Question 1

Why do we use había despegado instead of just the preterite despegó here?

Accepted Answer

Había despegado is the past perfect tense (pluscuamperfecto). We use it because the flight taking off happened before another action in the past (the passenger arriving, llegó). If we used the preterite despegó, it would sound like the flight took off at the exact same time she arrived, or right after.

Question 2

Why is ya placed before había despegado? Could I say había ya despegado like in English?

Accepted Answer

No, you cannot separate compound verbs in Spanish. The auxiliary verb (había) and the past participle (despegado) must stay together. Because of this strict rule, adverbs like ya (already) almost always go before the entire verb phrase, unlike in English where we say 'had already taken off'.

Question 3

Is there an easy trick to remember the verb despegar (to take off)?

Accepted Answer

Yes! The base verb pegar means to stick or to glue. When you add the prefix des-, it means the opposite. So, despegar literally means to unstick. For an airplane, it means to unstick from the runway, which is a great way to remember that it means to take off.

Question 4

Why is llegó in the preterite tense and not the imperfect?

Accepted Answer

The passenger's arrival (llegó) is a specific, completed action that happened at a clear point in time. We use the preterite for these definitive timeline events. The imperfect (llegaba) would be used for ongoing background descriptions, like 'she was arriving', rather than the single triggering event of her showing up.

Cuando la pasajera llegó, el vuelo ya había despegado.

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