Living next to a run way in the high desert you stop questioning planes that go in and out, but the ones who land at night well it makes you wonder. Being the runway is not lit I am sure it is challenging and must be why I seen a few miss the runway all together.
It was just one of those nights out for a walk, just around twilight when a strange truck drove on to the runway shining its headlights across the driveway. Not paying much attention to it I was just starting to head back to the house.
Then I could hear the plane coming thinking to myself well this might get interesting I did my best to remain unseen. It was obvious that the plane could no longer see the run way. figuring his night vision goggles must have died, he circled the runway three times before finally making the plunge in the ground.
I must say that he must have really though the run way was under him for the plane was perfectly level when it touched the ground. As the landing gear buried itself in the sand the plane quickly went straight up on its nose then let itself back down.
There was no hiding for me at this point since that damn thing practically came down on top of me. I figured I better help before it blew up or something. As I approached the plane the pilot swung open his door and trying to exit, night vision goggles rings around his eyes. The passenger was dressed in a suit and was just starting to slowly move about.
I shouted out “are you OK” and scared the shit out of the pilot, he took one look at me and hollered out “get the hell out of here”. At this command I disappeared back into the desert the moon not being out yet, I knew I would not be seen.
As I was heading for my house when the truck on the runway turned around and was driving off. I jumped down into a ditch carved out by the last flash flood and slowed down my walk hoping that no one would see me enter my house and kept the lights off hoping it looked like nobody was home.
Looking out the window I could see two people standing out on the runway after about an hour a car came and picked them up. Figuring everyone was gone I made a long walk back to the plane making sure that I came in from a direction that I could see all the roads and monitor if a car was coming.
As I opened the door of the plane I could see they grabbed everything except one big drum that was sealed shut. Trying to move it I could tell it was heavy from the force of the crash it must have wedged itself into the plane. I reefed on the latch with all I could and it popped open but before I could look inside I heard the sounds of trucks approaching.
I sprang out the plane and headed back the way I came staying low not trying to be seen in the headlights.
Progressing into Solitude 