Safety Archives - Page 3 of 31 - Golf Hotel Whiskey

Incorrect altimeter settings lead to an off-airport “landing”

General Aviation News will often reprint US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident reports, including one dated January 2011 where incorrect altimeter settings during a night landing in a Cessna 172 in Clarendon (Texas) that led to serious injuries and substantial damage to the aircraft involved.

According to the accident report, the pilot was attempting a night landing and he saw the airport’s rotating beacon. However, he was unable to activate the runway lights. Nevertheless, the pilot maneuvered the aircraft onto the downwind leg of the traffic pattern, extended the flaps, reduced engine power and pancaked into the ground about two and a half miles from the airport.

During the investigation, the pilot told investigators he was at 900 feet AGL when he hit the ground on terrain that was approximately 2,800 feet MSL while the altimeter at the crash site read 7,500 feet MSL. Had the altimeter been set correctly, it should have read 3,700 feet MSL at 900 feet AGL.

In the comments section, Vaughn S. Price made the suggestion:

…keep your cockpit lights low when making a dark field approach keep your eyes on your surroundings, then the altimeter reading would not dictate your actions.

In addition, Russell P Craig CFIAIG wrote that he experienced a similar situation when he was a younger pilot where the lights would not come on:

I remembered that some of the older pilots talked about lining up with some of the hangar lights when the runway lights didn’t work. I tryed that and when a barn an trees showed up in my landing lights I went around. Scared me and from that time on I always circled the airport at night to make sure where I was.

In other words, don’t rely entirely on your altimeter to tell you when you are flying at a safe altitude and try to circle the airport at least once if you are doing a night landing where there is no tower or ATC to guide you.

How a non-pilot can land an aircraft

We have just posted a story (Can a simulator pilot with no real flying experience fly a perfect pattern?) about how a flight simulator “pilot,” or rather someone with extensive flight simulator experience and no real flying experience, confounded an airline pilot by flying a perfect pattern and landing on the first try in a real aircraft. But how could a non-pilot land an aircraft in an emergency situation?

Blogger, software engineer and pilot Eduardo Mourão attempted to answer that question on his blog by first writing that history shows someone with X years of flight simulator experience “will probably die:”

Probably not because it is difficult but because you don’t know what you don’t know. Flight simulators distort important aspects of landing airplanes: your awesome 200 degrees/3D vision, the muscle mechanics of flying and the notion of distance. In fact, flight simulators are harder than the real thing.

On the other hand, Eduardo was quick to concede that “many in the flight school I teach landed without the need for intervention in their first flight” – just like the guy we wrote about in the previous post (Note: There have been a few real life incidents where passengers were forced to take control of a general aviation aircraft after a pilot became incapacitated and with help of ATC, they were able to safely land). Eduardo also landed an aircraft for the first time when he was just 11 years old.

With that in mind, he went into considerable detail about the following steps a non-pilot needs to take in an emergency situation:

Stay calm, take control
Inform the situation
Flying straight and airspeed
Making turns
Approaching
Landing

Near the end of the post, Eduardo pointed out that playing 10 minutes with a flying simulator will make someone more comfortable maintaining an aircraft in the air, but it won’t help on a landing with the biggest mistake most first timers do is to come in too slow and too low.

Nevertheless and if you fly regularly with family members as passengers, having them play around on a flight simulator might be a good idea to get them comfortable with the basics of flying should they ever need to take over the controls in the event you are incapacitated.

Cows and aircraft don’t mix (especially on runways)

We have mentioned stories or incidents involving emus, dogs, rabbits, wild pigs, turtles, deer, a bull and even cat fish running, hopping or slithering across runways, but incidents involving cows seem to be greater than one might think.

For starters, in an August 2010 US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident report excerpted on General Aviation News, a Cessna 182 pilot in Del Rio (Texas) was attempting to land on a private dirt strip. However, he became distracted by a cow adjacent to and moving toward the runway (being Texas, the runway must have been on a big cattle ranch) – causing him not to notice that he was too low on the approach. The pilot touched down short of the runway by about 5 to 10 feet, struck some rocks on a rise in the terrain and flipped over. There were no injuries but the aircraft had substantial damaged.

Granted, that was in Texas. However, NYC Aviation reported early last year an incident at the Mayor Buenaventura Vivas Airport in Santo Domingo, Venezuela, where an Aserca Airlines McDonnell Douglas MD-82 struck two cows (who died instantly) because they did not move fast enough. The jet’s left main landing gear and left wing flaps were damaged enough to keep the aircraft grounded until repairs could be made.

NYC Aviation also mentioned that in 2005, a herd of cows were hit by an Air France Airbus A330 while landing in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. That led to local authorities arresting stray cows and holding them until their owners paid a fine. In addition and in 2011, an Aviastar Twin Otter hit three cows while landing at the Komodo Airport in Indonesia (at least they did not hit any Komodo Dragons!)

