No Experience Needed

Robert Morgan wasn't even supposed to be at work yesterday. He had agreed to trade shifts with a coworker, and he was outside the Palm Beach International Airport control tower reading a book on his break when the call came in: A passenger in a Cessna Grand Caravan single-engine airplane reported that his pilot was incapacitated and he was attempting to land the plane -- with no flying experience at all.

Morgan, an air traffic controller for 20 years who has also logged more than 1,200 hours as a flight instructor, was the right person for the job. Since he had never flown a Cessna Grand Caravan before, he printed out a photo of the Cessna cockpit so he could identify what the passenger was seeing on his instrument panel.

"I just knew I had to keep him calm, point him to the runway, and tell him how to reduce the power so he could descend to land," Morgan said.

When the passenger radioed air-traffic control a little after noon on Tuesday, he was 9,000 feet in the air some 20 miles east of Boca Raton, Florida, according to controllers in a tower in Fort Pierce. The passenger told the tower he had "no idea how to fly the airplane" or get his bearings, although he was able to identify the coast of Florida in front of the plane.

While the passenger remained calm throughout the ordeal, he reminded controllers on several occasions that he did not know what he was doing: "I have no idea how to stop the airplane," he told them repeatedly. "I don't know how to do anything."

For about five minutes, Morgan coached the passenger to keep the plane stable and begin dropping the altitude: "Try to hold the wings level and see if you can start descending for me," Morgan said. "Push forward on the controls and descend at a very slow rate."

Minutes later, Morgan heard the passenger say, "I'm on the ground. How do I turn this thing off?"

According to JetBlue pilot Justin Dalmolin, what the passenger and Morgan accomplished was nothing short of a miracle: "The level of difficulty that this person had to deal with in terms of having zero flight time to fly and land a single-engine turbine aircraft is absolutely incredible. I remember my first days when I first started flight training: I was white-knuckled and sweating." 

While yesterday's emergency landing certainly falls in the realm of don't-try-this-at-home, how much time do you spend pondering the risks rather than stepping forward in faith? How many of us sidestep new experiences so we can avoid the discomfort of feeling ill-prepared, uneducated, or even foolish?

As you move through your week, let Psalm 121 be the meditation of your days, whether your risk is a phone call you've put off or -- God forbid -- a cockpit 9,000 feet above the shoreline:

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—

    where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you—
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm—
    he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
    both now and forevermore.

May you be Holy Spirit-bold this week,

Jennie