United flight 2127 safely returned to Los Angeles to address an issue with one of the engines," United said. Sony Pictures Classics is known for its high-end Oscar dramas, but the studio’s co-founder Tom Bernard was caught in some high-altitude drama on his way back from the SAG awards.
Bernard boarded United Airlines Flight 2127 on Monday to Newark, NJ, after he and his Sony Classics co-head Michael Barker were honored by the African American Film Critics Association over the weekend. (They’d also supported best actor Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke for “Blue Moon” at the Actor Awards.)
An unexpected plot twist occurred when Bernard’s plane made an emergency landing with an engine on fire — and the exec was even helped by an Oscar-nominated filmmaker.
Bernard told Page Six Hollywood he was on the flight home when, “after a loud clunker noise, the pilot said ‘got a little engine problem,’” but as the plane turned back, “you could see fire was coming out of the engine from the window.”
That’s when, “The guy next to me was writing a farewell note to his family… it looked bleak.”
Lydia Berry — co-founder of social media agency @darlington with clients including Sofia Richie, Miranda Kerr and Megan Roup — was also aboard, and said that when she saw the engine “spurting out flame” through a window she started, “panic texting her boyfriend… ‘engine on fire, something’s wrong.’”
On the fiery flight, “I wasn’t scared,” Bernard said. “It was kind of like being in a movie. It was a big plane… and the flames were happening while we were flying. I kind of focused on what to do if we didn’t blow up. I always have a positive attitude.”
When the plane made it back to LAX, stopping in the middle of a runway, “a couple ladies raced up the aisle screaming, ‘Open the doors!’” Bernard related. “[The] flight attendants got them to sit down… then three minutes later the attendants screamed, ‘Get off the plane!’”
Berry said via TikTok that when the engine started “billowing with smoke” on the ground, flight attendants tried to keep passengers calm. “Then, all of a sudden, ‘Evacuate! Evacuate! Leave your stuff! Use the slides! Go, go go!’ Everybody is, like trampling over each other,” she reported.
Bernard said, “I had two seconds to sort out a landing plan then jumped on, and [it] went faster than a water slide but the pool was cement. The slide was very steep so your were crashing into the ground… a lot of people hurt their hands trying to stop.”
The film exec added he, “choose to hit with my back and tried to roll to the right, but I didn’t roll very far and I knew bodies were coming hard, seconds behind me. I think there were fireman screaming, ‘Run away from the plane!’ I just couldn’t right myself fast enough so people started hitting me… I guess I broke their falls. You could see that on the video from the news.”
Luckily, “a guy I was friendly with — we had been chatting while the plane was boarding — who has a documentary film up for an Oscar came over and helped me… I had a recent knee replacement and couldn’t get up fast enough to get out of the way, so every time I almost got up, I got hit. Sam Bisbee pulled me to the side so I could get up and get away.”
(Bisbee’s Netflix film, “The Perfect Neighbor,” is hotly tipped to win best doc at the upcoming Academy Awards.)
Bernard said, “Some fireman wrote the number 9 in pen on my arm,” adding he could, “choose to go the the hospital for medical attention.” But as any good studio exec would, Bernard called a sawbones on the Sony lot to tell him about his condition, and decided to tough it out till he got back home.
The film distributor and his new buddy, Bisbee, “grabbed some United lounge food” together, and “tried to figure out what United was going to do next,” Bernard said. “They said there were going through the plane and grabbing all the overhead luggage and stuff at your seat, putting it in a bag with your seat number and spreading it out all over the floor in the lounge. People went crazy looking for their stuff. I got lucky [and] saw the girl who was sitting across the aisle from me had just found her bag… so I found my iPad.”
That’s when, “United said they would book all [who] wanted to go a seat on a 6 p.m. plane… Sam and I took the bait and said, ‘Let’s get outta here!’” Bernard said of Bisbee: “Sam was the best.”
Berry told us that United gave her a refund for the flight plus a $15 meal voucher, and later emailed her with the offer of a $125 travel voucher or 6,000 miles. “Do with that what you will,” she quipped. After the ordeal she posted video of herself arriving in Barcelona, Spain, with the caption, “1 engine fire, 4 hours trying to find my luggage, 3 flights and 30 hours later… WE MADE IT.”
United told P6H when we reached out, “United flight 2127 safely returned to Los Angeles to address a possible engine fire. Customers deplaned via slides and airstairs and were bused to the terminal. We are grateful to our pilots and flight attendants for their quick actions to keep our customers safe.”
