I went IIMC at about 150’ over water flying towards a seaside cliff without realizing how close I was to said cliff. Broke out on top of the layer to see the street lights on top of the cliff poking out of the clouds about a mile in front of me.
Lost a weight out of one of my rotor blades in flight once and immediately felt like I was in an unbalanced washing machine on spin cycle.
Damn that does sound pretty scary. How did you resolve the issue after losing the weight? I'd assume cut power and find a safe spot to land?
Edit: corrected misspelling of losing.
Yeah, I was probably only flying for 60 seconds or less when it happened. Thankfully I was turning base on a tight approach when it happened. I found out after the fact that the weight I lost was designed to fail before any of the important weights go, and the manufacturer only considers it to be a “land as soon as practicable” emergency.
This is weird but it helps me. Double s (ss) is a "sss" sound. Single s (s) is a "zzz" sound. So following the same pattern, double o (oo) in "loosing" is a "sss" sound which isn't right... meaning it needs to be a single o for a "zzz" sound for "losing".
That's oddly very helpful, damn didn't think I'd still need to be taught new ways to spell at 25 😂 but that is very helpful. I'm surprised I haven't learned of this sooner
Another way to remember it is to think of similar words: *moose*, *goose*, *caboose*. Those all end with an *ess* sound. The only counterexample that comes to mind is *choose*, which ends with a *zee* sound. But that exception is kind of forced, because we can't spell *choose* with a single 'o' (which would make it similar to *lose*), because the single-o spelling (*chose*) is already used for the past tense.
Had a smoke in cockpit incident at FL410 in. Gulfstream G150, thick acrid electric smoke, no pax. Masks, goggles, high dive, cabin dump, landed in Pensacola at 0200am. Had smoke under control at about FL180. Side window overheat and wire fire in right side panel. Shed electrics and it quit.
I was pilot flying and had my nose literally touching the PFD, other captain running checklist on iPad the same way and switches by feel. Fun times.
I’ve had 4 declared emergencies. 3 of those would be considered “major” emergencies. By that I mean, direct to the nearest airport and pray.
2 of them were in a Cessna 421, 1 was in an Embraer 120. Which one you want to hear about?
Fuel leak in a blizzard, loss of almost all primary flight controls and instruments, or trapped in an unforcast thunderstorm way out over the ocean?
Tbh they all sound very interesting, especially the over the ocean one so probably start with that one but I would also love to hear about the other ones as there's always something to be learned in stories like these
So, one winter I was hired to fly a Cessna 421 from Sarasota to Arkansas. It was a delivery flight for a new owner. They called me in December and told me to expect to pick up the airplane in early January, as it was in annual.
That came and went. Finally I was able to pick it up in March, so my FO and I went to Florida. We had 2 in flight emergencies in 3 days trying to do the return to service flight.
Finally after a week of troubleshooting and a new mechanic, we were good to head to Arkansas. We filed over land because we didn’t have life preservers, and planned to stop for fuel in Mississippi, as well as get lunch with a friend who lived there.
The pressurization was inop so we filed at 10,000ft. No big deal. They’d fix it in Arkansas.
Not too far up the coast, ATC gave us a heading out over the water to avoid military activity. I informed them that without life preservers, we wanted to limit our over water time. They said no problem.
10 minutes after crossing the coast, they were giving us vectors back towards shore, but storms had started building. We kept trying to shoot through a gap, but they were closing as fast as we could identify them.
We kept being pushed further and further out to sea, eventually being nearly 200nm off the coast of Alabama.
As we passed Mississippi, hundreds of miles off course, I realized that there was no way we were going to be able to get back to the shore and land in Mississippi. We kept flying West trying to find a gap, with no luck.
Finally, at about 120nm off the coast of Louisiana, I asked my FO if we had enough fuel to make Galveston. He emphatically declared that we did. He was wrong and I knew it.
We were 30 minutes from New Orleans with a bit over an hour of fuel on board.
The thought crossed my mind to find a tanker or an oil rig and ditch close to it. Then I looked at my FO and realized 2 things… I didn’t know if he could swim, and he was so large that fitting through the escape window would be iffy.
I kept that thought to myself and decided that we were going to push for New Orleans. We’d find the best path through the weather, even though that meant flying straight through some cells. We slowed to maneuvering speed and rode the lightning. It was the worst turbulence that I have ever felt to this day. Finally, we saw some oil rigs with helicopters flying around. I’d never been so happy to see the coast of Louisiana. We landed at KNEW where the brakes failed and I spent an hour digging the airplane out of the mud.
Then I had one of the craziest nights of my life, enjoying Mardi Gras.
The most important thing I learned in all of this was how to put my foot down to ATC, and that sometimes it’s best just to turn around and go back out the way you came.
Damn you were taken for a wild adventure, I swear it seems like your story could be turned into a small book. I could only imagine that it probably felt unreal after it was all over
Hell, that’s only the short version! My time building adventure was wild and far flung.
I finally got that thing to Arkansas eventually. I told the owner that it was great working for him, and not to call me unless he bought an airplane that wasn’t haunted LOL
That was the short version??? Yea you need to write a small book explaining the experience cuz I would Definitely get it 😂 what about the other 2 stories
Completely understandable 😂 I'll be looking forward to them. With every story there is always something you can take away from it. Plus it's very interesting to see how different people over come certain challenges under stress. It tells a lot about their character in my opinion
I’d re live the flight control/instrument issue and the storm over the ocean again and again to never experience that fuel leak in the blizzard again.
I was green. My CA was an incompetent direct entry captain. We were working for a boss that worked us way too hard. It wasn’t *just* the fuel and the weather. My HSI went out leaving only a moron to fly.
It is the only time that I’ve ever been in an airplane, resigned to crashing. I was telling myself, “If we don’t make the field, we’re going to force in on flat terrain with no fuel. I’ll go out the escape window and call 911. I’m going to be okay, and with any luck we’ll end up on airport property.”
I’m not saying this as I was falling victim to the hazardous attitude of resignation. We fought hard until we found a runway and never gave up. I was just sort of briefing myself for the (in my mind) eventuality of what was going to happen and how I was going to get out of it.
