Long-Stem Roses, or About That Time ...

If you live in the United States, those gorgeous long-stem roses you give or receive or buy for yourself were probably cut by hand in a greenhouse in Colombia, trucked to Bogotá’s El Dorado International Airport, flown to Miami International Airport, inspected by Customs and Border Patrol agents for insects and disease, and trucked to your local florist — all in the last 48 hours. 

The $1.5 billion flower industry is one of Colombia’s top exports, behind petroleum products, coffee, gold and copper, and [ahem] illicit substances. 

Which brings me to the story about that time I entered and escaped Colombia, by air, through its biggest airport . . . illegally. 

Our story begins in 1992 when I was ecstatic to be flying the SAAB 340 turboprop at my first airline, the commuter feeder for a major airline based in Memphis, Tennessee. I quickly acquired a taste for low-cost or free airline employee travel benefits, including jumpseat benefits.

Aircraft used in airline operations have an extra seat (sometimes two) in the cockpit, so that a pilot instructor or FAA safety inspector may observe flight operations and pilot performance. When the jumpseat is not occupied for official purposes, airline pilots can hitch a ride, through mutual agreements between pilot unions. 

I decided to use some time off to visit my Colombian family. For a year in high school, I was an AFS foreign exchange student, living with the Vásquez family and attending a Catholic girl’s school. It was there that I cemented my Spanish, learned to dance salsa and merengue, and became enamored with salpicón tropical fruit salad.

Looking through the list of airlines with reciprocal jumpseat agreements, I found an air cargo company that flew regularly between Miami and Bogotá, arriving at a decent daytime hour for my family to meet me. Securing permission to jumpseat on this airline required a letter on company letterhead signed by my chief pilot to verify employment, and photocopies of my company ID and passport, all sent ahead of time via fax. 

For the return trip, I planned to jumpseat on a major U.S. passenger airline, which had a Miami flight departing Bogotá at a decent daytime hour, and so I carried my pilot uniform with me, since at that time that airline required jumpseaters to be in uniform. 

Arriving at the Miami airport, I made my way to the Millon Air office on the cargo ramp for the flight to Bogotá. My documents were reviewed by Millon Air employees, who then asked me to open my suitcase for inspection. That seemed odd, because in all my international travels, belongings were only searched by Customs officials upon entry into a nation, not while exiting. When I inquired about this, they told me they had to be sure I wasn’t smuggling weapons into Colombia. 

Yeah, so . . . the exchange of illicit material and materiel goes both ways, my friends. The U.S. is one of the world’s biggest exporters of armaments and weaponry — large, small, legal, covert, and illegal.

And there was (is) quite a market for weapons in Colombia. Uneven land distribution and consolidation of money and power into the hands of the elite led to the assassination of a liberal politician in 1948, sparking La Violencia. Through the 1970s, wealthy rightwing landowners and politicians, supported by the U.S. government, used the national army to fight leftist guerrilla forces, supported by Cuba and lucrative kidnappings and extortion. 

Then there’s the Colombian marijuana export industry, which was started by American mafiosos in the 1970s and taken over by local drug lords, who in the 1980s expanded it into the very extensive and lucrative illegal drug trade (see: Pablo Escobar). These drug cartels formed their own rightwing paramilitary units and death squads to fight not only other cartels, but also to fight the leftist guerrillas and terrorize the local population. Later, in the 2000s, the Colombian army was well-equipped, thanks to millions and millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in the form of Plan Colombia aid, which was used to half-heartedly fight the drug trade and whole-heartedly fight the leftist guerrillas.

Apart from high-profile kidnappings and a dramatic hostage-taking in Bogotá, the decades-long conflict and extrajudicial killings were mostly carried out in remote rural and mountainous areas, and the vast majority of victims were journalists, leftwing politicians, union organizers, human rights workers, and especially impoverished farmers. There is now a negotiated peace. 

This wasn't the first time I visited a nation torn by violence. I quite naively went to El Salvador in 1982, at the height of their civil war. A story for another time, my friends.

But in 1992, violence did not touch the lives of ordinary Colombians.

I boarded the Colombia-bound DC-8 with the flight crew: A middle-aged polite Captain, a very young and gregarious First Officer, and an older quiet Flight Engineer. I sat in the jumpseat behind the Captain and across from the FE. 

Riding in the jumpseat and watching the crew fly a large four-engine jet was still new and fascinating to me. The two older men fell into mild teasing of the First Officer about his relative youth and inexperience, which he took in good stride since he was quite obviously a more than competent pilot, and, as it turned out, also the company owner’s grandson. So he teased them right back, several times darkly threatening to turn in a fictitious “Grandfather Report”. It was all in good fun. 

