I once had an emergency while serving as pilot in command. It was a big one. It was the type of emergency that means you will shortly be landing somewhere, anywhere, so you best hurry up and get ready. There were red-box—or bold—items, the ones you memorize, to perform. Fortunately, not too many. And in the 90 seconds from the start of my emergency until we were egressing from the cockpit, there was a moment.
It came when every item on my emergency checklist for landing was complete. There was nothing else to say to ATC about my problem and I’d briefed my passengers. We were about 300 feet off the surface of the water on which I was about to land the airplane, and it felt like time had slowed perceptibly—I had a moment to think. I saw my set up, with a smooth, flat body of water ahead of me and asked myself the question all of us should ask on short final: “Landing checklist complete?” I remember my leg suddenly shaking.
