Desert Crash(Michael D. Warner) DESERT CRASH
By Michael D. Warner
Copyright 2006 All rights reserved.



PART ONE

January, 1977 Buchanan Field, Northern California.

Hunching against the wind, I planted my feet firmly in front of the nose of the silver airplane. Pulling her prop through several revolutions, I set one blade at the ten o’clock position. Reaching into the cockpit, I switched on the magnetos, cracked the throttle then stepped back to the nose. Tensing my five-foot-eleven well-muscled but thoroughly tired body, I took a deep breath. Grasping the upper blade with both hands, I swung with all my strength. The engine snapped through a compression stroke then roared to life.

I hastened to untie the tail. The prop blast whipped my too-long brown hair across my forehead. Attacking the knot with gloved fingers, I cursed the stiff rope and the delay it was creating. Funny, but just then I remembered my lawyer had recommended a haircut.

Life had been a rat-race. Twenty-two years had passed since dropping out of high school for a four-year hitch in the U.S. Air Force. The recession in which I found myself upon discharge had driven me from job to job. Now, at thirty-eight years of age, I wondered that I had found time to sire five children and often questioned the sanity of a man who had married more than once in order to produce them!

Glancing at my watch, I inhaled deeply. A failed business venture coupled with the too frequent demands of head-hunting attorneys had doomed me to a life of always running-late. I struggled with the knot. My face grew stiff in the icy prop wash.

Holding an airline-transport pilot certificate and having over six-thousand flying hours backing up the skill level it represented, I well knew how haste could be a bad ingredient in aircraft operations. Being an active flight-instructor for more than twelve years, I had preached to each and every one of my students the necessity of taking time to think before allowing pressure to hurry one with one’s duties. Teaching others this rule and actually following it myself seemed two different things. Lately, it seemed my approach was: Go! Get going! Keep going!

Tugging at the knot, I swore to myself again. Adding to the current disarray of my life, my federal criminal trial was set to take place in two days, all the way across the U.S in Gainesville, Florida. The middle district prosecutor would not accept my alibi, nor was I able to substantiate it. You see, a pilot making clandestine flights for his own government often does so without official sanction. “If something happens,” they had told me well before my first flight, “we will be forced to deny all knowledge. We don’t know you and we are not connected to the airplane. You’ll have to live with that, period.”

But the pay was great. The airplanes were well maintained and equipped, and a surge of adrenalin was guaranteed with each flight!

Yeah, I remember thinking: That’s diplomatic crap just in case I get caught in South America or something like that. But no, I had been busted in the state of Florida, USA. A joint task-force made up of seventeen individuals from five different agencies had done their job flawlessly, now it was the prosecutor’s turn, just as simple as that.

Lying on the scorching tarmac, hands cuffed tightly behind my back, I remembered how I had wanted to shout at them: Hey, I’m one of you! But, then again I wasn’t really, was I?

The knot loosened. Casting away the rope, I ran to the cockpit door, forced it open against the icy blast, braced myself, then kicked the chock from the wheel and swung into my seat. I slammed the door then eased forward on the throttle. My thoughts raced to the flight ahead, California-to-Georgia. I had flown the trip each way twice in the antique 1946 Luscombe-8E Silvaire whose limited flight instruments made good flying weather a godsend. I had been relieved when the pilot weather-briefer read me a forecast calling for decent flying conditions all the way to the East coast.

The Luscombe’s modified tanks held twenty-nine gallons, about six-hours fuel, enough to reach my first stop at Barstow-Daggett Field in the Mojave Desert with a comfortable reserve.

Pressing the mike button, I called Ground Control. On my fourth attempt they answered. I taxied between two rows of parked airplanes roped securely under the cold bright sun. Steering with rudder pedal deflection and an occasional tap on a brake, I frowned. Why was my radio volume set to ‘max’ in order to monitor the ground-controller?

Before entering the taxiway, the controller ordered me to: “Hold short!” giving priority to two light-planes approaching from my right. Swearing under my breath, I jammed heels against the worn brake pedals. The ship jerked to a halt as the other aircraft turned onto the taxiway ahead of me. After being cleared to continue, I eased my craft to a lumbering crawl, following the two amateurs for what seemed an eternity before reaching the run-up area for runway four-right. I pulled into the circular run-up apron. Performing a brief engine run-up then checking elevator trim, I switched to the tower frequency. “Seven-Seven-Alpha,” I advised, “ready for take-off, runway four right.” It seemed my delays were not over.

