The story is a cliché: Pilot moves from “those who will” to “those who have” landed gear-up, despite his protestations in the past. Different day, airplane, pilot — actually two pilots, but the story is, in so many ways, always the same, but different too, and so worth telling — and there’s another lesson for us all.
It was a perfect Saturday morning in June — cool, calm, the forests and meadows below radiant in their varied spring greens, the lakes shimmering and reflective. Our nontowered airport, Bemidji Regional Airport (KBJI), lies west of our town and lake by the same name, Bemidji, Minnesota. We are in the midst of the 10,000 Minnesota lakes. The early meanderings of the Mississippi River arrive from the headwaters to the south before passing through Lake Bemidji. Then the river bears east for a while before turning south toward New Orleans. Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe, stand on the shore of the lake.
