People do make the news – in this case, the pilot made the news in my heart. The story relates to problems with Barack Obama’s plane having mechanical problems last month. An evacuation slide inflated in the tail causing the pilot to lose control of the “up/down” of his plane.
I got goose bumps as I read the pilot’s response to ATC when asked how many were on board:
“Fifty one souls on board” – that touched me so deeply. Not “the senator and wife and 49 others” but 51 souls on board.
I’d like to meet this man and shake his hand.
Wayne flew (private) and had 2 incidents in all the years. One was at Calgary when ATC said to veer left immediately – it’s really freaky to hear your plane’s ID called out and in a split second know trouble was brewing. (In this case, we had been cleared for take off too soon, a large jet was landing too close to us.)
Another time, Wayne flew over the house to “say goodbye” to the boys and I – we always stood in the back yard and he’d make a circle over the house so we could wave “bye” to Daddy. One particular time. I saw a ribbon of color falling from plane toward earth. Fuel? No tower in our town so I called the RCMP who contacted the nearest ATC – turns out there was a pin hole leak. Took sometime finding the problem but thank goodness for “goodbyes”.
I can relate to your scary times related to flying.
My husband always had an airplane until he became a diabetic and lost his license. He had to make emergency landings two different times due to a malfunction and I’ll always remember the phone calls.
The first time him and a friend were test flying a plane when the engine quit, they were trying to land on an old road and as they were coming down were able to send in a “Mayday” and their location, the girl on the other end gave them landing instructions and my husband being fairly excited by the impending landing did not respond too nicely. They landed without any damage but then faced about a 10 mile walk back to civilization, they didn’t have to finish walking out because they were met with the fire department, ambulance and all the rest. After some repairs they were able to take off again a couple of days later.
The second time a friend and him were each flying different aircraft and his engine quit, he quickly found an abandoned road along a river and managed to land, this time he twisted up the propeller and did some other damage because there were big rocks everywhere…as luck would have it he didn’t get hurt and was fairly close to a public beach. When the police arrived they asked for his drivers license of all things! That time the airplane had to get hauled home on a flatbed trailer.
Does Wayne still remember about flying and airplanes? If he does my husband could sure share some exciting stories with him.
Mandy
Mandy, thanks for commenting. Sometimes Wayne remembers and other times he says:
“I may have flown but it’s a long time ago so not sure I remember”.
BC is a very dangerous world to fly in.
Oh, Jean, my Dad was a private pilot, too. And right now he remembers very well. Sometimes he tells me of his plans to “get current” on his license and start flying again. Breaks my heart. I just tell him, “Oh, well, you know the cost of fuel these days…” That gets him off on a tangent about the high price of gas!
(And AWAY from the dangerous topic of getting his driver’s license back!)
Some dear family friends took my folks cross-country in their small private jet recently, and Dad got to sit in the cockpit. He loved it, and the memory of the experience stuck with him for awhile.
Praying for you and W.
Love, Laura
Thank you for sharing these stories and yes I too would like to have met that pilot:)
Interesting stories. He was a very capable man. We sometimes never know about our “close-calls”, thank goodness!
Wow! Those were close calls! Sometimes my Chris talks about being a pilot and I am torn between admiration and FEAR! That is sweet that W would fly over the house to say goodbye.