Pilots, lets hear your close call stories.

Please share your experiences.

 

Shouldn't this go into the Aviation Section, or did you want it to be a subscribers only thing?

 

Well now I know there is an Aviation Section maybe it should be moved.

 

Seriously, I think once we get it placed correctly, it might be a good idea.

I remember back in the old days, one of my very favorite columns in Flying was "I learned about Flying from that"...sort of the same concept.

 

Can a moderator please move this thread to the correct place. Sorry.

 

I only had one "close call," and it wasn't that close. Coming back from one of the cross countries during training, my RPM's just weren't where they should be. I tried everything this side of shutting down midair and restarting. The RPM's just wouldn't climb as high as they should have been...or as high as they were on the way there. There wasn't a great big difference in revs, but it was enough to make me cautious. Then about 1/2 way home, the needle ever so slowly started to drop. The whole way in I was watching for propper plasses to set the thing down if I had to, but the needle never dropped that far. When I made it back to about 10 miles out from the airport, the needle really started to fall; I got it on final, declared an emergency and the runway was cleared. Just as I told the tower what was going on, the needle bottom out of the engine just idled...barely. I stayed high intentionally and carried more speed than I needed to which is what saved my a**. I just floated down to the runway and was able to idle off the active.

I found out afterwards, there was something clogging a fuel line that was causing the RPM's to drop. I never really felt like I was in danger because this was something I had practiced more times than I coukd count and I always had open areas to put it down if I had to.

Mark

PS: Just because it always seems to make people laugh when I tell them....I was on my way back from Death Valley, NV.

 

I was 17 years old, had maybe 100 hrs total time. Solo from our landing strip 30 miles east of TYS...going to TYS. I noticed before take-off from the farm, the plane wanted to die at idle power. (this was unusual for this plane, at the time, it was a fairly new plane. Instinctually, I felt something wasn't right). It ran fine during run-up, but would die at idle without the fuel pump running. My thought processes at the time went like this...

"It's only a 20 min. flight to TYS".
"If I shut it down and call home, it's a 3 hour drive for them to come get me and it's already late." .
"There may not be anything wrong with it either. I've flown stuff that didn't like to idle before. If nothing's wrong.. how would that make me look?"
"If it gets any worse, I'll just run the fuel pump".


About 5 minutes after take-off, the plane would not run at all w/out the fuel pump on. Then, it quit running completely. I set the plane down in a farmer's field. (when I climbed out...and saw my dad's V35A sitting in a cow pasture, my first thought was..."That plane looks so out of place."). It was in a poor part of the county. I walked up to a farmer's door.."See that plane there in your field? That's my plane. It won't run. I'll have to leave it there. Can I use your phone?" "No we don't have a phone, but we can take you to one, and you're plane will be just fine. We'll keep an eye on it."

I called my dad from a pay phone, and thus began my explanation...

"Daddy, I am sooo sorry, but I landed your airplane in a field..." and he cuts me off in mid-sentence. When he interupted me, I thought he was gonna ask me..."Is the plane tore up?" Without missing a beat..he asked, (his voice hightened w/ emotion, something I was unused to hearing...)...

"ARE YOU HURT?"


I'd just landed my dad's 50k dollar airplane (in the mid-70's, that was big money for a plane). And the only thing he wanted to know was that his boy was alright..

The next day we drove up to get take a look. The fuel line had backed off of the fuel injection control unit on top of the engine. We tightened it up, and flew the plane out of there unhurt.

That episode taught this 17 year old budding pilot a couple of things...

1) Never fly an aircraft with ANY misgivings about it's airworthiness. (obey your instinct).
2) During the pre-flight of all fuel-injected Bonanzas....always check that fitting...try to loosen it with your fingers.
3) A father's love for his son outweighs money.

 

The way we found the loose fitting is worth noting. After lifting the cowl, nothing appeared wrong. That is...until I climbed into the cockpit and turned on the fuel pump.. Fuel sprayed out of that fitting all over the place...from gushing, to a fine mist. I was just lucky there was no fire in flight. That's another lesson I learned about aviation...

Never judge another pilot's mistake. Take them all as humble learning experiences..."There but for the Grace of God..."

Fly safe men!

 

DCATE - that is a wonderful story!! And I'm not even a pilot (unless FSX counts )
Glad it all worked out to the benefit of everyone involved.

