Air Safety — Vital Actions

With three friends, I had flown a Piper Warrior to a country property in northern NSW, where we were to spend the weekend. Others in the weekend party had driven to the property by car, and late on the Saturday afternoon someone suggested that I should take them all for a short flight so they could see what the country looked like from the air. Always ready for a further excuse to go flying of course, I readily assented. There were eight people who wanted to go, and it was obvious that I would have to make three trips if everyone was to be satisfied. So with the sun already fairly low on the horizon, I decided they would each have to be of reasonably short duration. There was no wind, the aircraft was parked close to the eastern (homestead) end of the property’s strip (the longer of the two available), and to save time taxying, I decided to use this strip in alternate directions, taking off into the west and landing into the east.

When the first load of three had boarded the Warrior and I was settling them in their seats, one of the other intending passengers, whom I had not met before this weekend, climbed up on the wing walk to close and latch the cabin door. As he did so, he took the opportunity to explain that he too held a private licence and would appreciate sitting in the right hand seat for the next flight. He did not have a lot of practical experience, he told me, and had not flown at all for several months, but he was reasonably familiar with Warrior aircraft and would appreciate any flying from the right hand seat that I felt able to offer him. Made to feel very much the “senior pilot”, I magnanimously told him that if he liked to wait for the third trip when there would be only one other passenger, he could actually occupy the left hand seat and do most of the flying under my supervision.

To my surprise, this offer evoked only disappointment. He wouldn’t be able to wait for the third trip, he explained, as he had to be back at the homestead before that for some other commitment. He looked so downcast that I felt I had to accommodate him by extending the offer to the second flight. This brightened him no end, and when I taxied in after an entirely uneventful sortie over the property with my first load of passengers, there he was waiting with the second lot, all smiles and ready to go.

I climbed out after the first three passengers vacated the aircraft, and he slid quickly across into the left hand seat. I ushered the next two passengers into the rear seats, helped them fasten their seatbelts, and stepped in beside my newfound friend. Within moments he had competently started the engine and we were turning around and lining up for takeoff. He proved to be something of a natural, handling the aeroplane well considering his modest experience. I was monitoring him carefully of course, and only during the approach to land did I have to prompt him at all, reminding him that, as there was no wind, he needed to reduce power rather earlier than he would otherwise have done.

But the landing itself, down sun into the east, if a little firmer than I would have liked, was perfectly safe, and in the length available we rolled comfortably to a stop in front of where my final load of passengers, now also three in number, were waiting patiently. But this time, instead of shutting down as I had done previously with the aircraft still facing into the east, my friend swung the Warrior round on the strip in the direction of takeoff again before he pulled the mixture control into idle cutoff.

“That was good,” I told him. “You certainly haven’t lost your touch.”

“Thanks,” he said, obviously pleased with himself.

With the westering sun now close to the horizon and blazing directly into our faces, it was difficult to see the instruments and controls against the glare, but he proceeded to flick off all the switches in the approved shutdown manner. Clearly this fellow was a stickler for doing things properly! But when his left hand moved to the fuel selector below the panel on the side of the cockpit, I motioned to him not to turn it off. “Just leave it where it is,” I told him.

We changed seats again then and he stepped out on to the wing to assist the last three passengers aboard. As before, he helped them with their seatbelts, latched the door for me, then jumped down off the trailing edge and gave me a thumbs up to signify all was clear to start the engine again. This time for some reason, it was reluctant to start, but after a further prime and a bit more throttle, away it went and I eased it back to 1000 RPM. By now the sun was actually setting and I was conscious that I had no time to lose if we were to be back on the ground before dark.

Quickly I readjusted the trim, checked the mixture and throttle friction nut, glanced at the fuel contents gauges (which were both still registering a healthy amount), checked that the fuel booster pump was on (I’d turned it on for starting), and moved the flying controls through their full travel. All was well and I glanced around at my passengers. “All set?” I called to them. They all nodded enthusiastically and I turned back to the controls and opened the throttle, checking the oil pressure and the tacho reading as I did so. “Here we go,” I said as I released the brakes and we bounded forward.

