Emergencies...what did you do?

[RichardFitzwell]

Here's a couple...

W.T.

Without going too much into detail; a few years ago I was flying for an aircraft broker in Florida and went through a spell of bad luck. In just over 4 months I enjoyed the following...

1. Took off from TPA 18L in an Apache and lost the right engine at 700 agl. Circled over the Bay at 700' and landed back on 36R. I found out the rt. primer located between the seats had become loose and sucked air into the fuel line which killed the rt. engine.

2. One week later...flying with a student in his C401 and doing practice night approaches into Lakeland we had the left main gear light not indicate down and locked. After several low approaches it became clear this would not fix itself so we circled north of TPA and tried to manually extend the gear. The mechanical extension is in front of the pilot's seat but when he moved his power seat back to reach the mechanism, his seat shorted out, filling the cockpit with smoke. Long story short...left the seat alone, I flew back to TPA in the right seat, a lifeflight helicopter just happened to be hovering at the airport and verified the gear was down by shinned his spot light on the mains but he couldn't tell if it were locked. I landed...very softly. On rollout the light came on. It was a broken wire.

3. One month later...flying an Aztec from south Florida in the early morning. Shot the ILS into SRQ close to mins. Picked up some a/c parts and took off for TPA. Again over Tampa Bay the left engine started sputtering and shut down. Feathered the engine, pumped the gear down and landed on 36R at TPA. The engine sucked in two valves.

4. Six weeks later...flying a C310 from MO to FL on a ferry permit. Right engine indicated a loss in oil pressure. I shut it down and landed at Malden, MO. The oil pressure gauge shorted out and temp gauge didn't work. Mech. fixed the gauge and I continued the flight a few hours later.

5. One week later...flying a C210 in IFR, I lost the vacuum pump. Covered the attitude indicator and flew to Orlando Exec. (the only VFR airport) to land.

6. This is the best one! Three weeks later...ferrying a Cherokee 6 from CA to FL. At 9,000' over Texas the ONLY engine quit and wouldn't restart. I notified ATC. They gave me 2 options. Midland, TX something like 60 miles ahead or Pecos, TX 15 miles behind. I turned around, maintained best glide and headed toward Pecos. I was above an under cast so all I could do was take their vectors and hope. When I popped out of the clouds, the airport was straight ahead and I was lined up for the runway. I didn't change anything and landed on the very end of the runway with enough speed to coast onto the first turn off. I was shaking like a leaf and my knees buckled when I stepped off the wing. I pulled the seat out of my butt and called my boss to quit. Three days later, I flew the plane back to TPA. The mechanical fuel pump had a major leak and the fuel wasn't getting to the engine. The electric fuel pump didn't help.

I was PIC on all of these flights. I continued to ferry aircraft for another couple months before I got hired by a commuter. As you may have guessed, flying for some aircraft brokers isn't the safest way to build flight time.

Since then, the only problem I have had was when I lost A System hydraulics in a Boeing 727. The flap motor broke apart and dumped the hydraulic fluid instantly. We got the gear down and landed at ORD.

R.F.

 

[DC-3TP]

Left engine failure on takeoff

Our flight was departing Kanab, UT for a return flight to home base, when just after I called for "Gear Up" the left engine on our turbine DC-3 failed completely. The run up checks were normal and the takeoff power checks were normal. I heard a loud bang and looked out at the left engine to see the prop go into auto-feather. There was a fraction of second of disbelief, then training took over, and I made my memory item callouts. "Engine failure, Set max power, Positive rate gear up, Confirm autofeather". We climbed to 400 ft and secured the engine and performed a tear drop, and landed single engine without incident. Our company training really paid off for the six passengers and 1500 lbs of "special" cargo on board. The tear drop was what I said I was going to perform in the pretakeoff briefing for an emegency return. I pay close attention to those briefings now, and ask lots of questions when other pilot briefings are not complete.

 

[newmei]

I was flying with another private pilot in central american in a C-170 (he was PIC) we had just climbed out of a private airport which the ag planes use for the rice paddys. With started a turn southbound and at about 700 agl the plane let out a cough and fling and snap snap snap. (the rocker arm had broken) I turned the plane around (I was flying at the time) to try to get it back to the airport about 4-5 miles behind. I handed over the airplane and we began trying to troubleshoot, and then it just quit the prop stoped and everything. There was a green field on the left and a brownish one on the right we went for the brown because it had less vegatiation. The only problem was the 8' tall berms running horizontally across spaced about every 1000 feet. We touched down right after a berm and the tail did'nt even stay down we just rolled on the nose for about 50 feet the left gear and wing caught a rut and over we went doing about 45 mph. I jarred the cessna overhead radio speaker off its mounts with my head and the PIC got knocked out for a few seconds. (I stayed awake, I thought he was a dead for a second) Anyways I was bleeding good and we released the seatbelts and got out quick!

The mud in the field was no less then 1 foot thick, it was a impossible landing BUT keeping the airplane flying to the ground saved our lifes, no doubt. This was by far the most uncomfortable things I have ever gone through (if you never have rolled on your nose watching the ground go by and then rolling over and hanging you would'nt understand) But we lived to fly another day, thats all that matters right???????

 

[AHPilot]

I guess you could say I've been lucky enough to not have experienced any real emergencies yet. Just wondering....while on the topic of engine failure, in light single engine a/c, what would be the "procedure" for engine failre over a populated city? I fly out of SAT Class C...right off the end of 12R there are two buildings, my guess 50-100 feet tall...about 5 stories. Don't even like to imagine engine failure over a populated city....especially low to the ground, low airspeed, ect. For all you experienced pilots out there, how would you handle such a situation?
Happy Flyin,
Langston

 

[avbug]

Langston,

In a true emergency, we seldom get to pick and choose the circumstances. They pick us. All you can do is fly the airplane until it stops moving, or until you are no longer able.

If you have obstacles ahead, then turn to avoid them. If you are in the inner city, you can hope you don't hit powerlines, and can try to land on a street, or keep the gear up and put the airplane into a short vacant lot, grass strip or playing field, or use trees in a park to absorb the impact through the wings. If you can find a lake or open body of water of some kind, you'll get stopped in short order.

Personally, I'm willing to select impact on a hillside or wooded area before I'll go for a crowded highway or city street.

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.

 

[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.