The Right Hands on the Controls

I've tried A, I've tried B. Tell me what else I can try! The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe (1979)


Trigger warning - if you are a white knuckle flier, this blog is not for you.

Not everyone has the temperament or training to respond correctly in an emergency situation. Certainly history books are full of hair-raising moments that ended with "Well, shit" followed by a very loud noise.

Two situations I learned of this week described the better of outcomes, the steely-eyed pilot seizing victory from the jaws of bent aluminum. The captains of the respective planes could not have been more different, or more alike.



Seventeen year-old Maggie Taraska departed the Beverly Regional Airport on a training flight. She was alone in the airplane, a student pilot. The airplane took off normally... Okay, it took off but left the right main landing gear behind. At the airport. On the runway. One can hear in her voice (video attached) that she is initially rattled. Well, who wouldn't be?

Aviate, navigate, communicate. Pilots are trained to fly the airplane, come what may. Sounds simple, until... Well, the landing gear falls off and you are alone at the controls of a sick plane. With a little help from her friends she gets the plane down, walks away and says later "You've got to have confidence in yourself to be a pilot."

On the other side of the world, in 2008, a Qantas A-330 airliner with 315 people aboard experiences an "uncommanded maneuver." In non-pilot English (being a non-pilot myself I usually need translation software) that means the airplane did something the pilots did not ask it to do. A nearly negative one G dive ensued, injuring 119 people, eleven of them seriously. The pilots regained control, only to have the airplane repeat the maneuver.

The captain later reported "There wasn't anything in our flight manuals that told us what to do." So, he and his crew improvised solutions, ignored the bleating and screaming of their fault detection software and flew the airplane. Unsure if the bizarre behavior of their aircraft would repeat itself too close to the ground to recover, the captain ordered an unusual maneuver he'd learned as a fighter pilot.

"Well," the Captain observed dryly to his cockpit crew mates as they wrestled with the beast. "I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue."



Google the line if you don't recognize it.

Two cool customers. Two safe landings. 

Long, Painful Years Ago

Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.

George R.R. Martin

Sitting at my desk in the early 2010s - unusual enough, I should have been out on the bike - the police officer assigned to our reception area called. He had a question.

"A woman just walked in to make a report of a sexual assault. It happened some time in the 1980s. What do you want me to do?"

It happens. Not often, and for a variety of reasons. At the point someone comes to the station to report that they have been the victim of a crime, our role is an easy one.

We take the report. We accept, in good faith, that the reporting person is giving us their truth. We take it down just the way he or she tells it. Judging their motives, their credibility - not our job...yet. They have a story to tell. We listen.

But, someone is saying as they read this, there is no chance this case will be prosecuted successfully. The statute of limitations. The... Everything!

We train our officers (who we call "agents") to be empathetic, but we are human beings. The reputation of law enforcement, that the first question we will ask is "What were you wearing," is not without some merit. But, that's not how our people are supposed to act.

At some point, though, there will be the gentle, almost apologetic discussion of reality with the person who has shown the bravery required to tell a stranger in uniform about the worst day in their lives. The case will be assigned to a detective. If the person he/she named as their assailant can be reached we will consider sitting down with them. If that person refuses to meet with us, or denies it happened...

Experts on human recollection, especially of traumatic events, teach that this is a tricky business. We are taught the limitations of perception and memory in the police academy. Experience also tells us that truth is elusive where facts are hard to come by.

At the end of the day the criminal justice system does not have many answers for someone who reports a crime thirty years after it happened. There are services we can provide - counseling, for example, from people trained in the trauma field. Sometimes, the mere fact of the report is enough for the victim.

Not all of these reports are genuine, or truthful. My first encounter with the arrest of an alleged sexual assault suspect turned out to be a "contract dispute." Some lonely businessman from Kansas (I think - this was 1980) encountered a young lady at a bar. They agreed on a price for her serves and repaired to his hotel room. At some point, there was a difference of recollection and he paid her what had been originally agreed to. She left, returning with a "friend" who also happened to be a cop.

But, at the beginning of the investigation, we began with the premise that she was telling us the truth. It's what everyone deserves.

The determination of credibility, of veracity, is left for later. Other facts are collected, other viewpoints considered. Sometimes, the truth is regrettably elusive to the unbiased mind. In the end, the best we can sometimes do is take their report, treat them with respect and wish them well.

Because they are human beings.