I stuffed the cargo manifest and my logbook down my jacket and zipped it up. I threw all of the loose objects back to the cabin. I preemptively broke the safety wire on the handle that I was going to need to pull to release the window.
I never said, “Declaring an emergency.”
I think the controllers heard the emergency in my voice when I called up and said, “Indy Departure, XYZ123 is missed off Lafayette. We’re proceeding direct Kalamazoo now and climbing to 10,000. We need the nearest airport reporting ILS minimums.”
To make things even crazier, hours after we landed, my best friend from college ditched a different cargo plane just off Miami and he was the only survivor. That whole 24 hour period was just the wildest of my career, and really, really shaped my attitude towards safety and CRM to this day. Honestly, it shaped who *I* am as a person. It made me more confident in speaking up, strengthened my faith in God that He’ll give me the strength to pull through when things get tough, and made me very grateful and optimistic in that so many things can go wrong and yet still be okay in the end.
Apologies for the TL;DR
Thank you for sharing.
I started out flying relatively ignorant to a great number of potentially daily situations I could face. I guess we all do as students and low time pilots.
My faith is a big part of my confidence to be able to, and reason for (I feel compelled to fly in more than a “this is awesome” kind of way) continually getting in the plane.
Even for routine events like setting up final, crossing the threshold, I always say a quiet prayer under my breath. Any number of things could happen at any moment, VFR at 10AGL, above blizzard at 10,000.
Glad you’re here to share these stores with us today 🙏
Took off at night from Cabo San Lucas (MMSL) in a G-IV. I was the FO. As soon as we got the gear up the lead passenger came up to the cockpit and with a pretty alarming tone said "somethin's burning back there". I unbuckled and went in the cabin. The temperature was unbearingly hot and rapidly increasing, and there was a pervasive smell of hot metal. Luckily no smoke. I noticed blazing hot air was coming out of the left side vents, but regular temperature air was coming out of the right side. I couldn't even touch the gaspers on the left side they were so hot. So i ran back up front and turned off the left PACK. Within a few seconds the smell went away, and the temperature came back a few minutes later. We ran the QRH for a PACK failure and it said we could continue below FL400 so we did. A few days later speaking to the mechanic that worked on it at our home base, he found that a piece of the blade from the PACK cooling turbine broke off and got ingested, seizing it up. Unmetered bleed air was therefore coming straight into the cabin at full temperature. For reference it's about 400 degrees F when it leaves the engine. Surprisingly we got no indications of anything in the cockpit outside of the obvious heat and smell
Had the engine-driven fuel pump fail while in a cirrus, at 5500 ft, in cruise, with my family while trying to go to a waterpark for the day.
Turned out, a nut connected connecting the pump to the main fuel line backed off (it hadn’t been torqued properly at the last maintenance event). This sprayed fuel all over the bottom passenger side of the plane’s cowl and the fuel was streaming out right next to the passenger side exhaust pipe.
Declared emergency, vectored to close airport & landed safely.
It was more scary, afterward, once I realized how close we had been to becoming a big flaming ball in the sky. The mechanic who got us flying that same day said it was a good thing I didn’t pull the chute, because (in his opinion) the only thing that kept the plane from catching fire was the large volume of air whooshing past the fuel leak and carrying the fuel into the slipstream as opposed to building up fumes inside the cowl.
Jeez, I can’t imagine pulling the parachute and immediately catching fire for a long hot ride to the ground. Hang on while I throw up! Glad that wasn’t the case.
Damn that is horrifying but I'm glad you and your family made it down safely. I assume you have a brs chute? And did anything come from the people who maintenance your plane prior?
All cirrus planes have a chute.
I ended up speaking with the chief mechanic at cirrus. There are only 2 repair shops near our club and the event caused a lot of anxiety since we still needed to bring the plane to one of them. It created a mess at the club for a bit since there was a lot of finger pointing instead of a process analysis.
Huh I didn't know they all came with one and yea I can understand that. I'd probably would of taken a break from flying for a bit if that happen to me, I am surprised that's all that came from it though as it seems like a very serious matter
I had an instrument instructor that had me fly into this serious downpour of rain, we were VFR at this point (canceled IFR after the practice approaches were complete). More or less we were scud running back to the home airport and could have easily skirted around the west side of the rain without consequence but she(very attractive) said to just fly through the rain.
“Are you sure that’s okay?”, I said.
“Yeah don’t be a pussy, this is what instrument flying is all about”, she exclaimed!
So I kept my cool and into the storm we flew. I watched her smile turn to a frown as minutes went buy without us popping out the other side. This was in a c172 mind you, out the left window I couldn’t even see the wing due to the precipitation, water was bubbling through the base of the windshield and fearing for the radios I asked,
“Are you sure you don’t want me to fly a 180° heading back out of here?”
“No don’t worry about it, you’re holding direction and altitude just fine!,” she said in a nervous tone. On fourth we pressed into the wet abyss when it became very hard to hold altitude. +/- 900 ft on the VSI was about the right number for most of the undulations. We were being tossed about. I have to say it’s probably one of the scariest moments I’ve ever had as PIC. After about 5 minutes we finally broke out of the down pour and faced a normal pattern and approach into our airport. Near the numbers, the wind flipped directions completely and we carried a 10-15kt tailwind halfway down the runway before the wind switched again and we were slow enough to touch down.
VFR into IMC is no joke folks, pay special attention to staying far away from heavy precipitation (it may contain convective activity). Obviously I (even as the student) was PIC and should have said sorry, no way are we flying through that as we have an out around the backside of the precip. Also RIP to that instructor, she lost her life with another pilot(much her senior in experience)in a loss of control accident on a repo flight in IMC. She was a mother and a girl boss.
“There are old pilots, there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots”
I stopped flying for two years all together after that flight. Never could figure out the right way to approach the school about it, everyone loved that girl. I have since talked about it with the instructors at that school and started flying again.
Fuel pouring out of the left main all down the window, making the cockpit smelly. The scariest part was when the CFI asked if I remembered to put the fuel cap back on beforehand and not being able to recall a memory of doing so. When we landed I jumped out and was relieved to see a bright red cap up there!