I cranked the tuning knob on the ancient coffee-grinder receiver back and forth, awaiting the reply. The speaker was silent. This Luscombe’s electrical system was powered by a small wind-driven generator mounted on her smooth belly. On the ground the generator’s propeller barely turned. The radio was a fifteen-pound relic crammed full of voltage-sucking vacuum tubes and heavy copper coil transformers. Cursing myself for not having charged the battery earlier, I spun the ship to face the control tower. Adding to my chagrin I watched the two preceding aircraft flying wonderfully away from the field.

Wiggling ailerons and rudder in the time-honored fashion used to catch the tower controller’s eye, I waited another five minutes before that individual shot me the light-signal clearance for take-off. This was an act he would not perform once in three-months of normal operations in this day of modern, well equipped aircraft. Receiving the green light, I taxied forward, turned to line up with the runway center line, shoved open the throttle and began accelerating. My rudder pedals stiffened as velocity increased and I forced her tail up. Seconds later, I eased back on the stick, becoming airborne just abeam the tower.

Climbing to five-hundred feet, I scanned the immediate airspace then began a shallow right turn to the South. The Luscombe banked steeply. Boy, I thought to myself as I began a recovery, all you gotta do is think which way you want to go and this baby does it! I jotted down the departure time and scribbled my ETA for the first check-point. Twenty-minutes had elapsed between engine start and lift off. Thinking again of my tight schedule, I knew somewhere the lost time would have to be made up. Immediate concern was reaching Barstow before six o’clock, the magic hour when the fixed-base operator closed his pumps, turned off the lights and went home. After six, it took a ten-dollar surcharge to persuade the man to return to the field. Not so much the ten bucks, I thought, but a thirty or forty minute crippling delay.

Nosing up through the thin layer of haze, I continued climbing. Looking down, I saw Concord, Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill and other Bay Area communities splashing the brown valley with sub-division houses and shopping centers. Glancing to my left, I saw the snow-capped Sierras, stark against the eastern horizon. Swinging southeast, I banked slightly in my climb to avoid the radio and tv antennas spiking Mt. Diablo’s bald snow-covered peak. Turning back on course, I pointed my nose toward a small town on the horizon just becoming visible. There, I would pick up the divided ribbon of Highway Five leading south to Bakersfield. From there I would swing eastward, crossing the Sierras through their lowest pass.

I scanned as far as possible out each window. Satisfied I was alone, I relaxed and reached for the jar of peanut butter. I ate my sandwich slowly, washing it down with sips of steaming instant coffee brewed beside the over-hot cabin heater outlet.

Time passed. I watched flat farm lands of the San Joaquin valley slide behind. Another frown. Clouds developed. Mist covered the Luscombe’s windshield, dimming my view of the ground and also my view of the weather forecaster. I was forced to fly lower and lower. In a few miles I found myself churning just five-hundred feet above the terrain. Visibility worsened. I tried to keep score reading highway exit signs through my binoculars. As time permitted I recomputed ground speed.

Approaching Bakersfield, I eavesdropped on the approach-control frequency, to determine positions of various inbound aircraft, while gleaning an occasional report on the height of cloud tops in the area. My receiver was working but my transmitter wasn’t putting out. Resetting the throttle, I thought how nice it would be to be flying a fully equipped twin-engine ship, talking to approach-control under radar contact. I checked the time and gritted my teeth. I longed for the simple life, an existence without pressure. Circumstances, maybe fate, had dictated otherwise. I knew I had to climb through that overcast.

I had an advantage. Being an air-traffic-controller, it took only a couple minutes to obtain a mental picture of local area traffic. I decided to sneak through the overcast several miles west of the terminal, well away from approach corridors and the major airways to remain clear of IFR arrivals and departures. I shoved the throttle forward and pulled back on the stick. Nosing up into the dark cloud, I held airspeed at sixty-five miles per hour. I had to rely solely on the scantily equipped instrument panel. I began my repetitive scan, “needle-ball-airspeed-and-altimeter”. Take a breath. Then, “needle-ball-airspeed-and-altimeter”. Rate-of-climb: Three-hundred feet-per-minute. My stomach tightened. For more than fifteen minutes I inhaled deeply, held my breath, then slowly released it. The little ship strained in her climb. I watched the altimeter crawl upward.

