Your first Flying 'incident'

[charlie-india-mike]

Well, they say that there are those that have had an incident and those that are waiting.

I had my first flying 'incident' today. PPL with 135hrs logged, invited my best friend and his wife for a local jolly (her first time in light aircraft) along with Mrs CIM. Strong cross wind and much deliberation on my part to go or not. Decide to go as winds within my personal limits and forcast to get calmer.

Well takeoff normal head west to admire Buckingham countryside and towards friends house, then 10min into flight 'BANG' flash of yellow from left hand side of front cowling, **** . brown trouser moment, what the fcuk was that!!!, brain in gear, aircraft and engine normal, still have control, good, temps and pressures OK.

The left hand inspection cowl missing, seems to have come loose and ripped itself away and dissapeared.


Return to airfield to uneventful landing.

Have I had my allotted incident for now?

C-I-M

[ShyTorque]

Well, they say that there are those that have had an incident and those that are waiting.

I had my first motorcycling 'incident' today. With 135hrs logged, invited my best friend and his wife for a local jolly on my motorbike and sidecar (her first time in the sidecar). Strong cross wind and much deliberation on my part to go or not. Decide to go as winds within my personal limits and forcast to get calmer.

Well, set off normal, head west to admire Buckingham countryside and towards friends house, then 10min into ride 'BANG' flash of yellow from left hand side of front screen, **** . brown trouser moment, what the fcuk was that!!!, brain in gear, bike and engine normal, still have control, good, temps and pressures OK.

Found a left hand inspection cowl in the road, seems to have come loose from an aircraft and ripped itself away, just missed us.

Have I had my allotted incident for now? Anyone want a cowling? :ouch:

Seriously though, well handled C-I-M, hope your trousers washed out OK.
:ok:

[charlie-india-mike]

ShyTorque

Very funny, but thanks anyway

C_I_M

[Speedbird744]

Two simultaneous incidents one after the other:
Three green not illuminating when raising the Landing gear in an Arrow. Then a completely different Arrow the very next day, the left main gear didn't want to "lock" in place, so landed 2 green lights. Exciting seeing fire trucks await your arrival. Luckily nothing collapsed. Shut down and evacuated on the runway.
Other than that, expecting and preparing for any other problems to arise in the future. It will happen, and to the safest of pilots.

Retractable aircraft don't like me too much!

Regards,
s744

[down&out]

S744
Three green not illuminating when raising the Landing gear in an Arrow I should hope not -

But agree about retracts - in fact most of my incidents have been around landing gears on Arrows:

Latest was that the 3 greens DID stay illuminated when I raised them after t/o. Flew around a bit trying the override etc, then abandoned the flight - traced to faulty squat switch

Previous - I was taxing at a land away on a check out, when one green went out. Checked it wasn't the bulb, shut down, checked the gear was locked - then agreed to fly back (15 min) to base leaving u/c down - again faulty wiring.

Haven't had anything more serious yet (250hrs), so I'm on the look out.

[NATCA A80]

CIM,

The key is to train for those what IF's, so if and when they do occur you don't stain your pants.

If we don't get to call out the emergency equipment once in awhile we'll never have any fun, I enjoy hitting the switch that opens the doors on a cold winter day.

Mike
NATCA A80

[BeauMan]

s744 - "Shut down and evacuated on the runway."

Another euphemism for a brown trouser moment...? :E

Still haven't had a REALLY scary moment, just a weather close-in which resulted in an unplanned diversion. It all ended without trauma, but it taught me a salutory lesson in proper planning and preparation though!

BM

[Looper]

BeauMan... LOL! :D

[dublinpilot]

Speedbird,

I'm curious about your situation when you landed with 2 greens. I was always thought, that if you didn't have 3 greens, you should elect to do a gear up landing. Having said that I'd feel a bit disappointed if I elected to land gear up, only for a subsequent investigation to show that the fault was a sensor switch!

