I survived crash-landing a plane

As told to Megan Messerly

Sunday, Aug. 9, 2015 | 2 a.m.

It was a beautiful day. The sky was clear, and there was very little wind.

Doug Reichardt — the pilot — was a friend of mine and an architect. It was Doug, myself and Bob, Doug’s business partner. Doug wanted to start an upscale restaurant chain, and he had a site in San Diego he wanted to look at. Doug had a really nice airplane — a twin engine Aero Commander, a big plane.

We took off about 9 a.m.. I was sitting in the co-pilot seat, and Bob was in one of the seats behind us. I’m not a pilot, but I used to love to sit up there because it was fun.

As we were climbing out of North Las Vegas Airport, Doug started to sweat really profusely, someplace over Jean. We were probably at about 10,000 or 12,000 feet. He had trouble talking to the tower. He had trouble saying anything. He was sweating worse. I had the earphones on, and I was listening to the North Las Vegas tower responding back. They were saying something like, “Do you want to declare a medical emergency?”

Doug started to turn the plane around. But once he started heading back toward North Las Vegas, he just collapsed, unconscious. We couldn’t revive him.

I felt like there was no choice at all. Either you figure out how to fly the plane, or you end up sitting back and crying and eventually hitting a mountain someplace in Utah. So I grabbed the wheel of the plane, while Bob was trying to wake Doug up. I knew at the time that Doug was gone. It was pretty easy to tell what had happened at that point.

The automatic pilot was on, and I couldn’t move the wheel. I told Bob to reach over and find out where to switch it off, and he did. It was such a clear day, and I could see the airport, so I just aimed for it.

I couldn’t talk on the radio because I didn’t know how to work the radio. But I could hear the North Las Vegas tower, and I could hear McCarran tower clearing all of the airplanes out of the area, so they must’ve known something was wrong.

When we got pretty close to North Las Vegas Airport, I was able to figure out how to turn the plane. But when we made the first pass at the airport, I couldn’t get the plane to come down. So I turned around and came back again.

It was so odd, but when we were flying over Henderson, I looked down and saw my son’s school. And it flashed in my brain, here I am, in a plane, and I don’t know if I’m going to survive. I pictured him sitting in a classroom with no idea that I was up there at 8,000 feet trying to figure out how to get down.

I tried some things on the controls, but at that point, I was pretty afraid because it felt like the plane dropped the minute I touched anything. About the third time we went around, we went way out to Summerlin to turn the plane around to see if we could get it closer to the ground.

We were coming in, and we could see the end of the runway. But we had put the landing gear down and that slowed the plane, and the plane just dropped. I remember seeing the roofs of these apartments and buildings in front of me. You get that rush, like you’re going to hit.

Thirty years ago, I took a couple of lessons in a glider because I had a fear of flying and I thought doing that would help me. I remembered my instructor telling me, “Speed is safe. If you can gain airspeed, you can survive.” So I pushed the wheel forward as hard as I could and aimed right for the top of the buildings. Just before we got there, I pulled back as hard as I could.

I remember looking out the right window, and I could see that the nose of the plane was up and it had just cleared the wires.

There was a big, almost explosion, when the plane hit the ground. All I remember is looking out the front and seeing a lot of weeds and things on the windshield, and then the plane just slid to a rest.

We hit short of the runway. The tail of the plane came down and hit the dirt, which probably saved our lives because no sparks means no fire — and there were about 1,100 pounds of fuel on the plane.

Bob figured out how to pop open the emergency window, so we both climbed out of the plane. I tried to get Doug off the plane, too, but Bob pulled me out because he said there was fuel all over.

At UMC, I was diagnosed with collapsed vertebrae in my upper back and my upper middle back. At the time, the doctors warned me there was a 50-50 chance that if they operated, they could hit a nerve and cripple me for life. I’m still under treatment for my injuries.

Two weeks after the crash, I went to the hangar, and I saw the plane. It was almost like looking at an old friend. I felt really sad, because the airplane was bent and they were tearing the engines out. They were literally destroying the aircraft to take the parts because it couldn’t be made flyable.

Now, I look back and think, you know, I died. I died back in 2005, and now I’m here. This recession has hurt so many of us, and I’ve lost so much financially. But I’ve gained so much, too. It’s only recently that I’ve really come around.

I fell into a really deep downward cycle for seven or eight years after the crash. But I’ve realized you can take my house away, you can take money away, you can take away a lot of things, but you know what? You really can’t take my pride, you can’t take my intelligence, and you can’t take my desire to want to start doing better.