Half way through exhaling a breath, the Luscombe popped into bright sunshine. Whew! On top at last, I leveled off then aimed her nose at distant twin bald peaks outlining the mountain pass I would use to traverse the line of mountains. Aiming between the two behemoths, I gazed at the mist-shrouded peaks and valleys. I marvelled at forces which had existed before time of early man, forces swelling the ground, forming massive peaks, curdling and rolling surface features while molten rock cooled. Majestic, I thought, examining the brown ridges that appeared convoluted, remarkably like pictures I had seen of the surface of a human brain. I shoved the throttle foward to begin the next climb.

Munching my second sandwich, I glanced at my watch. It was time to switch fuel tanks. I entered the time in my flight log. According to fuel-consumption data developed from previous flights, I would have forty-two minutes reserve upon arrival at Barstow. No sweat, I thought. After all, I had flown this trip before. Experiencing the typical tailwind eastbound, the flight time to Georgia was about twenty three hours plus refueling delays. Usually, I stopped at Tucumcari, New Mexico for a four-hour nap, snoozing in my sleeping bag under the wing when the weather was nice or curling up in the cockpit when it wasn’t.

I subtracted ten minutes cruising-fuel time to make up for the twenty minute idling-delay time at Concord. This log entry cut my reserve to thirty-two minutes. Adequate, I told myself, taking another bite of sandwich. Still climbing, I began feeling a bit light-headed from the decrease in oxygen. I was now high enough to negotiate the pass. With stick and rudder I fought the mountain turbulence which bounced me in all directions. The Luscombe lurched, shook and battled her way toward the desert. Finally, the stony ridges faded behind. The ship quit bucking. Good, I sighed. I’m past the highest terrain now. Time to start down.

Air smoothed as rugged hills sloped into the western reaches of the flat Mojave Desert. Bleak country rolled slowly past. The vast yellow-brown floor was sharply punctuated by black rock hills, stony ridges scattered aimlessly about. I looked to starboard and spotted a small airport. A squat fuel truck nursed a thirsty twin-engine airplane parked near the terminal building. I logged the check-point and recalculated my ground speed, disappointed to determine I had encountered a headwind. Cursing under my breath, I revised my ETA accordingly.

The airport faded behind. Shadows grew long as the terminator of dusk dimmed the desolate surface. Time passed. The sun sank behind the mountain range. Darkness fell swiftly as glowing stars punctuated the blackness of the sky. I checked my flashlight and placed it on the co-pilot’s seat. My flight path overflew Interstate-40, one of the longest emergency landing strips found in the U.S. Below, I saw headlights of cars and trucks crawling along its surface.

More time passed. I glanced at my watch and felt my stomach tighten. Squinting ahead, just on the horizon I spotted the twin cities of Barstow and Daggett appearing as tiny clusters of glittering jewels clumped on a black velvet carpet. The airport beacon flashed its faint green and white invitation to the Luscombe and me, to come in and land.

I made a shallow turn toward the northeast, aiming directly toward the airport, abandoning security of the black-topped highway. Visibility through the clear desert air seemed infinite yet the field remained far away. “Fifteen minutes,” I told myself, “and they’re gonna close the office. There goes my chance for a nap. Ten bucks and another miserable delay.” Lowering the nose I maintained engine power at cruise setting, possibly saving a scant two minutes by the increase in speed during descent. I saw the altimeter hands pass through seven-thousand feet. The clusters of jewels moved impossibly slowly toward me as my ears popped in the denser, lower altitude air.

Eventually, the green threshold lights of runway-seven appeared. I adjusted pitch-attitude to hold the lights four inches up on my windshield, a device pilots use to ‘aim’ their craft at a runway some distance ahead. Maintaining a track that would intercept a short final leg for runway seven, I hopefully chopped another minute or so from my arrival time. As the altimeter unwound I heard the slipstream whistling shrilly through tiny openings in the airplane’s skin. I urged her to hurry. A quick check of the log revealed my margin for fuel had been cut another fifteen minutes by the unforecast headwind. I was now down to a seventeen-minute reserve.

