“Only five minutes before the plane was set to take off, the passenger in seat K65 still refused to go through security. She kept muttering strange things, and everyone thought she was joking—until just five minutes after takeoff, a disaster struck.” The air in JFK’s Terminal 4 was thick with the scent of stale coffee and anxiety. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the December snow swirled violently, threatening to ground the massive steel birds waiting on the tarmac. I checked my watch. 10: