Pilots, lets hear your close call stories.

I would!

 

I've had two incidents that raised the pucker factor:

1. Coming back from Europe in 99, I was inbetween Scotland and Iceland, and my HSI, a Sandel, decided to lose the lighting. Was still working, but you couldn't see the instrument. I was IFR and getting light ice at the time, getting vectors for the ILS into Iceland. I was using partial panel, and ended up about 300' over the bay in Iceland, slightly to the right of the course. The wind was about 40 kts directly from the right. They wanted me to circle, and I think that I told them to F-off, and landed with the cross-wind. The known cross-wind component of the Baron is 27 kts, so I landed all the way to the right on the wet runway, and by the time I got it stopped, I'd slide all the way to the other side of the runway, but was still on the runway. Had to wait a week to get a new bulb so I could fly out of there. Great place to have to spend a few days though.

2. On my way to Iceland in my buddies' Citation, a Stallion conversion, with Megget instruments. At some point between Goose and Iceland, the instrument, along with the autopilot decided to stop working, and we had to fly it by the back up steam gauges. There were 3 of us on board, and none of us could last more than 30 minutes: 41k, at 400 kts, difficult with a 2" attitude indicator to keep within 100' feet of altitude. Found out later than there was a switch, that had to be triggered when you went past a certain latitude.

Art

 

LMAO!!

 

An American Eagle plane did the same thing at a small regional airport out in the Central Valley of California a few years ago in one of those Fairchild commuters. Another AE pilot told me about it. Apparently Mr Perfect did it so the entire company kind of felt that it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

 

Re landing at the wrong airport. This happened during the war when a transient B-24 was talking to MacDill Field and landed at Drew Field, a short distance away. Then there is the UAL DC-8 that landed at Troutdale , Oregon when he thought that he was going into Portland just down the road a bit farther west.

 

Years ago...when they still ran the Formula 1 races at Watkins Glen, a friend (who shall remain nameless) was taking off after the weekend heading home. Due to the heavy private traffic, he didn't get into the queue until dusk was falling. The tower gave him the all clear, he rolls and pulls back...but not sharply. Anyway, as he looks down while retracting the gear, he notices that he clips the telephone or power wires with the wheels. Now, that was a close one.

CW

 

Was this retaliation for some internal politics to this particular pilot or a company wide issue?

 

I wonder what the pilot said to the passengers of that UAL flight when they realized their mistake. Um, let's not take our belts off just yet folks...

 

This particular one made a habit of highlighting everyone elses imperfections. A little like Winchester on MASH.

 

Indeed they did have to unfasten the belts and deplane. They also removed all the baggage, most of the fuel and everything else to lighten the airplane. They did get it out of the much shorter Troutdale airport---barely.

 

What a nice fella... Bet that reality check stung deep.

 

"ok everyone, off the bus. Now let's all push together."

 

We had a little pompous instructor pilot at Hondo who carried a swagger stick. He used it to whack the hands of any pilot who made a mistake in the procedures in the cockpit. He would swing the wing tips to hit any ground weeny who wasn't doing what he thought was good enough for him when they were getting him into a parking slot that were very narrow but not tight. One day we witnessed a wheels up landing in front of the main apron. Guess who it was? ? We never saw that swagger stick in his hands after that.We did see a low profile , though.

 

There is a famous story out of WW2 AF pilot training similar. In the T-6, the rear stick is actually removable with a small release for when the rear seat was rotated facing aft for flexible gunnery training. In many models it was little more than an inexpensive wood stick, like a baseball batSeems there was an instructor that would always try to unnerve the students by poking them in the front seat with the stick to get their attention, then throwing the stick overboard. Well, one student got a spare front control stick hidden in the front seat before a flight with this instructor. So when the instructor in the back poked the student then threw the stick overboard, the student turned around and threw his front stick overboard. The rear seater then himself was unnerved, and without thinking it through, BAILED OUT. It was a lonely ride home for the now solo student, and enough red faces to go around in the Commander's office.

Switches, Hondo is still a hotbed. There is an outfit out of SAT, Wright Flyers, that has a contract training CHINESE pilots and they fly their 172s filling the pattern and radio waves with chinese accented english at Hondo's multiple runways and single UNICOM. There is a nice restaurant there, and on a weekend flyover for breakfast, the 'local' notam is to watchout for these guys, as they can appear anywhere in the pattern at anytime unnanounced,...and then on weekdays add the Randolph students in their MUCH faster T-6 IIs doing approaches...well yee ha, boys, that there's a rodeo!
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The bigger the ego, the deeper the "augering in"...in this case.

Love the story Russ

Looking forward to Taz's story about the F-111F pilot now that we have some additional demand.

 

Thanks, Russ. Your description of the Chinese flight pattern reminds me of the pattern at Hondo when all the trainers returned at once from thier missions and the traffic was referred to as a " Chinese Firedrill". It was absolute chaos compared to todays disciplines. At 1200 when they returned, the 360 deg. pattern all of a sudden filled with lights as they dodged one another and jockey'd for position. Look at the ramp in that approach shot and picture it with a triple line of AT-7's and C-60's. Man! It is still the same after 65 years.
Switches

 