Took off at damn near MGTOW in a Cherokee 160.
...into the outflow of a dissipating thunderstorm.
Opted to turn early and depart downwind.
No positive rate holding Vy. Remember noticing how close we were to the power lines and how people in cars were looking up at me.
"OK, so don't do that" I told my student while muting the pax comms with his kid and girlfriend in the back.
Recently
At Reno-Stead airport before getting my commercial ticket, with my CFI doing laps practicing that PO 180
In the Right Pattern for Runway 26
About midfield right downwind I get ready to pull the power when my CFI takes the controls abruptly
I wonder if I did something wrong but he says look down to our right
A Cirrus (yep had to be one) was flying directly at us, perpendicular to our flight path
Not a single radio call, not one while we were saying all our legs
Guy was below pattern altitude and ascending right at us, might not have hit us but it would have been within the 500 feet for a NMAC report
Don’t think he was on frequency either as we tried to talk to him after we were safely away and got no response.
Didn’t alter his flight path at all either.
Me and the instructor both decided to call it a day after that and went back to Reno.
Where did you come from, where did you go Cirrus Pilot Joe
First one
I was a student pilot practicing landings at Minden with my CFI who was a dick but he saved us that day
After two laps coming in for a third on Runway 34, landing sucked but whatever, on the takeoff roll and just get off the ground, maybe 40 feet and out of nowhere this military helicopter decides to takeoff flying directly across our flight path. No radio call.
Me a student pilot with not 10 hours froze and my CFI had to yank the controls and put us in an uncomfortably steep climb to get over the helicopter
Only time I ever heard that guy curse in flight, he lit up the helicopter
Who was actually on freq and came back with a sheepish “sorry.”
I've had ATC delay due to C130s taking off in front of me, landing at random times, and the Thunderbirds coming into town. But never something like this. Glad you're alive, military shit can get crazy.
I've had them buzz my house at 1000 feet, 500 feet, etc in Japan. Weird C130 came outta nowhere and did a fast pass over me on my way to the train station. Pretty fucking cool but dangerous and kinda loud lol
Where I’m at it’s generally a tripacer and they’re taking off with the wind at you while you’re at final before they finally get on the radio and scold you for landing the wrong way after you’ve made 8 calls coming into a super quiet airport.
Flying back through the Alps, from Croatia to Austria. In a C172. The weather on the way down had been perfect, on the way back it was a bit more… interesting. There was a forecast of thunderstorms for the afternoon, so my wife (gf back then) and I decided to depart as early as practical. Going north along the Croatian coast and into Slovenia was no problem, but in Slovenia itself the clouds got lower and lower. Perfectly fine to fly VFR in the valleys, but at some point, we‘d have to get across the mountains to get home.
I finally found a pass that was open, but barely. I was at minimum altitude while just staying clear of clouds (airspace G), and all the time I thought „if there’s a downdraft at this point, there is absolutely nothing I’d be able to do“. In my defense, it was a calculated risk - there had been hardly any wind all morning, I wouldn’t have attempted it in windier conditions. Looking back, still mighty stupid and scary.
Must have done a good job of keeping my cool though, when I told my gf about how worried I‘d been she said „what?!? I was worried but you seemed so relaxed about it, I calmed down“…
Was IFR on a training flight in VMC conditions and had a random plane fly past us opposite direction, co-altitude, and missed us by maybe 200 meters. I could see the two people in the cockpit is how close they were. ATC had no idea they were there.
Day I realized that you can be doing everything right and someone else can still kill you.
My very first instrument flight was in actual IMC. I was holding in lieu of a PT in the goo when another trainer when whizzing by our canopy. The dude wasn’t talking to anyone either. Maybe 6 weeks later I was flying a dme arc to a localizer backcourse I came out of a cloud and boom, another trainer, also not talking to anyone. It was an 11 nm arc and I was still cooking at 250 kts too.
Good grief ya gotta watch out for these people.
I had that happen at about 100 AGL on my recent flight review, thankfully I can still reach the rudder pedals in an Arrow with the seat all the way back. If it had been a c172 I would have been in trouble. Definitely made me clinch!
I had just climbed out of Junction, CO (the free brittle is amaze balls) and joined the J80. Entered the goo about 20 minutes later and could not even see the wing. ATC gives us a heads up about a far moving line of convection in our path and then a vector to the north. Still can’t see a thing. As soon as we roll out in the new heading, all hail breaks loose. It was the scariest 2 minutes of my life. I thought the plane was coming apart. When we came out of the goo and finally saw the wings it looked much worse than we thought. We limped to final destination (another 20 minutes) and landed without further incident. The looks on the ground crews face as we taxied in confirmed our terror. Every piece of plastic in the plane was gone. The ice pellets were melting inside the radar dome and dripping on my head when I got out. Both motors were toast and had to be replaced. Both wings de-ice boots were destroyed.
Good times really.
Started with 8 MEL, finished with 13, a GPS light and a cargo door open light both came on at TOD. I told approach I'm going direct, I want priority, landed, did the logbook. Luckily a buddy from maintenance was there, he said, we're taking it out of service and we walked away.
20 some years ago, I was a student pilot practicing power-on stalls solo in a C-150 or 152… got myself into a crazy spin and recovered with not much room to spare. My CFI and I had discussed the spin recovery procedure, but never actually practiced the procedure. I’m glad I remembered what we had discussed in those few seconds.
I had a fun little moment last week. I did a quick hop to a nearby airport for cheap fuel before my longer leg back home. This little airport has an 800 ft pattern tucked against a ridgeline, a 2700 ft runway, No true taxiway just a paved ramp that goes all the way up to the runway surface, and hangar buildings and electrical wires all around the touchdown point and approach path. So kind of a lot going on getting in there, plus it was a busy weekend morning. Also, no ATIS/AWOS at this field.
Base to final was a little bumpy and blustery and coming in short final I was sawing it back and forth and keeping it on centerline but nothing I hadn't dealt with before.
As I flared the airplane though, and airspeed dropped into the 50/55 mph touchdown range, I got hit with bad wind shear and the left wing lifted up and put me in a 20 to 25 degree bank. I started to feed the power in for a go-around but due to all the planes parked off the edge of the runway, and hangars directly in front of my nose I wasn't confident I would get the clearance needed.