However and if you think cows only pose a threat to aircraft in Texas or in developing countries, a British biplane clipped one while making an emergency landing in a field that was caught on video back in 2008:

Luckily, neither the cow nor the aircraft were seriously injured and the pilot was glad to avoid hitting a fence that could have led to worst damage.

In other words, keep an eye out for any wayward cows when landing on runways – especially grass runways or fields.

Distracted and sleep deprived pilot flips aircraft

General Aviation News will often reprint excerpts from US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident reports, including one that involved a Cessna 206 in Stanwood (Washington) where there was one fatality. In the incident, a 55 year old pilot with multiple ratings and 4,200 hours (including 474 hours in seaplanes), was coming in for a landing in an aircraft mounted on amphibious floats with his son as a passenger. The aircraft was part of a flight of three floatplanes coming in to land at a lake the pilot had never landed at before and his intention was to land in between the wakes made by the other aircraft.

However and upon approaching the lake, the pilot got into a discussion with his son and he likely forgot to retract the landing gear in order to make a water landing. When the aircraft made a touchdown, its nose dipped and when the pilot went to retract the flaps and apply back pressure, the aircraft nosed over and filled with water.

After the accident, the pilot could not recall raising the landing gear nor verifying its position nor hearing an audible landing gear position-warning alert. The pilot also reported that 12 days prior to the accident, he had suffered a loss of a close family member and it was only after the accident that he realized he was suffering from sleep deprivation and was having a hard time focusing his attention.

In other words, it might not be a good idea to go flying right after a family tragedy or some other life changing event and you need to make sure that your passengers understand that any intense discussion beyond flying can wait until everyone is safely on the ground.

Aircraft running out of fuel: More common than you think

AVweb‘s Mary Grady recently did a podcast interview with Bruce Landsberg, the president of the AOPA Foundation and the Air Safety Institute, to discuss a problem that happens more often than you think: Aircraft running out of fuel. In fact and on average, such incidents or mishaps involving fuel happen twice a week in the USA as this interactive map from AVweb shows with many of the accidents happening near an airport (meaning the pilot almost made it….):

Luckily, the vast majority of fuel mismanagement assets are not fatal (Bruce counted 47 accidents on his map with only two having fatalities).

Bruce noted that fuel mismanagement incidents have decreased slightly in recent years thanks to the introduction of new technology. However, part of the problem is that pilots believe fuel gauges are inaccurate. The problem with that assumption is fuel gauges are required to be accurate when the tank is full and when the tank is empty. In other words, if the fuel gauge says the tank is full, its full; and if it says the tank is empty – its EMPTY. He also added that fuel is used up at a known consumption rate – meaning you can’t get five hours of flight out of 4 hours and 45 minutes of fuel.

So why do pilots run out of fuel? Bruce said he has a degree in psychology and still can’t answer the question, but he believes it has to do with a pilot’s risk tolerance. So rather than change human nature, he believes it should be up to technology and aircraft manufacturers. Years ago, Bruce had suggested to Cessna about doing something and the aircraft manufacturer responded by adding warning lights for when fuel gets low.

Bruce added that pilots have many excuses for running out of fuel that will sound plausible to them, but NOT plausible to an FAA inspector or to an insurance company. He then suggested using calibrated fuel dip stocks if you are flying an aircraft that allows for one to be used and to fly using the golden hour rule e.g. add another 1/2 hour to the 1/2 hour VFR rule or another 15 minutes to the 45 minute instrument condition rule regarding fuel. After all and as Bruce pointed out, an extra 8 gallons of fuel is worth the investment to avoid a mishap in a $30k to $300k aircraft investment.

Cessna gets away from a (short) pilot (who forgot to adjust the seat)

General Aviation News will often reprint excerpts from US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident reports, including one from January 2011 that involved a Cessna 182 which got away from a (short) pilot in Meeker (Colorado).

According to the accident report, the pilot was attempting to taxi to the runway. However, the Cessna began to move left faster than the pilot wanted to. He then attempted to apply the right rudder, but the aircraft failed to respond. So the pilot applied the right wheel brake, but the aircraft failed to stop and ended up slamming into a snow bank – leading to substantial aircraft damage (Luckily, there were no injuries).

During the investigation, the pilot indicated that he probably did not have his seat positioned far enough forward in order to activate the rudder pedals or the brake pedals to their full extent. The NTSB then ruled that the pilot’s loss of directional control while taxiing was probably due to not have the seat adjusted correctly.

Obviously it goes without saying that as with driving, its a good idea to adjust your seat, seatbelt and whatever else in your aircraft you need to adjust before you head out to the taxiway.