a patio area of the Ice

House comedy club. “It will be hard to get up there and do a bit on

vegetarian oatmeal cookies.”

Holliday, recalled that one of the best shows Reinitz ever did was

following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because he addressed

the national event.

“When he gets up on stage tonight he has to say, ‘Hey, I’m the guy

who was on the plane,’” Holliday said. “Otherwise they are thinking

it in their heads and if you don’t say it it’s like you are not

really in his presence.”

Reinitz was aboard the New York City-bound flight to work on a

documentary about a mural being painted on a four-story building in

Brooklyn.

Among his carry-on baggage was a video camera he used to

discretely document what was going on inside the plane as it circled

above Los Angeles. He later sold that footage to NBC.

He was conflicted in wanting to use the camera because he didn’t

want to come off as invading the privacy of the other passengers, he

said.

“I didn’t want to excite the people around me,” Reinitz said. “The

women behind me were upset and crying. It was an excitable situation

and I didn’t want to make it worse.”

Reinitz drifted off to sleep after take-off and said he was among

the last passengers to know there was trouble with the jet.

Among his immediate reactions was whether he would have to change

planes and if he would be able to make it to New York on time,

Reinitz said.

But as the plane continued to circle and its fate remained up in

the air, his reaction changed. He ripped out a page from a magazine

to write out his will. He and the passenger next to him made video

taped messages to their loved ones.

“There was no big bang, there was no real pain; it was all in one

piece,” Reinitz said of the landing. “One person cheered and then

everybody else cheered.”