UPDATE: What's even more fun is being in the middle of a news story when it happens. As we were passing San Francisco International Airport at about 4500 feet on our way up the peninsula, we happened to be being handled on the same Nor-Cal Approach control frequency that was also handling a minor emergency concerning a Northwest DC-10 jet that had taken off from SFO only minutes before. The pilot of the jet was reporting that he was circling over the ocean off the coast, dumping fuel; he was requesting a special landing clearance on runway 28R, the longest runway at SFO.

Turns out, the jet had blown two tires during takeoff. The runway he had used—28R—was closed at that moment as cleanup crews cleared away the debris from the blown tires, and the runway was still closed as the approach center cleared him into a pattern for a long, soft-field-style approach (using a loooong runway and floating down onto it ever so gently, to protect the remaining tires, after dumping fuel to reduce weight, and knuckling over onto the good landing gear as it comes to a stop) to that runway. He came barrelling in over the peninsula just as we, in our little Cessna, buzzed past; the tower had us descend a thousand feet and shuffle on out of the way while they took care of the near-emergency.

Finally, runway 28R was reopened, just as the jet turned to the base leg of the pattern; by that time, he had switched to the SFO tower frequency, and the airport was far enough behind us that we couldn't watch him land. But after we returned from our trip around Northern California and landed at Reid-Hillview, we turned on the radio and the first news item we heard was: "A Northwest Airlines jet out of SFO en route to Tokyo was forced to return to the airport after two of its tires blew out upon takeoff..."

How cool is that?