Accident Probes

After flying south through the Cajon Pass at 6500 feet msl, the airplane turned west and encountered what the commercial pilot presumed was leeside turbulence from the mountain range. She turned back south to find smoother air but the turbulence became more severe and the airplane began to descend rapidly. As the airline transport pilot struggled to change frequencies in the turbulence, the airplane descended to 2000 feet msl (about 500 feet agl). The commercial pilot applied full power but the engine did not respond. After the airline transport pilot enrichened the mixture and applied carburetor heat, the engine momentarily regained power. At about 2300 feet msl, the engine again lost power, and the ATP decided to land on the westbound lanes of a freeway. As he attempted to avoid a vehicle, the airplane landed hard.

As the morning waned, the weather picture improved greatly, with only scattered showers and clouds over the Mojave Desert and clearing over the west side of the Tehachapi Mountains. We ended up filing to go over Victorville and into Bakersfield to visit family. Soon, we were cruising in VMC at 10,000 feet and looking at the activity over the Mojave. Ahead, there were Pireps for icing above 8000 feet, so we asked for and received routing over Edwards AFB at 6000. Based on what we saw visually and on the FAAs flight information system (FIS-B), we thought we were well out of danger.

Years ago, when I first heard the term runaway trim, my initial thought was something along the lines of, How can that happen? All of the trim systems Id seen up to that time had been manual, unassisted crank, lever or thumbwheel affairs, which rely on the pilot grabbing something and moving it to achieve the desired change. I was aware that trim systems could mechanically fail, but generally would stay in a fixed position when they did. I had discussed and trained for abnormal trim conditions, but how could a trim system run away? Then I learned about electric trim, autopilots and runaway trim, and it all became clearer.

When I was a student pilot, I was lucky to have some grizzled mentors. There were a lot of do this and dont do that admonitions, a lot of tips regarding shortcuts and rules of thumb, plus some sage advice about decision-making. A lot of that advice could be broken down into the old Its better to be on the ground wishing you in the air than to be in the air wishing you were on the ground genre, but it was often accompanied by a Let me tell you what I learned the hard way kind of introduction.

A common night disorientation scenario is transiting from an area with many lights to empty countryside with few scattered lights (or none at all). I distinctly remember my first experience with night disorientation. I was a VFR-only pilot at the time and did not have a good instrument scan, nor much night experience, but thought I was proficient enough. I was flying from Boise to American Falls, Idaho, in a rented two-seat Alarus. The plane was painfully slow, so instead of flying over the highway, I hit the Direct To button on the GPS so I could fly the shortest path over the empty sagebrush back to the airport. Between the lack of lights and the moonless night, I strayed significantly off-course more than a few times. I knew my saving grace was the magenta line that I was able to keep pointed ahead.

• Fresh Out Of The Paint Shop
• Geographic Risks
• Shock and Yaw
• EFB Dependence
• There’s No Checklist

According to panelists at a recent Miami, Fla., conference geared to the business jet community and reported by Aviation International News (AIN), not all of the in-service fleet is expected to be compliant by the deadline. (Full disclosure: I often perform freelance work for AIN, for which I am compensated.) In fact, data cited by AIN show compliance is far from universal, with 17.5 percent of the piston-powered general aviation fleet (35,791 of 204,191) currently equipped.

David Jack Kennys article on upset training (Undoing An Upset, November) was excellent. A year or so ago, my son and I spent a day with Patty Wagstaff in St. Augustine, Fla. We took ground school and two flights each. Not inexpensive, but not outrageous either. We got unbelievable training and spent much of the day in spins and inverted. Back at the hotel that night, we just looked at each other and said, Wow! Were both much better pilots following the experience.

to maintain heading when employing the “one-wing low” method or apply it when using a little of both methods to align the airplane with the runway.”

because temperatures in parked cars can exceed this range.” Presumably