It was a warm day in the spring of 2000, when I went to work on the first day of a pick-up job, flew an airplane for the first time, and nearly died in a would-be fatal crash. I was twenty years old, and my best friend, Jay, was a pilot of a small two-seater Cessna aircraft. An aviation major in college, his father had invested in a Cessna aircraft in hopes of making use of his son’s pilot license to possibly start a new small business. Their family owned a farm and typically had pick-up jobs where they needed extra hands to fill in. On this particular day, my best friend told me his father had some work for us. We simply needed to make the forty-five-minute drive from college back to his hometown for the day. My friend said he needed to keep his flight hours up so we were going to take the Cessna from the local airport and fly it back to the small airport near his hometown.
I was pumped! It was the second time in my life I’d ever been in a small airplane. Our take-off was fantastic. My stomach rolled several times as we climbed higher and leveled off. After a few minutes of flying, my friend went into lecture mode. I was always a sponge for learning new things, and he loved having the chance to stand in the spotlight and be an instructor. So I got my crash course in aviation. After a few minutes of lecture over the controls and panel dials, he allowed me to take the controls. It was fantastic. I flew for a few minutes and followed our heading, watching our speed and altitude as he had shown me. The total flight time was only about ten minutes before we started closing in on our landing zone. I was taking mental notes, and my friend continued instructing as he said,
“Let me take it back now”.
I dropped my hands into my lap and listened on the radio headset as he spoke to the airport traffic controller about our approach. The plane made a large half-circle around the airport to line us up on the runway. Jay began lecturing again, and I eagerly watched the upcoming runway.
“You have to reduce the speed a bit and keep the nose level”. Jay said.
We both stared out the front window with our eyes fixed on the point we thought would make contact a few hundred feet below us. The plane lined up correctly and started down. He continued.
“You typically have to keep your feet on the pedals but you don’t pump them. You just hold it steady. Glance over at the altimeter and gauge your height. Ok, now we have to maintain this speed.”
About forty feet from the ground I noticed that the plane was not exactly aligned with the ground in quite the manner I had assumed. “Not a problem.” I thought. It must have something to do with him correcting his position. The plane didn’t straighten out I noticed and we both got kind of silent for about three seconds as the ground came up faster and faster. I heard the engine rev (for lack of the correct airplane vernacular for “Punching the gas”). The wheel on my side of the plane made contact as the plane picked itself back up off the runway, straightened out, and then landed perfectly.
I heard my friend’s voice over the radio in the same professional tone of an instructor helping to ease the guilt of failing a student.
“Now what you did was, you didn’t use the flaps to straighten it out like I said, as you got closer. That’s why I took control and re-aligned it.” I looked at him puzzled for a few seconds and then sputtered out.
“What I did! What do you mean, ‘what I did’? I wasn’t doing anything. I was listening and watching you!”
“Oh!” Jay said and then he giggled loudly. “I see the problem now. There wasn’t anybody flying the plane!”
This is one of those stories that nobody thinks happened when I tell it. Looking back, despite the laughs, had one second of that landing action been slightly different and it might have been the subject of recounted tears rather than laughter. It’s only when things go awry, do we hone in with the crystal clarity of hindsight to point out what ought to have been easily prevented. Consider the following photograph of the Montparnasse train wreck in 1895.
On discovering they were running late, the train engineer either decided to (or was ordered to) make up for the lost time by increasing the train’s speed and then postponing the normal moment of deploying the air brakes before reaching the terminal. The air brakes failed when they were finally applied. The train crashed through the terminal, across the foyer scattering bystanders everywhere, and then smashed through the terminal building’s outer wall. As bizarre a sight as it is, I doubt it gets quite the same amount of laughter as my Cessna tale.
Many organizations, as part of their safety programs, have procedures for investigating accidents and concluding what they call the ‘root cause’ of the problem. Root-cause-analysis investigations have become a tool employed in everything from manufacturing, laboratory analysis, logistics operations, etc. The list goes on. The goal is always to determine what went wrong and correct any processes involved to prevent such a thing from happening.
Richard I. Cook published a paper entitled, “Why complex systems fail.” One of my takeaways from his writings and speeches is that root-cause-analysis is a misguided endeavor. His theory is that root-cause-analysis results in a way to assign blame to a single cause that resulted in the problem. Cooke argues this is often misguided because it fails to recognize that any system, whether its personnel, logistics, etc. are always composed of smaller systems, not single components or individuals.
What I learn from Cook, the Montparnasse train wreck, and my near-death experience landing a plane, is the following.
It’s not always a single practice, belief, or choice that can lead to a bad outcome. In many cases, you can break that single thing down into smaller systems of religion, politics, and behaviors that have had cumulative effects and influence on the choice made.
That is the crux of it: how to make good decisions, and recognize that many decisions are connected to outcomes I can’t foresee.
I remember this scene from an old episode of the Andy Griffith show (season 2 episode 6). Andy’s young son, Opie has become enamored with the lifestyle and ideology of a hobo (Buddy Epson). As a result, Opie’s attitude toward right and wrong has drifted from his father’s approval. Andy discusses the problem with the hobo.
Hobo:"
“I live the kind of life that other people would just love to live if they only had the courage. Who's to say that the boy would be happier your way or mine? Why not let him decide?”
Andy:
“Nah I'm afraid it don't work that way. You can't let a young'un decide for himself. He'll grab at the first flashy thing with shiny ribbons on it. Then when he finds out there's a hook in it, it's too late. Wrong ideas come packaged with so much glitter it’s hard to convince him that other things might be better in the long run. All a parent can do is say, "wait. Trust me." And try to keep temptation away.”
In that regard, I’m reminded of the notion that the ‘best’ decisions might not be the ones that can give the greatest possible upshot. Perhaps the ‘best’ choices are simply the ones that help prevent catastrophe. Given that mistakes are inevitable, surviving the bad ones with the least possible damage still gives the potential for a better, wiser future. If a shortcut to greatness and happiness causes a permanent mistake then there is no un-crashing that plane.
As an instrument rated private pilot, I could relate! Loved this piece!