This is one of our worst nightmares. My daughter is loadmaster on the C-17...and there is always that worry about your kid flying these huge birds....they go up but worry like hell how well they come down. And it doesnt help when she lets us know when something isnt 'working right' and they needed to be grounded for the fixes.
I used to fly on C-130s a bunch....two things always amused me....first was, "If we're gonna hit, I'll give three short blasts on the horn, and then one long one right before we hit." The other was that all of the pax in the back could see the 5 (five) parachutes lined up on the forward bulkhead behind the flight deck. We always thought, "Who's gonna be around to blow the horn?"
A good friend is a seriously experienced C-17 pilot. That's one heckuvan aircraft. A much better place to be than an outdated, difficult to maintain C-5.