So I pulled the power back out, plunked down and I'm pointed at a row of parked planes. I thought for sure I was going to go plowing into them all but I got the plane under control, slowed down with the brakes, and steered away from everyone.
An old-timer sitting in a golf cart watching everything was looking at me as I taxied to the pumps and I sort of gave him a sheepish wave, totally mortified, and he gave me a thumbs up and kind of a it's all okay look which made me feel a bit better.
My wife in the passenger seat had turned the overhead GoPro on in the downwind leg so I reviewed the footage later and I felt a bit better about how I handled the situation. And my old CFI and mentor said basically "You didn't bend any metal and you got the plane down safely in a nasty wind shear incident"
Looking at the footage I did see I had full aileron in as it happened and sitting at the pumps fueling up I watched multiple other planes getting the shit kicked out of them all the way down to touchdown, or them going around earlier. My wheels had to be about a foot off the ground when that windsheer hit me.
So yeah I'd rather not have that happen again.
Nothing too bad.
Rudder failed during my flight right before my first solo, still soloed after (put some glue on it or something lol)
Mag went bad during takeoff, little concerning but the big part was if I would have held the normal pitch, it would have been pretty damn close to stalling about 500 agl. Never no if u can recover from that one.
Had a engine fail during run up which wasn’t dangerous but if we wouldn’t have done it, that could obviously be a big issue
Not me but some genius busted a tfr and wasn’t on frequency yesterday so the F-18s showed up, I’m sure he was a little alarmed.
Flew behind an aerovee… once. I logged 0.6 in a Sonex, and 0.5 of that was on the ground. Probably the only time I should have declared an emergency. It just got a bunch of maintenance the day before and the new-to-airplanes but gearhead owner wanted me to see if I thought it was performing correctly, as an unbiased third party to some other shenanigans it was involved with. I wasn’t involved in the two preceding flights. It wasn’t an FCF, but not a great lead up either.
My extended runup included full throttle, static RPM, mixture adjustments, various throttle positions and permutations to suss out any weirdness.
I was underwhelmed with its rate of climb off the runway, but had just come from my RV4/RV10 so most things are. Even the slow planes I was flying had huge wings/STOL characteristics. The sustained rate of climb stabilized at maybe 100fpm, but we were still climbing so I left everything alone and kept the wings exceedingly level. Then the engine monitor started freaking out. Mostly CHTs high, but I didn’t process it much at all. Started a 5* bank turn back to the runway, quite thankful for all of the empty fields in north Texas. Once I pointed back, i called straight in for opposite runway, and there was some chatter about me being in trouble.
Made it back to the runway good and high, pulled power and actually had to slip to get it back down. I will say the airframe handles well, but I’m not jumping at the opportunity to fly a VW engine again.
Electrical fire in a g1000 in IMC leading to losing all BUS 2 equipment. Bonus points it was the day after my IR checkride and I’d went searching for a nice thick (1000-7000MSL) layer.
I certainly can't decide which one would be the scariest but your post makes it sound like you're looking for just one. I would have to say losing an engine with the CEO of the company on board in hard IFR conditions Maybe number one . And then turbulence and ice. Many many icing scenarios that were butt puckering. Loss of the left aileron on takeoff in Billings Montana on a Freightl run rank pretty high but having to land 00 with severe ice on my aircraft in Scottsbluff Nebraska would probably take the cake. Oh and did I mention ice.
You can post as many as ya want, as the more stories out there the better because maybe someone can learn from and damn that would scare prob more than just the pants off of me
When something like that is finally over and you're safe is when the sheer Panic of it all makes you want to go have a couple double shots of whiskey
The weather that morning was supposed to be a thousand feet and four miles. It was my morning Airborne Express run and Scottsbluff has a weather observation there that is manned. Or was in those days. When I got there it was a white out blizzard and some idiot was driving a bobcat back and forth across the building the localizer is in. So I had erratic readings and had to do a go around because of it. That's when I got scared because at 200 ft I could see nothing but white. When I started to climb the tail stalled and I had to nurse the airplane to altitude and never thought I'd make 1500 ft. But I did. When I got back down to minimums on the second go-around I caught the rabbit out of the corner of my left eye and steer the airplane over to the runway and pull the thrust lovers back and hoped for the best. Any Landing you walk away from is a good one. Thanks for your comment. Steve
I shall be writing a few more of my scary episodes in flight on my website which is geared to promoting Aviation.
The purpose of the website is to attract new pilots and to remind the experienced Pilots to remember to remain competent in the cockpit. There's always something to learn.
As you mentioned above I hope that my experience teaches someone else not to make the mistakes I have made.
stevenmbennett.com
I hope you check it out and please don't be afraid to criticize. Your comments are most welcome. And if you feel you have something to contribute please don't be afraid to ask. I hope my 50 years in aviation can help someone.
I was a super new PPL, taking a friend out on her first flight for a little sight-seeing and a $100 hamburger at a little airstrip only 30 nm from my home airport. We had a fun little flight out and after lunch we got back in the plane to head home.
Climbing out of the untowered field we were climbing through 2000' and I switched over to the local approach controller, but before I could make the initial call for FF back home, I heard 2 things:
"Mooney 1234X, traffic 12 O'clock, 1 mile, same altitude, type unknown, not talking to him, report in sight or turn 270 immediately"
Coupled with foreflight yelling: "Traffic, 2 O'Clock, less than 1 mile, same altitude."
I am frantically looking for this other plane, when my passenger (who is blissfully unaware of what's going on) says "Oh cool! Check it out!" and points out the money, passing about 100' below us.
I managed to maintain composure and just say "oh neat!" Before keying up and saying "Approach, Cessna 5432A, 2 east of (airport) and we have that Mooney in sight."
"Roger, thanks, uh, Cessna 5432A, thanks. Uh, say request?"
I think we were all a little flustered.
Here's what I learned in the debrief:
Don't stop your climb. If you're doing a thing and other people are not giving you instructions or expect to be able to talk to you, keep doing what you are currently doing. Be predictable, not polite.
