(CNN) -- As most of you already know my wife, my son and I were on "that plane" on Christmas Day. We had ringside seats. In order to keep myself from going crazy (repeating everything about everything over and over again) I am writing this e-mail. The therapeutic value of writing things down and staring at the words over and over again after such an event should also not be overlooked.
Please, that definitely does NOT mean that you can't come by and say hi, ask how we are doing, ask other questions or just stare at one of the luckiest persons you'll ever know. Stop by if you wish, any time. The only thing you are absolutely forbidden to ask me about is work.
So, here goes.
The most important thing:
My family and I are still here and so are 275 other people -- so it didn't turn out so badly after all.
The facts:
The guy was on the left side of the plane, window seat, aisle 19. We were two rows back and I was four seats, plus an aisle, sideways from the guy. My son was next to me (on the aisle) and my wife was across the aisle from him.
About 15 minutes before landing -- tray tables up, chairs forward, strapped in -- most everyone heard a pop, very much like a New Year's Eve popper. I immediately poked my head up. I thought the sound had come from ahead of me but I saw a flight attendant standing in our aisle about four or five rows up looking straight across to the other side of the plane. Her eyes were wide open staring over in what proved to be the generally correct direction.
I watched her and looked around for people who might be looking back or over towards a particular location. But neither the flight attendant, presumably, nor I could locate the origin of the pop and a lot of people weren't staring towards one particular area of the plane.
She gave up, presumably, and continued down the aisle. I slumped back into my chair. I then was thinking that it was a child with a balloon or some not-very-intelligent person popping a bag. It had been a good 10 or so seconds since the pop.
Some people over on the other side of the plane suddenly started yelling "fire" and "smoke." My head popped up again. I could see smoke -- not a lot -- rising from a set of two window/aisle chairs on the opposite side of the plane a couple rows up. I could see an orange reflection -- no flames -- low on the cabin walls. People were yelling for water.
After a short time I unbuckled my belt, stood up and stared over at aisle 19, the left window seat. There was one person to stare at because his neighbor had fled. People continued yelling "fire" and "water." People around the guy, and others who had water, started pouring water on his lap and the seat. The flight attendants started yelling for fire extinguishers. The fire continued but always was just a reflection off the cabin walls. Once or twice I looked up at the smoke -- it was never more then a small smoke trail rising up from the area and spreading out over a few rows in each direction. I could just barely smell the smoke.
Before the fire extinguishers arrived, a fellow on our side of the plane, about three rows up in a window seat, jumped out of his seat and over the middle four seats towards the suspect. He grabbed at the suspect and after a very short period of time had dragged him out of his seat to the floor. Less than a minute after the initial pop, two flight attendants ran up the aisle with fire extinguishers and doused the seat and presumably the suspect. The fire and smoke were gone at this point.
The suspect was dragged up to the first-class section by the guy from our side of the plane. We did not see the suspect again until he was removed by police after landing. We clapped twice during the flight. Once when the guy from our side of the plane came back to sit down and again when we landed.
My recollections may not exactly correspond to others that you may have heard or read -- a person can only watch and record so many things in a short period of time and different aspects of an event are more or less important to different people. I would say that my recollections are very accurate as far as the smoke, the fire and the suspect are concerned.
