Rebecca had decided that her best chance of getting hired by a company doing geological survey work in the Alaskan wilderness was to earn a private license to fly twin-engine planes. A few days later she began taking lessons from a wise old bush pilot, highly respected throughout the region for his cool and collected ways of dealing with the worst possible situations.
After the mandatory ground schooling, at which Rebecca excelled, and during her fourth lesson in the sky, the flight instructor gave her what she thought was a special treat: Taking his hands off the yoke, he turned the flight controls over to her. There she was, just as she had dreamed, sitting tall in the copilot’s seat with the flight stick firmly in her hands.
Rebecca felt as though she was literally on “cloud” at least, until a scant moment later when she found herself rudely awakened from her dream. In the distance, through the windshield, right in the path of the plane, and seeming to have appeared out of nowhere, a huge snow-capped mountain lay dead ahead. Transfixed by its sheer mass, Rebecca found herself as frozen at the stick as were the iced and craggy peaks stretched out before her.
All along the wise old instructor was watching her closely, studying her reactions. In fact, he had turned the controls over to her for just this test now taking place. He waited until the last moment he could, and was just about to take over again, when Rebecca snapped out of her fear-induced trance.
“Sir,” said a voice so trembling and timid that it even scared her, “please take over the controls. I’m afraid we are about to crash!” His reply stunned her. “No,” he spoke quietly, “I don’t think I will. After all, it’s your flight.”
“Then what should I do? Please, tell me what to do!” Rebecca said with a struggling to control her voice.
“那我应该怎样做？求求你，告诉我该怎么办！”丽贝卡尽力克制着自己的声音。
She managed to look over at her instructor, and was surprised to see virtually no worry at all upon his face. His calm demeanor helped to steady her nerves. She took a deep breath and relaxed her hands that had just about choked the life out of the control yoke. The next moment he gave her a short three-word instruction, and she knew everything would soon be all right. He simply said, “Change your altitude.”
“Of course,” her own mind echoed back to his command, and a split second later she pulled firmly back on the yoke; the craft responded by rising, and mere moments later the icy peak passed beneath her and out of sight.
As Rebecca sat there, relieved by the results of her actions, she was struck by two things at once: How could she have forgotten that the controls were in her hands, and at least as important, why had she been unable to remember this on her own?
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