After a pleasant flight, we descended towards Colombia’s beautiful mountains, landing at Bogotá’s El Dorado International Airport. We taxied to the cargo ramp, the giant DC-8 taking its place in a long row of huge cargo airliners, noses pointed to a chain link fence and the access road beyond. I descended the air stairs onto the open ramp with the crew, spotted the Vásquez family on the other side of the fence, went through the gate, and was off. 

My Colombian family and I had a great time together, with travel, visits with extended family, friends, parties, aguardiente, dancing, and salpicón fruit salad.

When it was time to leave, I donned my pilot uniform and my family dropped me off at the El Dorado airport terminal so I could catch that passenger airline flight to Miami. All seemed well, until I presented my passport to the Colombian immigration officer. He flipped through the pages, looking at the visas and stamps. 

“Where is your entry stamp?”

And my jaw dropped. That was the first moment I realized . . . I had made a very grave error. 

I stammered some reply, trying to explain . . . But those of you who have traveled abroad know that government officials in any capacity love to wield their power and authority and will rule the day. This guy was not going to just let me leave. Not without that entry stamp. He directed me to the main Immigration offices in downtown Bogotá. 

So I took a taxi downtown and spoke to another immigration official. There was a lot of tsk tsk tsking, and it soon became evident that the matter could only be resolved with many forms, signatures, stamps, fees . . . and I wondered if it might take days. 

Notice what they did NOT do, however. They didn’t arrest me or throw me in jail. They didn’t even confiscate my passport. Maybe it was the pilot uniform and crew ID? Or my Spanish fluency? Or U.S. citizenship? Or they recognized me for a fool? Maybe all of the above.

I sat in the waiting area, silently berating myself for getting into this ridiculous predicament, when the solution suddenly came to me. I gathered my passport and suitcase and took another taxi, back to the airport. To the CARGO side. Because, what comes in has to go out again, right?

The Millon Air receptionist sent me to the Director of Operations. I entered a well-appointed office to find a busy man in a business suit and stern face sitting behind a large desk. I politely asked if there was a flight to Miami leaving that day, and if so, could I please ride jumpseat on it? 

“You’re not a pilot!” he barked. 

“Yes, I am, here is my airline crew ID, pilot license, letter from my chief pilot.”

“You don’t look like a pilot!”

Really? I was dressed like an airline pilot from head to toe, from the absurd black pilot cap with gold band down to the polished black Justin Roper boots that were the height of pilot style at the time. A black men’s business suit with gold stripes, complete with men’s tie, held in place with a gold tie clasp engraved with “Captain Jenny”, a cherished gift from my sisters.

Perhaps he thought I was a flight attendant — less than 3% of airline pilots were women back then. We are commonly mistaken for flight attendants,  still to this day, three decades hence. So I directed his attention to the broad gold stripes on the sleeves of the black uniform jacket. To the gold wings over my left breast. Obviously, I’m a pilot. 

“I still don’t think you’re a pilot!” But now he was having difficulty hiding a smile, so I exaggerated everything. 

“Look at my HAT! It’s a PILOT hat! Why else would I be wearing this HAT?!? . . . And look at these BOOTS! They are PILOT boots!” Lifting my pants leg to better show off the polished boots.

He laughed. I laughed. We shook hands, chatted for a while. He put me on the flight manifest for the next flight to Miami, departing in the evening, and had an escort take me to the cargo ramp, where I was left unsupervised with a shiny DC-8 for several hours.

And that’s how I had the privilege of watching a large cargo jet get loaded with flowers. Lots of flowers. Literally TONS of flowers!

The flower trucks kept zooming up and down the access road on the other side of the chain-link fence, and some stopped and backed into place. Flower workers pulled the long cardboard boxes off the truck, placing them on a chute with rollers that sent the boxes down a long conveyer belt. Ramp workers grabbed the boxes and put them onto pallets, and the pallets were loaded on the plane. I was informed that the flowers had been picked by hand just that afternoon, in the greenhouses dotting the hills around Bogotá. 

Periodically, some National Police officers came by with a German Shepherd dog. I didn’t mention this before, but the National Police are ubiquitous in Colombia, and they are equipped less like the police officers in your home city and more like soldiers going to war: Green fatigues, boots, large guns, sunglasses, stern faces. Did I mention guns? Big machine guns. 

The officer with the German Shepherd let it sniff around. Another officer carried a thin metal pole about a meter long. He jabbed it straight into boxes of flowers — jab jab jab. Same for this box and that one, at random as the boxes came down the conveyer. Then they moved on to the next gate, the next jet. They came by to repeat the process several times during the hours I watched the plane being loaded. 

