I Almost Died 40 Years Ago

Click here to read this story on Medium.com

There’s an old joke… When I die, I want to go like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like the passengers in his car.

I never thought it was funny.

It was 1986, and I was in my final year of undergraduate Engineering. My friend Peter and I had collaborated on an engineering design competition and won the eastern Canadian regional top prize, with a light switch that would turn on and off by voice command. Even more exciting, we were invited to a national competition in Montreal the following month.

While I was in university, I had enrolled in private pilot lessons. I once had the dream of becoming a fighter pilot, but I was stymied by imperfect vision and a lack of conflict in Canadian airspace. I had my private license by the time we had to go to Montreal though, so Peter and I decided to have me fly us there. One more layer of adventure on top of the award and trip!

On a cold Sunday morning, Peter and I loaded our circuit board into the back of a Cherokee Warrior for the two-hour trip. Having been taught on Cessnas, I hadn’t flown this model of plane before, and it made Peter a bit nervous. I comforted him, saying, “Don’t worry, these single-engine planes all fly the same. We’ll be fine.”

Other than a lot of cursing while trying to prime the engine to start, the takeoff and trip to Dorval (now Trudeau) Airport were uneventful; I was pretty good at maintaining altitude and following a map. I even let Peter take the controls so I could take a quick snooze. I showed him the autopilot button and nodded off.

An hour later we were approaching Dorval, and I had air traffic control on the radio assigning me runway twenty-four for coming from the south. It was an easy approach, and I lowered the flaps to reduce speed while Peter said, “This was great! You should fly us everywhere!” As we entered final descent at two thousand feet, the plane’s engine sputtered a few times and then shut down completely.

Peter asked, “Are you supposed to turn the engine off now?” I assured him that it was normal procedure while I frantically scanned the dashboard to see what was wrong. There were a series of lights on, some flashing, but it wasn’t apparent what the actual problem was. The number-one cause of flight crashes in private planes is lack of fuel, but glancing at the fuel gauge, I saw it was full.

Just then, there was a burst of static from my headphones and an angry French voice telling me, “Echo Victor Romeo, you are approaching ze wrong runway!”

I looked up and saw a large twenty-four on the runway and replied, “Negative, we’re approaching runway twenty-four.”

He yelled, “You are on twenty-four RIGHT. You were assigned twenty-four LEFT!”

What the fuck? Parallel runways?

I was about to land in mud five hundred feet short of either one, so I turned back to the dashboard and ignored the control tower’s continued stream of invective, breaking out into a sweat.

Wait a second. Did I see a full fuel tank? After a two-hour flight? Going back to the fuel gauge, I saw a second dial at zero, and it was also labeled fuel. There was a knob underneath labeled “L” and “R.” Swearing under my breath, I snapped the switch from L to R, pumped the primer, and restarted the engine on the secondary fuel tank, something I hadn’t had to deal with on Cessnas.

Out loud, I said to Peter, “Oh, looks like I misjudged it. Better turn the engine back on,” while I turned and smiled at him. I hoped he didn’t notice the shadow of the rapidly ascending rerouted 737 behind us. Never let them see you sweat.

I landed safely, taxied to our assigned parking spot, and pretended nothing unusual had happened. As I dealt with a security guard who came running up to the plane, Peter unloaded our project circuit board, and shortly after, we got into a rental car for the drive to McGill University. Peter seemed pensive, which I thought was strange. We’d landed safely, and things were going well.

When we got to the university, we went directly to the design showroom, plugged in our equipment, and did a quick test to make sure everything worked. Peter looked like he was going to be sick. When I said, “Light on,” and the light came on, he suddenly started to laugh. I stared at him, and he said, “Oh my god, I was so nervous. I dropped the circuit board when I was taking it out of the plane. I thought I’d broken it and you were going to kill me when you found out.”

I never said anything to him about the botched landing. Shortly after returning home, I received a letter in the mail stating that I was no longer allowed to fly into Dorval Airport.

I never flew cross-country again, only taking off and landing at the same airport, flying for fun. I gave up flying altogether a few years later.

After all, I want to die peacefully in my sleep.

I write so I can connect with my readers. You can reach me by responding to this email, by commenting on my website, or by responding to the poll below. Thanks for reading!