Trust No One!

[FlySacto]

Here's a chance to pass along some info that I hope will do someone some good. We hope to learn from others mistakes and not repeat them. Please learn from mine!

One of my occasional clients called me the other day saying he picked up a Turbo Aztec and still needed to do some flying after ferrying the airplane from Florida to California to satisfy his insurance dual requirements. It had been a while since I was in a pa-23 so after our briefing, I spent my time in the POH after doing a walk around of the airplane and looking it over "mechanically". Real nice with a pair of 600 hour engines and well taken care of. As I'm digging into the POH for system info and gathering up v-speeds. the owner completed his pre-flight. "We're good to go and have full tanks" Our plan was to fly about 3.5 hours and get some approaches and landings in along the California coast and come back to Sacramento. We had a great time with CAVU wx and had a great lunch. My guy flew the airplane well and was on top of things and switched tanks on schedule. I pointed out that the left fuel gauge was still showing full and we were only showing burn down of the right side. On our way back we were starting our initial descent out of 12,500' and I pointed out that we were getting low and should switch over. I was telling him that I've burned a tank dry with a student and it will get your attention when it happens. I watched him go through the tanks swap and about 9000', we had a tank go dry and the engine windmilled. I took the opportunity to push him through the engine out procedures as he didn't really do anything when the engine canned. The airplane has six tanks and after going through the procedures we were up and running. I didn't pay close attention to the fuel guages as I was talking him about the event and we then had the other engine go out from fuel starvation. At this point I took the airplane from him and told ATC we were diverting to an airport about 15 miles off the wing. I had him go through another tank swap and I never saw fuel quantity come up on the right side. I got us quickly over to the airport with 1500' over mid field and was at idle power from the Vno descent. I then bled off airspeed and did a 360 on final to kill a bit more altitude. During the approach I felt the right engine surge a bit and I had him toss the gear and flaps out and we made a landing and taxied to the pumps on both engines. I got a ladder out to peer into the tanks and the only one I could find any gas in was the outboard aux on the right wing with about 1/2" of fuel. We put 131.6 gallons into four 36 gallon tanks with three gallons unusable in each. Do the math

All you guys. Being an instructor is like living in the X-Files. TRUST NO ONE! I trusted my guy to check the tanks. It turns out, he trusted the FBO to top the tanks and didn't look. Get it? I let myself delegate an important issue one too many times without any problems.

My bads: I didn't check the tanks myself, period. I didn't take the time to be intimately familiar with the new airplane and systems BEFORE we met to fly. Another hour in the books and I wouldn't have been as distracted during the flight looking things over and playing with systems and might have paid closer attention to the one good fuel indication we had and caught how much fuel was indicated in each tank. I should have asked him point blank, how many hours of fuel do we have on board, and just how many gallons is that before we left. Come to find out he also didn't ask to fuel the aux tanks and we would have been pushing fumes if we had done much airwork.

My one good: Flying in client's aircraft can be an adventure as you learn each new model/each airplanes quirks and grow a comfort level with each one. At the first sign of something amiss in an unfamiliar airplane I took over and proceeded to get on the ground and not dork around trying to find out what happened. We would have walked away from a perfectly good airplane with no gas in it if I had messed around even a few minutes. I saw an airplane in a field 1/4 mile from the runway with the newscopter hovering just last week at the very airport we landed at. We gassed up and flew home the remaining 21nm to home.

Time to have some supper, a cold beer, and chant the old mantra: "That won't happen to me..........................again"

 

[Say Again Over]

Nice job, lesson learned. :beer:

 

[VW Pilot]

Yeah...from this I learned a lesson...trust no one...check for yourself....I'm glad it turned out ok for you and no one was hurt....I live here in Tampa, FL and over the past few month's there have been at least 2 or 3 small single engine aircraft running out of fuel and landing on streets and highways......not just a lesson for you, but for us all....

 

[Say Again Over]

Here's another preflight story for you, friend of mine (A320 CK airman) let the student do the preflight, well, on departure the landing gear didn't move, mechanics had installed a personal gear pin (not the one from the flight deck with the big red flag ) easily missed if you are new to the bus, should have been a tech log entry anytime a gear pin is used, that's the only reason my friend didn't lose his certificate, .

 

[FlySacto]

Here's another preflight story for you, friend of mine (A320 CK airman) let the student do the preflight, well, on departure the landing gear didn't move, mechanics had installed a personal gear pin (not the one from the flight deck with the big red flag ) easily missed if you are new to the bus, should have been a tech log entry anytime a gear pin is used, that's the only reason my friend didn't lose his certificate, .

We've had enough of those at our airline that I feel real bad for the next guy that does it. It wasn't a feel good email we got after the last one.

 

[VW Pilot]

Yeah, I also work at KTPA.....I've seen some people attach the towbars without pins.....then push the aircraft....nothing broke but the Captain was pissed......they were stuck out on the ramp for 10 minutes trying to disconnect the towbar because the hydraulics were putting pressure on the towbar......yikes....$$$$$$$$$$$$$...delays....$$$$$$$$$$$$$

 

[Say Again Over]

Yeah, I also work at KTPA.....I've seen some people attach the towbars without pins.....then push the aircraft....nothing broke but the Captain was pissed......they were stuck out on the ramp for 10 minutes trying to disconnect the towbar because the hydraulics were putting pressure on the towbar......yikes....$$$$$$$$$$$$$...delays....$$$ $$$$$$$$$$

Steering bypass pin is to disconnect steering, a gear pin locks the landing gear from collapse or retraction, two different things.

