In a recent appearance on Dale Brisby’s “Rodeo Time” podcast, Cody Johnson talked about this insane moment back in 2019 when his jet was in complete free fall for tens of thousands of feet.
He was flying from Haddysburg, Mississippi, to Austin, Texas, to perform the national anthem at the NASCAR Cup Series in 2021. And this was actually the first time he was traveling via private jet. Here’s the interesting part. The flight took off just fine, then soon after flying over the crash site of Lynyrd Skynyrd (of all places), the plane started plummeting downward.
“It was very ironic because we were going over the crash site where Lynyrd Skynyrd went down. The alarms go off and the plane just starts plummeting. And you want confidence out of a lot of people, like your surgeons, you know, the guy pulling your bull rope. But I think your pilot [is another one]. When you can see true, unadulterated fear in a man’s eyes and he’s the one controlling the aircraft, [it’s terrifying].
Even more ironic compared to the fact that they started going down around the Skynyrd crash site, Cody said he was really enjoying the flight before the alarms started going off.
“So I get up, and we’re kind of plummeting through the air. You can feel like the drinks are starting to kind of move around. We were actually playing cards, and I’ve never said this on a plane ever again. I said, ‘Well, this don’t suck,’ [and the alarms went off].”
Clearly sensing something was wrong, Cody went up to the cockpit to ask the pilots what was wrong. That’s when they informed him that the plane was going down and it wasn’t going to be an emergency landing. The plane was literally going down in a free-fall. After being told the terrifying news, Cody began looking at pictures of his kids next to his wife, Brandi, both thinking they might not make it out of the plane alive.
“I ran up to the pilots, and I said, ‘What the heck is going on?’ and he was white as a sheep. He looked at me and said, ‘You need to sit down and make yourself ready. We’re going down.’ And I said, ‘Where are we putting it down?’ He said, ‘We’re not putting it down, we’re going down.
I turned around and Noe and Jackson and Brandi are looking at me, like eyes wide open… I went and sat by Brandi and we started looking through our phones and looking at pictures of our kids. [We were like], ‘Look at what we did.’”
Cody’s wife started praying, and during Brandi’s prayer in the back of the plane, the plane finally leveled off at 10,000 feet after losing tens of thousands during its free fall. And I believe that’s where divine intervention came into play. Cody went to say…
“She gathered us around that back table in the plane, and we held hands. She went to praying out loud, speaking over that plane, and at 10,000 feet, it leveled off.”
Now after Cody, Brandi and the rest of the crew ended up landing in Austin, Texas safely…they found out the entire situation was completely on the fault of the pilot…not an engine malfunction or any mechanical problem.
“This is the power of prayer right here. They did diagnostics on that plane; there was nothing wrong with the plane. I truly, to this day, believe she prayed that plane into the air.”
I’m guessing Cody’s first time flying on a private jet won’t ever be forgotten. Especially after an incident like that…and God is definitely good.
