I was flying on Lufthansa from Toronto, Canada to Frankfurt, Germany on a 747.

The
flight was delayed until about 9 PM and was uneventful until around midnight.

I was sitting in the emergency exit row over the starboard wing with two other guys in rows
facing each other.

One of the guys looked out the window and commented that the lights of two planes that
had been flying parallel to us were suddenly getting higher. That seemed odd and I did a
quick calculation and figured out that after 3 hours of a 6 hour flight we had to be at our
cruising altitude and nobody would be going up.

The conclusion then was that we must be going down!

But we would also have been about mid-Atlantic.

About then the captain came on the air and said something in German to the flight
attendants who immediately spread out, one to each emergency row. The one who came to
our row asked if one of the guys could move so she could sit beside the door. As soon as she
sat down she reached for the handle on the door, but when she saw us staring at her she
quickly let go of it and looked embarrassed.

We sat in an awkward silence for another couple of minutes until the captain came back on
the PA, again in German. The flight attendants got up and started to wake up all the
sleeping passengers. When they were finished they resumed their seats by the exits. I
noticed that this time our attendant put her hand back on the lever to open the door - and
didn’t remove it even though we stared at her. She wouldn’t respond to any questions.

Then the captain came back on the PA, this time in English, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are
going to be coming down soon. As soon as the aircraft stops moving the emergency doors
will open and I want everybody to get out of the aircraft as fast as possible so do not take
your carry-on. It will be very cold outside so please put your coats on now.”