I am writing this letter from my personal experience flying with Great Lakes. My daughter, Sarah, was employed by the airlines several years ago, and my husband and I took numerous trips using her family flight benefit. That alone was a great gift with our children scattered throughout the country.
But the best gift of all was being onboard a Great Lakes twin-engine airplane when flying home to Cortez from Denver in a sudden, unexpected lightning storm. Initially the wings were icing over and the pilots began maneuvers to relieve the problem along with keeping the airplane under control. Then, about 50 miles away from the airport while flying over rugged, mountainous terrain, one of the wings was struck by lightning, requiring the pilots to bring us home literally “on a wing and a prayer.”
My daughter’s very personal stress was that she was the sole agent at the station for that late evening flight. She faced the reality of a one-engine emergency landing under her ground guidance. We finally arrived with the pilots completing what felt like a routine landing followed by anxious passengers off-loading amid cheers and applause for their amazing skills.
My daughter finished the protocol of securing the flight then took me out on the tarmac to show me the little bb-gun pellet sized hole on the left wing; the miniscule pin-prick that could have taken the lives of all on-board if there hadn’t been the ability to bring the airplane in safely on the one operating engine.
That is why my opinion is that the value of lives saved on that occasion far outweighs the benefit of saving a few dollars on a one-engine service contract.
Gloria Decker
Cortez
