RE Log - Spring 2024

SPRING 2024 Ransom Everglades LOG 29 he recounted. He spent the entire night trying to keep the raft from capsizing as the ship kept beelining toward them. They were losing hope when, as morning broke, another ship appeared in the distance: the HORIZON RELIANCE, a 900-foot cargo vessel bound for Honolulu. The ship made a more cautious approach, positioning about a mile upwind to steady the waves around the raft for better visibility. With Michaels holding his belt, Johansson stood up and waved their heat blankets until he couldn’t feel his hands. The ship started firing rope cannons: one, then another, and then another about 50 feet away. “Without even thinking,” Johansson tore off his life vest, dove for it and tied it to the raft, not knowing that it was their last chance. “They pull us up, and we get on the ship, and the first officer is laughing,” Johansson recalled. “He’s like, ‘Man, you looked like Tarzan swimming away from a shark to grab that line. How did you know that was our last rope cannon?’” Since the Pilatus incident, Johansson has shifted focus to teaching. He still flies cargo jets – much bigger than a turboprop – and still does the occasional ferry flight for a special client, but training other pilots has become his passion. As a teacher, he often finds himself thinking about the RE faculty who inspired him, including Stock, Dalins, then- physics teacher Greg Nguyen, and math teacher Henry Stavisky ’85 . He loves reconnecting with them when he returns to campus, and passing on the most valuable parts of his Ransom Everglades education. His goal, he says, is to give new pilots the spirit of self-reliance and preparedness that RE always encouraged – and that he had to learn the hard way. “What I always preach to my students is: be prepared for your worst-case scenario, and everything will be fine,” he said. “What happened to us was really bad. But it could have been worse.” Jan. 16, 2013, flying over the Ten Thousand Islands and photographing RE students with John Poulos ’98 and Suzanne Kores Refitted airplane