Air Safety

The flight up there was quite pleasant, with just enough cloud around to log some Actual time, and the passengers must have been impressed with the greasy landing. They were all whisked away from the airfield in police cars, and another one waited for me to finish putting in the control locks and covers (thunderstorms, remember?) before giving me a lift into town.

With book in hand, I went looking for somewhere to sit – certainly not the court house, and although the police station was very busy, there was a vacant alcove in the hall, so I pulled up a chair and got into my reading. What a shame the boss doesn’t believe in ANO 48- a motel room for 8 hours would be very nice.

Well, no matter how good your book is, after about 3 hours in a hard chair in a noisy corridor, you start to think that there must be something better to do, because you keep falling asleep and your head slips off your hand, your neck gets stiff, and anyway, it’s lunchtime. A walk round town will do you good – that motel room is looking very desirable right now.

Walking for two hours or so does some things for the soul. It also confirms to me that I made a reasonable career choice when I elected not to be a postman, policeman on the beat, or a Sydney to Melbourne marathon walker- my feet were tired, and my brain was going very fuzzy from the 4am start. So much so that I hadn’t noticed the thunderstorm approaching, and it then meant standing on a windy and wet street corner for another half hour until the worst of it passed before returning to the alcove and the dreaded book. And it was still only 2. 30.

As the time approached 3. 30, I brightened up to the extent that I rang Sydney Briefing for an update on the weather- it wasn’t good, storms all around (no kidding!) and probably an hour’s holding to get in. Great. The next good news was that the court case had finished – but the passengers had retired to the pub for a few ales! So while they were pouring it down, so was Hughie, with lightning, thunder and the occasional hailstone. Good thing I put the covers on the aircraft, but that still won’t stop it from leaking, and I bet my nav bag will be full of water with slowly dissolving approach plates.

When they finally turned up at 6pm, I was not only feeling tired, but also hacked off at the delay, and a little apprehensive about launching into the gathering gloom. My mood on the ride out to the airport was made even better by them saying “Can you hurry it up, pilot? We’re running late for a connecting flight!”

Mumble, mumble

At the aircraft, it was pelting down, and I had the only umbrella . . . So we all got mostly wet, instead of me being mostly dry and them being all wet. Sheltering under the overhead wing, I ushered them back to their seats, shut the rear door, then took a deep breath and dashed into the downpour to remove the covers and control locks. There was no point in dashing, I got drowned anyway.

The cockpit and cabin didn’t take long to steam over with their wet woollen suits and beery breath (how long after breathing fumes can you fly?), and after engine start it was an effort to see where to taxy for the holding point. Run-ups were normal, and I rolled onto 04 in the pouring rain for a takeoff.

Acceleration seemed normal, but that darned airspeed indicator hadn’t moved yet. Water in the lines? Or maybe the pitot cover is still on! Dickhead! (It’s amazing, the thoughts that run through your head at such times- ” the pitot heater is on, the plastic cover should melt off, continue the takeoff, everything will be fine!”) Aborting the takeoff from around 40kt was easy enough, and as I stopped at the threshold of 22, I mumbled some explanation to the wondering drunks, shut down the left engine, got out the front door and removed the molten mess of plastic from the pitot tube.

Restart the left engine, and with the passengers starting to doubt the wisdom of staying for that extra snort, take off on 22 for Sydney. Things then went along swimmingly until Sydney asked me to hold at 40 DME, and I had to explain that the DME appeared to be full of water and was refusing to co-operate. A compromise was reached, and we entered holding for around 45 minutes. During this time the inevitable occurred with several of the passengers expressing a desire to use the rest room, a feature not included in this AeroCommander, so again they asked me to expedite the arrival at Mascot. The gentleman who needed his connecting flight put in his thoughts as well, and after some plea bargaining with Sydney, we commenced an approach to 16.

Approach asked me to keep the speed up, so as we neared West Pymble it was an effort to slow down and configure the aircraft for landing. Then Approach decided that I had been too slow, and the RPT jet behind had priority, so I was told to break off the 16 ILS and track to join the 07 ILS. Keeping a mental picture of where I was without the use of DME while I fished out the approach plate for 07 was putting unneeded pressure on my already overtaxed, tired brain, but we managed some sort of intercept and broke out of the cloud around 1,000′, still in rain, black as a duck’s guts, but at least lined up on the runway.

Tower cleared me to land, and I touched down a little long and used gentle braking to avoid hydroplaning. At taxy speed, I turned left onto . . . Runway 34! And here comes another jet on finals, with its landing lights reflected from the myriad puddles covering the taxiway lights. This is the time for another of those thoughts-through the brain efforts . . . “Continue ahead up 34 and take taxyway Charlie on the first right! But, boy! That jet is getting closer! Is there time? How about a U turn back onto 07? You had better make up your mind, son!”

Tower helped me make it up”. Alpha Bravo Charlie, confirm you are clear of the runway?” That’s it, up the power, U turn, and get back onto 07 right now. “Bravo Charlie, I will be in a second!”, and as I roared into the left turn onto 07, I saw the lights of the 727 that was on finals start to go around . . . from 07. I had rushed out of the path of one jet into the path of another . . .

Not much could register in the brain now- the tower telling me to take the next left and call the supervisor as soon as possible, the realisation of what had just happened and what could have happened, and then the biggest hit of all – I saw that I had in fact originally turned off 07 onto taxyway Lima, not 34, and that the jet on finals for 16 had at that time been almost lined up with Lima and its lights and reflections had made it look like it was coming straight at me. If I had taken the first option and continued on till Charlie appeared on the right, all would have been sweet and all that would have happened would have been a rip in the seat cushion where my bum had taken a bite from it.

But with all the factors of fatigue, weather, pressure from the passengers, and the knowledge of the stuff-up on takeoff, I had thought (?) that the first alternative dished up by my brain was such a bummer at Taree that this one was probably also a dud and I rejected it. So I had turned off Lima, back onto 07, and the tower was asking me if I was clear of 07 so they could clear the following jet to land.

I didn’t really care what the passengers thought any more, and I don’t even remember what they said when they got out. But I do remember the investigator, some weeks later, and when I gave him the full story, he laughed and said “T his would make a perfect case history for the Accident Digest”, and no further action was taken. Well, almost none. I made sure that the other pilots in the company heard about it, despite the embarrassment, because there was a lesson in there, somewhere.