Saturday, July 21, 2012

Departing Controlled Flight


The French equivalent of our National Transportation Safety Board released its final report on the crash of Air France flight 447, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris France the night of 31 May to 1 June, 2009.  In that report the Bureau  d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile, found the pilots, although qualified, did not follow the correct procedures and in their mishandling of a simple problem, caused by a design fault, stalled the aircraft, departed controlled flight, and fell from 37,000 feet into the ocean, killing all on board.
There are days I feel like what those pilots must have experienced.  The panic of knowing things are wrong, just not knowing what to do about it, or how to deal with the swirling vortex that is life.  In those times I remember the words of an instructor, “don’t panic - the airplane wants to fly, so controls to neutral, assess the problem and make gentle inputs to return the aircraft to straight and level.”  Isn’t that good advice for life too?  

1 comment:

Jeannette said...

Yes, staying calm enough to assess accurately, when possible, what the problem actually is is a good beginning. "Straight and level" reminds me of the admonition of old..."straight and narrow"...there is a path...oh, to keep our feet on it, or in your parlance, our nose and wings rightly lifted and directed.

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