Are precautionary landings too rare?

[mickjoebill]

Im not suggesting that the recent EMS accident was pilot error, but the circumstances raise a relevant question.

How rare an event is it for an aerial work or public transport flight, flying VFR, to make a precautionary landing off airport due to poor weather?

As a crew member on photographic flights we have sat out rainstorms to get a better shot but I can't recall a job where we have made a precautionary landing in a field due to deteriorating weather. We have made precautionary landings for chip lights, strange bangs and smells :) but not deteriorating weather.


On two occasions I've felt uncomfortable with the decision to fly in the soup, but both times were with pilots with current IFR experience. I reasoned that an IFR pilot flying a VFR flight, is less likely to accidentally fly out of their comfort zone into the muck than a VFR pilot because they have a better knowledge base of poor weather conditions.

Have I been kidding myself?


If precautionary landings are a too rare event, perhaps this aspect of airmanship should be better addressed in Human Factors Training as it is likely to be crew psychological factors rather than a lack of flying skill or experience?


Mickjoebill

[Nigel Osborn]

I've lost track of how many dozens of time I've landed in a field, once on a lake when I had fixed floats, to wait for bad weather to pass. Usually in the warmer climes, storms pass over quickly but I have on 2 occasions slept on the back seat for the night.
Pushing on in vfr is not wise & even in ifr if you're not assured of a successful let down.
I guess that's 1 reason why I'm still around after 47 years in helicopters.:ok:

[Gordy]

I have made two so far this year---and not too proud to admit it. I also took off on a cross country from California to Missouri and tried to stay ahead of a storm that was moving south...left Tonapah, NV one one leg and ended up turning around and going back. Wasted an hour of L4 time and spent 36 hours in Tonopah, (not fun for those who have never been there--one horse town in the middle of nowhere)..... Luckily my boss is OK with any decision made by our pilots, and does not pressure us.

As for me---I personally think a good pilot is one who knows when to say NO vs a yes man. Been there done it---and have NO hesitation landing in fields when necessary, we shouldn't, but I am sure most of us have been caught out at some point in our careers.

[mickjoebill]

I think it worthwhile to split the experiences into diversions to airports and precautionary landings in a field, with the latter being a "harder" choice?


Mickjoebill

[SASless]

I have camped out, stayed a day, waited a few hours, and discovered a lot of nice people and warm fires to share in my bush flying days. Even a corporate gig in the Pacific Northwest we used a fair number of taxi's and pickup trucks to get our folks to their destination. One can fly VFR/VMC in terrible conditions but landing out should never be considered "bad". Far better to spend a night in being a bit uncomfy than dead. One can sleep under a Pool Table if need be....done that too!

Looking back...perhaps our weather minima were a bit to liberal....like none but we did it in a safe manner over known routes and stayed keen on the locations of the wires. Granted the Hi-Lead Loggers could surprise the heck out of you as quickly as they could string cables.

As Gordy rightly says.....beware the pilot that says YES....and trust the one that says NO!

If you kill yourself in bad weather....sure as clockwork you will be buried in beautiful weather.

[griffothefog]

On one of my first cross countries in loose formation with another company aircraft, we came upon the blackest horizon I'd ever seen...(so much for my wx planning) :eek:

After it started to rain and the vis began to drop, I elected to land in a big field and see what happened, but the other aircraft pushed on as the base was only about 10 miles further up the road we were following (IFR) :E

The net result was that me and my Bell 47 got completely soaked, while the other guys ended up turning away from big black bast**d 5 miles further on and suffered a heavy landing, downwind in the scrub :( You really haven't seen a good TS till you've seen one in Oklahoma!

My weather planning HAS improved over the last 27 years of heli flight, but I still remain a chicken **** to this day :ok:

[Freewheel]

Way too rare.

You meet the nicest people when you land unexpectedly in their paddocks...

[ReverseFlight]

Another true story to tell (not my own though).

VFR scenic pilot tries to out-run low clouds to go up a long narrow valley but the cloud came in behind him and blocked off his only exit back down the valley. He had to stationary hover 20 minutes with no visual references except the tip of a tree just visible below him. He managed to grope his way home after the clouds cleared but he told me he had learnt his lesson and never did it again.:\

[SASless]

Foggy day....bit of misty wet about....MD-500....scooting along the tops of the trees, big old Douglas Fir Trees, at least a hundred yards vis....looked straight down and realized there was no ground to be seen....just the fog. Hit the end of the timber unit where a huge clearcut began....and discovered a slight flaw in my program. That being how to get down to ground level and find the Viney Maple and other scrub brush in the clear cut. No problems says I...put the trees on my side and hover down as the rotor wash blew the fog away. Found the ground had enough Vis to allow further progress towards our destination using the Hum and Fake It Air "Hover Mosey Technique". Hover a bit...and when you can...go as fast as possible but being able to stop before you run out of clear way.

