Straight ahead and under control

From your National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) files:

DESCRIPTION

AIRCRAFT CRASHED UNDER UNKNOWN CIRCUMSTANCES, THE TWO PERSONS ON BOARD WERE FATALLY INJURED, 1 MILE FROM SCOTTSBLUFF AIRPORT, SCOTTSBLUFF, NE

WEATHER: BFF 092255Z 15011KT 10SM FEW110 17/02 A2950

You, dear reader, are the pilot in command. You have just departed the runway and are climbing through 600 feet above the ground. Unbelievably your engine suddenly makes silence, no more power. What are you going to do?

This is a scenario that I teach my students when learning to fly. We practice it until I feel that they can safely land the airplane if something similar happens in real life. If the pilot does nothing at all, takes his (her?) hands off the controls, the airplane will land itself but that is a lot like letting your car coast down and steer itself off the road when you take your hands off the wheel and foot off the accelerator. It is usually better to help the machine by serving as its eyes and brain.

Modern aircraft engines are extremely reliable. They rarely quit. They do quit, however if the fuel tank is empty but you the pilot checked that the tank was full before you started the engine. Maybe today you just "got lucky" and the extremely rare engine failure came to bless you. All is not lost, for you have been trained to handle that eventuality.

I teach "First you fly the airplane!" meaning you lower the nose to keep the airspeed at best glide speed and keep the wings level. Actually the airplane is designed to pitch down by itself and maintain an adequate airspeed. However with the excitement of an engine suddenly not behaving, the pilot has a natural tendency to pull back on the controls; exactly the wrong thing to do at the moment.

So now you have just become pilot in command of a heavy glider. You are going to get to land without the benefit of any engine power at all. Incidentally, flying a light twin engine airplane isn't a lot of help either, as most won't climb or even fly level with one engine shut down; it just gives you a bigger footprint to choose a spot to rest.

Where are we going to land? Sure, we just departed a nice, wide concrete runway, why not go back and use it again? Sometimes such is possible, but that course of action is fraught with danger.

The bank angles required to turn around are extreme and you'll end up landing down wind, which creates other problems. Too many times, the pilots who try to turn back end up stalling and spinning into the ground.

There is no second chance. It is best to simply glide straight ahead, turning just enough to miss obvious hazards like trees, buildings, that sort of thing, and land the airplane normally as you have time and again before. If the airplane gets bent in the process, usually no big problem as that is why you wear seat belts.

I tell my students that it is much better to crash at 20 miles per hour under control than uncontrolled at over 100 mph.

Bob Hoover, who has had a lot of practice, says "Just fly the airplane as far into the crash as possible." and Bob is still flying at 80+ years old.

So what really happened at Scottsbluff? No one really knows at the moment. The pilot was old, bold and evidently well experienced. The airplane was a modern design, homebuilt and of good reputation. The truly sad part is the loss of the passenger a sharp 18-year-old honor student due to be a valedictorian at her high school graduation next month.

Whether the accident was the fault of the aircraft or an error by the pilot, the two fatalities cast aviation in a bad light and that makes me sad. Aviation has been my chosen life profession, hobby, and second love.  Statistics show general aviation nearly as safe as driving a car.  And yet, like the sea, it is terribly unforgiving.

Eventually the NTSB will issue an official reason for the accident or it could well be "undetermined." Either way I'll just keep teaching my students to land straight ahead and fly it as far into the crash as possible. I haven't had one get hurt yet. I'm also not leaving you, today's pilot,  "hanging up there." You are cool and have herded your "glider" down to a safe landing in the open pasture just a mile off the end of the runway.  Good Job!

That is the way I see it.