I Learned About Flying From That: Learning on the Job

T.S. Dunn

Thursday, June 04, 2015 at 12:08 AM ET

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Key Takeaways:

On his first airline command, the pilot faced severe winter weather, an aircraft with inoperative flaps, and significant ice accumulation, leading to difficult decisions like exceeding approach speed limits for safety.
Despite his earlier safety-driven decision to fly faster, his strict adherence to the manual's VREF at the runway threshold, combined with ineffective de-icing due to "ice bridging," caused an aerodynamic stall and a hard landing that scraped the tail.
The experience taught the pilot a critical lesson about the balance between following rules and exercising cautious judgment when safety demands a temporary disregard of established procedures.

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It was cold. That isn’t always a bad thing. Engines have more power; wings produce greater lift (more or less). But there was also moisture. Quite a bit of it in fact. And that is just no fun when it’s below freezing. Throw in the fact that I was at the end of a long five-day trip, rapidly approaching 15 hours since the last time my head had hit a pillow, and that my ATP certificate was still foldable (as in temporary paper), and you have a nice start to a National Transportation Safety Board report.

I had just north of 1,600 hours total time, and I was bravely in command of the mighty Beech 1900. My first airline command. The four stripes on my epaulets were starched new. Everyone learns somewhere. It’s probably better that the 18 passengers behind us had no idea that I was doing so on their dime, especially in the middle of a winter storm that extended across the Rocky Mountain range.