RE Log - Spring 2024

28 Ransom Everglades LOG SPRING 2024 Even so, the worst-case scenario came to pass. The engine failed, it wouldn’t come back, and Johansson uttered words he’d never thought he’d have to utter: “Ditching checklist.” He took the plane into a dive to pick up airspeed and then began their final descent, gliding at around 700 feet per minute. At 50 feet above sea level, Johansson confronted the reality of what was happening. “I had never heard ‘50’ and not seen a runway. Looking out there, we were 1,000 miles from the coast. There was not a single man-made thing in sight.” Adrenaline kicked in. And then something beyond knowledge, deeper than knowledge, told Johansson what to do. “I subconsciously started turning the airplane to hit the waves at a different angle than what the book said, and whether I was right or wrong, I don’t know. But we survived it, and we made it out without injuries,” he said. When they got out of the plane, the moment was calm, surreal. “We’re just kind of looking out at this $9 million asset sitting on the water, and we’re thinking, ‘Okay, did you get the hummus?’” Johansson recalled. But then they had to survive the aftermath. Every flight manual covers ditching. “No one,” said Johansson, “really talks about it beyond that”: the time spent on a life raft praying for a response from the Coast Guard as you’re being battered and tossed by the ocean waves. Johansson and Michaels spent 22 harrowing hours in that life raft – 22 hours of rescue attempts that were arguably much more dangerous than the original crash landing. After leaving voicemails for his then- girlfriend (now wife) Riley, his dad and his mom, he texted the Coast Guard and received word that help was on the way. Help was on the way, but not in the form he expected: hours later, after nightfall, an 800-foot oil tanker en route to Japan appeared on the horizon. The behemoth made 12 attempts to intercept the life raft, each time almost running them over. At one point, one of the rope lines cast into the water by the tanker severed the raft’s sea anchor, a drogue on the underside that had kept it from rolling over with the waves. “Once we lost that, we were just soaked in a dish bowl,” FLIGHT PLAN • KSMX (Santa Maria, CA) – PHTO (Hilo, HI) • Flight Plan DCT ELKEY R577 EBBER DCT ITO DCT • Distance 2098 NM • Time 10H 21M • Altitude 22,000 ft (step climb to 28,000 by ETNIC) PERFORMANCE • Initial Climb 85 GPH / 140 KTS to FL180 • Initial Cruise 54 GPH / 216 KTS @ FL200 • On-Weight Cruise 46 GPH / 225 KTS @ FL280 Area of ATC Radar Coverage Area of ATC Radar Coverage Ditching Point (5h 42m Enroute) N27°35’37 W139°39'10 Nathaniel Johansson ’14 presenting at upper school assembly, April 2023