I glanced at the fuel gauges. Both were bouncing against their pegs below the big red ‘E’. My eyes narrowed. Getting tight, I thought. My mind flashed to other low-fuel situations. Somehow, those trips had ended happily, no damage done except for the addition of a few gray hairs upon my head. Retrimming the elevator control, I hunched forward holding the threshold lights in position on my windshield. The airport crawled slowly toward me.

PAUSE

Pilots see the world from vantage points far removed from those of ground-bound humans. Nearly everyone who has flown professionally for any length of time has experienced the sudden loss of a flying acquaintance, perhaps even a close friend, to an aircraft accident. We mourn for a time but soon return to everyday activities, barely remembering what we had heard of the hereafter during memorial services. “This will never happen to me,” we reassure ourselves. “After all, haven’t I flown for more than nineteen years without so much as scratching an airplane?”

Death? Who can conceive of one’s own demise? One’s personal death is impossible to contemplate. Attempting to imagine such is like someone asking you to describe the concept of ‘nothing’, a situation where all you can do is give that concept ‘existence’ when you attempt to describe it. My own thoughts of the ‘hereafter’ were constrained to vague mind-pictures as influenced by religious text, confused, set aside and certainly untested by experience.

PAUSE

I lifted the microphone to call flight service. “Barstow Radio: Luscombe Seven-Seven-Alfa, ten west, inbound,” I recited.

I wiggled the tuning knob then smiled when they answered. At least my transmitter was working again! When Barstow confirmed the easterly surface wind, I informed them I would land on runway Seven. Barstow then advised that a single-engine Cessna was taxiing out for ‘Seven’. In the far distance I spotted the aircraft’s taxi light and rotating beacon, flashing its red warning as she proceeded westbound toward me, probably along the parallel taxiway.

My flight path had taken me farther and farther from I-40, well outlined by vehicles traveling east and west through the desert night. Passing through three-thousand feet, I continued my descent, checking the chart for contour lines delineating the solid hills of black rock abounding the area. My limbs felt cramped and I longed to get on the ground, to walk and to stretch them.

In the distance I saw radio towers, water tanks, and other man made objects lit with flashing red obstruction lights. But, the black rock hills were unlighted and I exercised extreme caution avoiding them. I glanced again at the altimeter, now reading just below one-thousand feet. I swallowed the last of my coffee. Just as I stowed the cup, my engine quit.

Absolute engine silence. I heard the low whirr of rushing air. The nose dipped as I reached to pull on carburetor heat, realizing as I did so that it takes water to make ice. Carburetor ice is next to impossible to accumulate in dry desert air. In the next motion I grabbed the fuel selector handle and switched tanks. I felt cold sweat upon my brow, I gripped the stick tightly in my hand. I gaped at the runway ahead and wondered that it seemed so close, yet was so far away. The engine roared into life. Heaving a sigh of relief, I realigned the nose with the runway threshold and concentrated on my approach. “Whew. Close call!”

Idling back the engine, I continued my glide toward the runway. I had just tossed my chart into the co-pilot’s seat when the engine quit again. My heart jumped! Again switching tanks, I received a short surge of power, then complete silence. Unlatching the single-stroke fuel primer, I pumped with all my might. Nothing happened. Maintaining best glide speed, I held her nose in position. Rate-of-descent: Four-hundred feet per minute! Fear clinched my gut as I watched green threshold lights move slowly and steadily up the windshield. Despite efforts to jockey the nose, I had to accept the fact that I would never make it to that runway!

Glancing desperately behind my right wing, I saw I-40 now far beyond reach. How I longed to be safe inside one of the rolling vehicles whose headlights shone so brightly through the desert air. Straining to think clearly, I forced myself to focus on the forced landing. From the chart I remembered railroad tracks running beside the airport. I stared ahead, hoping to catch a glimmer of steel in the meager starlight. The tracks were dangerous for a forced landing because power lines and telephone lines always accompany the railroad right-of-way. But, the tracks offered a better chance for survival than slamming head on into a black-rock mountain wall. I flipped on my landing light, hoping to spot the power lines in time to avoid them.