Jedi

 

I am not a pilot, but a WSO with 2000 hours of fighter time. If you want to hear about the only mid-air in Desert Storm, let me know. I was mission commander from the right seat of the crunched F-111F that night.

Assuming, of course, that close calls means everybody survives and both aircraft land safely.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

Same here.....12 years in an F/A-18 on the USS Midway and Desert Storm, on to China Lake, then teaching Kuwaitis' how to fly. Scaring the pee out of ourselves was par for the course....taught a bit of respect for all things that can kill ya! At Southwest now, and boring.....which is a good thing.

Bill....aka Dogdish, Dog, Dish, Dish of Dogs

 

I was *just* about to close my laptop for the night but you *had* to tease us with that. Let's hear it!

 

My favorite uncle was a pilot for Alaska for many years and always repeated that old saw,
"it's hours of utter boredom occasionally punctuated by a few moments of utter terror".

I love this sort of thing. I've always WANTED to be a pilot and hang with pilots, just never
found the time I guess.

So I'll have to live vicariously through the F-chat crowd now

Jedi

 

We're all ears, sounds (very) interesting!

 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Back in college a buddy of mine was working on getting his pilot's license and invited me to come along for his flight that day. (A day enjoying the sights of the vineyard covered hills and valleys of beautiful Sonoma County... you didn't have to ask me twice!)

So we get to the airport sometime mid-morning, I meet the instructor and we go to the plane. They do the pre-flight checks, then I climb in the back, behind the instructor (who is on the right side) and my buddy gets in on the left side.

I didn't notice until we were up in the air, but this must've been a pretty old plane because the back windows were some kind of old lexan plastic that clearly had been in the sun too long... as they had turned a milky opaque white and yellow... and I could not see a darn thing out of them. I couldn't really even see much out of the window of the instructor, so instead I leaned towards the middle and tried to look out the front window.

I don't know if the rear seats sits lower than the front seats, or if that's just how the plane flew... but most of the time I couldn't see much of anything except blue sky out the front window either. This was pretty disappointing, considering I was ready to enjoy the views of Sonoma county. I did happen to catch a few glimpses of something other than sky-- namely the runway-- because that day's training session was apparently all touch-n-go landings.

So I'm in the back of this airplane... it's fairly loud, I can't see crap except the inside of the cockpit, and for hours the only real sensation I have is...

... my organs pressed down and back... then off to one side or the other... then steady for a few minutes... then off to the same side... then they go up in my throat and I catch a glimpse of the airport... then things get kinda bumpy... then I hear the engine rev up... then... (repeat)

After the first couple times... I'm getting bored.
After about the tenth time... I'm feeling a bit queasy
After about the twentieth time... I'm DEFINITELY feeling queasy
After who knows how many times... I. AM. READY. TO. PUKE... but doing my damnedest to breathe deep, clear my head and NOT barf all over my friend and his flight instructor.

When that instructor said ok, we're done... let's take it in and land it, I have the first real joy and hope in what felt like many, many hours. Finally that plane lands... and we taxi over... and... SILENCE. Blessed silence. No vibrations. My insides have stopped moving in wholly unnatural ways. But I still feel ill as hell...

So I tell them I gotta use the restroom like something fierce, and the instructor lets me out and points to the small terminal/front office about 50 yards away. I sprint over, ask the girl behind the counter where the bathroom is... she points to it across the room... I go in there, go to a stall... and I am SO ready to disgorge the well-shaken and stirred but clearly undigested breakfast in my stomach...

but nothing happens. I can't puke. since my legs are starting to feel more steady under me, and I'm feeling just a bit better... I decide it just ain't gonna happen, so I leave the bathroom and walk across the room... and walk through the double doors to the tarmac... and I see my buddy and the flight instructor near the front of the plane discussing something... they turn and look towards me...

and I take ONE GLANCE at those milky white-yellow plastic rear windows... and feel the entire contents of my stomach burble up into my throat.

I SPIN around and SPRINT across the room, burst into the bathroom, into the stall, heave and absolutely puke out every liquid drop of food inside me. It was as explosive as it was unstoppable.

I couldn't even look at the girl behind the counter but I could feel her staring at me, thinking who knows what. Fortunately neither my friend nor the flight instructor said or asked anything.

