Not What You Want To Hear

"We don't really need that part anyhow."

Said by pilot of my flight from Portland to Minneapolis yesterday after our plane stalled before taxiing.

We were backing away from the gate, just like normal, and all of a sudden everything in the plane went off. The flight attendant was in the middle of the seat buckle explanation and didn't miss a beat. There were no lights, no sounds, no air and no engines....

We sat for a few minutes like that, while the flight attendant continued with the security briefing, and then stuff slowly started to come back on. At one point, they even turned the heat on (although it was already sweltering in the plane). The pilot came on and apologized for the heat, told us that they had to run through their checklist to make sure everything was okay. Seems that while we were backing up, the auxillary power supply that they use to start the engines and air while at the gate (and then usually turn off during flight) cut out and for some unknown reason shut everything down.

After the checklist was complete, we took off like normal. They assured us that the plane was safe and the above quote was mentioned. I thought to myself, "Well at least we don't REALLY need it".

About an hour before we landed in Minneapolis, the pilot came on and informed us that those passengers that were continuing on to La Guardia would be actually changing planes in Minneapolis. Makes me wonder if all wasn't as well as they were trying to play it off as being.

This is the third flight I have taken that I didn't have complete confidence in the aircraft....fortunately, none of the experiences have ended badly.