One can get a Special VFR Clearance out of a control zone without asking....if you know the controller and he recognizes the aircraft as you blunder out of the fog and mist to discover you are a few miles behind where you think you are. The exchange went along this line...I drop off the ridgeline and find some vis....to discover I am looking at Mr. Boeing's field and the rows of shiny new airplanes lined up waiting for customer pickup...and realize I am in exactly the wrong place (the one next to the lake)...mentally think "You have dunnit this time ol' Lad! (or helicopter pilot language to that effect)...quickly change to Tower Freq....to hear...."07Charlie is clearred OUT of the Control Zone Special VFR, maintain....blah...blah..blah." I acknowelged the clearance, read it back like the true professional would have....and ended the transmission with a "THANK YOU! Brian!"

You know you are pushing the limits when you get stuck trying to climb over a 40' wooden poled power line.....and take several tries to get'er dun! I always did worry about the Town Drunk throwing a Boone's Farm or Roma Rocket bottle onto the helicopter as we passed under the bridges in Portland. We reckoned if we could not see the river banks....then who would know!

That was on a single trip mind you.....and I won't talk about flying across an Army helicopter unit at Fort Lewis along the way....all those gallant aviators stood in the fog and mist with their coffee cups in hand waiting for the weather to improve when a Hughes Mad Dog whizzes by at naught feet in the middle of their Reservation.

Griffo has the correct attitude....I am now known as BB Balls.

[GeorgeMandes]

Flying in Alaska, precautionary landings are quite common (or at least for me). The memorable ones are when you get stuck for a day or more. Here is a "rest stop" last week, going from Dease Lake to Smithers, BC. The great thing about a road, is sometimes you can get info from passing cars as to whether conditions are improving.

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg251/GJMandes/P1010073.jpg

Here is a photo of about a six hour weather delay in SW Alaska, an hour before a brown bear cruised down the salmon stream past us.

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg251/GJMandes/P1000646.jpg

[stringfellow]

forgive me for presuming but why shouldnt we make precautionary landings??? is it a landowner or legal issue??? i for one do not care.... one of the main reasons i fly rotary is that if lost or unsure i get on a descending base leg and have all the time in the world to put down. everyone happy safe and alive.
and the alaskan pictures are fantastic, thank you.

[birrddog]

I for one want to know if that crew member hiding amongst the orange jacket had the appropriate qualifications to operate that 407 ?

Did you have a special puppy seat installed? :p

[Kerosine]

I would be as bold to say it looks like good fun in chopper... Can't imagine it's as enjoyable flying my light FW twin into a field though :eek:

[GeorgeMandes]

My wife was actually PIC on that leg of the Alaska trip, and our new Vizsla pup, Astro, was SIC. SIC meaning, sleeping in crate.

If you like Alaska pictures and stories, here is our PIREP from that trip:

Alaska August Adventures (http://web.me.com/gjmandes/Site/PIREP/Entries/2009/8/17_Alaska_August_Adventures.html)

[birrddog]

George, great story, great photo's, must have been a fabulous trip.

[perfrej]

I have lost track of the number of landings I have done in clearings to let the snow pass. Visibility drops really fast when the snow thickens. Fortunately, it usually clears up after half an hour has passed. I would never hesitate or push it.

[JTobias]

All

I reckon I have to put down in a field a couple of times each year due to deteriorating weather. I don't give it a seconds thought and so far I've never had an issue with a land owner because of it.

Recently on a trip to Paris (not that we got there) I ended up parking my JetBox in a sewage farm and taking refuge in someones house for a few hours until I was able to re-trace my steps home.!

I have found that some recently qualified pilots are far too concerned about landing on private property than they are about making a precautionary landing. It's simply a no-brainer - if you're not happy, put the thing down. 99% of the time, most landowners either won't ever know or equally won't care (as long as you've not damaged anything).

I wrote about our failed Paris trip on my blog here (http://jetbox.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/its-daves-fault/) if you're interested.

