Do you have any of those moments in your life where you think, "I should've died when that happened?"  Growing up my dad would tell us several stories about his life before he met my mom where, for all practical purposes, he should've died.  Maybe you have stories like that too?  Where you reached your hand up just in time, stopped the car, waited a moment longer, decided to go when you did, etc.  (I know I consider that night the tornado hit IC to be one of those times in our whole family's life.)

When Josh and I were flying to NYC last year, I was getting really nervous about landing.  I couldn't figure it out at first but then I said, "I was in a plane whose brakes failed in landing once so I must be thinking about that."  The memory was surreal, covered in a haze and a cloudy sky, to the point that I honestly thought it was a dream and had subsequently failed to tell Josh the tale... 

We were on an architecture field trip of 45+ students and 3 profs (and a 100 other passengers) going to New Orleans in 1997.  The flight was uneventful (other than college students and an inflight mini bar) but when our plane landed we kept going, and going, and going and went all the way to the end of the runway and off the runway, ramming into the mud when we finally stopped.  It was then we were told that the brakes had failed before landing and they had to use the emergency brakes to land/stop.  We had to exit via the escape hatch and be taken by a bus to a dark holding room not allowed to leave, fed bags of chips and after hours finally left the airport bombarded by TV cameras.  Again, the whole event in my memory is covered by the hazy day and is entirely surreal.   

Recently, thanks to the viral trend of "25 Things..." on Facebook, a friend from college posted the event.  It was there that he explained something I never knew before, the actual WHY of our plane landing.  He had researched the plane and found the report that stated our plane had "complete hydraulic failure."  From what the web tells me, this means that our plane had nothing, all things had to be manually done and is very tricky to manuever and based solely on the skills of the flight crew, and is dubbed a "pilot's worst nightmare."  The web also points out that any time a pilot/crew lands a plane without hydraulics they are greatly praised, indeed!  Anywhere from a plane in Sioux City, IA which landed without hydraulics and then flipped over to an plane in West Virginia a couple weeks ago that safely landed, just to name two.

Unbelievable.