I had a close call of another kind October 2007, this one shook me up real bad and i didn't fly for almost a month after it. I was going through my multi engine training and was trying to get my long (300 mile) cross country done, but scheduling just wasnt working out for me and my instructor. well low and behold one Sunday afternoon i happened to check the availability of the Piper Seminole and wouldn't you know it Tuesday evening had some cancellations that opened up the launches for me too take, I eagerly called my instructor and told him Hey there is enough time on Tuesday for us to do our cross country. He pulled out his planner and all of a sudden i have another call coming in so I told my instructor i would call him right back. As it turns out it was my boss from work reminding me about a meeting on Tuesday evening. If that wasn't a buzz kill i dont know what is. So i called my instructor back and told him it was a false alarm and I couldn't make it. With in the hour my friend Adam took the plane for the time that i was gonna fly and he was even flying the same route. Tuesday rolls around I go to the meeting no big deal. Wednesday rolls around I wake up and go to my multi ground school my professor walks in and says "I want you guys to know that we aren't having class today, One of our aircraft didn't make it back last night" I found out that it was Adam's plane that didn't come back but we still were holding out hope that they just put it down in a field and were out of cell range. Later that day our worst fears were realized when the plane was found upside down in a swamp in central northern MN. For about 3 weeks after that I couldn't fly because i just couldn't shake the feeling that that airplane was supposed to be my plane and it was supposed to be me who went down not Adam and his instructor. As it turned out the hit a flock of geese at 10:00 at night it bent the Stab up at a 90 degree angle and the plane went from cruise of 160 knots to vertical and 0 knots in 17 seconds and the from an altitude of 4500 feet to zero in another 35 seconds, with nothing that they could have done. I still think about what had to have been going through their heads when it happened and truthfully I still get a bit shaken up by it.

RIP Adam and Annette May you fly on angels wings


Sorry to be a bit of a downer in an otherwise entertaining thread.

 

See this about Space Shuttle close calls?

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=17623.0

I found the fact that they landed 1600' short of the runway threshold one time quite amazing ("it was a low energy landing" said the commander on the official video).

 

I experienced something similar. My friend and I decided to rent a 182 from my flight school to fly to Lake Powell. I can't remember why, but we had to cancel. Since the 182 was now available, my flight instructor took up a photographer to take early morning photos of a Malibu the flight school owner was selling for someone. The photos were to be used in the advertising. The flight school owner was piloting the Malibu, and the two planes were flying in formation right over Boulder. They lost sight of each other, the Malibu came up under the 182, and the 182's prop cut off the tail of the Malibu. My instructor managed to land the 182, but the Malibu went in to a vertical dive and augerred in. The entire crash site was no more than 50' in diameter in the middle of a mobile home park. It missed a home full of people by 30'.

 

Russ, LMAO!!!!!!!

 

I had a close call with a Hawker on my PPL checkride. I saw him just before my examiner & thankfully he saw us & was already climbing. ATC directed us into his approach path at APA. We were close enough to see what the Captain was wearing.

A much better story involves a friend, ex-navy pilot. I do not remember much detail, but some time ago he launched off a carrier at 2am, went up to FL500, saw something with an orange glow on the horizon (strange enough to almost gather a stick reaction), then it goes 'flying' by him. A shuttle on re-entry.

 

Resurecting an old thread to see if we can nudge Taz into sharing a few mor stories

 

I just ran across this thread and had to tell this story, it is quite unbelievable. It was not me, but a friend of mine. He had an experimental plane, it's a canard (I think it's the same type of plane that John Denver got killed in).
He was flying out of a small airport in Iong Island, after a few miles, his aircraft started running rough and he didn't know why so he immediately started to head back to the landing strip. Unfortunately his engine quit on him. He was in a very populated place, so it was tough for him to find an adequate spot to make an emergency landing without hurting anyone else on the ground. He apparently thought that there was a chance that he would make it back to the airport, so he stayed on course to the airport. Unfortunately he didn't have enough altitude and couldn't make it down. He wound up touching a wheel on a roof of a house, then came down onto the street and took out a section of fence and hit a corner of another house. The plane got demolished. If you see it, you would never imagine that there were survivors. My friend was in shock, so he told the traffic controller that he touched down (as if nothing was wrong), went through the whole shut down process, got out of the plane and tried to lock the canopy closed (it was detroyed). Everybody around ran up to him to help, he just walked by everyone and rang the door bell to the house he hit, so he can tell them that there was an accident and they need to call 911. Of course the homeowners were already outside...lol
He wound up just hurting his knee a little and had crutches for about a month. That's it!! He was very lucky. After an investigation by the FAA, it was determined that the cause of the engine failure was a frozen fuel line.
He then moves, I think Arkansas, but I'm not sure. Decides to buy a another plane. Same one, but in worse condition and it needed a little TLC. I told him he was nuts! well fast forward a few years. He is up in his new plane, all of a sudden the latch for the canopy breaks or slips and the canopy comes flying open! That wasn't the big problem though. All of a sudden his flight log book goes flying out and hits the prop....it's a pusher prop on that plane....and breaks the wooden prop. The plane starts vibrating like crazy. I'm not sure if it stalled or if he had to shut it down, but in his head he was saying, "hear we go again!"
This time he was over a large highway with plenty of room for a successful landing. He brings it in, but unfortunately he had to come in pretty hot with the plane, and winds up rear ending a car with a family in it!! Then it veered of the highway into the embankment. Thankfully there were absolutely no injuries this time, and very little damage to the plane.
I told him he is not allowed of the ground anymore! LOL
You can't make this stuff up. I used to have good photos of his first plane, but I can't find them now.
Here is his plane from 30 seconds to 4min.30sec.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dse_WChqphc[/ame]

This was the first crash:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/03/nyregion/pilot-is-unhurt-in-a-suffolk-county-crash.html

Here is the second accident:
http://forum.canardaviation.com/showthread.php?t=4925