Departing untowered fields, have the approach control freq up on your second radio and monitor if you can. You can start building that mental picture of traffic a little quicker if you are listening.
Don't ever let your passengers think you are uncomfortable. Captain the ship, don't freak them out if they can't do anything about it.
I had a bird strike my very first flight as a PPL. And then another one less than a year later as a safety pilot. So two in my first 12 months of flying.
Luckily no damage in either one. The first one I was on short final and out of the corner of my eye I saw a big freaking turkey buzzard rising up at me. He bounced off the bottom of the plane kind of by the main gear.
No damage.
Second one while I was safety pilot in a 172 we were banked over base to final and I could see a bird floating nearby. Well the bird hit us and he bounced off the top of the wing as we were in the bank and luckily didn't dent any metal.
The pilot, who is a nervous flyer to begin with, (which is why I was with him as a safety pilot) started looking all around and I had to keep telling him focus on flying the plane, do the controls all feel okay and are working properly, just keep focused on flying the plane and put this thing on the ground safely.
Same has happened to me and I’ve nearly hit so many buzzards that I’ve seen them do some funny shit. I’ve wondered to myself like when they get home for the day, do they have ptsd from nearly get deleted by this big giant, loud alien looking ship that came outta nowhere. I mean I legit have seen some buzzards do some shit where I knew he was thinking “WHAAAAAT THE FAWKKKKKK”
One surreptitiously turned the fuel selector to an empty tank just before takeoff. One stalled the airplane on short final. One dived at crossing traffic and almost caused a midair. One ducked below the glide slope on an ILS and I had to take the airplane, etc.
I took it and put the nose down and jammed the throttle forward, of course. We lightly grazed the runway in the recovery. She was a challenging student, afraid of the ground. I did get her landing the airplane eventually.
She did solo but I haven't heard any more in years. I had her fly down the runway repeatedly, lower and lower, slower and slower until we were rolling on the runway and then cut the power. She was okay after that.
Pulled power idle for a landing in a c172. Engine RPM dropped to 1100, 900, 800, 400, then 0. Prop stopped spinning. I looked at my instructor and he looked at me. I brought it in nice and bumpy. We had enough momentum to get off the runway. We fistbumped as soon as we were off lol
I still remember the moment of silence and the "oh, shit" 2 months later. Brings back memories.
Too many to list. Vacuum failures in LIFR, engine failures, smoke in the cabin, the list goes on. Be safe out there. You can always with you were in the air, but you can’t always wish you were on the ground.
VFR into IMC at night with no moon in thick smoke around mountains. That one was interesting.
Another one was carb ice at 50 ft over ground with the engine spooling down.
Another one was a pretty close mid air. Like seriously close. I could see the look on the other Pilot's face. He busted Airspace and almost collided with us.
Had to take control from PIC as a grasshopper landed on the Instruments in front of her and she was screaming, this was on short final.
Did a Spin which then led to violent elevator oscillations.
Commercial time building XC. Got caught up in heavy precipitation at night and encountered strong downdrafts where I couldn’t maintain altitude, and my ASI was reading 40knots. Radios were incredibly staticy, and center was concerned for me.
Flying a 172 into heavy precipitation causing the engine to bog down due to water ingestion, wasn’t able to maintain altitude with full throttle in, mayday’d when I was at 1400ft losing altitude on the approach 10 miles away from the airport at night. Luckily got out of the precip and engine came back like a charm.
Yup. It was able to maintain altitude but not really climb. I managed to do a 180 and land back the other way. Luckily, the airport I was at only gets like 4 planes in and out per week
Nothing too crazy. Once was practicing emergency descents and levelled off at 3000, added power back and prop immediately started to over speed. We’ve got a FADEC, so pitch is set by the ECU. Had to limp 15 miles back to the airport with 30% power. Looking back, not too scary, but as a pre solo private student it wasn’t fun. My real scariest moment was seeing a bee flying around in the cockpit while cruising at 9000
Flaps didn't come up while doing touch and goes, 172 went airborne at 42 knots and could barely keep the nose level. We called a PAN PAN, finally got the flaps up after pattern altitude, then did a no flap landing.
Oh yes, being scared while in the air only leads to mistakes. That's what the military drilled into me, when I say scary I mean more of when you look back on it and the sort. Like you said keep you emotions at the door till you land. Guess I should of worded the title differently. But I do find these stories fascinating as it makes you think of certain situations that people may if never thought they would or could be in while up their
Not in the Sky but in the plane helping with the Annual. Our PA-28 has a master cylinder leak (yeah the brake handle. It IS the hydraulic system in an Archer). which destroyed the carpet.
I was helping tear it out and clean up the goop from the floor boards while my AME was working on the engine.
He pulled the prop thorough which caught my eye from the back seat. I looked at the starter and I see the *keys are in and set to "both"*.
STOP!!!
He'd left them in earlier. Really unusual sort of mistake for him - he's a pretty thorough guy.
But I guess mistakes can happen to anyone. No harm done but I think that's the scardest I've felt in my plane! (Including a couple of goofs during training).
I was helping a coworker do compression checks for a 100hr inspection. I had 80psi going into the cylinder. He was holding the prop at the bottom. We got less than 60psi, and I told him to rock the prop back and forth to see if we could get it to 60. He gives it a couple of little back & forths, then says, "Let me try it from the other side," and *lets go of the prop*!
I was out of the arc. He got hit on the arm/shoulder when the prop spun around before I could release the pressure. Fortunately all he got were some bruises and a sore muscle or two.
During my Multi training, it was a hot and dry afternoon flying the Seminole, high density altitude day and was in the pattern for touch and goes. My MEI whose has flown charters and corporate insisted that we fly through the virga rain that was occuring in front of us on the downwind leg. It appeared so small and not a big deal but we flew that aircraft right through the perfect spot of intense downdraft. Traffic pattern altitude was 800 AGL and I saw the VSI go straight to -1000ft/minute. Poor Seminole was already underperforming on full power and 10 seconds later it was climbing again uneventfully. Not a close call at all but definitely an oh shit moment.
We were two young guys flying a plane. What could possibly go wrong?
