Emergencies...what did you do?

[WhiskeyTango]

Amazing the number of incidents some of you guys have endured.

"Remember that in an emergency, you didn't create it. You deal with situations as they're handed to you. You can plan ahead, and conduct your flight by prior planning such that when an emergency arises, hopefully you're in the best position to handle it, but let go of the concern and worry; it's not of your making, and you need only deal with the puzzle as it's given you. If the situation is of your own making, then still do your best, and hopefully you'll survive to never make that mistake again."

Good advice...If it happens it happens- try to prepare for it and when and of ot does, do your best. That's all you can do.

 

[aero99]

When I was training for my PPL, we were doing steep turns at 4000 when we smelled what we thought was an electrical fire. Found a small field a few miles away and landed without incedent. Called the flight school and told them of the problem and where we were which was about 50 miles away. We popped the hood and looked for anything that looked burned but couldn;t see anything irregular. Still smelled like something burning even on the ground. The owner of the school called my instructor and tried to push him into flying back since we couldn't "see" anything wrong. I advised my instructor that this is how NTSB file stories start and there was no way I was getting back in. After an hour of arguing with the owner, he finally sent another plane to pick us up. Next morning they flew our plane back and started looking for the cause of the smell-which they smelled on the way back. Turns out it was a starter bolt(if I remember correctly) backing out and rubbing on one of the pulleys. Mechanic said it would have busted very soon.

Had it been another instructor and student this plane could have been a smokin hole if they had decided to push on.

 

[tarp]

Things got more interesting as I got more advanced ratings

1.) Stupid pilot trick 1 - PPL with 15 hours, C-172 and 3,000ft runway. Winds calm. Misjudged approach and was high. Pushed nose down and got fast. Started touchdown halfway down runway. Finished with the nose 15 inches from a split rail fence and about 25 feet from the end of the runway! (Why are we so dumb?)

2.) Real IFR practice with student on an ILS to a towered field. Halfway down the approach, we both start gagging and coughing - smoke in the cockpit - nasty acrid wire burning stuff in a C-172. The landing light switch had fused (common 172 problem) and the wires were burning up. We had no choice but to continue and hope that our instruments would work tillwe broke out of the clag. At the bottom of the clouds and with the rabbit in sight, I turned off the master and landed. On inspection afterwards, I found a 30 amp fuse/cb in the landing light holder. On talking to the mechanic, he said he was tired of the landing light fuse always popping, so he just put in a bigger one!

3.) Ferrying a turbo Arrow to Florida. At 9,000ft and 10 miles from Charleston SC, just glided down and landed on the big ol runway out there. No brainer.