The 3500 hrs. Impostor

The airport attendants at São Tomé International Airport were busy serving the enthusiastic travelers. Maleek Nabil and Soraya Rafiq made their way to the airport two hours before their travel. They couldn’t hide their happiness as they were newlyweds, awaiting to explore the depths of their love in a special honeymoon treat at Kenzi Menara Palace in Morocco. The atmosphere was inviting and everybody anticipated their destinations, some with business deals to secure, tourists’ souls awaiting an adventure, others with family to meet but for the cabin crew, it was a call of duty to ensure a safe touch down at Casablanca V International Airport.

Ana Osralado the captain of the day, Carlos Domingos the first officer, Arlindo Gilson the relief captain and Nilza Elisio the relief first officer all assembled for their usual routine, signing paperwork, ensuring the maintenance engineers had released the aircraft, carrying out a couple of inspections, configuring various systems, etc. Everything seemed usual and the aircraft was ready to ferry the passengers to their long-awaited destinations.

As the clock ticked, Ana’s palpitations augmented. What if everyone realized she was not an experienced captain as they would have expected? This was her second time to lead the cabin crew after being a first officer for many years. Ms Osralado graduated from Madiba Bay School of Flight and even though she had flown for respectable hours, she still felt inadequate. She knew it was a matter of time before the whole airline discovered the fraud she was. She spent her early years in a cage where a competitive mentality in schools and family set up influenced her self-perception. The by-product of these perceptions was relentless self-doubt. She accredited her achievements to hard work and sacrifice and thought it would never be worthwhile if the two were taken off the equation.

Ana took her seat on the plane, fastened her belt, took a long breath, and chanted a few mantras before taking off. It was a smooth take-off and with no time; the flight was at a stable 38,000 feet above the ground. Soon, the autopilot was on and the journey seemed fulfilling.

Maleek and Soraya nostalgically travelled back to their wedding day. A day full of love, surrounded by love and for love. The only day in their lives they wished lasted for eternity. Soraya reckoned the days she believed a man like Maleek existed even though she had never met him. Her faith, hope and dreams brought her to this moment, a moment that many long for. Maleek pulled her closer and heat rose from her stomach to her chest. His lips got close and she couldn’t help herself rather than embrace his smell beyond hypnotic reason. Time stopped when his lips met hers, but the flutter only intensified. Maleek’s kisses were like black holes pulling her in until all gravity was lost under his touch. Her lips were like summer rain, pouring over his as if they had the power to take away and give back life. They looked at each other as if they were their very own Mecca in flesh. It almost felt that they only existed in a world of two for two.

Ana was enjoying the calm weather and admired the horizons before the sudden disconnect of the autopilot. Onboard were 320 passengers, and she couldn’t help but think of the options at hand. She was being tested in the most dramatic way possible. Suddenly they started getting speeding warnings, followed by stall warnings. This was a paradox because an over-speeding warning showed that the flight was at its maximum speed while stalling translated to a minimum speed limit. While trying to wrap her head around the warnings, the flight pitched down violently, forcing everyone to brace themselves against the instrument's glare shield to stop them from hitting the ceiling. Her windscreens were suddenly filled with the Atlantic Ocean.

Ana could hear her passengers uttering prayers, others screaming, while others cried out to their ancestors. They hoped a saving hand would reach out and save them from the unpredicted moment. Ana closed her eyes in what seemed like a fraction of a second, clouded with thousands of flashbacks. Full of self-doubt, she wondered if she had all it takes to save her own life and those that entrusted theirs with her. None of the self-assurance thoughts made her feel confident. The system created to keep them safe was the first to threaten their lives. Carlos kept shouting, “Ana, do something! Ana! You can do this”. Her intuition led her to let go. “If you can’t control it, let go!” she whispered to herself as she let go. The aircraft was no longer falling off, but the passengers were being smashed down on the floor. She had saved the plane from a death dive and was willing to gain control again. These few stable minutes gave her relief before the whole scenario recurred again and now she was devastated. Arlindo and Nilza knew what was coming, but hoped that Ana would perform a miracle. They believed in her.

Ana was devoted to fighting until the very last minute and once again she let go and became an observer. The plane stabilized once more and in her mind was only one thought, an emergency landing before anything else went wrong. She was living her worst nightmare, but her gut was not willing to bow down. “Nothing can stop the man with the right attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help a man with the wrong mental attitude” the words by Thomas Jefferson replayed in her mind. “Super student, superwoman, super pilot, get out of your way, don’t sabotage yourself,” she said as she headed for a touchdown at Malabo International Airport.

Impostor syndrome affects people in various ways, but it is one that Ana mastered to live with and rose above the heights to save 320 lives when the system couldn’t offer the safety needed. At that very moment, Ana realized that competence is not a function of how many things one can do. She might have doubted herself, but 3500 hours only proved that she was competent enough to be the hero of the day.