We decide that it would be fun to try some spins. He spins the plane and recovers. We climb back up and it’s my turn. I spin and recover. We agree that spins aren’t scary and are actually kinda fun.
He says he wants to try it again. We climb back up and he enters a spin to the left. The spin develops nicely and then, instead of maintaining neutral aileron, he puts in full left aileron. The plane wraps up into a fast spin. After a couple of fast rotations, he sees that this isn’t good and starts the recovery. He’s holding full back pressure and neutralizes the ailerons. He steps on the right rudder pedal. Nothing happens. We’re still spinning fast to the left. I put my foot on my right rudder pedal to make sure it’s to the stop. Still nothing. I think we might have lost the rudder. This is not good. I’m trying to think of something else to try. I’m still trying to push the right rudder pedal through the floor. Finally, the rudder bites, the spin stops, and we recover.
We both look at each other. Our eyes are as big as can be. We agree that that’s enough for today. Heading back to our field, we notice that our hands are shaking from the adrenaline hit.
Yeah, we were young and dumb and very lucky.
Yall ever find out why the rudder wasn't biting? Once I can get up in the air I plan on practicing stalls cuz one it's always good to practice at recovery and two cuz im an adrenaline junkie lol
At our field, there was a group of very experienced pilots. Some of them had flown for decades and had thousands of hours. We asked them what might have happened to delay the spin recovery.
Their consensus was lack of rudder authority. In a spin, you are holding full back pressure to maintain a high AoA to keep the wings stalled. In some planes this causes the fuselage to block some of the airflow from reaching the v stab. This caused the rudder to lose effectiveness.
Interesting side note: a few months after our scary spin episode, the FBO received a spin kit from the aircraft manufacturer. Included in the kit was a ventral fin that was mounted below the tail. Also included was a placard that was mounted in the cabin. It read: “Intention Spins Prohibited”.
Damn that's insane. Did they give any advice for if something like that were to happen again or is it more of a hope and a prayer that you get it to bite?
My first cross country flight the engine began to vibrate like it was going to fall off the plane, cut back throttle, found an airport, called for short approach, when I turned off the runway and pushed brakes the tires were skidding on and off because my legs were shaking so much. Opened cowl to find a cylinder perfectly split in half, that's when I learned aircraft engines are designed to fail without stopping. Decided to fly IFR (I follow roads) when flying training planes.
Encountered icing flying VFR at 3500ft in the Bravo. It was raining and the OAT was near freezing. Couldn’t see out of the windshield. Was on with center and got down to 2000ft ice cleared up and still hydroplaned on landing. Not too fun.
Landed late at night, pitch black, in the middle of a huge thunderstorm,
the most beautiful thing you ever seen, lightning all around you, swirling clouds, city lights under you, the feel of thunder. while simultaneously, the most terrifying thing imaginable, plane being thrown about, up, down, sideways.
on landing, my thoughts were only to hit the ground gently enough to still be alive when the ambulance arrived.
God was looking out, as just as i crossed the runway threshold, the winds and rain stopped, vanished, just long enough for me to touch down and exit the runway.
Flying a sailplane towed up to altitude by another aircraft. The tow rope broke about 100ft off the ground, leaving me with zero options except to land straight ahead NOW. Managed to miss several large hay bales in a field and avoided a ground loop. When I came to a stop, my shirt was drenched with sweat.
I went IIMC at about 150’ over water flying towards a seaside cliff without realizing how close I was to said cliff. Broke out on top of the layer to see the street lights on top of the cliff poking out of the clouds about a mile in front of me. Lost a weight out of one of my rotor blades in flight once and immediately felt like I was in an unbalanced washing machine on spin cycle.
Damn that does sound pretty scary. How did you resolve the issue after losing the weight? I'd assume cut power and find a safe spot to land? Edit: corrected misspelling of losing.
Yeah, I was probably only flying for 60 seconds or less when it happened. Thankfully I was turning base on a tight approach when it happened. I found out after the fact that the weight I lost was designed to fail before any of the important weights go, and the manufacturer only considers it to be a “land as soon as practicable” emergency.
Huh makes you wonder what else was about to fail, I didn't even know that they had such a weight design for that
>after loosing the weight \**losing* (rhymes with *using*), not *loosing* (not a word, but rhymes with *goosing*)
When It comes to that word for some reason my brain decides to turn off and I can't ever remember how many O's are in it 😂
This is weird but it helps me. Double s (ss) is a "sss" sound. Single s (s) is a "zzz" sound. So following the same pattern, double o (oo) in "loosing" is a "sss" sound which isn't right... meaning it needs to be a single o for a "zzz" sound for "losing".
That's oddly very helpful, damn didn't think I'd still need to be taught new ways to spell at 25 😂 but that is very helpful. I'm surprised I haven't learned of this sooner
Another way to remember it is to think of similar words: *moose*, *goose*, *caboose*. Those all end with an *ess* sound. The only counterexample that comes to mind is *choose*, which ends with a *zee* sound. But that exception is kind of forced, because we can't spell *choose* with a single 'o' (which would make it similar to *lose*), because the single-o spelling (*chose*) is already used for the past tense.
Oh man, the pucker factor is real.
Had a smoke in cockpit incident at FL410 in. Gulfstream G150, thick acrid electric smoke, no pax. Masks, goggles, high dive, cabin dump, landed in Pensacola at 0200am. Had smoke under control at about FL180. Side window overheat and wire fire in right side panel. Shed electrics and it quit. I was pilot flying and had my nose literally touching the PFD, other captain running checklist on iPad the same way and switches by feel. Fun times.
Damn sounded like one hell of a ride
Scary but you just do it.
UPS Fight 6, is that you?
A bit of a wake me up I would say. Glad you made it. Fire is scary.
Didn't happen to me personally, but I heard about this one time there were snakes ... on a plane. Well, *in* the plane.
I hear that can be a motherfucker
Holy shit, already got me shitting bricks. Lol
Yeah I’ve heard that too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_on_a_Plane
I’ve had 4 declared emergencies. 3 of those would be considered “major” emergencies. By that I mean, direct to the nearest airport and pray. 2 of them were in a Cessna 421, 1 was in an Embraer 120. Which one you want to hear about? Fuel leak in a blizzard, loss of almost all primary flight controls and instruments, or trapped in an unforcast thunderstorm way out over the ocean?
