One Broken Airplane Wheel

There are so many things in life that seem important until we face a real emergency.  Knowing that you are about to die has a way of bringing into focus the things that truly matter.  The story of my friend Alan will explain what I mean.   Alan was a pilot, and he loved to take friends and family flying in his little Cessna airplane.  I will try to tell the story in such a way as to catch the emotions that we know he experienced.

Alan took his two oldest kids for an airplane ride leaving his two younger kids with his wife at home.  This was nothing new, and it seemed like this would be similar to all the other flights until it came time to land.  Many pilots have told me that landing an airplane is the hard part about flying because of the speed, the air is more turbulent near the ground, and because there is no room for error as the altitude drops.  On this day as Alan flipped the switch to lower the landing gear the wheel didn't move.

Airplane wheels are tucked inside the body of the plane during flight to give the plane more aerodynamics, and to reduce the forces on the delicate and critical piece of landing.  When the wheel comes back out it swings down until it reaches certain angle where it locks into place.  If the wheel doesn't get to that critical angle it will fold back up into the airplane body upon contact.  If a plane lands on the body the lightweight aluminum shears away against the pavement exposing the occupants to the asphalt at 200 miles and hour.  I assume I don't need to describe the results of an airplane crash.

The first thing Alan did was contact Flight Control and explain the situation.  Our little town of Cedar City didn't have a lake to try a water landing, and those rarely go well anyway.  They advised him to hold a circling pattern until emergency vehicles could arrive on the scene. Alan gave this oldest son a wrench and they accessed the manual controls where the son tried to crank the wheel out as far as possible.  The wheel lowered, but not to the critical angle that would allow it to lock into place.

At this point there were 20 minutes of nothing to do but fly in a circle and wait.  I imagine to myself what I would have thought or done.  The son cranked furiously but in vain with the wrench the entire length of time.  The daughter stayed still and quiet while sobbing in the back seat.  Alan asked Flight Control to patch him a call to his wife.

The Savior said, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal" (Matthew 6:19).  The things that are really important don't always match the things that we spend a lot of time on.  Knowing that you have only a little time left to live changes what you spend time on.  How unfortunate that these are the kinds of situations that force us to prioritize better.

The conversation between Alan and his wife was not long - there wasn't much time, but Alan told his wife how much he loved her.  He said he had enjoyed every minute of his marriage to her, and his decision to marry her was the best thing he had ever decided to do.  He told her how beautiful she was, what a wonderful mother, and how lucky he felt to have been blessed by God to have such a wife.  He said, "I love  you, and I have always loved you from the first day we met."

She knew her husband was flying, and she instantly asked, "What's wrong?"  He said nothing was wrong, just some things he had meant to say.  She didn't buy it.  "Something's wrong, I can tell.  What is the matter, is the plane going to crash?  Are you going to be ok?  Honey, tell me what is going on!"   He told her she didn't need to worry, but that he couldn't stay on the phone.  One last expression of love, one tearful goodbye.   My mother turned around and with tears in her eyes she excused herself to her room.

I remember being scared.  Of course my little sister and I were told nothing until everything was over.  Every firetruck and ambulance in Cedar City was at the airport.  My Dad brought the plane down as slowly as he could, and when the wheel hit the pavement it did bounce up into the body of the plane but then it swung back with momentum and locked into place.  The plane landed safely, and my family was reunited not much later.

That night there was talk about feelings and values.  When we thought our Dad might really die, how important was it to catch that TV episode?  When I thought my brother might never come home, did I think about how rude it was for him to hog the stereo?  When my sister was in the plane and she realized she might never come home, did she worry about how her hair looked?  When my Dad had time for one phone call, did he call his insurance agency, his business accountant, or even someone from church?  At a time like this the only thing we cared about was expressing love to each other, and getting those who were in danger home safely.

"How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?" (Matthew 18:12).  There are people close to us who are in a spiritual plane where the landing gear isn't quite at the right angle.  How bizarre it would be if we spent our time watching TV instead of going home teaching.  Or how weird if we spent our time with friends watching football when it was time to be at church.  I wonder if I sometimes spent time thinking about my stomach when the Savior wants to tell me about a ward member who needs an encouraging word.  I suspect things like broken airplane wheels is the method the Lord uses for helping me when I am not prioritizing correctly.