{"id":22599,"date":"2024-10-07T14:48:36","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T14:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=22599"},"modified":"2024-10-07T14:48:36","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T14:48:36","slug":"a-brush-with-mid-air-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=22599","title":{"rendered":"A Brush with Mid-Air Disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Brush with Mid-Air Disaster, A scenic birthday flight turns into a terrifying brush with death.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"521\" height=\"848\" src=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-301.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-301.png 521w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-301-184x300.png 184w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 521px) 100vw, 521px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>When I was 17, I had a near-death experience during what was supposed to be a fun birthday flight. A friend of mine, a licensed pilot, gave me a ride in a Cessna, and after taking off, he let me fly most of the time. We soared over familiar landmarks in my town, but it was the return to the airport that almost ended tragically. The airport we used was small, with no control tower, meaning planes had to coordinate their approaches and departures through courtesy radio calls. At 2000 feet, just before entering the landing pattern, we heard a confusing radio message\u2014three planes at our altitude, heading towards us, just two miles away. Confusion turned into shock when we spotted three Cessnas, in a tight formation, heading directly for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-302.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22601\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-302.png 1024w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-302-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-302-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-302-768x768.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Without hesitation, my friend yanked the controls, hit full power, and pulled the plane into a steep climb. We momentarily went inverted before leveling off at 3500 feet, narrowly avoiding what could have been a deadly collision. My body reacted instantly; I threw up, mostly into my baseball cap but also onto the instrument panel. After we landed, I stumbled out of the plane, grateful to be on solid ground. We spent the next hour at a picnic table, shaking with the realization of how close we had come to disaster. Seeing the props of the other planes and the silhouettes of their pilots, we figured we were mere seconds away from impact. We never learned who they were or if they even saw us.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-303.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22602\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-303.png 1024w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-303-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-303-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-303-768x768.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>When I got home, my mom casually asked if I&#8217;d enjoyed the flight, having heard a plane pass by. I simply nodded and told her it was fun. It wasn\u2019t until a decade later that I revealed just how close I had come to not making it home that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=22594\" title=\"\">also read&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Brush with Mid-Air Disaster, A scenic birthday flight turns into a terrifying brush with death. When I was 17, I had a near-death experience during what&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22599"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22603,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22599\/revisions\/22603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}