On Tuesday, March 31 I drove to the airport for my flying lesson. I figured there was a decent chance I’d fly solo for the first time that day. Honestly, I should have soloed a long time ago. Due to scheduling breaks and my below-average knack for flying, it’s taken me a long time to get to this point.
It was a windy day, 13 knots gusting 19, making flying a bit challenging. With my instructor in the plane, I did three very nice touch-and-goes (landings followed by takeoffs without stopping). I was doing well in spite of the wind, and I was feeling good. On the fourth landing, I caught a couple of strong gusts and under-corrected, resulting in a safe but less-than-pretty landing. This prompted my instructor to have me do a few more, rather than go solo at that time. I’m quite thankful for that.
We did a few more touch and goes without incident. As I completed the 7th or 8th takeoff for the day, my happy sense of accomplishment was interrupted by sudden and obvious sputtering of the engine.
We had a real engine failure after takeoff at 100 feet above the ground. This was not a drill. It was a bad situation. My instructor and I both recognized it immediately. We both said “engine failure” into our headsets (or maybe just thought it) at the same time. Immediately he said “Ok. My plane.” which means he’s taking the controls. He adjusted the plane’s pitch to maintain a glide, and decided on a landing point. We had just passed the end of 32L, the runway we took off on, and we’d need 500 feet of altitude to turn 180 degrees back to it. We only had 100 feet, so landing on that runway was not an option. Runway 36 was angling to our right. We were already almost past it. He’d have to make a sharp right turn without power to make that runway. In an instant he chose to do that.
I’ll never forget his voice on the radio “04-Hotel. Engine Failure. Engine Failure. I’m taking 36.” The tower, always calm and always following procedure responded with “04-Hotel. Runway 36. Clear to Land”. Not like we were really asking permission at that point, but we did need the tower to keep any other planes out of our way.
My instructor executed a perfect power-off steep turn, only had time to put on one notch of flaps, compensated for the crosswind we had turned into, and put the plane down quite gently right on 36. He had the training and experience to handle it.
We got a visit from the airport crash-fire-rescue trucks. Once they heard “engine failure” they were on their way. That was more drama than I wanted at that moment.
When the Adrenaline Wore Off
The rest of that day I kept rehearsing what I would have done if I had been on my first solo when that engine failed. It’s a bad situation for any pilot, and I would have had the least experience under which a pilot could possibly find himself in that situation alone. I would not have made the turn and the runway my instructor did. My training was to land straight ahead in that scenario, and that’s what I would have done. That would have meant putting the plane down in a soybean field. I think I would have accomplished that without dying. I had enough training and practice on emergency landings to do that. But it would have been a very scary and dangerous experience. The plane may have been damaged.
That afternoon I had an adrenaline hangover. I felt wiped, and I had lost my nerve to keep flying. I talked with a few friends and fellow pilots, which helped. I called my therapist and got her support and thoughts on my experience that had life-and-death implications. By the end of the day my courage was starting to come back. Over the next few days I talked through the situation with a few more friends and my mentor Greg. I decided I would get back on the horse and not let a bad experience be my last experience flying.
Thoughts and Reflections
A life team is a lifesaver. I am grateful for the key friends, mentors, and professional helpers I could depend on to help me respond to a difficult thing. Isolation is deadly. There’s strength and wisdom in community.
Unexpected things happen, and they’ll continue to happen. The odds of an engine failure in the amount of time I’ve spent flying is less than 0.1%, and it happened. It’s impossible to eliminate all risk. Preparation and experience provide the ability to handle and respond to what happens. My instructor demonstrated that beautifully. There’s a realistic basis for security that comes from being prepared. This applies to all aspects of life – relationships and work. We can proceed with confidence when we know we are prepared to respond appropriately to the unpredictable.
Significant events bring significant emotions. I was wiped out and pessimistic that afternoon. We are not computers. We have primitive and physical responses. If we ignore those, they will continue to affect us long term. If we base our decisions on those, we will make reactive and unwise decisions. Our primitive brains don’t know how to assess risk, especially of rare events. Acknowledge and process emotion, and give yourself appropriate time to stabilize. Decide your course of action with your whole brain, not just the primitive parts.
There’s value in getting back on the horse. There’s no practical reason I need to keep flying, but I think there are good reasons for me to go back out and experience some safe and normal flights. “Never again” is for foolish or destructive things. Getting back on the horse is for good things that sometimes go wrong. There’s a big difference between “I’ll never touch a hot stove again” and “I’ll never trust a close friend again”, but our primitive brains feel the same about both bad experiences: “Don’t go there.”
Maybe we all have good and healthy places we are afraid to “go there” to again. Trusting a friend. Falling in love. Confronting a difficult person. Attempting a business venture. The painful memories stay powerfully present with us.
If there’s good to be pursued, and you are reasonably prepared, get back on the horse. Don’t let good things in life end up on your “never again” list. Reach out to your life team for support, and go for it.
I’ll be back in the sky soon.