As before, the takeoff run was perfectly normal and, as the ASI needle rose towards 60 knots (110km/h), I rotated the aircraft into the takeoff attitude. Breaking ground cleanly, the Warrior began its usual brisk initial climb, to the accompaniment of my passengers’ murmurs of approval. But at a height of about 40 feet, without the slightest hesitation or other warning, the engine suddenly cut out — an absolute dead cut. For an instant the silence was deafening, then my left hand was flying to the fuel selector, moving it almost instinctively to the next detent, while my right hand, also seeming to act without my thinking about it, quickly lowered the nose into a gliding attitude to maintain flying speed. Even in the stress of the moment I realised the position of the fuel selector was the problem — as I went to move it, I sensed it was in an unusual position.

We were now sinking fast towards the strip again, but it was obvious that we could not possibly touch down and brake to a stop before we would overrun its western end. And beyond the end of the strip were stunted trees growing out of a low rock strewn hillock — an absolutely disastrous surface for a forced landing.

It was obvious that I would have to deliberately induce a ground loop as soon as the aircraft was firmly on the ground — even if it meant wiping off the undercarriage in the process!

Seemingly within seconds, the surface of the strip was coming up to meet us — and so was its far end with the rough ground beyond it. But as I quickly lowered full flap, began to flare for the touchdown, and my free hand moved back to the panel to begin turning off the switches, the engine suddenly burst into life with a vengeance. The sudden unexpected surge to full power dramatically altered the trim of the aircraft of course, and for a moment I was frantically busy – adopting the right climbing attitude, retrimming, and raising two notches of flap to achieve an efficient climb angle. Even so, the main wheels almost touched the strip surface before we were climbing safely away again.

With the problem obviously solved, there was no reason (except perhaps my considerably quickened heartbeat!) not to give the passengers their money’s worth, so I continued with the flight as planned before approaching dusk finally forced our return for another uneventful touchdown.

As so often seems the case with aeroplane accidents and incidents, the factors that brought this little drama about were complex. I rate them as these:

The obvious misunderstanding between my pilot friend and myself about not shutting off the fuel at the end of his flight;

His apparent “rustiness” on the aircraft type in inadvertently leaving the fuel selector out of its detent (had he left it in the fully off position, the engine would probably have died well before we became airborne, in which case correcting the problem would not have been nearly so critical);

The fact that, facing into the setting sun as we were, visual conditions within the cockpit itself were difficult;

My own haste to get airborne again in the short amount of daylight that remained;

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And finally, because of this haste, my utter failure to check either the position of the fuel selector or the fuel pressure gauge, during my all too cursory pre-takeoff checks.

In this case I had “got away with it” with nothing more painful than a severe dent in my pride as a responsible pilot. But the clear message of the incident was that, no matter what the urgency of the situation, properly conducted checks are an absolute essential for a long and safe flying career — and that such checks are not called “vital actions” for nothing!

Talking the incident over with other pilots, I get the impression that most of us have probably been guilty at one time or another of going through our checks purely by rote, without thinking of what we are doing. Who can say, for example, that there haven’t been times when we have carried out an engine run-up and religiously checked the magneto switches, but completely forgotten to look at the oil and fuel pressure gauges? We nearly always get away with this sort of thing because of the sheer mechanical reliability of the aircraft we fly. But if complacency allows sloppy checks to become a habit, then sooner or later we are bound to be caught out — with consequences that are impossible to predict.

Since my own salutary experience, I heard about a commercial pilot who became involved in a somewhat similar incident at the beginning of a charter flight. After starting the engines of the light twin he was flying, he taxied to the holding point where he carried out a full pre-takeoff check, running up both engines properly and checking in turn the fuel tank selectors, fuel pressures and tank contents. All seemed to be in order. Releasing the brakes, the pilot then lined the aircraft up on the runway and opened the throttles for takeoff. But as the aircraft gathered speed, the port engine suddenly ran roughly and lost power. Immediately the pilot closed the throttles and braked to a stop.

The pilot normally flew this light twin with fuel in the inboard and outboard tanks, and it was his practice to use the outboard tanks first. But because this particular flight was only a short one and he had a heavy load, the outboard tanks this time had been left almost empty. Yet from force of habit, the pilot selected the outboard tanks for takeoff (as was his normal practice) and even with his apparently careful pre-takeoff checks, he failed to realise the fuel selectors were positioned to two empty tanks!

Both my incident and his are further illustrations of the truth that accidents are rarely the result of a single, isolated event. Nearly always they are the culmination of a chain of unfortunate or unfavourable circumstances, any one of which in isolation would probably not amount to anything more than a timely warning — if that. Obviously, the possibility of becoming involved in a real accident can be reduced by recognising these timely warnings for what they might easily, in slightly different circumstances, have become — and taking precautions to prevent similar happenings in future.