The passengers were stunned, engulfed in a cloud of smoke and steady rain.

Their aircraft lay partially charred in a field next to a small lake, careening off the runway after an emergency landing. An engine fire and landing gear incident—a rare double episode—caused their flight to make a forced landing, in a storm, at a small, rural airport with a short runway.

“It’s a miracle all the passengers didn’t die,” said a first responder. “There was such confusion. Nobody did what they were supposed to do.”

The looming issue for many years that passengers were ignoring the preflight safety briefing finally came true. Research had predicted it was going to happen: a majority of people admit they regularly tune out the safety briefing as a preflight annoyance.¹ Recognizing the hidden risks, the airline industry had tried everything— celebrities, comedy, and even technical explanations—yet it all was continuously ignored.

As the plane was flying over bad weather at 37,000 feet, an engine exploded in flames, ripping a hole in the fuselage. The plane immediately lost cabin pressure, exposing the passengers to subzero temperatures and oxygen-depleted air. As the breathing masks deployed, many of the passengers didn’t know how to use them at all. Wearing seatbelts saved those near the growing hole near a window, many of whom were nearly sucked out.

It was later reported that a few dozen digital devices went flying out that hole in an instant.

As the plane rapidly descended through turbulent weather, the flight crew looked for a nearby airport to land. Inside the cabin, chaos ensued. Passengers panicked. The flight attendants tried to calm them but were ignored. Hypoxia, or the lack of oxygen to the brain, posed a fatal threat if the masks weren’t put on quickly.

The turbulence and lightning sparked panic.

“The safety announcements were ignored, and many of the passengers weren’t putting on their masks at all or were doing it wrong,” one observer said. “They were screaming, yelling at the flight attendants, and trying to connect their phones and laptops to send off a message.”

In the confusion, a group of retired military reservists returning from a convention responded. They started going through the cabin, securing people’s masks properly and forcing others to turn their phones off and listen.

“It was a moment to force some immediate training on them,” one soldier said.

As the plane descended over the next 15 minutes, approaching the small-town airport, the problems in the cockpit were just growing. In the flight deck, the crew discovered, to their surprise, that the landing gear wasn’t working. Under normal circumstances, they would fly over the runway to have emergency crews on the ground verify that the wheels were actually stuck. Given their crucial predicament, they had no other choice but to land on the small runway.

“The announcement was made that the landing gear was broken and to brace for an emergency landing,” said one flight attendant. “At that point, people lost it. The soldiers tried to calm many of them, but it created a sense of hopelessness as we were descending in really bad weather. We were telling them what to do, but many were thinking their cell phones and texting would save them, not our instructions.”

The landing was really hard.

The damaged plane raced quickly along the runway, with flames all around, as panic grew. Miraculously, the aircraft didn’t break apart. As it roared to a stop, well beyond the runway into a field near a lake, most passengers jumped to evacuate.

“People didn’t follow directions at all,” the flight attendant continued. “They got up and started grabbing their carry-ons and clawing for the door. It was a traffic jam and nearly impossible to get them out because people were confused about where the right exit doors were.”

As the plane started to fill with smoke, the reservists stepped in to force order and get people to listen. Together with the three flight attendants, the dozen retired soldiers marshaled the entire cabin to safety. As the local emergency crew put out most of the fire, the steady rain did the rest.

“It was amazing that nobody was hurt,” said one soldier. “It was like nobody on the plane even took time to pay attention to a safety briefing. There was mass ignorance, and it was scary to watch people grab their bags and put everyone at harm.”