A last-minute escape from an airplane crash confirms the author's faith
in divine guidance.

A 1968 Piper Arrow

A few days ago, while on a Masonic Internet forum, a Freemason in Europe questioned our requirement that a belief in a Supreme Being should be a mandatory requirement for any Candidate for Freemasonry. To my mind that all depends on in whom do you place your trust.

I have pondered this question at great length and can count no less that 30 instances where my life has been impacted directly by events and circumstances that I could not explain without the existence of a Supreme Being. Many times this involved me living when I should, by all the laws of nature, have died. All of these events have had a cumulative impact on my belief systems, but none more dramatically than the following incident.

It was late November 1969. I owned a Chicago-based company that designed a solid-state, air-to-ground telephone, and I was logging a lot of hours in my new Piper Arrow demonstrating the phone. One evening, I arrived at the home of a girl, Sherry, I was dating to find her in tears. The right side of her mother's face had gone slack, and she was complaining about having a bad headache. Sherry also confided that she had felt a growth on her own body. Between her mother's condition and her own, she was really worried. Thus began a very strange night.

I do not know why, but I picked up the telephone and called not the local hospital but the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, 250 miles away. At that time, the world-famous clinic normally had a six-month waiting list. I told the hospital's telephone operator I was immediately transporting two patients, one with a possible brain tumor and the other with what might be cervical cancer. I said I wanted them seen the very next day. Incredibly, the person on the other end of the phone thought I was a doctor and set up the appointments. One hour later, I was lifting off from DuPage County Airport, right into the teeth of a winter snow storm.

Forty miles northwest of Rockford, the Chicago Control Center called me on the radio: "67 Juliet Mike, be advised heavy icing conditions are reported 20 miles northwest of your position. State your intentions," as if I had a choice. I was committed to getting to Rochester. I replied, "Center, we'll stay on course."

The words were hardly out of my mouth when the windshield crackled with Saint Elmo's fire. Blue sparks flew across the thick plastic, bathing the cockpit in an eerie glow. I barely had time to recognize the fact that the little plane was taking on ice when the gear horn went off. Piper had introduced the Arrow with an automatic landing gear lowering system that worked off manifold pressure. Big mistake! The manifold pressure gauge was dropping to zero and the gear was coming down. This is not the best thing to happen in a snow storm when the plane is icing up! The airspeed indicator dropped from 160 knots to 70, and my artificial horizon gauge was beginning to tumble. Things were going down at warp speed!

I knew the pito tube which provides air for the vacuum system had iced up. Sherry was sitting in the front passenger seat, and I had her manually place the gear lever in the up retracted position and hold it there. Smashing the glass of the vertical speed gauge with my flashlight provided an alternate air supply for the gauges. It must have worked because the gauges began to recover somewhat, at least to the extent that the plane was still in the air. Still, we desperately needed to land, the sooner the better. The closest airport was Dubuque, Iowa. I called up and got clearance for a radar approach to the airport.

There comes a time when you know you have just run out of altitude, luck, and ideas-all at the same time. I came to this realization about the time I reached minimum height above the ground on final approach to the airport only to see the dark gray insides of a snow storm. The controller's next transmission confirmed the situation: "67 Juliet Mike, I show you just south of the airport. Be advised the terrain in that area is higher than your reported altitude."

Pushing the throttles to the firewall and waiting for the impact, I remember silently saying "Well Lord, I tried." Each second dragged by as I waited to see the trees materialize out of the snow. With agonizing slowness, the plane clawed its way back into the sky, and I turned it downwind. I was still reconciled to the fact that I had only gained a few precious moments of reprieve.

That's when it happened! For over an hour I had not been able to see the propeller, but suddenly a hole opened up in the storm directly to my left and directly over the airport. Now I am a fool, but I am not stupid. I dived for the airport, making what we pilot guys call a carrier landing, and decided the rest of the trip could be made by Avis.

Was this whole thing just a coincidence? Maybe, but don't try telling that to my two passengers. Sherry did in fact have cervical cancer, her mother did have a brain tumor, and both of them survived. Her mother told me six months later that if she had waited even a few more days before being operated on, she might not have made it.

I have no idea how atheists would explain away the events of that night. I do know this. If they had been in the plane with us that night, it certainly would have put the fear of God in them.
So let me ask you. In whom do you put your trust?

Philip J. "Jack" Buta performs the role of Junior Warden in the 18°, Valley of Phoenix, Ariz. His varied career has included radar operator, DEW (Distant Early Warning); Air Traffic Controller, Chicago Center; real estate broker and manager, Phoenix; and leather jacket entrepreneur. Contacts: 20 W. Yearling Road, Phoenix, AZ 85027; jackets@jrstone.com