It wasn't until years later that I told him what I went through in the back of the plane that day.

And that's a true story, every word.

 

What a great story!! You can't make up stuff like this

Thanks for taking the time....

Jedi

 

I got two.
The first actually happened to me last week. I was flying with my student practicing some IFR approaches. As we are flying to a fix to practice some holding we are cleared up to 4,000 (aproach starts at 3,000) there was another plane holding at the same fix at 3,000 feet. As I am approaching the fix i can hear another plane taking off of the runway reporting in with departure.
ATC asks "what altitude are you planning on flying at?"
he replies "3,500"
Atc comes back and says "roger be advised aircraft holding over the final approach fix at 3,000 and 4,000"
Other pilot "roger we will use caution"
Im getting close to the fix and I see the other plane flying at 3,500 feet and the plane at 3,000 feet. Then the plane below me at 3,500 and 3,000 feet both saw each other and started to wave off to the right and climb to avoid each other. Well i think you can see where I am going with this one yeah they both nearly climbed into me and I had to take the controls and wave off to avoid hitting a piper arrow and a piper seminole.
not fun!

Number 2
This was about 4 years ago. I did all my flight training in part 141 so I had different instructors for every section of my training (i.e. one for private another for instrument and another for commercial etc. etc.) Well I was doing my instrument training and I had a stage check (practical test) with my private pilot instructor, We had been forced to weather for about 2 weeks then we got a some what clear day clouds were at about 7,000 but possible rain ( in october that can be an issue in ND) well my stage check pilot talked me into going against my better judgement. Yep you guessed it on the way to another local airport we hit 3 seperate waves of freezing rain. I couldnt see anything out the windshield or even out any windows to see how much ice we had picked up. Immediately I switched on the pito heat and the heater defroster to max. The one upside is that I no longer had to wear the damn instrument flight hood because i couldnt see outside to begin with. At any rate we got vectors for an approach. I shot the approach in a piper warrior at 105 knots to be safe and as im coming in on final im about 2 miles out and I still cant see a dang thing, all of a sudden at about a mile a small hole in the ice appears on the windscreen the size of your fist. I crossed the threshold at 85 knots (typically 65) again trying to play it safe I proceeded to land using the equivelant of a periscope to see out of, the aircraft stalled out at 70 knots (VSO is 48) and a landed quite hard. We taxied off the runway and climbed out and the plane was covered it 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch of ice every where. We put the plane in a hangar for 2 hours to let it melt. I know have a lot more respect for ice.

 

Had a very similar one that was a really close call...

I was coming out of Redding PA. There was low scud at about 300 agl, with icing in the clouds. We got cleared to an altitude above the crud so the idea was to build up speed below the crap and zoom climb thru as much of it as we could, minimizing how long we were in the icing (light rime that we come down thru 20 minutes earlier). It was a long trip and I didn't want to carry a load of ice half way to Toledo before it sublimated off. I was in the right seat with a certain pistion engine company president to be in the left seat. He was about 5 hrs short of his IFR ticket, and wanted to fly the airplane even tho I was PIC. Anyway, we firewall everything, clean up the airplane and level off just under the scud, still over the runway building up speed. We are thru 165 kts and about to start to climb. Boss goes head down to get on the gages before we go actual and he starts to pull up... We are about now maybe 500 ft past the end of the runway, going like hell, and I catch something out of the corner of my eye and instinctively jab the center of the yoke and push hard. We miss a Cherokee 140 by maybe 50 ft vertical and go right under him. If I hadn't seen him, a second later we'd have been in his belly, no great flying on my part, just dumb luck and instinct..... Boss says WHAT?? and looks up just in time to see the Piper wizzing over us, then says HOLY $H!7... I tell him to fly the airplane and he climbs out but I can see his hands are shaking... Mine woulda been too, I was scared $h1tless...

I get on the horn to the tower and tell them "7DG, I want to report a near mid-air" Young controller comes back and asks, "7DG, say again please" I come back..
"7DG, I want to report a near mid-air collision". Different voice, (much older and deeper) comes on and asks for report.. I tell him that we just had a near mid-air inside the ATA, about 500 ft from the departure end of the runway.... He asks for type and color and I tell him a Cherokee 140, color white with red fuselage stripes. He asks how close? I tell him that I could see that the right main gear tire was bald, maybe 50 fit vertical, went right under him.... He said he didn't have him on any radar. I said, well, he just busted your ATA big time and we damn near hit him, look to the southwest, you should be able to see him.....

