Courtesy WBOY

Here’s an interesting story for your morning: it appears that a Southwest flight heading to Baltimore from Nashville had to make an emergency landing in Charleston, WV after it lost pressure due to a hole in the plane. All 126 passengers and 5 crew landed safely after a football sized hole was discovered, causing the plane to lose pressure and deploy oxygen masks in the cabin. According to the Washington Post article, “witnesses described the hole that apparently led to the depressurization as about the size of a football and located on the side of the airplane, near the top.”

The Boeing 737-300 is being inspected, as well as all other 737-300s in the Southwest fleet. The passengers were so glad to make it down safely that they hugged the pilot.

Upon hearing this story I had to make the following wisecrack to my friend Maxie (who lives in West Virginia):

Patrick: What’s worse: a hole in your airplane or having to land in West Virginia?
Maxie: hahahaha shut up

Eventually another airplane was dispatched to send the passengers to their final destination, and while they waited at least they got some pizza. According to the CNN report, “airport spokesman Brian Belcher said a local pizzeria provided food for the passengers as they waited.”
I suppose I could put up with a hole on my plane if I got some Pizza out of the deal.

So I have been traveling an awful lot lately and I recently had to take a flight out of BWI instead of my usual airport of choice, Reagan National. Pulling into the garage at BWI I noticed that the facility was wired to show how many spaces were free and where. I was impressed with the lighted sign at the entrance telling you how many free spaces were on each floor- I was shocked to see they even had row indicators to point you directly to free spots. I noticed there were overhead sensors underneath every space that communicates with the garage within seconds of a car parking. When I parked my car I saw the sensor change from green to red- and I saw the number of free spaces shrink by one.

As someone that loves to drive around DC but is not a fan of finding spaces in parking garages; I couldn’t enjoy parking at BWI anymore than I did at that moment. I am absolutely in love with the SmartPark system- and I know I’m not the only one.

I know that the garages in Montgomery County have a similar system but wouldn’t it be great if more garages in the district had this technology?