Robert MacNeil Christie, Author

In aviation, it is all about making the right decisions and executing them with precision and exact timing. From what I have learned about the incident when Captain Sullenberger landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River after a flock of geese took out his engines, the man is a consummate aviator. He rapidly assessed his dire situation and made the best possible choice, which was outside the normal procedure.

Facing Reality

One of the big human tendencies in aviation that gets people killed we call, “get-there-itis.” All sorts of pressures, mostly social, keep some pilots on a course that circumstances demand they abandon. A former FAA weather briefer reported in a webinar having briefed a pilot determined to get to Reno for a Thanksgiving dinner. He was just not listening to her warnings of severe turbulence and thunderstorms along his flight path. The briefer heard his children in the background boarding his airplane. In desperation, she said, “Sir, do you want your children to live?” “What?” She finally had his attention. “Well, if you proceed, they very well may not!” The father’s pilot-ego stood down.

I cannot help but consider the “get-there-itis” syndrome as an ironic metaphor for the present course of humanity toward climate catastrophe and societal collapse. Power elites, in their deep cultural denial, keep insisting we find (wildly inadequate) business-as-usual “solutions” to global warming, which will keep us on that terminal path.

Abort!

On our way to the Negrito airstrip in the Gila National Forest a couple of years ago, the fuel pressure indication began acting up again. I felt that the likely cause was in the fuel pressure sensor. I could not imagine how the fuel pump could cause such high pressure. By the time we were within 20 minutes to our destination, the fuel pressure indication had gone up and back down to normal several times. It was getting disconcerting.

Now, over the remote Gila National Forest, with fewer and fewer roads and meadows appeared below us. I remembered reading of a pilot who had ‘crash landed’ his Glasair Sportsman in the trees and walked away. The Sportsman has a tubular steel cage as its superstructure, similar to that of an Indi racecar, making it relatively “crash-proof” compared to an easily crushable aluminum airframe. That’s nice, but who wants to crash? I had no interest in pushing the boundaries.

When the fuel-pressure indicated over 100 psi, I made my decision. I pressed the ‘Nrst’ button on my GPS, already aware that the nearest airport (TCS) was at Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. I turned to follow the magenta line on my primary flight display, the shortest path to the airport.

Safe Landing

I contemplated for a second the broader irony of the name of my new destination. We landed without incident, beginning a new phase of our “inadvertent adventure.” Rather than risk an engine fire and a 100 octane flaming crash in the forest, we would miss the camp-out. We spent the next few days finding a mechanic, diagnosing the problem, waiting for a $40- sensor, and installing it in about 10 minutes. We took off at dawn the next morning and enjoyed an uneventful flight home, before dangerous thunderstorms built up as forecasted for the afternoon.

Humanity is at a turning point. We must make a major course-change in our unrelenting adventure and achieve a balance with nature. Can we land in a livable climate by drastically changing direction? We have no time left to contemplate that decision since we must act now to abort our flight of fantasy. It may be hard to turn away from the imaginary destiny of our utopian dreams, but we must. The risk has become extreme.