From the cockpit to the Chevy

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I’ve flown a lot of miles over the years. I know delays. I know mechanical issues. I know the gate agents’ sighs and the pilots’ clipped announcements.

But Friday night into Saturday morning? This was something new. This was a botched return flight home promising no certainty of success. This was the rattled recipe that mixed four strangers, a red Chevy Impala and a busted Boeing 717 to form a brotherhood by highway.

It started innocently enough — if “innocent” can describe a blinking engine warning light in the cockpit for the second time in a week for me on a business flight. I had already dealt with the same issue four days earlier flying up to the Twin Cities from Kansas City. That time, the pilots said the alert was likely spurious, but still enough to send us back to the gate for two hours before we finally took off.

So when the same scene played out again Friday night, I had a sinking sense of déjà vu. Same problem. Could this be the same plane? I have no way to know. But the cynic in me still wonders.

For nearly three hours, the airline tried to get the thing airborne. They swapped parts. Scoured the tarmac at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for a replacement plane. Played the aviation version of duct tape and a prayer. But just before 1 a.m., they canceled the flight.

Our phones beeped and buzzed with multiple messages from the airline about a Saturday rebooking. But those messages offered ever-changing times. No clarity. No courtesy. No confidence.

That’s when I met my new crew.

One guy — calm, confident, already in motion — had just flown back commercial after piloting a private jet to Grand Cayman. Another was a utility lineman, the kind of guy you want around when the weather turns sideways and the power goes out.

The third was a self-described “jack of all trades” with a hardhat clipped to his backpack — a contractor who works in big food-processing plants across the country. He installs and fixes equipment that keeps grocery shelves stocked and families fed. He already had a rental car lined up when we met him as we all stepped briskly away from the airport gate, backpacks over shoulders and roll-ons in tow.

And then there was me — a journalist and marketer, more used to reporting on chaos than living it.

We didn’t hold a vote. No big discussion. Just a few exchanged glances, mutual nods and off we went in that Avis-issued Impala. Four strangers. One mission: Home.

We rotated driving duties through the long, dark stretch from Minnesota to Missouri. No one slept much. A few brief nod-offs here and there, heads tilted against windows or jackets bunched as makeshift pillows. But mostly, it was coffee and energy drinks, shared stories, the Pandora country playlist of the “jack of all trades” — and the kind of camaraderie that only comes from a shared need and no good alternative but to do it ourselves.

You learn something on a night like that. You learn that teamwork doesn’t require resumes or LinkedIn profiles or even shared politics. It just takes necessity, humility and mutual respect.

I don’t know if the four of us would be friends in our regular lives. I don’t know if we’ll ever see each other again. But I do know this: when something breaks down — be it a plane engine, a schedule or a carefully planned return home — it’s still possible for people to come together, adapt and get the job done.

The jack-of-all-trades’ employer covered the rental. My company is only out one large cup of coffee to fuel my turn behind the wheel. No harm done — unless you count our bloodshot eyes as we watched the sun rise over I-35, hair sideways or tucked under ball caps.

We live in a world that thrives on division. Politics, tribes, algorithms, headlines and more constantly remind us what separates us. But that night, cramped in the glow of dash lights, crossing the country by Chevy to the strains of Chris Stapleton and Luke Combs, none of it mattered. We weren’t a pilot, a lineman, a repairman and a journalist. We were four guys who needed to get home.

And we did.

Rob Karwath is vice president of the AIMCLEAR marketing agency, based in Duluth and St. Paul. He is a former reporter, editor and business executive at news organizations in Chicago and Duluth. He lives in Kansas City.