Falling Successfully

The pilot had walked away unhurt, save for his bruised dignity and dented ego, having undershot the saddle in the mountain by several hundred feet.

I asked a pilot friend, with whom I would be flying over these mountains in a few days, what might have gone wrong.  There was more than mild curiosity behind my question.  My own seat would soon be skimming these snowcaps on my first flight in a small plane, and I needed some assurance of both basic aeronautics and pilot competence.  Bob, in his dispassionate, linear analysis, was eager to deconstruct the mishap into its component parts.  "The pilot did almost everything wrong.  He made a succession of decisions he never should have made, including his approach to the mountain pass."  Bob explained that the model of plane was marginal, at best, to safely clear the 14,000 foot range.  It was normally aspirated, not turbo-charged, and lacked horsepower, so it needed ideal conditions to fly at this altitude.  More telling, however, was the direction the pilot was apparently flying.  Because small aircraft behave like cottonwood spores on the unseen currents of air, and because near mountains, the wind sheer and downdrafts can be severe, the pilot must always factor in the risk of very sudden and strong winds.  That's why a wise pilot will always zigzag his way toward a high pass.  He will fly almost parallel to the range, approaching the pass at an angle.  That way, in the event of sudden loss of altitude, he can sheer off toward the valley, circle around, and try again.  This pilot was flying directly at the pass, and when the plane was not high enough or there was a last-minute down-draft, the pilot had no way to correct.  It was a recipe for death.

"But, I have to give this pilot credit," said Bob.  "His very last decision was exactly right.  It was the best of all the choices he had made that day, and a final decision to be admired even by veteran pilots.  It took guts and skill.  When he saw that he was certain to crash head-on into the mountainside, the pilot, at the last instant, pulled up on the stick, stalling the plane's forward air speed, which caused it to flutter gently to the ground like a falling leaf on the porch."  When his life was on the line, he did the one right thing he could have done, and he walked away to fly another day, a much wiser pilot.

Multiple lessons could be learned from this debacle-turned-parable.  But, among the most important of them would be the life-saving willingness to accept reality with humility.  Sometimes our short-cutting vision runs aground.  There are times when our best skills cannot rescue the mission.  We accept defeat as a reality, with humility, but we don't stop flying!  The last decision we make may save our or someone else's life, or reputation.  Accepting the inevitable without slathering on blame may retain relationships for another flight.  The way we leave the room with our disappointment, or the way we end the tense phone call.  The way we use words with our teenager who has put us in a tight spot.  These are some of the scenarios where reality is hard, but one good choice yet remains.  Be the man.  Though pilot error and uncontrollable forces may have conspired against you, there is still a gutsy, right, life-enhancing decision to make.  At the end of the day, make that last right choice, and live to fly another day.

Roger Thompson is the Senior Pastor at Berean Baptist Church in Burnsville, MN.  Follow Roger's Do the Next Right Thing blog.