I had the most vivid dream last night. I was standing on an airport ramp at a mountainous airport with a man I knew in the dream to be the airport manager when a twin Beech approached. You know, the old twin-tailed freighter built back in WWII days.

It was obvious to us the pilot was landing too long and we waited anxiously for him to go around. Runway kept slipping away beneath the plane while it was still airborne. When more than half the runway was gone, the pilot finally added power, raised the gear and flaps and started a climb. The terrain in front of him rose steeply and the airplane wasn’t climbing very fast. It became apparent to the airport manager the plane was in trouble because he started running toward the runway and yelling, “Come on, climb, climb!”

Then I, too, realized the pilot was in trouble and started coaching him under my breath. The plane was climbing, but the terrain ahead of him was rising at a steeper angle than the plane could apparently climb. I muttered under my breath, “turn, come on turn” but that wasn’t an easy thing to do as the plane appeared to be hanging right on the edge of a stall and there was high terrain all around. We, the airport manager and I, held our collective breaths as we realized a crash was enevitable.

The plane kept struggling and finally contacted some trees. I yelled (but of course the pilot couldn’t hear me), “PULL THE POWER!!! PULL THE POWER!!!” thinking that the up hill slope and slow speed would make a crash straight ahead much more survivable than if he kept trying to get the plane to fly out of it until he lost control totally.

But, the plane continued, full power straight ahead and then it contacted the slope and again, I yelled, “PULL THE POWER!!!!” He didn’t. He tried a turn and then the plane hit the side of the mountain hard, slamming into it, then sliding down and tumbling. I pulled out my cell phone and started dialing 911 as the airport manager ran toward the plane, which was at least a mile away and up a mountainside. Then it started to burn and he stopped and we both stood there helpless, realizing we’d just seen an avoidable crash had the pilot just used some common sense, first in abandoning a bad approach much earlier, then, when realizing he couldn’t make it above the rising terrain, to have made a controlled crash into cushioning trees, rather than letting the airplane crash head on into the mountain.

It was a dream, but so real.