Night Flight

When my husband and I returned from dinner at the motel restaurant, the phone was ringing in our room. It could only be my daughter, who at 13, we thought responsible enough to spend one night home alone while we visited a friend 200 miles away. Our house was in the country, but a neighbor had agreed to keep an eye out and be available to help if necessary.

Early that morning, we loaded our bags into a rental airplane, and flew to the grass strip that ran behind the motel in a small town in the Madison Valley of western Montana. The flight was beautiful, over the Continental Divide near the mining city of Butte. Light mountain breezes ruffled the lakes below us, though the air was unusually smooth. Before we landed at our destination, we had to fly low over the airstrip to spook some antelope off the grass. We looked forward to a relaxing get-away and good visit.

My daughter’s voice was high with fright, "Mom, I’m scared. A man who said he was a sheriff’s deputy just called and asked to talk to my parents. I told him you weren’t home, and he said, 'Oh…, so you’re home all alone, huh little girl?' He sounded really creepy!"

My heart began to pound as I imagined some child molester at that very moment on his way to harm my helpless little girl. I told her to hang up and I would call the neighbor immediately to come get her. Then we would leave to fly home as soon as we could. After we arranged for the temporary rescue, we threw our clothes into the suitcase, checked out, and ran to the airplane just as the sun was setting behind the mountains.

The airplane was an old, well-used Cessna 172, and I hadn’t flown it at night before. I had no idea whether all the electrical equipment would work properly, and we would be flying over 200 miles of very mountainous terrain to get home. Not my favorite thing to do at night, as there is no way to spot a safe landing site if the engine quits. But my only child was in danger, so we had no choice.

After a careful pre-flight, which included making sure there was an operable flashlight on board, we took off, unable to see even the powerlines off the end of the unlighted grass runway. The old engine in the Cessna struggled to give us enough power to climb over the 10,000-foot peaks that rose into the night sky between us and our home airport. The last rays of light from the sun had faded ahead of us, and soon we were in total blackness, the airplane beacon flashing off the fuselage. We felt suspended in time and space. I kept checking the ammeter to be sure we were getting enough electrical power from the generator to run the aircraft lights and radio.

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