The viejita serving tinto told me it was to find any drugs that might be hidden among the flowers. Perhaps that was already evident to you, but as I said, I am kind of naive. 

Ah, yes, tinto! In Spain, tinto refers to red wine. In Colombia, sweet café con leche is served at breakfast, even to little children, while in the afternoon, café tinto is coffee served black and hot and strong in tiny espresso cups, with sugar at your option, for adults only. 

The serving lady gave me my little cup, so I sat sipping my tinto, watching the trucks and the flower boxes and the police and the dog and the loaders and the airplanes.

This was just one of at least 20 large widebody jets, all being loaded full of cut flowers, preparing to launch that evening to the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Tons and tons of flowers. Every night. 

Night fell. The flight crew showed up, each carrying a large bouquet of roses and carnations for the women in their lives, a bonus for flying the flower run. We climbed the air stairs to board the plane, settled into the cockpit, the fueler and the rampers came with paperwork for the Captain, shut the doors, and we pushed back. 

You might have noticed what did not happen — again. That’s right, I bypassed the Colombian Immigration authorities, this time on purpose. I escaped.

But there was more drama to come. Bogotá and its airport sit in a valley surrounded by tall mountains. The airport elevation is 2,548 meters or 8,360 feet, and the weather is frequently cool with low clouds and rain. 

Taxiing to the departure runway on a dark drizzly night, pilots can only sense but not see the high terrain hazards around the airport and departure corridor. This being 1992, there was no terrain mapping, no Ground Proximity Warning System, no GPS, no RNAV, no FMS, no magenta line to help with situational awareness and navigating around the tall peaks.

Right before taking the runway for takeoff, the Captain turned around to the Flight Engineer and said something to him that sounded really urgent, but I didn’t catch it. And then we were on the takeoff roll. Power levers forward, engines spooling up, we began moving, and slowly picking up speed. 

Going. Going. Going. Going. I could only watch and wonder as the end of the runway got closer and closer. My ears were straining to hear the callout “V1”, which means we are committed to flight and can no longer safely reject the takeoff, even if an engine fails. Finally the callout came, and after a long pause, “Rotate!” And the Captain pulled back on the control wheel, the nose came up, and looking out the side window, I swear it was just after liftoff that the end of the runway passed beneath us.

The tension among the crew was palpable. A slow climb and series of turns, and finally we climbed above the tallest peaks, which were never visible, and then everyone relaxed. 

We landed in Miami late at night, but right there in the open air on the cargo ramp were U.S. Immigration and Customs officers, who duly checked my passport and suitcase. They found nothing amiss. What do they care about Colombian entry or exit stamps? Nuttin’!

The crew told me they had rooms at a nearby hotel, and I might as well go with them and get a room there, too, since it was so late at night. At the hotel, the Captain made it a point to tell me that they were meeting downstairs for a debrief, and I should join them. Have I mentioned that I am a bit naive? To this new airline pilot, a debrief was just that. Turns out, it is also airline crewmember code for post-flight adult refreshments. 

So that’s how I found myself in the hotel bar, cold beer in hand, with the opportunity to ask the Captain, “What was it you said to the Flight Engineer right before takeoff?”

He said: “I told him we were filled to the gills with flowers, and if after V1 he saw an engine just hiccup, much less quit, he should not wait for me to say anything, but just go ahead and start dumping fuel like a son of a b!tch, because that’s all that would save us.”

And THAT is how you got your long-stem roses for Valentine’s Day, my friends.

And how I had a little adventure as an illegal alien accidentally entering into and making an escape out of Colombia. [Warning: trained professional fool — do not attempt!]

Addenda:

Buying flowers with the Fair Trade Certified seal means that rigorous standards have been met, including safe working conditions, environmental protection, sustainable livelihoods, and Community Development Funds.

A commodities trader once told me that the global economy hinges on the four Cs: Crude, Corn, Copper, and Cocaine, three of which are major exports for Colombia. To this day, the U.S. remains the world’s largest consumer of cocaine.

At the time these events took place, pilots at another major airline had no jumpseat agreements — they could not even ride in their own jumpseats. They later paid good money in contract negotiations to gain this benefit.

Sadly, in 1996, a Millon Air jet filled with flowers and frozen fish burst into flames and crashed after takeoff in Ecuador, killing the flight crew and 20 people on the ground. The company shut down operations. 

Recommended reading:

“News of a Kidnapping”, a nonfiction book by Colombian author and Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez

“Orwell’s Roses” by Rebecca Solnit
 

© 2023 Jenny Beatty. All Rights Reserved. 

Photo credit: Eriks Abzinovs