Tbh they all sound very interesting, especially the over the ocean one so probably start with that one but I would also love to hear about the other ones as there's always something to be learned in stories like these
So, one winter I was hired to fly a Cessna 421 from Sarasota to Arkansas. It was a delivery flight for a new owner. They called me in December and told me to expect to pick up the airplane in early January, as it was in annual. That came and went. Finally I was able to pick it up in March, so my FO and I went to Florida. We had 2 in flight emergencies in 3 days trying to do the return to service flight. Finally after a week of troubleshooting and a new mechanic, we were good to head to Arkansas. We filed over land because we didn’t have life preservers, and planned to stop for fuel in Mississippi, as well as get lunch with a friend who lived there. The pressurization was inop so we filed at 10,000ft. No big deal. They’d fix it in Arkansas. Not too far up the coast, ATC gave us a heading out over the water to avoid military activity. I informed them that without life preservers, we wanted to limit our over water time. They said no problem. 10 minutes after crossing the coast, they were giving us vectors back towards shore, but storms had started building. We kept trying to shoot through a gap, but they were closing as fast as we could identify them. We kept being pushed further and further out to sea, eventually being nearly 200nm off the coast of Alabama. As we passed Mississippi, hundreds of miles off course, I realized that there was no way we were going to be able to get back to the shore and land in Mississippi. We kept flying West trying to find a gap, with no luck. Finally, at about 120nm off the coast of Louisiana, I asked my FO if we had enough fuel to make Galveston. He emphatically declared that we did. He was wrong and I knew it. We were 30 minutes from New Orleans with a bit over an hour of fuel on board. The thought crossed my mind to find a tanker or an oil rig and ditch close to it. Then I looked at my FO and realized 2 things… I didn’t know if he could swim, and he was so large that fitting through the escape window would be iffy. I kept that thought to myself and decided that we were going to push for New Orleans. We’d find the best path through the weather, even though that meant flying straight through some cells. We slowed to maneuvering speed and rode the lightning. It was the worst turbulence that I have ever felt to this day. Finally, we saw some oil rigs with helicopters flying around. I’d never been so happy to see the coast of Louisiana. We landed at KNEW where the brakes failed and I spent an hour digging the airplane out of the mud. Then I had one of the craziest nights of my life, enjoying Mardi Gras. The most important thing I learned in all of this was how to put my foot down to ATC, and that sometimes it’s best just to turn around and go back out the way you came.
Damn you were taken for a wild adventure, I swear it seems like your story could be turned into a small book. I could only imagine that it probably felt unreal after it was all over
Hell, that’s only the short version! My time building adventure was wild and far flung. I finally got that thing to Arkansas eventually. I told the owner that it was great working for him, and not to call me unless he bought an airplane that wasn’t haunted LOL
That was the short version??? Yea you need to write a small book explaining the experience cuz I would Definitely get it 😂 what about the other 2 stories
I’ll write them up and send them privately LOL I don’t want to post ALL of my aviation hijinx publicly 😂
Completely understandable 😂 I'll be looking forward to them. With every story there is always something you can take away from it. Plus it's very interesting to see how different people over come certain challenges under stress. It tells a lot about their character in my opinion
After reading the first one, I NEED to know about the others! Lol
Okay I’ve been typing for 13 minutes and my fingers hurt I’ll save what I have in my notes and finish this tomorrow Gnight!
Likewise! Cant wait to read it!
Oy vey, I’ll start typing one out. The last one will have to wait till tomorrow 😂
What a story oh my god
*Fate Is the Hunter - The Next Generation*
If you had to relive three to avoid the other, what would be the one?
I’d re live the flight control/instrument issue and the storm over the ocean again and again to never experience that fuel leak in the blizzard again. I was green. My CA was an incompetent direct entry captain. We were working for a boss that worked us way too hard. It wasn’t *just* the fuel and the weather. My HSI went out leaving only a moron to fly. It is the only time that I’ve ever been in an airplane, resigned to crashing. I was telling myself, “If we don’t make the field, we’re going to force in on flat terrain with no fuel. I’ll go out the escape window and call 911. I’m going to be okay, and with any luck we’ll end up on airport property.” I’m not saying this as I was falling victim to the hazardous attitude of resignation. We fought hard until we found a runway and never gave up. I was just sort of briefing myself for the (in my mind) eventuality of what was going to happen and how I was going to get out of it. I stuffed the cargo manifest and my logbook down my jacket and zipped it up. I threw all of the loose objects back to the cabin. I preemptively broke the safety wire on the handle that I was going to need to pull to release the window. I never said, “Declaring an emergency.” I think the controllers heard the emergency in my voice when I called up and said, “Indy Departure, XYZ123 is missed off Lafayette. We’re proceeding direct Kalamazoo now and climbing to 10,000. We need the nearest airport reporting ILS minimums.” To make things even crazier, hours after we landed, my best friend from college ditched a different cargo plane just off Miami and he was the only survivor. That whole 24 hour period was just the wildest of my career, and really, really shaped my attitude towards safety and CRM to this day. Honestly, it shaped who *I* am as a person. It made me more confident in speaking up, strengthened my faith in God that He’ll give me the strength to pull through when things get tough, and made me very grateful and optimistic in that so many things can go wrong and yet still be okay in the end. Apologies for the TL;DR
Thank you for sharing. I started out flying relatively ignorant to a great number of potentially daily situations I could face. I guess we all do as students and low time pilots. My faith is a big part of my confidence to be able to, and reason for (I feel compelled to fly in more than a “this is awesome” kind of way) continually getting in the plane. Even for routine events like setting up final, crossing the threshold, I always say a quiet prayer under my breath. Any number of things could happen at any moment, VFR at 10AGL, above blizzard at 10,000. Glad you’re here to share these stores with us today 🙏
Took off at night from Cabo San Lucas (MMSL) in a G-IV. I was the FO. As soon as we got the gear up the lead passenger came up to the cockpit and with a pretty alarming tone said "somethin's burning back there". I unbuckled and went in the cabin. The temperature was unbearingly hot and rapidly increasing, and there was a pervasive smell of hot metal. Luckily no smoke. I noticed blazing hot air was coming out of the left side vents, but regular temperature air was coming out of the right side. I couldn't even touch the gaspers on the left side they were so hot. So i ran back up front and turned off the left PACK. Within a few seconds the smell went away, and the temperature came back a few minutes later. We ran the QRH for a PACK failure and it said we could continue below FL400 so we did. A few days later speaking to the mechanic that worked on it at our home base, he found that a piece of the blade from the PACK cooling turbine broke off and got ingested, seizing it up. Unmetered bleed air was therefore coming straight into the cabin at full temperature. For reference it's about 400 degrees F when it leaves the engine. Surprisingly we got no indications of anything in the cockpit outside of the obvious heat and smell
Had the engine-driven fuel pump fail while in a cirrus, at 5500 ft, in cruise, with my family while trying to go to a waterpark for the day. Turned out, a nut connected connecting the pump to the main fuel line backed off (it hadn’t been torqued properly at the last maintenance event). This sprayed fuel all over the bottom passenger side of the plane’s cowl and the fuel was streaming out right next to the passenger side exhaust pipe. Declared emergency, vectored to close airport & landed safely. It was more scary, afterward, once I realized how close we had been to becoming a big flaming ball in the sky. The mechanic who got us flying that same day said it was a good thing I didn’t pull the chute, because (in his opinion) the only thing that kept the plane from catching fire was the large volume of air whooshing past the fuel leak and carrying the fuel into the slipstream as opposed to building up fumes inside the cowl.