I'm not making a comment on how you handled it; after all it worked out perfectly. I'm just curious if you were thought something else, or if you had good reason to believe that the 3rd leg had locked in place and hence decided to ignore the advise to land gear up?

It's a situation I've thougt a lot about! :ugh:

dp

[Speedbird744]

Slight correction to " Three green not illuminating when raising the Landing gear in an Arrow"
I raised the gear and what I meant to say was that the lights didn't go out, but stayed on.

Dublinpilot:
What we did (both instructor and I) at the time was, everything in the book. Extended the Emergency Gear Extension with no result, then climbed the aircraft for some interesting dives and sharp g pulling. Lastly abruptly yawed the aircraft either side.
Then did two low level fly pasts the tower and maintenance hangars for confirmation. Visually on the ground we had all three GEAR down, so thats the reason why we didn't do a wheels up! And besides they don't always allow foam to be sprayed on the runway, not sure.
But it turned out to be something faulty in the wiring of the bulbs.
There was of course major confusion of whether the left main gear was "locked" albeit down. Thats why we didn't want to risk taxi the aircraft back to stand. And hence evacuate all our passengers ( ok just us TWO!) and went back to base.
Made me think of the Piedmont Airways 737 incident, but no one was a hero on my flight.

[Johnm]

Mine was while still training, attempting go around after PFL and no power no climb. Me and instructor then did real FL in same field. Turned out that the carb heat flap had detached and blocked the intake.

Very interesting at the time!

[jayemm]

Landed PA28 at Bristol, funny rumbling noise from the front and lots of vibration from the nosewheel, plus seemed to see more of the runway than usual. Keep nose raised as much as possible. Tower confirmed it was flat (do they have binoculars?) and told me to stop the engine and stay put (on the runway).

Large yellow fire engine comes tearing up the runway followed by landrover. Fire engine sprays foam on the grass (apparently they build up the pressure on the way out, and have to 'release' it whatever happens). Everyone quite excited and very friendly. All commercial traffic held up. We all pushed a/c off the runway, and found only one bolt (no longer) holding the two nose wheel rims together.

Felt embarrassed and lucky at the same time, plus probably received the best ever value from a landing fee.:O

[Charlie Zulu]

A couple...

The first was really a non incident but at the time I didn't think it was!!!

Started an approach at night time in an arrow (I can hear some people saying they know whats coming)....

Went through the landing checks, ie, putting gear down, prop to fine, etc etc.

On very very short final I glance at the gear light. damn no greeens. Go around. Full power, pitch for 87 knots, ensure gear lever is up. Oh its down. Lets put it up then. Oh the gear unsafe light is on with the sound of the hydraulics working... gear unsafe light out.

Climb to safe height. Lets put the gear down again and see. Airspeed under 135 knots, gear down. Unsafe light illuminates, I can hear the hydraulics... unsafe light out again. No green lights. I start thinking about emergency gear extensions etc, best possible way to put the aeroplane down without damaging much else... when it dawns on me...

... turn the flipping navigation lights off. All three green lights illuminate.... turn the nav lights on again... all three green lights dissapear.

Yes I fell for that "when nav lights are on then the gear green lights are dimmed and on this aircraft quite severely" trick.

-----

The other was a couple of months ago.

Four of us climb into an Arrow IV for an IFR flight up to Lakeland for evening dinner.

Naples Tower hand us over to Fort Myers departure. Climbing through 2,000' (over the Gulf of Mexico on HDG 230) departure tell us, "Cherokee Eight Eight Xray, turn right heading 330".

During the turn the oil cap cover pops open so immediately I say to departure, "Eight Eight Xray, request immediate return to naples". They gave me a vector straight to the R23 threshold and ask, "Are you loosing Oil Pressure sir" "Negative, but I'll keep you informed.". We landed, secured the oil cap and double checked it to ensure it looked secure etc. It was and we had a pleasant flight up to Lakeland for dinner that evening. Lovely flight home at night.

With thanks to Fort Myers Departure and Naples Tower, they kept my IFR flight plan open, so I had two IFR departures and arrivals on the same flight plan. Hehehe.