 

[xjcaptain]

We used to have a sticker on the panel of our old '69 skyhawk when I was doing my private. It said "In god we trust, everything else we check". Simple and to the point.

 

[Amish RakeFight]

Good post FlySacato. It sounds like you handled things in a cool, calm and collected fashion. Thanks for the lesson and reminder.

 

[pilotpat]

I can't believe you didn't check the fuel before you left!!!!!!!


just kidding. Nice job on getting down safely. Makes my student preflighting for a night flight and not noticing the landing light out look quite pitiful.

 

[acaTerry]

I don't want to sound harsh but I have to. You have 3500 hours and still have not learned to check the fuel yourself. As CFI you have to do this, you are in command.
I normally hold my judgements but in this case I have to shake my head. Even when I was a 350 hour CFI, I always checked fuel and oil myself no matter who I flew with or how short we'd be flying. It takes less than 2 minutes. Sorry, but I can't help but feel despair that CFIs are out there being so foolish.

 

[VW Pilot]

RE: Say Again Over....OOOOPs....Sorry.

 

[Goose Egg]

Lesson learned for me. I haven't done too well at double-checking the fuel and oil when my students do the preflight. I haven't been burned, but I'm starting to get the feeling I've been extremely lucky.

-Goose

 

[avbug]

When I was instructing full time, a student crumpled an airplane. I picked up the airplane at the repair station a couple of months later. It was waiting just outside the door to their shop. One of the inspectors told me he'd flown it the night before, that it flew nicely, and that it was ready to go.

As I preflighted it, I found right away that all the inspection plates on the underside of the airplane were missing. Having attended to that, I began again, and quickly invited the inspector out to look at the airplane. Had he by chance noticed that the AILERONS WERE RIGGED BACKWARDS during his little flight the night before? Nope, he hadn't...nor could he explain why the fuel tanks were completely dry, the flaps misrigged, etc.

Over the years I've seen shop owners, aircraft owners, students, and pilots put aircraft on the line without fuel, with cracked wings, with broken spars, with bent or damged landing gear, firewalls, cracked or broken tailwheel stingers, misrigged flight controls, misrigged engine controls, and a host of other problems. I flew a corporate airplane to the Bahamas, one of thirty or so the company owned. When I went to fire up, the engine temps went through the roof. After a second start attempt with the same results, I called the DoM, who told me the airplane had been doing it for months. He told me the engine manufacturer had approved it. I called the engine manufacturer, who responded with shock. Nobody called them. The company just lied.

Trust will get you killed.

 

[pilotpat]

Oh, yeah...abnormally high ITT's are fine! As the Caveman on the Geico commercial says, "Yeah, I got a response....w-w-what?"

 

[Sam Snead]

The 'big boys' never 'visually' check the fuel tanks, they have gauges they trust. When you go from flying an airplane like that to a small piston, your habit patterns are not in place.

That goes for a bunch of stuff, not just checking fuel level at preflight. I'm glad that this particular lesson was learned for free.

 

[avbug]

I jumped in a small piston twin a few days ago, for the first time in years. The first thing I did on the walk around was check the fuel and oil, even though two others had already done it.

I don't think preflight habits die at all. Nor do I think one believes the Seminole or Seneca one walks up to is a B737...not do I think experience in advanced aircraft alleviates the use of the checklist, nor teaches one not to use it.

You do still have a preflight checklist, no?

 

[nosehair]

I don't think preflight habits die at all. Nor do I think one believes the Seminole or Seneca one walks up to is a B737...

I think I would think the same, given the fact that we spent some time on the line in small piston airplanes before going from flight school to FO in short time. Most all the militay jet pilots started in pistons, but if there is no appreciable after school experience with small pistons, I think the experience just dies away. That's my observation of the bulk of heavy airplane drivers.

 

[Amish RakeFight]

When I used to freelance instruct in some Dr.'s Mooney, I'd feel pretty uneasy when the pilot told me were good on fuel and that we could top off at XYZ for better rates. I couldn't climb in without having a peek myself and thinking hard about endurance to said airport.

 

[FlySacto]

The 'big boys' never 'visually' check the fuel tanks, they have gauges they trust. When you go from flying an airplane like that to a small piston, your habit patterns are not in place.

That goes for a bunch of stuff, not just checking fuel level at preflight. I'm glad that this particular lesson was learned for free.

Thanks all of you guys for the positive, and also the scalding comments. I had a situation where 25+years of combined flying experience almost screwed the pooch. Sam, your post brings up two good points for me to comment on. As the level of experience goes up we (do, might, should, shouldn't) put more trust in our fellow pilot to complete a task as simple as verifying the fuel load. My begining instrument students get more of a "grilling" about the flight than someone doing recurent training and have been flying for years. This includes the preflight planning, fuel requirements, ect. I was comfortable that an experienced pilot finally moving up to a high performance twin was up to the task. He wasn't.

Today with the airline, I got an airplane that had several MEL's. One of them was a fuel quantity indicator that was defered and required that the fuel quantity in that wing be verified after each refueling with several float indicators built into the wing, and the quantity computed with a chart. As a Captain should I have trusted in and let the relativly new FO to do the test, or should have I done it myself? Do I most likely delay all the flights with tight turns to do the test and have the confidence that it was done correctly, or do I trust my fellow pilot and try to get out on time? What is the definitive right answer? More food for thought....