Car crash, advancing age hasn't grounded 'Mama Bird's' spirit
|
"It was love at first sight. And now, 63 years later, I
still feel that way." —Evelyn Bryan
Johnson |
On July 21,
97-year-old Evelyn Bryan Johnson will be inducted into the National
Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio, alongside astronaut Sally Ride and
adventurer Steve Fossett, among others.
For Johnson, it's a
hallowed stop along a journey that started in 1944 with her first flying lesson
in Tennessee. It is a journey that could have ended abruptly last September
when a car crash nearly claimed her life. But today, Johnson is on the mend and
moving on.
Johnson's long list
of accomplishments is mind-boggling, to say the least. As a flight instructor,
not only has she logged more flight hours, trained more pilots, and given more
FAA exams than any other pilot, she is the recipient of hundreds of accolades
and is named in the Guinness Book of
World Records. Johnson is recognized for logging more flight hours than
any one on Earth (57,635.4 to be exact) and has administered more than 9,000
checkrides. She is aviation royalty in its purest form, yet she couldn't be
more humble.
Johnson's upcoming
induction into the National Aviation Hall of Fame will be her sixth such honor.
She was inducted into the Flight Instructor's Hall of Fame, Women in Aviation's
International Pioneer Hall of Fame, the Tennessee and Kentucky aviation halls
of fame, and others. She says she never pursued these honors. They just came
her way.
Johnson had flown
continuously since 1944 up until the September car crash. Glaucoma had stolen
her medical not long before that, but Johnson was still flying, just not as
pilot in command. Flying has been on hold for now, while she mends from the
accident. Early morning sun glared in her eyes, landing Johnson's car under the
tractor-trailer that was directly in front of her. Injuries sustained in the
accident forced doctors to amputate her left leg.
"I was half
way out of the car," she recalls, "lying on the ground. I could feel
my legs just dangling. I remember seeing three crosses and prayed, 'Lord, if
there is something left for me to do in this world, let me do it. If not, let's
get on with it and let me die now.' Well, I'm still here," she says with a
smile.
As she learns to
walk again, it is clear Johnson is drawing upon the same conviction and
boldness that's made her the exceptional woman she's always been. When asked
about the trauma of losing a leg, she says she didn't let it bother her, she
was determined to get a prosthesis, which she uses every day. Johnson credits
her remarkable recuperation to her flying, saying the greatest gift aviation
has given her is the "confidence in what I can do, and in my ability to
overcome the things I can't do."
In fact, Johnson's
doctors have discovered what we've known all along about Johnson: You can't
keep a good woman down. Last month, they cleared her to return to work
part-time as manager of her old stomping grounds, Tennessee's Moore-Murrell
Field Airport, a job she has held for some 53 years. And it is here you will
find Johnson gracing the terminal building five days a week, greeting everyone
who stops in.
Yes, Mama Bird may
be learning to walk again, but her strong sweet spirit is soaring higher than
ever. — MayCay Beeler