Hopefully that is it for the time being!

I was just keeping my fingers crossed today that it wasn't my turn for an engine failure whilst en-route to Guernsey and back in a single.

Best wishes,

Charlie Zulu.

[Cusco]

In my 10 years of Arrow flying I have had half a dozen 'less than 3 green' incidents.

All bar one were due to faulty bulbs/switches (switches can get a tad mucky if you operate an Arrer off grass.)

The in- air incidents were sorted by swapping the bulbs over, confirming a dud, and replacing it by one of the spare bulbs we keep in a baccy tin in the back of RHS.(well every arrer owner carries a few spare bulbs don't they?)


In Lake Havasu city airport this year two greens were met with 'how many souls on board', and ' please will you clear to the North while we get the town fire service over: it'll take about 10 minutes.' This turned out to be a dud bulb, but I counted 6 fire trucks and an ambulance waiting for us. The Americans don't do things by halves.

The only brown trouser incident was just after take-off from Ipswich airport (RIP Ipswich) with full tanks for a trip to LFAT.

We noticed that on retracting the gear, although the greens went out, the 'gear in transit' light stayed on (usually goes out in 10 seconds, with a kick on the ammeter to show hydraulic powerpack motor has shut down.).Tried re-cycling to no avail.

Low fly-by less than useless: tower couldn't tell us a thing.

Cut to local parachute club, who with their high powered binocs told us that main wheels were up, but nosewheel half up only. (thanks guys).

Then the problem of emengency extension: Dump the hydraulics says the training: but we only got the two main greens, nose wheel nada.

Problem was the nosewheel spring wasn't strong enough to counter the effect of the airflow and we had to slow right down till the a/c was just about dropping out of the sky with stall warner screaming till we got the third green.

Interesting landing with fire trucks screaming alongside.

Turned out that the bushes on the electric powerpack had burned out.



Interesting that training cuts in and you do what's necessary without any thought or emotion: that comes later in the pub.


If we hadn't got the nosewheel down we would have been sent off to burn off nearly 4 hours of fuel before coming back for a two mains landing. (Gear wouldn't retract due to burned out motor.

Happy days

[Halfbaked_Boy]

Well I'm still only 15 years of age and had my first encounter... not so sure whether it would classify as an 'incident'... about a month ago when my instructor and I flew down to 'The Fat' (Le Touquet)... it remains a mystery to us as to whether the two Hawker Hunters that missed us by 300 metres or so were French or English... we were, however, flying at 3,500 feet and these buggers were certainly above us so it doesn't really compute in my eyes... well at least I have the experience to take part in this topic! :)

[Christo]

In a PA28-235 with full fuel and 4 people on a flight from Wonderboom to Sun City for breakfast I noticed that we had trouble talking to info on the way and just before entering Pilansberg CTR no comms with the tower. Turned around started squaking 7600 and decided to head for a dirtstrip in the general flying area north of Wonderboom. About halfway back we got the distinct smell of an electrical fire and saw smoke from underneath the dashboard. Was overhead another strip at that precise time luckelly and landed there.

Turned out the cable for the radios short circuited and melted. Called a buddy on my mobile and he hitched a ride with a student in a C172 to come give a hand. Unloaded the one PAX over to the 172 and after we got the ok from Wonderboom to fly in in formation with me just follow whatever the 172 did flew back there with the master switched off.

As it was the first time in a light aircraft for the guy in the back and his girlfriend they were quite scared.

[Charlie Zulu]

Oh yes forgot about the dud radio in the beagle pup.

On my way back to Cardiff from Rochester last year, one the 17th of December, I reckon on of the Wright Brothers decided to play a trick on me.

Call Filton. A friendly controller gives me a sqwark and a flight information service and transit the overhead at 2,000' (if I remember correctly).

So far so good. I can hear him (a fellow PPRUNER!) talking to others on the radio. Then he calls me. I respond. He says carrier wave only. I try again. Carrier wave only. I try comm two. Carrier wave only. Its now night time but nice VMC conditions (thankfully).

