A few minutes after takeoff, the pilot, Richard de Crespigny, activated the planes autopilot.
When the plane reached 7,400 feet, however, the pilots heard a boom.
A red alarm flashed on de Crespignys instrument panel and a siren blared in the cockpit.
The underside of the wing looked as though it had been machine-gunned.
The plane began to shake.
Alarms started popping up on his computer display.
Engine two was on fire.
Engine three was damaged.
There was no data at all for engines one and four.
The fuel pumps were failing.
The hydraulics, pneumatics, and electrical systems were almost inoperative.
Fuel was leaking from the left wing in a wide fan.
The damage would later be described as one of the worst midair mechanical disasters in modern aviation.
De Crespigny radioed Singapore air traffic control.
QF32, engine two appears failed, he said.
Less than ten seconds had passed since the first boom.
De Crespigny cut power to the left wing and began anti-fire protocols.
The plane stopped vibrating for a moment.
Inside the cockpit, alarms were blaring, and in the cabin, panicked passengers rushed to their windows.
The functioning engines were rapidly deteriorating and the left wing was losing the hydraulics that made steering possible.
No one was certain how long it would stay in the air.
One of the copilots looked up from his controls.
I think we should turn back, he said.
Turning the airplane around so that head back to the airport was risky.
But at their current heading, they were getting farther away from the runway with each second.
Our attention span is guided by our intentions.
We choose, in most situations, whether to focus the spotlight or let it be relaxed.
Unless, that is, youve trained yourself how to respond.
One researcher, Beth Crandall, began visiting neonatal intensive care units, or NICUs.
Seemingly okay preemies can become unwell quickly; sick infants can recover unexpectedly.
The new lab results or the worried parents who say something seems wrong?
They could predict an infants decline or recovery based on small warning signs that almost everyone else overlooked.
It was like they could see things no one else did, Crandall told me.
They seemed to think differently.
Darlene had been walking past an incubator when she happened to glance at the baby inside.
All of the machines hooked up to the child showed that her vitals were within normal ranges.
But to Darlene, something seemed wrong.
The babys skin was slightly mottled instead of uniformly pink.
The childs belly seemed a bit distended.
Something about all those small things occurring together caught Darlenes attention.
She opened the incubator and examined the infant.
The newborn was conscious and awake.
She grimaced slightly at Darlenes touch but didnt cry.
Darlene found the attending physician and said they needed to start the child on intravenous antibiotics.
Instead, she recovered fully.
But Darlene put everything together.
She saw a whole picture.
It focused on those unexpected details and triggered Darlenes sense of alarm.
Her heartbeat was strong.
The other nurse was distracted by the information that was easiest to grasp.
People like Darlene who are particularly good at managing their attention tend to share certain characteristics.
One is a propensity to create pictures in their minds of what they expect to see.
These people tell themselves stories about whats going on as it occurs.
They narrate their own experiences within their heads.
They are more likely to answer questions with anecdotes rather than simple responses.
Psychologists have a phrase for this kind of habitual forecasting: creating mental models.
Understanding how people build mental models has become one of the most important topics in cognitive psychology.
All people rely on mental models to some degree.
We all tell ourselves stories about how the world works, whether we realize were doing it or not.
But some of us build more robust models than others.
As a result, were better at choosing where to focus and what to ignore.
Imagine theres an engine failure.
Wheres the first place youll look?
The pilots took turns describing where they would turn their eyes.
De Crespigny conducted this same conversation prior to every flight.
His copilots knew to expect it.
Hes a brusque Australian, a cross between Crocodile Dundee and General Patton.
Thats why we have human pilots.
Its our job to think about whatmighthappen, instead of what is.
After the crews visualization session, de Crespigny laid down some rules.
Everyone has a responsibility to tell me if you disagree with my decisions or think Im missing anything.
If were all looking up, you look down.
Well all probably make at least one mistake this flight.
Youre each responsible for catching them.
The planes computer displayed step-by-step solutions to each problem.
The men relied on the mental models they had worked out ahead of time to decide how to respond.
De Crespigny felt himself getting overwhelmed.
One computer checklist told the pilots to transfer fuel between the wings to balance the planes weight.
de Crespigny shouted as a copilot reached to comply with the screens command.
Should we be transferring fuel out of the good right wing into the leaking left wing?
The pilots agreed to ignore the order.
De Crespigny slumped in his chair.
Everywhere they looked, however, they saw a new alarm, another system failing, more blinking lights.
De Crespigny took a breath, removed his hand from the controls and placed them in his lap.
Lets keep this simple, he said to his copilots.
We cant transfer fuel, we cant jettison it.
The trim tank fuel is stuck in the tail and the transfer tanks are useless.
So forget the pumps, forget the other eight tanks, forget the total fuel quantity gauge.
We need to stop focusing on whats wrong, and start paying attention to whats still working.
The left wing had no electricity, but the right wing had some power.
What would I do then?
That way, when an emergency happens, they have models they can use.
If he hit everything just right, the plane would require 3,900 meters of asphalt.
The longest runway was 4,000 meters.
De Crespigny asked one of his copilots to calculate how much runway they would need.
Inside his head, de Crespigny was envisioning the landing of an oversized Cessna.
Picturing it that way helped me simplify things, he told me.
The longest runway at Singapore Changi was 4,000 meters.
If they overshot, the craft would buckle as its wheels hit the grassy fields and sand dunes.
Lets do this, de Crespigny said.
The plane began descending towards Singapore Changi airport.
At two thousand feet, de Crespigny looked up from his panel and saw the runway.
At one thousand feet, an alarm inside the cockpit began screaming SPEED!
The plane was at risk of stalling.
De Crespignys eyes flicked between the runway and his speed indicators.
He could see the Cessnas wings in his mind.
He delicately nudged the throttle, increasing the speed slightly, and the alarm stopped.
He brought the nose up a touch because thats what the picture in his mind told him to do.
Confirm the fire services on standby, a copilot radioed the control tower.
Affirm, we have the emergency services on standby, a voice replied.
The plane was descending at fourteen feet per second.
The maximum certified speed the undercarriage could absorb was only twelve feet per second.
But there were no other options now.
FIFTY, a computerized voice said.
De Crespigny pulled back slightly on his stick.
A metallic voice erupted: STALL!
He ignored the alarm.
The first thousand meters of the runway blurred past.
At the two-thousand-meter mark, de Crespigny thought they might be slowing.
As the plane neared the end of the runway, the metal began to groan.
The wheels left long skid marks on the asphalt.
Then the plane slowed, shuddered, and came to a stop with one hundred meters to spare.
Investigators would later deem Qantas Flight 32 the most damaged Airbus A380 ever to land safely.
Multiple pilots would take a stab at re-create de Crespignys recovery in simulators and would fail every time.
When Qantas Flight 32 finally came to a rest, the lead flight attendant activated the planes announcement system.
Ladies and gentlemen, he said, welcome to Singapore.
De Crespigny returned home a hero.
Mental models help us by providing a scaffold for the torrent of information that constantly surrounds us.
We may not recognize how situations within our own lives are similar to what happens within an airplane cockpit.
But think, for a moment, about the pressures you face each day.
So whats the solution?
You cant delegate thinking, de Crespigny told me.
Computers fail, checklists fail, everything can fail.
We have to make decisions, and that includes deciding what deserves our attention.
The key is forcing yourself to think.
As long as youre thinking, youre halfway home.
From the Book, SMARTER FASTER BETTER by Charles Duhigg.
Copyright 2016 by Charles Duhigg.
Illustration by Sam Woolley.
