MANILA, Philippines –  Flight delays – they happen all the time. But little did 23-year-old Amira Rose Polack know that her delayed flight from the Los Angeles International Airport would turn deadly.

Polack, a Filipino American, was once based in Manila and recently moved back to the United States after landing a job in Palo Alto, California.

She was scheduled to board Virgin America flight 162 to New Jersey at 8:10 am, on her way back to her alma mater, Princeton, for a fundraising event. She was traveling alone and was at Terminal 3, where she waited quietly between gates 33A and 33B.

“My flight was delayed until 9:10 am,” she said.

If only the plane had left on time. 

As she waited for her delayed trip, a man named Paul Ciancia was dropped off at the airport by a roommate and pulled a rifle out of his bag at a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint. He then began firing at 9:22 am at Terminal 3 . (READ: Shooting reported at LA airport) 

She should have been at least 10,000 feet in the air by that time. Instead she was caught in the middle of the chaos.

“I went to the gate at around 8:40 after getting a coffee from the food court, because that was when my revised boarding time was supposed to be,” Polack explained. Her flight was pushed back once again to 10:30 am, but at that time she didn’t know about it. “If I had known, I would’ve just stayed at the food court and been in the line of fire.”

Survival mode

“I heard a rumbling noise. I didn’t hear the first shots which were apparently fired at the security gate. Then I turned around and saw a stampede of people running away from something and towards my general direction, so I ducked under my seat for cover, then heard popping noises,” Polack said.

Agence France-Presse reported that Ciancia killed TSA agent Gerardo Hernandez. 

LA Mayor Eric Garcetti told reporters that Ciancia had more than 100 rounds of ammunition. “He could have killed everyone,” Garcetti said. (READ: LA gunman charged, planned to kill ‘multiple agents’)

“I remember feeling afraid, under the seat, hearing the shots,” she said. “Then I had to ask myself ‘what was I really afraid of?’ Some gunman? Dying? Was I ready to die?”

But she was able to calm herself down. “It was survival mode,” she told Rappler. “Nothing good really came out of panicking.”

She recalled the ‘pop’ sounds getting louder and louder. “From where I was, it was confusion, while under the seats, I looked at the guy next to me and he was just as scared and confused.”

Then the sounds suddenly stopped. “That’s when I got scared,” Polack said. “Didn’t you see the guy with the gun? Didn’t you hear the gunshots?” she heard the other passengers at the airport saying.

Evacuation 

People rushed to the tarmac on their own before being formally evacuated. LAX arranged for buses to pick them up and they were held for hours in a designated evacuation zone.

“There was a narrow stairway opening to the ground. Someone said the exit had been kicked open. There were people yelling, crying, and panicking, which is why it was dangerous because it was a narrow stairway,” Polack recounted.

“So I got down the stairs and looked at my hands. They were shaking,” she remembered. “Obviously the adrenaline switched on. I just kept on thinking about what to do next.”

Stranded passengers were getting little information directly from airport officials. “We were getting a lot of info from our smartphones,” she said.

Polack was stuck at the airport for 14 hours. Although most passengers at the airport didn’t know each other, Polack said that “people were actually really great and friendly. It was like, ‘well, we’re all in this together, we might as well make the best of it.’”

She also remembers hearing “a lot of Tagalog” being spoken at the airport and said it felt comforting to her.

“My takeaways? I was wondering if I had any regrets or felt I made the right choices and prioritzed correctly with the time I had. I guess you never know what happens. I was thinking the same thing when I was on my way home.”

She still wishes that her flight left on time. “I missed out on serving my school that gave me a bunch of scholarships and seeing my other friends.” – Rappler.com