Aviation Safety

The airplane sustained substantial damage while landing at about 0945 Alaska time. Of the six people aboard, there were no injuries. The captain subsequently stated his approach required a correction for a right crosswind and initial touchdown on the 5000-foot long by 100-foot wide gravel runway was uneventful. He said he continued to apply a small amount of left rudder pedal input to correct for the crosswind as the nosewheel touched down. As soon as the nosewheel touched the runway, the airplane veered sharply to the left, and went off the left side of the runway.

My first “actual” instrument flight after earning the rating was a 27-nm hop from Sedalia to Boonville, Mo., in a Cessna 172. The entire flight was flown below radar coverage. Navigation was by ADF-an outbound bearing from Sedalia to intercept an inbound to Boonvilles Jessie Vertiel Memorial Airport. With my clearance received I climbed into juicy clouds at about 800 feet agl and cruised to the “far” NDB, thence flying the full-procedure approach. I had a strong crosswind on the inbound course; it was too low for VOR cross-bearings, so my navigation was by the lone, waggling ADF needle, my watch and a rough guess at my probable groundspeed. I juggled the approach plate, my charts and kneeboard, and the flight controls as I fought light turbulence while hoping to hold my wind-corrected bearing to avoid towers growing up into the murk. I broke out about two miles from the runway, lucky to pick out and avoid a Cessna scud-running just beneath the cloud deck, then scooted the rest of the way in at MDA until intercepting the VASI and landing in a stiff wind.

My story involving a glass-panel failure happened with an Avidyne unit. I was at Wick, Scotland, lining up for departure, and suddenly things started failing. First the lower Garmin 430, then the upper one. The transponder quickly followed and by then the PFD looked like a demo poster for what happens when things fail. The great news was that I was on the ground-even without a radio. It turned out the number one alternator and the master control unit had failed. Whether one had caused the other was incidental at that point. In marginal weather, with no radio, only the most basic of flight instruments and no VOR or other electronic guidance? I surely wasnt taking off; being airborne and trying to land would have been harrowing. My handheld GPS had just become my new best friend; Ive double-checked its batteries ever since. Between it and my Sportys handheld nav/com (yes, I keep those batteries fresh, too), I would have had a shot at getting down in one piece. We might carry some backup radios and gadgets, but how prepared are we to deal with major system outages when in the clag? Short of the odd IPC or checkride, how often do we practice for-real panel failures? Why not use everyday flying to stay sharp on partial panel?

The instrument landing system (ILS) is a really wonderful gadget. When everythings working as it should be, gently keep the aircraft aligned with the transmitted electronic beam, wait long enough and a runway materializes where only a few moments before there was nothing. Pure magic. Its basic technology was perfected long ago, and the fact it remains the primary precision approach is truly remarkable. Of course, the ILS is not without its limitations. For one, it requires substantial site preparation and cannot be installed at just any airport or runway. Its basic characteristics require understanding, too, including the likelihood of false glideslopes, back courses and the possibility of interference from nearby buildings and aircraft. To function correctly, the localizer and glideslope antennas must be placed in specific locations; not all runway environments can accommodate these requirements.

Nothing can spoil a nice trip on a good-weather day like bumpy air. Like most other things in meteorology, its somewhat possible to predict turbulence. But unlike most other things in meteorology, as well as in life itself, there is something you can do about it. Altitude, time of day, tall-and not-so-tall-buildings and the relative flatness of the terrain over which were flying can all combine to make what should have been a smooth, relaxing flight into your (or your passengers) worst nightmare. Sometimes, those are the cards youre dealt. Most of the time, though, it doesnt have to be that way. The air that supports our aircraft is a fluid subject to the laws of physics. Ignoring the local influence of the sun and obstructions for a moment, when the wind blows, its flow is laminar-all air moves together smoothly. Even though that air might be moving rapidly it will be pretty smooth. If you upset the laminar flow of that wind, things can get interesting in a hurry. The upset can be something physical like a mountain or just a different air flow. The result on the nice days is just a slight change to the laminar flow of the wind. On bumpy days, though, the result is air in the boundary between the laminar flow and the upsetting influence is not smooth at all. In fact, there are often eddies and backflows, same as you get aft of an airfoil thats just at or past the its critical angle of attack. Depending on the strength of the wind and the opposing forces, those eddies and backflows can be slight or quite severe, with the corresponding flight through them being either a little jittery or enough to separate wing from fuselage.

Its probably a fair bet that every person who has flown an airplane more than about 20 hours has made at least five landings he or she not only considers personally embarrassing but remains convinced to this day could be measured on the Richter scale. So, lets be honest with ourselves from the very beginning: As active pilots, we are going to make ugly landings from time to time. Further, Murphys Law says we will probably make them when a lot of people are watching. Therefore, lets recognize that a little humility (and perhaps humiliation) is the price of acquiring and maintaining the skills necessary to cause a rapidly moving flying machine to return to the planet in a condition to be reused immediately. As a result, once we firmly accept that from time to time were going to make runway arrivals of the sort to make cement contractors rub their hands in financial glee, we are going to be less likely to try to force the airplane onto the ground due to embarrassment after we have bounced telephone pole high, and more likely to think rationally about the attitude, speed and altitude of the airplane and proceed to coolly evaluate whether to try to salvage the landing or go around.

Expectations can force the eye to see what the mind wont parse. My lesson in this human frailty occurred when I was taking an end-state instrument student out into some real weather, which he had been pestering me do for weeks. The trip was a short one, from a central Connecticut airport, across Long Island Sound to Islip, then Westhampton Beach and back home again. A nice easy 90 minutes with four or five approaches. The weather was horrid, but perfect for IFR training. A late-winter warm front had moved in over the still snow-covered ground to produce uniform ceilings of 300 to 500 feet in a couple of miles of viz. Tops were widely reported at 3000 feet and since Id seen these exact conditions before, I knew what to expect. Link one: The lesson was a rushed after-work affair and I was pushing to get it done before full dark. I dont mind night IFR, but not in a Cherokee with no backup vacuum, thanks. We slammed together a briefing, filed a flight plan, got into the airplane and picked up a clearance while the engine warmed.

A recent Friday evening found me liberating my airplane from its hangar for a short local flight designed to warm the oil before draining and sampling it. Home plate, the Venice (Fla.) Municipal Airport (VNC), is afflicted with a common ailment: anti-airport activism. Since noise is a common complaint, Runway 22 is preferred in “calm” winds; its even in the AWOSs remarks. On this day, winds were something like eight knots from 290, and two aircraft were in the pattern for Runway 31, which intersects 22. Choosing a safe interval between other traffic, I launched, climbing above the pattern and leaving the area. Since I wasnt really going anywhere, I left the local Unicom frequency active. At this point, a student/instructor combination in a 152 had the airport to themselves.

Prior to installing an overhauled fuel cell, it was found to contain a large quantity of sawdust-like particles. Further inspection revealed the foam filling the fuel reservoir was breaking down. The older cells reservoir foam insert was compatible with 100/130 fuel. However, 100LL causes the foam to break down into fine particles that get trapped in filters and screens. This problem is addressed in service bulletin (SB) number 2109 which replaces the old style foam (p/n 369200157) with a product that is suitable for use with 100LL.

The pilot reported that the airplane entered the airport traffic pattern, and he performed a visual approach to Runway 35 with a 90-degree crosswind to the landing direction. He stated that he was “slow” on final and when he touched down using a soft field landing procedure, the airplane was “pushed” off the runway by a wind gust, contacted a snow bank with the left main landing gear tire, and nosed over. Both wings were substantially damaged.