Vancouver tower… Cessna 2753 lima – heading 190°… altitude 1200 feet… flying blind…

I’m declaring an emergency

Myself and three friends had popped up to Canada for dinner and some fun… we were heading back to Tacoma Washington – I had just lifted my Cessna 172 off the runway at Vancouver International Airport.

But despite clear skies and a rosy weather report at departure, the dew point crossed the threshold transforming moisture laden air into an angry dense shroud of fog just moments after takeoff. It was pitch black… zero visibility.

I entered 7700 – the emergency code on my transponder and pressed the button. My aircraft was now a big, bright, blinking light on every radar screen within 100 miles.

Glancing down at my instruments… I was petrified to realize that in the short time communicating with the tower and activating my transponder, I had entered…

…a death spiral

Left wing low, off course… descending through 800 feet. It’s a weird phenomenon… but in the absence of visual reference points – things become topsy-turvy… you can’t tell if you’re right-side up – or upside down. And tonight, we were 90 seconds from impacting the ocean. I leveled the wings… regained lost altitude… and locked my eyeballs to the instrument panel.

Vancouver handed me off to Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. They carved out a mile-wide path in the sky for me – clearing all other aircraft (they also notified the Coast Guard to be on standby in case the worst happened).

After what seemed like a white-knuckled eternity… the fog broke in a dramatic fashion and the Space Needle rose brightly in the distance. We landed safely 20 minutes later.

Even though I am not rated to fly in zero-visibility… I was put through hours of “worse case” training just in case. Every pilot is. That training saved four lives that night.

There’s a big lesson here. Restaurant & Pizzeria owners are not required to learn anything. Knowledge is optional. And this year many will be flying blind into skyrocketing cheese, labor and fuel prices. Many will experience the agony of watching profits that took years to accumulate… disappear in a few months as layoffs, foreclosures, record bankruptcies and a deteriorating economy blacken the horizon and tighten wallets.

But, despite the doom and gloom ahead… many operators will fly with rock-solid confidence. They’ll navigate the twists and turns with radar-guided precision. Downturns always make attentive business owners rich. They benefit when the weak stumble.

From very intense personal experience, I know that 90 seconds before impact… is not the time to be fumbling for the instruction manual. It’s the time to have instant access to the vital knowledge, information and know-how that will guide you safely away from danger.