The Luscombe continued descending. I yanked my seat belt tighter and tensed. I knew I was about to crash and I shouted out loud: “You’re going in! Watch for the wires! Watch for the wires! Watch for...”

Suddenly, high-tension lines loomed ahead in the landing light. Too low to zoom over them, I gnashed my teeth and pushed forward on the stick, aiming beneath the singing wires, diving toward the ink-black ground. I held the stick forward with an iron grip. I thought of the thousands of volts sizzling through those ominous lines. The sudden dive tossed my already knotted stomach fifty-feet into the air. I knew the ground had to be close. Everything happened fast. I steeled myself for the crash. I bared my teeth. “Pull up! Pull up!” I screamed. I hauled back on the stick. Instantly, there was a blinding flash of light and a loud noise. BAM!

The flight had ended.



PART TWO

I try to remember what happened? Just what the hell has happened? Then suddenly, I realize that I am dead. No, no, no! Just like that, my life is over. It’s done. I remember the blinding flash of light and the thundering crack of an explosion, the loudest, and now the last, sound I’ve ever heard or ever will hear. I am dead. I feel remorseful for being so stupid as to crash my little ship. Why? I think. Just stupid, is my answer. Now, I’m dead. I haven’t raised my four boys nor my baby daughter, and I’m dead. I’m not there for them anymore. I’m gone. I never have felt this sad. I anguish for a long time. I feel so very, very sad. Time passes.

Then, I feel suddenly surrounded by peace and quiet. Where am I? What’s going on? Serenity enters, bringing me a peace I have never known. All is calm. The night is still. I hear no sound, but there is a sound, a sound of total loving. No, it’s not really a sound. It’s a feeling, but it’s like a sound anyway. I can’t really tell. I don’t know what is going on. What’s going on? I concentrate. I try to focus. I’m confused, bewildered.

Billions of stars burn, brilliant blazes of light, and they all seem nearby. I cannot gaze at them. They are too bright. The ambient temperature is perfect, a blanket wrapping me in security. I feel no pain. I’m not cold and I’m not hot and it doesn’t seem odd to me that time has stopped. It’s like I’m in suspension somewhere. Where? What is going on? I get no answer. All is quiet, peaceful.

So this is what there is to dying, I decide. I think more about that for a moment. I’m peaceful, unafraid and somehow content as I reflect. I feel good about things in general, yet I know sadness too, sad about my kids, and about other things, like projects uncompleted, goals unattained. I wonder that my mind seems clear and that I am no longer angry, nor do I feel pain. My entire being is tranquil. I am filled with equanimity. Gone are apprehensions I have carried forever. Slowly, I begin to understand that everything continues just as always. My life and my actions have not changed the Universe one whit, not one iota. It’s all still there, all of it. How simple that seems!

I ponder that. Yes, everything is just like it always has been and somehow I know all things are right and proper. Everything fits. All is perfect, yet I am puzzled. The concept is so powerful. I am overwhelmed. I cannot form words to describe it, only thoughts, images. All is so logical, so simple. I marvel I have not known this before, but at the same time realize I am only beginning, just now scratching the surface of knowledge. I am going to know ...everything. My spirit swells. I am going to know everything!

Thoughts stream through my consciousness. It seems I have no physical being. The things I “see” are not exactly observed. Instead, I hold images like mental thought-pictures, similar to where one glances at an object then closes his eyes and turns around, still retaining an accurate image of what he has seen, but hardly one which could be described in optical terms. No, it is in my mind. It’s the same as a memory, but not one that has happened in the past. It’s like one that is happening now, yet more like a memory. I don’t see it. I know it.

The sensations are more intense than anything I have ever known. The feelings are mental, beautiful. I am happy, euphoric. I know I am entering an adventure, but one for which I have not completed preparations. Suddenly, I am given to know the following:

“Everything is all right.”

“Everything has always been all right.”

“Everything will always be all right.”

Yes, I think. That is so absolutely correct. I ponder those truths for a time.



PART THREE

Something is gritty in my mouth. Dirt? What’s going on? It’s cold. I’m shivvering. My vision is blurred. I move and it hurts. Ouch! What? Where am I? Oh no, I remember I was just about to crash. Oh, oh damn! My thoughts race. It comes back clearly. I panic. I have to get out of here before she explodes and burns!

