Minh Trân gripping hard to the arms of his seat in the main cabin. There was another shock of turbulence, dropping the plane and lifting him weightless from his seat for agonizing seconds. Please, he prayed, get this plane to the ground. Soon.He hated flying. He had ever since his first flight. That day, the helicopter had lurched and bounded as it skimmed treetops, his mother gripping him to her chest so tightly that he labored to breathe, while tracers weaved a pattern in the dusky sky and spent rounds pinged off the thin metal skin of the craft. He was four years old, escaping from his native home on one of the last helicopters out of Danang in 1975. The images and memories remained crystal fresh after all this time, though some he’d only understood years later. But one legacy of that flight required no interpretation—Minh had hated flying and would do so until the day he died.The American Airlines Boeing 787 from Dallas mercifully thudded to a hard landing at SeaTac International Airport.
