A Pilot's Miracle Landing

By Elly Derr, Punta Gorda, Florida

As appeared in

Years ago my husband, Dan, was a missionary pilot in Ecuador. We lived at the foot of the Andes Mountains, and when he flew he kept in touch with me at the base camp by radio. One day I was logging his position and altitude when he suddenly announced that his Cessna had engine trouble. He needed to make an emergency landing.

I looked at my map and saw nothing but steep hills dropping off into deep precipices. There was no flat space for miles around. From the sky, Dan searched for a road, a field, a meadow—any place he could possibly bring down the plane. He was losing altitude fast.

"Pray," he said to his passenger, a missionary traveling with her four children. "Pray," he said to me over the radio.

As the plane came through a pass, Dan saw a mountain village and a small green field. Down he came for a landing. He radioed his position to me and I drove to meet him. When I arrived, Dan's plane was in a field surrounded by a crowd of Indians. My husband and his relieved passengers were unharmed. "Es un milagro," one farmer repeated over and over again. "It's a miracle."

I assumed he was talking about the plane's safe landing, but he had another milagro in mind.

That small green field had been filled with cows peacefully grazing. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, they had all started moving to one side of the field. Just before Dan's plane came into view.