Lâcher en ligne et OE sont deux emails que j'avais écrits aux parents de mon épouse. J'ai décidé de les poster un peu plus tard sur ce journal.

Second week of OE--operating experience. The instructor, Steve is a former A4 Marine pilot and earned the callsign "Scary" during his 18 years with the Corps. Since my hire date at Delta, I've yet to meet an instructor or captain who has a civilian background.

Steve is skinny, has round glasses, 2 busted marriages and is a recovered alcoholic. He's been sober for 7 years, he says. Left his second wife because he wanted to quit drinking and she didn't. Met his current girlfriend at an AA meeting. She's been sober 5 years, he adds.

His explanations and briefings are extremely thorough. I'm enjoying flying with him. We'll fly our last round Thursday and if I do well, he'll sign me off and I'll be done with training. Before each flight the First Officer has to do an outside preflight or "walk-around" as we call it. It's pretty easy. You make sure all the panels are closed, there's no evidence of hydraulic or oil leak, and kick the tires. He offers to do the preflight while I stay in the cockpit and program the flight plan, get the clearance, and preflight the overhead panel.

I look out of the window during one of my "cockpit preps" and notice that Steve hides underneath the terminal and lights up a cigarette. At cruising altitude between Salt Lake and Dallas Forth Worth, he tells me he has an addictive personality. His kids, too. They were deep into drugs, even dealing drugs, when he's ex-wife called him from Texas and said she had "lost control.' So he moved his kids to Utah and watches them with the help of his parents.

We have a pressurization problem and have to return to Salt Lake. The airplane is leaking air and we can't maintain control of the cabin pressurization. We start our descent from 25,000 feet but the Rocky Mountains keep us from going below 10,000 feet--the safe altitude to fly unpressurized and not be hypoxic.

The real danger with hypoxia is that it sneaks up on you, just like when you drink alcohol. You feel light headed, even happy, and your judgment is impaired. You can't think and you get too stupid to even put your O2 mask on. Then you pass out. We level at 16,000 feet and watch the gauges. Now we need to prep for an arrival in Salt Lake City, talk to Air Traffic Control, the Company, the flight attendants, the passengers. I make the landing on runway 34R and we swap airplane at the gate.

It's dusk when we take off again. We finally get to the hotel in Dallas after a 16-hour duty day. Steve asks to be switched to a smoking room.

Alcoholism or other forms of addiction are rampant in the airline profession, especially since 9/11. Airline pilots can't tell their companies, the FAA, or flight surgeons about alcohol. They often have to deal with it alone if they want to remain employed. The last 7 years have been tough--for all of us--and some have lost control. Steve, with other pilots at Delta, volunteer to help pilots deal with the disease.

I'm writing this note from my crashpad in Salt Lake. It's 7:30 am and I'm sitting on the patio, the 12,000-foot mountains in the backdrop. I have one day off, not enough to go home and come back. I've decided to go visit Temple Square.

I have much to be thankful for.