Joel:ok:

[BV234driver]

Mick, you're on the money. It always seems that once you're on the ground after the p/l, you look around and say how dumb it was to get into the situation of having to p/l in the first place (for non-maintenance issues. Those are kinda handed to you without option). I've been in both- and it's usually the 'it doesn't seem so bad', or 'another minute or two and it might get better'. I've also had countless times avoiding those situations by turning around prior to getting into them- the preferred method. Piloting is a type-A activity, and us type-As don't like having to explain why the helicopter is parked in a field, or we had to pay a landing fee/compensation to a landowner, etc.

As many here have said- it's the wise man/woman that knows where their limits are, and brings that airplane back to the boss. After all, I don't know too many that would honestly be okay with gambling an aircraft and the lives of the crew. -and if that's the case, it's not an operator to work for.

*A side note- help your brother or sister out- if you're having to bring the airplane back, or p/l due to weather, that's what radios are for. The metro types always ask for pireps, especially to verify their predictions of deteriorating weather. I've seen company traffic about to launch into conditions that I'm having to return for, on more than one occasion- using the radio puts it on tape and will make the good weather types run back to give a more accurate forecast and conditions. Again, just like above, experience tells you which ones to stay away from.

[GeorgeMandes]

Not just helo guys:

U.S. pilots make safe landing on Yukon highway
Last Updated: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 | 6:54 PM CT Comments4Recommend16
CBC News
Two American pilots safely made an emergency landing on the Alaska Highway near Watson Lake, Yukon, on Monday.

The pilots were both in single-engine airplanes and were en route to Alaska when snow and freezing rain forced them to land 12 kilometres south of Watson Lake, where the highway crosses the Yukon-British Columbia border, shortly before 4 p.m. PT Monday.

"The pilots did the correct thing, you know: they got down as soon as they could and in the safest manner as possible," Watson Lake RCMP Cpl. Tom Howell told CBC News Tuesday.

Howell added that the pilots had "no time to get permission to land if the weather was quite intense; the aircrafts were icing up."

The pilots manoeuvred their planes off the highway into a rest stop, where they waited for police to arrive. The pair then camped in the area overnight and took off Tuesday morning for the Watson Lake airport.

Howell said he and another RCMP officer blocked off a one-kilometre stretch of the Alaska Highway for Tuesday morning's takeoff.

The pilots even gave Howell a wag of their wings as they departed to continue their adventure, he added.

[leedspotter]

I was on a weekend break last year with my partner and her 2 freinds. We stayed in a little cabin and I had landed the heli about 400 Meters away in a car park. The Friday evening we flew there the weather was Ok(Ish). Around the mountains There was lots of clouds but they where not really a factor. What was a factor was the following day I awoke to FOG!! Long story short, we waited a couple hours and it did lift a little. So I decided to start the Bell up and see if I could get out through a Valley. This attempt failed and the fog all of a sudden got worse. I had no choice but to make a precautionary landing in a field with no houses or a road! in sight. And O2 where of no use, because when I checked my phone I had no signal. I was screwed. Waited there for almost 2 hours before the fog had lifted again and I went back, picked up my slightly confused freinds and managed to get out of the mountains! It was a good lesson though. Wouldnt want to happen to me again though :bored:

[Torquetalk]

That surprising fog in the mountains wouldn't have been plain old cloud would it?

Maybe that venture from ATPL(A) into the world of paid single pilot chater ops would be safer with 1k+ rotary. With so few rotary hours and your greater fixed-wing experience, there is a big risk of over-confidence in a category you barely know.

A heli can behave in ways that go right against all the experience you have when it really matters. Knew one fella who had plenty of fixed-wing experience who did his heli licence. Very confident in the air. In fact, he was an all-round top bloke. He's dead (helicopter accident).

Sorry, but your example belongs in the catgory of bad decisions to fly. You tried to get out the mountains in limited VMC by flying down a valley with circa 100 hours. Why did you take-off?

[Bladestrike]

Flying singles in the Canadian North, set down numerous times to wait out weather...fog, low cloud, icing, thunder storms, hail, snow storms, have even set down in the bush to wait out weather flying EMS 222s and S76s. Mind you, the weather encountered wasn't forecast (or flying out of tent camps in the eighties, didn't have forecasts, or actuals for that matter) or I wouldn't have gone in the first place. Flying 61s offshore, there were a few times I wish I had a place to set down. Deiced Super Puma with all the kit...haven't needed to yet.