(a) After hearing the woman's words, the writer was taken aback since she stated that there was no other plane flying that night, contrary to what she had observed on the radar. This shows that she must have been wrong about there being no other plane around. (b) The writer was also surprised by this strange woman's knowledge of aircraft types and numbers, since she assumed that she was just some random passenger. However, it turns out that the woman was an air traffic controller who managed to snag a job as a flight attendant without any previous experience. She therefore must have been familiar with most modern planes. In conclusion, we can say that the writer was surprised by the woman's words since he thought that there would be more flights flying that night. This shows that he must have been wrong about this fact since there were actually not that many flights roaming across the sky that night.