Successfully steering clear of the typical South Asian travel drama, my husband, sister, and I headed for the airport after a weekend in Boston with my parents, who had left the night before on the leading edge of a Nor’easter. The weather had gotten worse overnight: colder temperatures, gustier winds, rain blowing side-ways, but we hadn’t noticed snow flurries yet. I happily continued basking in the chilled Boston air, unable to anticipate the turn our journey home would take.

We arrived uneventfully at the airport, were greeted by friendly airport staff, had an exceedingly nice experience checking in our bags and getting prompt assistance to our gate, and boarded in a flash. I got busy on my phone, my sister tuned into her favorite show – The Good Doctor, and my husband began to read and doze. As I steadily lost track of time playing with my phone, reading messages, and writing, I didn’t notice we had taken off, or that we had reached cruising altitude, or even realize we had nearly approached Washington Dulles, and had been circling above for over 30 minutes.

I had been crafting a message to one of many group chats. Suddenly, I started to process what the pilot was announcing…

I wrote at 4:29pm in real time:

“This might become the subject of a blog post, but I am on the plane right now sitting with my two favorite people, my husband and sister. And the flaps on our plane won’t open, so the pilot just warned us that there might be crash and rescue vehicles as we land in DC because they are trying to cut the wind, but they think the landing is going to be very fast.”

Still processing, at 4:31pm, I wrote again:

“Yep, too cold, too much ice, so, even though they deicer the plane, the flaps wouldn’t open. Really only one thing we can do in the situation. Breathe deeply, and stay calm and hope for the best”

At 4:32pm, I wrote:

“Send me all your good vibes people”

Before this ask, prayers from members of the group had already started pouring in, and more messages of support kept my phone buzzing as I put it in my seat pocket, reached for my seatbelt (to which I had also not paid much attention previously), and finally decided to buckle up.

Amidst all this, my sister had turned off her show and reached out for my right hand, clutching it tightly. My husband had jolted up from his doze and wrapped his right arm around me. I felt incredibly loved.

“I’ve closed the window shade because I don’t want to see or know what’s happening out there!,” my sister laughed nervously.

I couldn’t contain my giggle as I tried to comfort her. “You don’t want to see what’s happening, so you – a blind person – closed your window shade!”

In that moment, as I knew their adrenaline was rushing, I felt an urgency to create calm and a sense of optimism, and encouraged us all to pray.

Time passed by agonizingly slowly. The plane was mostly quiet, with everyone listening for the pilot. He came on again, calm and steady, announcing that they had tried again to open the flaps, and ultimately had made the call to land. “I just want to tell you all that it is going to be a very unusual landing, not what you all are used to, and we don’t want you to be alarmed by it or by the crash and fire rescue vehicles. They’re going to ride alongside our aircraft to make sure there are no sudden sparks or fire since we’re going to land very fast.”

Passengers were holding their breaths as we continued our descent. I started making a list of what I needed – my work and personal phones, my Airpods, my wallet – and began transferring my items from the seat pocket to my skirt pocket. “I’ve got the most important things with me,” I announced cheerily to my husband and sister as I grabbed the phones.

“Hey, we thought we were the most important!” they both chorused, chiding me as “a phone addict.”

“You are,” I assured them, “as people. I was talking about things. I want to make sure I have everything I need in case we have to run out of here when we land! And what kind of idiotic plane doesn’t have wing flaps not working anyway?!” I giggled.

“Aha – the panic is suddenly starting to set in,” my sister joked. “She’s thinking about her phone, and all the things she needs to escape.”

“It’s not panic. I like to be prepared. And anyway, I need this for my blog. I think I am going to blog about this. What should I entitle it? The most eventful 15 minutes of our lives…” I mused.

“Can you please stop dictating your blog entry?!” my husband chuckled, giving me grace with “…unless it relaxes you and releases some panic.”

My phone continued to buzz in my pocket. “You know who I’m not texting right now?  Mom!” I declared.

“Oh yeah – she’d be freaking out,” my sister agreed. We all concurred it was no point texting my parents in the moment. I said, “She’ll unnecessarily panic, and it’s all going to be okay anyway.” I think I get my optimism from my father. Perhaps it’s foolhardy, perhaps not, but I’ve found that, without it, I couldn’t have gotten through life and whatever curve ball it threw at me. So, in that moment, as we turbulently hurtled in the wind toward DC, I couldn’t imagine anything but a happy ending.

My sister and I went back to brainstorming blog post titles.

“Trust the Professionals?”

“They’ve been through tests like these before. They know what to do. Now we have to sit back, let them execute, and do it.” As I finished, I suddenly felt a sharp lean forward, and then a leveling out, and a very rapid landing as the plane skidded on the runway and then started to slow down.

At 4:40pm, I wrote, not correcting typos:

“We just landed, and the whole airplane clapped. What an amazing and spectacular moment of trusting in God, and in the professionals.”

And just as I had been dictating, the pilot came on the speaker system, cool as a cucumber, warning as we slowed down: “Folks, we’ve landed, but need to check for hot brakes.”

At 4:43pm, we got the “all clear,” which I relayed with jubilation to my colleagues.

In the span of 15 minutes, so much had raced through my head. As we taxied to the gate – quite a distance away since the pilot and airline professionals had anticipated the possibility of fire, I thought about how the pilot had executed a flawless landing under immensely adverse circumstances. The wind had been gusting throughout the Northeast, with an expected storm. The skies had not been kind, and through it all, he had remained absolutely composed. There had never been a shift in tone, not a flutter of urgency or panic, as he had come on the loudspeaker, and there had been transparency throughout. He had trusted us to remain calm, and we had trusted him to do his job. Many variables within and outside of his control could have made our ending not so happy. And there were decisions he had to make in a matter of seconds… We had lived through those seconds with him, and seen leadership in action and composure under fire.

As we made our way off the plane, I paused to greet the pilot as he emerged from the cockpit. As most passengers had made their way out, I thanked him, and told him he had done an amazing job executing a flawless landing. This man had literally saved our lives.

Immediately he responded, “I had a lot of people helping me to make that happen. I had a lot of great help!”

We joked about taking a picture and me blogging about this incident he said: “Yes, let’s do it, and you can post it. Just don’t put my name on social media because I’m not sure how the airline would feel about that!”

This pilot, like many people who make split-second decisions that save lives all the time, is an everyday hero who I had the honor to observe, meet, and learn from. Like other everyday heroes, he expects nothing, and is just an ordinary person doing extraordinary things. And what is striking is his humility…

When I thanked him, he was quick to share credit, and not for the sake of appearances. He meant it. And I believe him. A lot of people probably played a huge hand, such as air traffic controllers, the crew, and others, unseen and unnamed, including those who prepared him in training for moments like these… 

 “OK, so I don’t think I’m going to tell Mom anything… I think we should just let her find out about this by reading the blog entry,” I told my sister and husband at the top of the jetway, and we all shared a mischievous chuckle.

Next week, before we start on the topic of discussion, I’ll tell you what she said… And I assure you that some part of what she says will probably have to do with how we could have avoided the whole episode if we had just left Boston a day early like she had advised when she and my father were departing.

But Mom, if I would’ve done that, I would never have met this amazing pilot, and would never have learned such great leadership lessons. We can always talk about leadership in the abstract, but the rubber really hits the road when you’re actually tested under fire.  As terrifying as those 15 minutes were, and I won’t lie… They were terrifying… I wouldn’t trade them in for anything.

Who are your everyday heroes? Share your stories with me in the comments. Talk to you next week!