I’m lying on my left side still strapped in the seat. My head is pressed against the hard ground. Nothing is in front of me, no instrument panel, no windshield, nor can I see anything of the airplane itself. All is gone except whatever the seat is attached to. The night sky is clear above. I reach to unbuckle my seat belt. My right arm won’t cooperate. I’m scared! My elbow is stiff, frozen, and I feel a sharp pain when I try to move my arm. My left hand and fingers are numb yet somehow, I manage to unfasten the belt and to stagger to my feet. My eyeglasses and my wristwatch have been ripped away. My left shoe is missing. Warm blood runs down my forehead and I feel dizzy. Standing there, I gingerly place my sock clad foot outside onto the firm ground. No sooner than my foot touches, I am knocked back by a jolt that shoots a spasm up my leg. Then, I remember the power lines.

Quaking all over, I tell myself: “This thing’s gonna catch fire. If I stay here, I’m gonna burn. If I try to get out, I’m gonna be electrocuted!” My knees tremble. I have forgotten all about infinite peace and comfort. Gone is total connection with The-Almighty, The-Ultimate, The-Universal-One, The-All, The-Everything, The-Totalness. I pray the pilot’s prayer: “Lord, just get me out of this and I’ll never bother you again.”

Are prayers answered? Is supplication from a human who has placed himself in an inextricable position ever heard? Is there a scheme of things requiring the preservation of one life while rejecting that of another? What right had I to demand divine assistance for a problem created solely by myself? Surely, my miserable existence could never warrant such intervention. I knew that my time had come. I had played out my hand and I had exhausted my ‘second chances'. I trembled.

The portable strobe-light had been perched atop the instrument panel. I could switch it on when approaching tower-controlled airports as required by a new FAA regulation. I caught the faint flicker of that strobe from where it lay some distance from the wreckage. It flashed weakly in widely spaced intervals. Squinting without my eyeglasses, I discerned myriad deadly wires snaking across the cold desert ground. Avoiding the first one, I planted my sock-clad left foot outside the wreckage, raising my arm for balance. Ouch! The arm had a bad bulge midway from shoulder to elbow preventing my lifting it farther than my waist. Again, I felt light headed. Leaning against the remains of the fuselage, I fought to retain balance.

I squinted as the strobe flickered again, raising my other foot. Another flicker, and I found a clear spot in which to place my other foot between wires. I stepped cautiously. My head was swimming. I swayed on my feet.

Fighting to remain conscious, my mind wandered. Curiously disconnected thoughts passed fleetingly, then faded slowly like footprints on a sandy beach beneath breaking waves. I thought I saw a tiny light in the distance. It bobbed toward me. I shook my head. Hallucination, I told myself. Fascinated, I watched the small light bouncing up and down and growing brighter by the minute. I stared dumbly as it approached. Another part of my brain jerked awake. I shook off my confusion. This had to be real!

“Look out for the wires!” I croaked at the top of my voice. “The wires are down. Watch out! High voltage! Don’t touch them!”

The light continued its weaving approach. Seconds later, standing before me in the dim starlight, was the faint outline of a young boy. He aimed the flashlight downward. “Can..can.. I help you, Mister?” trembled his small voice. “Are you hurt?”

I grimaced at him. “Watch out for those wires.”

Suddenly other children were moving about. They handed me objects and called among themselves as I stood and gaped, mumbling my “thank-you” each time I was handed something. Soon, I had possession of my glasses and my wristwatch. My missing shoe followed.

Juan Jerome drew himself to full height and issued orders. The smaller children withdrew while Juan and the eldest girl helped me hobble from the wreckage. The night was quiet as we stumbled across one-quarter mile of desert floor to the small cinder-block and adobe house. Juan’s mother spoke to the children in rapid Spanish, then directed me to lie upon the couch while she telephoned for help. I had gone into shock. I trembled. It was so cold and I felt so light-headed. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t stop my body from quaking.

Only a few minutes earlier, the children had heard the airplane crash, had looked and seen a flash of light. They had taken their dad’s flashlight from the forbidden toolbox on the back porch and had run as fast as their little legs could carry them.