He asks if I am familiar with blind transmissions. I click the button once. So we start talking like this for a few minutes. Well I respond with yes, no, etc etc...

Then I switch the intercom off and try calling him. We have success! On both comms as well.

Oh but I can't leave the intercom off as my grandfather and I need to talk to each other as well. So I resort to turning the intercom on and off as and when I need to make a transmission.

The problem persisted the rest of the flight (another twenty minutes or so).

The next day I go flying... absolutely fine on COM2 but not COM1. Still TX carrier wave only on COM1. But at least we could go flying.

We still have the problem on COM1 on and off (its a Narco unit). Its away at Cranfield being looked into at the moment. If they can't find anything wrong then the intercom is going to be looked at.

So fingers crossed friendly Filton controller, you shouldn't have any more blind transmissions from us guys in the pup group anymore (Hopefully!!!!).

Best wishes,

Charlie Zulu.


Edit: Obvious spelling (or rather grammer) mistakes.

[Bluebeard]

Had without doubt the only geniune close shave in my (short) flying career a few weeks back.

On final to the lesser-used cross runway at my home base, plenty of tarmac to play with and full of beans after a relatively successful session of PFLs. Was coming in a bit high, but then I like to carry a bit of height, which can easily be shed courtesy of the cessna standard fit barndoor flaps.

Suddenly find myself rather too high for comfort but elect to give it a go anyway. After floating over a third of the way down the (downwards sloping) runway its clear that plane and ground are coming no closer, so decide that a go around is in order.:eek:

Sadly, in a classic case of poor decision making (and a rubbish approach), I'd left things pretty much far too late. There I am with the ASI sitting firmly at the bottom of the scale and full throttle, with the hedge fast approaching. Do rapid impression of one armed paper hangar to kill the carb heat - yes kids, it was still on and, yes, every RPM counts when it matters. Managed by the grace of God and the combine efforts of Mr. Lycoming and Mr. Cessna to gain enough height to clear the hedge by a reasonable margin.

Must have lost count of the number of AAIB bulletins you hear about with late go arounds - a few more seconds of indecision and I'd have had my name up in lights as well (possibly blue flashing ones). :\

[Speedbird744]

Now we're talking about COMM failures. I had a complete radio failure in a PA28 three years ago. Squaked 7600 and got seen by Heathrow radar as I was close to the London TMA. Some how they alerted Wycombe Air Park that they had an aircraft coming in with a radio failure, how they knew i was heading there I don't know.
Got the relevant green light gun signals and landed without further incident. This all happening during my PPL. Great experience but these things happen, be prepared!!

[PTR 175]

My first incident was an ASI failure on my second solo ! A bug had lodged itself into the Pitot Probe. As I am here to write this you can guess it all went OK. It was a scarey time and I probably did the fastest circuit of Henlow. I had throttle wide open until I realised it was probably an instrument problem, I did not want to stall the aircraft.

What made matters worse in my mind, was that the aircraft was new to the club and I was one of the first to fly solo in it as a novice.

[BeauMan]

Landings... Hey Bluebeard! You've reminded me of another one, from about a month ago. On my tailwheel conversion at Clacton...

I'm up in the Super Cub for my third session of the day, we're doing circuits on 18. Standard drill for the last hour has been; waddle our way to the hold for 18, power checks, vital actions, line up, take off, fly the right hand circuit, aim for 500 feet overhead the school playing field on final, then plop the thing down on the numbers and keep the stick back until we stop. Then waddle our way back to the hold for 18... you get the idea.

I'm starting to get the hang of things, still floating a wee bit on the flare, but getting there. So this particular approach is nice and routine; 500 feet over the playing field, carb heat back in at 300 feet, aim to cross the hedge at 50mph, here come the numbers...

Voice from behind - "Power on, go around."

Instinctively I do as I'm told, power on, hold her low to build up the speed, positive rate of climb and drag flap away immediately... but for a split second I'm confused - that approach looked good, my speed was right, the flare was timed well. What had gone wrong?

