Sole Plane Crash Survivor Spends 3 Days in Heaven

In July 18, 1969, I boarded a commuter airplane with two other pilots.

I was just nineteen—a brash young pilot in flight training. Moments later, my life would be forever altered. Just after takeoff, we violently and ironically, crashed into a cemetery’s seven-story-high air mausoleum dedicated to famous pilots.

I was the only survivor.

Following this fatal airplane crash and during three days in a coma, I took an uncharted visit to Heaven. This presented its own problem. I’m trained as an engineer. I was raised in a business world where logic ruled. An experience of the heart was well outside my comfort zone. I had no desire to operate in the realm of the unprovable.

This line of thinking was confirmed by my grandfather when I shared with him the story of my heavenly journey immediately after my memory returned. He cautioned me about telling others. “Dale, if your experience really is sacred, then why not keep it to yourself? Instead of telling others about it, why not live your life in a way that reflects your journey to Heaven? Live what you believe you saw. Live what you believe you heard and learned. Dale, your life’s actions might speak louder than your words.”

And then, not long after the crash, I attended a church service where a man claimed to have died, visited Heaven, and came back to life. I found the service more sensational than sacred. The very essence of Heaven is God and His glory, yet the people seemed more interested in the man with his sensational story than the One who created it all and whom Heaven is all about. My decision not to discuss my journey with anyone was further solidified, and I made a solemn vow to myself and to God not to share my experience with anyone unless and until God made it crystal-clear to do so.

As time went on, another reason for remaining silent about Heaven presented itself. Perhaps it became the main reason: Have I really lived as a reflection of Heaven? At various times in my life, I have been truly disappointed in myself. Since I believe I have clearly seen Heaven and was so dramatically changed by the experience, why did I fail again and again to be the man I believed God wanted me to be? Why did I often fall short of being the reflection of what I had seen and heard and learned? It would take me decades to come to grips with the fact that, notwithstanding my glimpse into the eternal, I am human and a very flawed human at that.

Whereas I had at one time determined to leave the story only for my children and grandkids, it has become clear that God intended for me to share it more broadly. Like Jonah in the Bible, I have resisted. I have wrestled fiercely against the idea and have lost many nights of sleep. However, I am fully persuaded that God has instructed me to make my entire heavenly journey public. In my heart, I did fulfill my vow. For over forty years, I lived my experience rather than talked about it. I sure tried anyway.

After having flown and worked and ministered for over four decades before telling this story, I’ve raised a family who learned about a loving God and much about His Word. I completed my vocational assignments. Now past retirement age, I believe I have been instructed by the Lord to revisit my journey to Heaven and share the entire story. You may find that believable, or you may not. Just as you may or may not find the story itself believable. This is perfectly understandable. After all, I did have massive head injuries from the crash. I was on pain medication. It would be easy and convenient to imagine these as reasons for the story I am about to relate.

And yet what I experienced was so real to me that my entire life and the way I lived it changed completely and permanently. Yes, sometimes the logical engineer in me comes out and challenges what my mind remembers, but in all these years, my heart has never questioned. My heart has always believed. And my heart always wins.

I suppose it’s a bit like being in love. Does love always make sense? Of course not. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t change you. For those of you who have experienced the new birth, perhaps it can be likened to salvation. You wonder sometimes intellectually if you’re really saved. If so, how can you continue being so human, so flawed? And yet you know, in your heart, that everything changed when you surrendered your life to Jesus Christ.

For me, on that July day in 1969, my life was turned upside down. My priorities were turned inside out. My focus turned toward eternity rather than the trappings of this world. Since then, I volunteered on almost a thousand ministry flights to more than fifty countries—helping to build churches, orphanages, and medical clinics. I’ve trained and led teams of lay ministers and medical personnel to help the needy worldwide at my own expense. Every major decision I have made—including giving up an airline career, selling our personal multimillion-dollar aviation business, and donating those funds into the ministry—was a direct result of my journey to Heaven.

Those who have known me might now well understand why I’ve seemed like a bit of a misfit, why my life has often followed an offbeat, even illogical path.

If my experience was merely a dream, why has it continued wielding its powerful influence for over half a century? Why wouldn’t it simply fade away? Why, for just a dream, would one sacrifice reputation, career, financial security, and more? Why would one continue making major life choices that result in great personal cost?

My hope is you will get a better and clearer understanding of who God is. You’ll learn about my flight to Heaven, about how and why Heaven miraculously transformed me. Not only that, but you’ll also better understand how you can successfully interact with the loving God who created you. Not so incidentally, you will also know how you, too, can prepare for Heaven. Heaven is real. And the God of the Bible is who this earth-life is all about.

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life (John 5:24).

Even if you remain unbelieving of what I saw, heard, and learned, you just might come to believe that something changed me. And perhaps there is inspiration in that.

Sharing such a personal and revolutionary experience as I do is challenging. I would also like to give a word of caution. A testimony is a person’s personal story of what happened to them. It cannot, nor should it ever, supersede God’s Word, which is the absolute truth and the final authority.

I’d love to share this story with you more in my book, Visiting Heaven. Settle in for the amazing trip we are about to embark upon. Though I would not ask you to disengage your mind, I would like to ask you to read with an open heart. If you’ll do that, I think you’ll be wonderfully surprised at what God has stored up for you.