Intuition failed on the fourth Saturday of May.

The night was pitch black. There were no clouds, and no moon, either. The land below glowed only intermittently with lights.

This was a 150-mile flight, but somewhere in its 148th mile, the gremlins stepped in. At first, there was a single, spine-tingling hiccup from the engine. The pilot-induced airport lighting glowed in stark lines, and the faint glow from the street lamps arced around the airfield. But everything else was as dark as a sheet of nothingness.

A second hiccup followed.

The airplane hesitated as thrust failed momentarily, almost as if it were hit by an invisible cloud of resistance. The engine monitors showed no reason for this malady, but the propeller blades flickered in the aircraft's landing lights. Meanwhile, the rabbit begged the aircraft toward the runway.

The third hiccup came at 600 feet, three-quarters of a mile from the touchdown zone. Everything went silent. The manifold pressure and engine rpm sank on the pegs, and the propeller windmilled across the windshield.

He could still make it to the runway.

The aircraft swooned without thrust, and its pilot instinctually pulled on the yoke. Its nose rose, and momentarily, the vertical speed indicator climbed from a 600-fpm descent to level flight.

The airspeed indicator unwound to barely 70 knots; he'd once learned that "longest glide" was a bit slower than true glide speed, 78 knots. He wasn't sure, but 70 knots felt good.

The needle vibrated as it held to 70. Thrust receded and increasing drag yielded to the forces of gravity. He was now over the rabbit, at the approach end of the runway, where even the boundary lights were visible.

The altimeter read 300 feet. He could make it with just a little more pull and a nudge on the yoke. The airspeed needle bounced between 60 and 65 knots; the aircraft was still flying, but sluggishly. The nose felt heavy as it sought more elevator. Sweat soaked the pilot's back.

For an instant, he felt a cold chill of reason. He considered the consequences of a botched landing. If he forced the nose to the ground, he would certainly crash, destroy the aircraft and the runway lights, and create a big deal with the insurance company. Indeed, he might never get coverage again.

If he could just tweak the aircraft, to let the main wheels hit before the runway, he could make a "controlled crash." But then, at least, he would be home free.

His pulse thumped in his ears. He reminded himself to do first things first: Aviate. Fly the plane. Experience had taught him that, as he collected more than 6,000 hours.

But the airfoil was testing the limits of its design. Speed decayed to 59 knots.

He was only 200 feet above ground, and only three rabbit lights remained. "Damn," he muttered. "Did I switch tanks?"

He turned the boost pump switch on, and with one hand straining on the yoke, he switched to the opposite tank. Two cylinders ignited, just as the wing's angle of attack breeched its limit.

* * *

The next morning, sunlight illuminated the scene: A lost life and bent metal, a family grieving, and officials shaking their heads over an avoidable accident.

The right tank was half full of fuel; the left was bone dry. It was evidence of a habit, in this case, of not planning ahead.

This was the final rite of passage for an unsafe pilot.

Perhaps his intuition was tarnished by years of past experiences. Maybe it drew on instincts that guided him through these scenarios before. Slipping by, all the while ignoring what he'd learned of the right and correct.

Perhaps he'd forgotten that, while intuition drives instincts, only the mind, with its knowledge, should govern final decisions. Never should instincts drive the decisions.

He could have saved the day by practicing emergency procedures. He could have accomplished yet another uneventful landing. He could have gone through a mental checklist of decisions, in the rightful order, to avert a calamity.

Even in a moment of near panic, he could have accomplished an often-practiced sequence of procedures that drew on his learning, not his intuition. The devil that leads pilots to match their angle of bank to the slope of the clouds (instead of the attitude indicator's display of the real reality) is the same one who conspires to draw us away from proficiency. Indeed, practice is the only solution to safety in aviation. We learn to gain knowledge. We practice to gain instinct. We experience to gain intuition.

We must ensure that we operate only in that hierarchy, because only knowledge guides us to safety.