The Flight
There was a time in my business career that I traveled some for business. One of those times, the insurance company I worked for was considering acquiring a block of business from John Deere. John Deere, like most companies of that era, had looked to expand from sales and service of farm equipment and somehow acquired this block of supplementary military discharged medical coverage (whew, a lot of words but it would have taken more to explain CHAMPUS supplementary insurance). Now, they wanted to sell it.
My company was in Madison, Wisconsin, and the acquisition’s office was in Jacksonville, Illinois. This means that there is no efficient way to get from one place to the other. The company decided to charter a plane to take the four of us down there for the day. I know you are picturing some swanky private jet but this was a single prop plane that held three passengers with the co-pilots seat open for the fourth passenger.
On the way up, I sat in the back with the other two passengers. We got there and went right to work reviewing the financial information to do our due diligence of the deal and the viability of the block of business. It was a long day of work.
At the end of the day, I volunteered to sit next to the pilot on the flight home. I jokingly asked him what he would do if I started messing with the controls. With one of the most serious faces, he replied that he would have to incapacitate me as he had been trained. I decided not to test his resolve or ability.
Being next to the pilot, I had three “advantages” that my fellow travelers did not have - I could see the controls, buttons and levers the pilot pushed; I could hear his side of his conversation with the airport tower; and I could see the landscape as the plane descended (I know I saw the lake near our office). Anyway, we seemed to fly beyond the airport slightly and made a gentle turn back. He relayed to us the safety procedures in case of an emergency in a very “I have to do this manner.” I heard the pilot relay our position to the tower and then saw him turn a crank and push three levers. Two of the indicator lights above the levers turned green but, unfortunately, the third remained red.
At this point, he relayed the safety procedures in case of an emergency in a “you need to know this,” commanding voice. He spoke with the tower. I started gripping the side of my seat. He told us that the light indicating that the landing gear was locked into place was not confirming it being locked. He told us that we were going to do a fly by the tower and they’d tell us whether all three landing gears were down or not.
We flew by the tower. In his same “you need to know this tone,” he reminded us of the safety procedures in case of an emergency. Then he told us that the tower had seen all three wheels down but they had no way of knowing whether that third wheel was locked into place or not. I griped the seat so tight, that I am sure I was leaving finger nail prints in the seat.
He told us that we were going to do a touch and go. This is a procedure where you land just enough for the wheels to touch the runway and give it gas to take off again. He explained the emergency safety procedures once more. he pilot tried the touch and go and the landing gear didn’t collapse. He reminded us of the safety procedures one last time and told us we were going to land.
As we approached the runway, my boss, who was sitting behind me, probably saw how hard I was clawing the seat, leaned forward and suggested that they must not be too worried because we couldn’t see any emergency equipment on the runway. We landed and we didn’t get 100 feet down the runway before all the emergency vehicles the airport had converged on our plane as we slowed down.
When the plane came to a stop, (and this is a true story including this part), the pilot flicked the indicator light with his finger… and it turned green.
“The seven years of plenty that occurred in the land of Egypt came to an end, and the seven years of famine began to come, as Joseph had said. There was famine in all lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread. Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph. What he says to you, do.” So when the famine had spread over all the land, Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe in the land of Egypt. Moreover, all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth.” - Genesis 41:53-57 ESV
As scary as my private plane flying experience was, I’ve flown many times since then. I had a choice to be paralyzed by fear of face that fear knowing God is in control and has a plan.