The patrol car arrived first, then the ambulance. Events blurred. I found myself staring into a concerned face. The paramedic gently pressed me down. The shrieking siren partially drowned his words but I knew what he wanted. I was not about to lie back. What I had to say was important.

“Listen, Man!” I exclaimed. “You need to know this: There’s nothing to be afraid of in dying.”

He blinked.

“Really,” I continued. “It doesn’t even hurt.” As my eyes closed, I saw him shrug. Apparently, he was used to accident victims’ babblings.

I knew I had been spared, saved by a half-dozen children, and I had been given a lesson. I knew that through all this I had experienced a time in the hereafter I would carry forever in memory. No longer would I fear death nor dying. Somehow, I knew that the Infinite Mass of Spirit moves in a constant, endless direction, whose souls within are free to roam throughout but at the same time are constrained to move inexorably with the Mass, joining to complete the journey from one end of eternity to the other.

I was rolled on a cart into the emergency room. Nodding sympathetically, the German-accented doctor acknowledged my complaint of pain. He told me: “Der pain ist goot. For, no von ist dying from der pain.” After treating me for shock, he gave me a shot and some pain-killer tablets. In time I was stabilized and released. Only minor injuries were noted in the log.

My trembling subsided. A taxi carried me to a motel. I could barely walk but, forcing one foot in front of the other, I somehow made it into a room. I moaned, lay down, then drifted off into darkness. The following morning I rented a car and drove myself to the crash site, groaning at each bump in the road.

The two FAA inspectors investigating the accident gave me a clean bill of health, impressed no doubt by the careful entries found in my flight log. I filled out gruesome government forms then sold the wrecked ship to an aviation scrap-yard man already there, who happened to be a California highway patrolman in his real job.

After viewing the wreckage, it was hard for me to imagine being alive. The Luscombe’s fuselage from the pilot seat aft to the tail was one section. Still attached, but dangling on two lower engine-mount bolts was the engine. It, the fire-wall and the instrument panel were hinged ninety-degrees toward the belly of the fuselage which lay battered and bent upon her port side. Each wing was a separate grotesquely twisted piece of aluminum. The starboard wing lay just past the pole which had sheared it off. The port wing lay further along the path of the crash, part way upon the railroad track’s gravel bed whose impact had separated it from the fuselage.

Following scars left in the ground, I backtracked from where the ship had finally come to rest, discovering what had happened: After diving beneath the power lines, the Luscombe lost her starboard wing when it struck the telephone pole situated beneath the power lines. The ship had sliced through all the many telephone wires. Then, she had careened into the railroad track embankment shearing her port wing which also carried away the cockpit roof. The forward half of her cockpit split apart before she came to rest on her left side part-way upon the railroad tracks and part-way upon the embankment supporting them.

She had passed cleanly beneath two sets of three-lead, high-tension power lines thirty feet from their ninety-degree intersection prior to striking the lower telephone pole and its hundreds of lines. Had she passed thirty feet to the left, I certainly would have been permanently dead. It turned out the shock I had received to my foot upon first exiting the wreck had been from the jolt of a two-second, one-hundred-fifty volt a/c ‘ring signal’ impressed on one of the telephone wires, painful enough but not normally life-threatening.

Those crowding the scene exhibited reasonable amazement upon learning I was: The Pilot. I think they had been wondering what had happened to the body of the occupant. They never seemed to tire telling me just how lucky I had been in avoiding crashing through the power lines and of not being killed when slamming into the ground.

Lucky? I thought to myself. No, this was not the time to try to tell them about what had really happened to me. As a flight instructor, I knew that in order to learn first one must be receptive. I felt no receptivity in them, just that feeling they had of “..you sure are a lucky so-an’-so.”. I smiled back and nodded. I snapped photos of all the crash scene that I could. The rest would have to remain in memory ...forever.

I completed my transaction of selling the wrecked Luscombe then put the meager check in my pocket. Turning my back on the assemblage, I limped away. Pausing for a moment, I looked to see six children scrambling across the desert toward their home and heard shouts of delight with the souvenirs I had gratefully given. My eyes misted and I swallowed as a lump rose in my throat. I took one last look at the Luscombe’s wreckage, mumbled a prayer, then continued upon my way.


THE END

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