Lesson is you can't always trust ATC to see all the traffic even if you are on an IFR flight plan, and some idiots will scud run and not even know to stay away from a controlled airport. Darn near killed all of us...

 

OK, there seems to be some interest. so here goes. I was the operations officer (2nd in command) of the 492 TFS, flying F-111Fs out of RAF Lakenheath and RSAFB Taif, where the royal family's summer retreat was located. At 4800' elevation, the summers were relatively mild in Taif, only reaching 100-105 deg at most and usually much cooler. Much better than the 110-125 in Riyadh. In August, we had accepted for the Saudis a brand new, multi-billion dollar set of hardened facilities for our operations that only the Saudis could have afforded. We were sent to Desert Shield in August 1990 because we and the F-117As based at Khamis Mushayt were the only aircraft with a precison guide munitions capability in the USAF at that time. The F-15Es would become partially PGM capable by Jan/Feb 1991. I had gone back from the initial cadre at Desert Shield in November to form and train a new squadron to be deployed to Taif. We deployed in Dec 1990 with the new squadron.

This particular mission was a four ship on day four of the war, each of us carrying four ~2500 lb GBU-24 A/B Low Level Laser Guided Bombs. Our mission was to take out the runway at An Nasariya, south of Baghdad. We would refuel, fly on terrain following radar until a few miles from the target, and then pop-up for LLLGB attacks using 2000 lb BLU-109/B penetrators on the runway. The mission started without a hitch and all four aircraft took off radio out and formed up on the way to the tanker track south of the border. We were scheduled to refuel from the bottom tanker of a five tanker stack, each at 500' above the other and 1/2 mile in trail, all lights out and radio silent. The refuelings went off with no problems and my guys all hung on the wing of the tanker until time to depart. I told my pilot we had plenty of time, so might as well top off. We did and I checked the tanker's wing to make sure my flight had departed for single ship attacks as we finished. I then told the pilot they were all gone so we could drop to the bottom of the airspace block.

As we descended, I looked down and saw an F-111F below us that had dropped off the tanker's wing and then curled back below the tanker on his way to his low level entry point. My pilot and I stopped the descent to avoid the F-111F. What we did not realize was that as our attention was focused on the aircraft below, we slowly ascended back up to the tanker's altitude. There was a loud crunch, exactly the sound you would expect when you hit another aircraft. My pilot had many hours of F-111 experience and his first reaction to the impact was to lower the nose to gain airspeed. If he had been an F-4 pilot, his first inclination would have been to pull back on the stick, and that would have killed us and the tanker crew.

We hit first on the number two engine nacelle of the KC-135R with our right wing and this caused us to roll, clipping off the top of our vertical stabilizer and punching a hole in the KC-135's pressure skin. The tanker immediately lost pressurization but was otherwise OK. I had my hands on the ejection handles and asked the pilot if this thing would still fly. After a cautious controllability check and conversations with the tanker pilot, we determined it looked like we were both all right. He descended rapidly below 15,000 ft because of the presurrization loss and headed home to Jeddah on the Red Sea.

We had ~10,000 lbs of very expensive, very scarce ordnance on board, value ~ $250K, so decided to keep the bombs and return to Taif and its 12,000' runway. Along the way we dumped fuel to get down to a safe landing weight. As we began the approach, the flaps and slats locked out, so we made a no-flap, no slat landing with little problem because of the 2 nm runway. It turns out the collision had crushed our right wing, and that was why the flaps and slats would not extend.

Meanwhile, the other flight lead had aborted after his navigation system became uncontrollable. So onward went the 1Lt pilots and junior Captain WSOs. They split up the mission's DMPIs (designated mean points of impact) between them and proceeded to completely take out the runway with their aircraft. Great job, and all four of them received the Silver Star for heroism for their successful attacks through heavy AAA fire.

As for me, I was fired, and that is why I retired from the USAF as a Lt Col. I did get to redeem myself, and flew sixteen more combat missions, receiving the DFC for one particularly harrowing mission with a broken airplane. But that is another story.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

Worth the short wait! Thanks for sharing that.