On 4 November 2010, Qantas Flight 32 was scheduled to fly from London to Sydney via Singapore. The route was operated by the Airbus A380 – the world’s largest passenger plane, and what a beauty of an airplane it is. As it left Singapore, it had 440 passengers and 29 crew members on board. Just four minutes after take-off, the plane suffered a severe uncontained engine failure. Shrapnel from the disintegrating turbine disc tore through one of the wings, severed control lines, punctured fuel tanks, and knocked out or at least degraded 21 of the plane’s 22 major computer and system networks. The cockpit’s Electronic Centralised Aircraft Monitor (ECAM) relentlessly flooded the pilots with over 50 different system failure warnings and checklists, making it almost impossible for them to tell what was actually broken versus what was simply an error code.

If there is ever an example of staying calm and handling pressure, this is it. The pilots did just that. They maintained their altitude of around 7,000 feet and, for almost two hours, analysed the situation, assessed the system failures and prepared to circle back to Singapore. I can only imagine what was going on in the minds of the crew and passengers.

Against all odds, they managed to land back in Singapore without a single death or injury. It is a remarkable story, really. If you are able to watch something like this, please find it on YouTube and give it a watch.

The pilots acted in a very professional manner on this flight. One thing they did was to be transparent with the passengers. However, this was a very serious incident, to say the least. Passengers heard a loud explosion. For those sitting on the left side of the plane, they could see a human-sized hole ripped open in the wing. They could see a massive fuel leak spraying into the air and all the structural damage to the wings. To add to this, the Airbus A380 has a live tail camera, so all the passengers could actually watch on their screens, in real time, the large fuel plumes trailing behind the aircraft. Now, I am not a nervous flyer, but this is the last thing I want to experience. I would be absolutely terrified.

And these passengers were too. Some even sent farewell messages to their loved ones. For all they knew, they were staring at death through their windows. Their time had come.

The aircraft had suffered overwhelming damage. Anyone who had seen it could have said it would crash. But it didn’t. Every single person on board – and on the ground, by the way, because the debris that fell from the engines could have killed someone – survived.

We can credit the miracle of Qantas 32 to the crew. In all honesty, they did an amazing job! That should never be undermined, and it is not my intention to do so. But every time this story crosses my mind, what I think of is this: when it is not yet our time to go, death itself cannot take us. And when it is our time, nothing can keep us here.

This is something that I think about often, especially in the years following Dad’s death. To this day, I still struggle to wrap my head around how he could wake up, have breakfast, be talking, request some fruit and, as it was being brought to him, have the situation deteriorate so quickly that he died. I just cannot wrap my head around this. And then there are cases when a person can be involved in a terrible accident, be severely injured, but still live to tell the tale. I ask myself, how?

I don’t think this question will ever be answered. However, it makes me think a lot about how we are not in control of when we die. We can be in our own Flight 32 when it seems the engines of our lives are suffering some catastrophic failure. When we look outside the window and see gaping holes in the wings that should carry us through life. When we look at the fuel within our tanks that continues spilling away in huge quantities. Yet, if it is not God’s will for us to go, we will get through. We will land, intact.

It is a comforting thought to me. I know that for as long as God has more work for me to do, come what may, I will live on. It doesn’t matter if I am sick, old, weak, or anything else; His will always prevails. I will not die a minute earlier than He has planned for me.

I must think about the converse too. It is that when that day comes, there will be nothing that I or those who love me can do to stop it. No amount of money, no measure of a doctor’s expertise, no amount of tears, no pleas or prayers – nothing will be able to delay that time even by a second. I may be in the best shape physically, feel like I have finally made it, and make good plans for the following year. But if it is my time, I will go. As one of my favourite preachers once prayed, “… so Lord, when that day comes, grant by your grace that I may die well. Grant by your grace that I will die believing you are sincerely as I believed you on the day of my deliverance and victory. No no no God, more so. More so.”