Volume 33

It seemed like just another routine flight one night in 1972 when an Eastern Airlines jet prepared to land in Florida. But a warning light designed to tell pilots whether the landing gear was up or down wouldn’t come on. Worried, the pilot and two co-pilots became so preoccupied with the problem that no one noticed the jet’s autopilot mechanism had somehow been switched off. As the three men puzzled over the darkened warning light, the plane made a gradual descent and smashed into the Everglades, killing 100 people.

During the ensuing inquiry, investigators discovered that the landing gear indicator simply had a faulty light bulb. If the captain had delegated one pilot to fly the jet while the others worked on the light, the tragedy would’ve been avoided.

In a weirdly similar accident six years later, a United Airlines DC-8 encountered a landing gear problem. For an hour, the plane circled high above the airport in Portland, Oregon while the captain and two co-pilots tried to figure out what was wrong. Suddenly, the jet’s four engines sputtered to a stop and the DC-8 plummeted to the ground just six miles from the runway.

When the cockpit voice recorder was recovered after the crash, it showed the co-pilot and flight engineer had known the fuel situation was getting dangerous. But they never directly confronted the captain who remained immersed in the landing gear problem. He survived the accident but 10 of the 189 people aboard the plane paid with their lives for his misplaced priority and the deathly silence of his subordinates.

As a TV news reporter, I remember watching a chilling video comeinto the station via satellite one afternoon. It was footage of a parachute club videographer leaping from a plane to film the first jump of a client. Like countless times before, the videographer positioned himself perfectly to tape the jump. But this time, the young man had been so distracted and preoccupied with his helmet-cam that he’d forgotten to put on his parachute. He fell to his death.

There are lessons here, for leaders and for life. Chief among them is the reality that, when we don’t have the right priorities, disaster awaits. Yes, we need to act when we see something amiss, but action rooted in distraction, leads to destruction — physical, emotional and spiritual.

When Jesus confronted the religious leaders of his day, he chided them, not only for hypocrisy and lack of humility, but also for keeping their churchy rules without regard to “the important things... like justice, mercy and faith.“ (Matthew 23:23) He condemned them for fixating on appearances instead of character and godly conduct. “You’re like whitewashed tombs,” he told them, “beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones... You try to look like upright people outwardly, but inside your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (vv. 27, 28)

Too often, doing what’s Christian is given greater value than being what’s Christian, and that’s the equivalent of fixating on the landing gear light while our lives take a disastrous fall from grace. As the apostle Paul explains, anything we do with the wrong motive is a fatal spiritual distraction. “If I gave everything I have to the poor, and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it. But if I didn’t love others, I’d be of no value whatsoever.” (1 Cor. 13:3)

The trouble with keeping the rules — the minor ones — is that vastly more important things go ignored. Even so,, we feel fine because we’ve soothed ourselves into a false sense of obedience and security by doing something, no matter how minor or mediocre. Instead, we need to understand there is no autopilot in the Christian life; we need to focus first and foremost on our spiritual fuel — the Word and Holy Spirit, which power our transformation; and we need people in our lives who will challenge us when we’re endangering ourselves and others with distraction, whether we’re piloting our family or jumping into an uncertain situation without a parachute.

By Rick Gamble. Published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications. To subscribe to this free weekly article, send a note to Rick at rgamble@bfree.on.ca