Autopilot
Recently I watched a short documentary about an airplane crash and the investigation into why it happened. From the cockpit recording they determined that the pilot had allowed his 15-year-old son to sit in his seat and wanted him to experience actually piloting the plane for a few minutes, so he shut off the autopilot. Just before he did so, the boy took the wheel and began trying to turn left. He was actually fighting the autopilot at the time, but after a few seconds he prevailed. His dad was giving him instructions and the boy tried to carry them out, but the plane seemed to have a mind of its own. Even the co-pilot was unable to make the corrections. The plane started diving almost straight down, and the dad frantically told him to pull the nose up. Nothing happened. The pilot needed to change places with his son, but due to the speed, they were all pinned to the seat or to the wall, so he could only call out instructions, which the son followed, but to no avail.
All of their efforts were futile. The plane crashed, killing all on board. The airline company could not believe just one error could cause an unrecoverable event, so they hired someone to duplicate the events using a simulator and the two black boxes. When the pilot who was duplicating the flight responded the same way the crew had, he found that fighting against the autopilot for just three seconds causes it to shut down one third of the autopilot--a feature no doubt designed to allow a pilot quick control in an emergency if the autopilot failed to work properly. Pilots had never been told of this feature, however. The pilot of the doomed plane was puzzled by the fact that some of the autopilot features were working, but not all. That explained some of the plane's erratic behavior. The plane had banked at a steeper angle than it should have, eventually resulting in a corkscrew roll as it plunged at speeds in excess of the design of the plane. The man who was helping the test pilot plug in the right numbers in order to duplicate the flight asked the pilot if there was anything the crew could have done at that point to recover. The pilot lifted his hands from the steering wheel and autopilot reengaged and brought the plane safely out of the dive. What a simple solution! But the pilots were never taught that either. Pilots are often advised to trust their instruments when they don't have good visuals. The autopilot is one of their instruments.
How like our lives is this experience! We have an Autopilot, but sometimes we wrestle control away from Him because we feel like we can handle things on our own, or we want to take a detour, or we think our life isn't exciting enough. Sometimes He allows us to take the controls so we can realize how inadequate we are. Sometimes we may run our lives into the ground when all we would need to do is take our hands off the controls and return control to our Autopilot. The plane would have suffered some damage, but would have been able to complete the journey safely. Like the plane, our lives might suffer some damage, but could be put back on course for a better future. What a simple solution! Pilots must initially tell the autopilot where they are and where they want to go, and from time to time make adjustments--like move into a holding pattern, change altitude, etc. Our Autopilot knows where we are, where we need to be, how to get there, what storms lie ahead of us, how to get us safely through them, and then to get us home. How foolish to trust ourselves more than we trust Him!
