aviate

The skills needed to aviate have been weighted by a modern scale.

"The rules of flying in an emergency are first you aviate, then you navigate, then you communicate," says Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at Flight Global.

A. Pilots have a mantra for setting priorities in an emergency: aviate, navigate, communicate.

Anyone who has learned to fly has heard that you must “aviate, navigate, then communicate” for the very reasons you mention, among others.

It is not quite clear in my mind even now why things in my immediate vicinity did not start to aviate.