And then I see, waddling her way along the footpath that crosses the runway at Clacton, some old biddy and her dog. Totally oblivious to the fact that she'd almost been chopped up by a propellor... :uhoh:

Oddly enough, I now ALWAYS have a damn good look at the runway on short final... :ok:

[skydriller]

And then I see, waddling her way along the footpath that crosses the runway at Clacton, some old biddy and her dog. Totally oblivious to the fact that she'd almost been chopped up by a propellor...


WTF!!!

You are telling me there is a public footpath across an actively used runway?!?

Why the hell doesnt it at the very least go around the runway, let alone around the airfield completely. Cant it be re-routed? How come this is deemed safe?

An astounded SD...

[BeauMan]

SD - Yep. And the best (or worst!) of it is that the pedestrians actually have the legal right of way... :mad:

[skydriller]

!!Splutter?!*:mad: .....er, How?!? And Why!!??

a now totally flabergasted SD!!!

[steve_moate]

Exactly the same thing happened to me at Sandown. Short final, about 50', looking ahead at the far end, and these 2 bodies appear walking left to right. They then stop on the runway and watch in amazement as I struggle away to avoid them.

Nice guy in tower quite relaxed about it, apparently happens all the time. The thought of what might have happened had I not seen them is scary.

[ShyTorque]

Many years ago, when Ipswich still had an airport instead of just another housing estate, a similar problem existed with walkers assuming a right of way across the main runway.

In the event of encountering walkers on the runway, the standard drill was to make a go-around and inform tower who would send out someone in the Landrover and advise the errant pedestrians that they really ought to move out of the way or the police were coming.

One particular instructor had a particular way of making a go-around. He applied full throttle, flew at height 0.5 feet and laughed like a drain at the walkers who were now "runners" and "divers". He did it with me on board one evening, I was about to go around but he took control and went for them, scattering half a dozen walkers and their dogs.

Unfortunately, he did it once too often. The group of youths involved ran for their lives but one of them was pushing a motorcycle which took off the nose oleo and caused the aircraft to cartwheel, fortunately without injury to anyone.

He was seen shortly afterwards clutching a P45.... ;)

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Ipswich ... a similar problem existed They didn't tell me that when they sent me there on my QXC!!

[bookworm]

4th of 5 circuits to qualify for my night rating. Everything goes dark. Apparently a spade connector fell off the master switch... Uneventful landing but no 5th circuit. ;)

[Barnstormer1982]

Back in 1999, just having turned 17 two weeks ago and on my fifth solo on single engines. Flight on a C-150, normal T/O at a lovely, cold January afternoon. Climb to 750ft went normal, then engine started roaring the same way my moped did two years before when the engine blew off. Reduced RPM until the roaring came back to a comfortable level, landed that bitch and found out a day later when visiting the mechanic that one cylinder was short before being ripped into pieces (you could actually see a ring around the middle of the cylinder where the material was way thinner already).

Had lots of near misses with pointy fighters when sitting in gliders the years before but that's not an incident, is it?:E

[dudduddud]

It was about an hour after darkness and i was practising solo circuits for my night rating. There was about 10 airplanes in the circuit which made it quite busy and on top of that, night ifr helicopters also use the main runway approach path/slope.
I was monitering the spacing of the plane(s) in front of me as we sauntered and wobbled down the glideslope when my plane experienced a sudden uncommanded roll to the left to an angle greater than 45 degrees and just sat there. It may have continued rolling if i hadnt smoothly applied full opposite controls.

Then the plane flicks across to the right hand side, full opposite controls once again.

This cycle repeated with the same foracity a couple times and persisted all the way down the glideslope to a greater or lessor degree, at times it wasnt noticable at all.
Best guess is that it was a helicopter.

Plenty of speed throughout, never got low, just a real shock.

I have followed 100s of cessnas into the aerodrome without these sorts of antics being displayed by my aeroplane.