But you have to know you're lost....
I was 15 years old, and the guest of a very generous owner pilot, who had taken me along for the mid winter trip to Florida in his C150. We were on our way back, at night, over the mountains of western Maryland. The many errors in this plan were not yet apparent to an enthusiast with so little experience as I had. We were tracking a VOR route north. DME? No! (it was a VFR 150!)
It was not too long before we strayed into cloud, only a few thousand feet over the tops of the mountains. The rather heavily loaded 150 was performing non-spectacularly. We had lots of fuel, so continuing north, away from the mountains seemed like the best plan. So we tracked VOR’s north. This worked very well, with one exception: In my eagerness, I never actually confirmed crossing any!
After a time, I announced that I had our location figured out. I could see the lights of the cities through the clouds, and thought that the form of no light which was Lake Ontario had me all oriented. Not quite…
We called up Hamilton tower, our intended destination, well out, and informed him of our intention to land. As it was now the middle of the night, and all wise Cessna pilots were safely tucked in their beds, we had the place to ourselves, and were cleared to land right then. So we headed down.
We broke through a now whispy layer of cloud, and lined things up. Sure enough, a beautiful runway lay ahead. We reported the runway in sight , and landed, as we had been cleared. Somewhere between the time we landed, and slowing down, I had this uneasy feeling, and looked back, out the now very useful Cessna 150 back window.
To my tremendous alarm, I saw a Boeing 737, who had landed behind us, and was catching up really fast! I instructed my buddy to turn off the runway. He told me that we were not yet at the taxiway. What ever I said next convinced him that was of very minor importance at this moment! My next recollection was that of a Boeing 737 wingtip passing remarkably close to us, as we crowded the left snowbank, and rolled to a stop. I also was keenly aware of the incredible amount of snow which is thrown up by the Boeing’s engines hard in reverse. We were not hit. Well done Boeing driver!
Now, what had just happened there? We looked over at the tower, and saw a red light. It did not flash or anything, it just stayed on – for minutes! So, we just stayed where we were. The Boeing left the scene. After some time, a yellow pickup truck drove up to us, on the door was written “Buffalo Airport Authority” [New York]. Things made a lot more sense now! We were told to follow him. We did.
When we parked. The driver told us, that the tower would like a phone call from the pilot. Once inside, my buddy made the call. It did not go well at all. He was being melted by an angry air traffic controller. Whatever transpired, resulted in him handing the phone to me. The stern voice told me “Do you understand that your friend is in a lot of trouble?”, “Yes” I replied. A few questions in, we got to the “How old are you son?” part. I reported my age. The controller rambled on for a while. Occasionally he asked my thoughts, as though they had value in this situation.
Along the course of the call, feeling a little put upon, I asked the question which had been growing in my mind: “We were squawking 1200, mode C the whole time, and were getting a return, did you not see us on radar?”. Well, that created a long pause….
He said “Put your friend back on the phone.” I complied. Whatever he said to my buddy then went not much farther than satisfying himself that we would not be flying again that night. The phone call ended. My buddy was completely perplexed at this point. We went to a hotel.
Nothing more was ever said to us. We took off the next day as though nothing had happened. I would have loved to be a fly on wall for the conversation between the controller, and the Boeing pilot. I bet there was some apologizing to the pilot. Bear in mind, this was decades before TCAS, so the Boeing pilot, who was certainly doing an instrument approach, would have completely relied on the radar controller for traffic separation. Oops!