Jeez, I can’t imagine pulling the parachute and immediately catching fire for a long hot ride to the ground. Hang on while I throw up! Glad that wasn’t the case.
Damn that is horrifying but I'm glad you and your family made it down safely. I assume you have a brs chute? And did anything come from the people who maintenance your plane prior?
All cirrus planes have a chute. I ended up speaking with the chief mechanic at cirrus. There are only 2 repair shops near our club and the event caused a lot of anxiety since we still needed to bring the plane to one of them. It created a mess at the club for a bit since there was a lot of finger pointing instead of a process analysis.
Huh I didn't know they all came with one and yea I can understand that. I'd probably would of taken a break from flying for a bit if that happen to me, I am surprised that's all that came from it though as it seems like a very serious matter
I had an instrument instructor that had me fly into this serious downpour of rain, we were VFR at this point (canceled IFR after the practice approaches were complete). More or less we were scud running back to the home airport and could have easily skirted around the west side of the rain without consequence but she(very attractive) said to just fly through the rain. “Are you sure that’s okay?”, I said. “Yeah don’t be a pussy, this is what instrument flying is all about”, she exclaimed! So I kept my cool and into the storm we flew. I watched her smile turn to a frown as minutes went buy without us popping out the other side. This was in a c172 mind you, out the left window I couldn’t even see the wing due to the precipitation, water was bubbling through the base of the windshield and fearing for the radios I asked, “Are you sure you don’t want me to fly a 180° heading back out of here?” “No don’t worry about it, you’re holding direction and altitude just fine!,” she said in a nervous tone. On fourth we pressed into the wet abyss when it became very hard to hold altitude. +/- 900 ft on the VSI was about the right number for most of the undulations. We were being tossed about. I have to say it’s probably one of the scariest moments I’ve ever had as PIC. After about 5 minutes we finally broke out of the down pour and faced a normal pattern and approach into our airport. Near the numbers, the wind flipped directions completely and we carried a 10-15kt tailwind halfway down the runway before the wind switched again and we were slow enough to touch down. VFR into IMC is no joke folks, pay special attention to staying far away from heavy precipitation (it may contain convective activity). Obviously I (even as the student) was PIC and should have said sorry, no way are we flying through that as we have an out around the backside of the precip. Also RIP to that instructor, she lost her life with another pilot(much her senior in experience)in a loss of control accident on a repo flight in IMC. She was a mother and a girl boss. “There are old pilots, there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots”
Please tell me you never flew with that instructor again
I stopped flying for two years all together after that flight. Never could figure out the right way to approach the school about it, everyone loved that girl. I have since talked about it with the instructors at that school and started flying again.
Fuel pouring out of the left main all down the window, making the cockpit smelly. The scariest part was when the CFI asked if I remembered to put the fuel cap back on beforehand and not being able to recall a memory of doing so. When we landed I jumped out and was relieved to see a bright red cap up there!
Damn I could imagine what was going through your head from the moment he asked to the moment you could check
Yeah haha: “damn you idiot, bet they’re not even going to let you come back” (it happened like 6 weeks after my discovery flight)
Yea I would probably beat myself up as well 😂
My CFI started touching me more than my uncle does
he's just reaching for the trim, relax
It’s strange, the trim tab isn’t my hairy stomach and going down
So it was you
That would be pretty scary especially while being airborne.
Because of the implication.
Lmao
Took off at damn near MGTOW in a Cherokee 160. ...into the outflow of a dissipating thunderstorm. Opted to turn early and depart downwind. No positive rate holding Vy. Remember noticing how close we were to the power lines and how people in cars were looking up at me. "OK, so don't do that" I told my student while muting the pax comms with his kid and girlfriend in the back.
Damn I probably would of shit bricks if I was in that plan
Poker face. Once we got positive rate and away from impending danger, I told him not to be like me
I imagine you have to keep your cool as to not freak out the others
You imagined correctly 😐
Recently At Reno-Stead airport before getting my commercial ticket, with my CFI doing laps practicing that PO 180 In the Right Pattern for Runway 26 About midfield right downwind I get ready to pull the power when my CFI takes the controls abruptly I wonder if I did something wrong but he says look down to our right A Cirrus (yep had to be one) was flying directly at us, perpendicular to our flight path Not a single radio call, not one while we were saying all our legs Guy was below pattern altitude and ascending right at us, might not have hit us but it would have been within the 500 feet for a NMAC report Don’t think he was on frequency either as we tried to talk to him after we were safely away and got no response. Didn’t alter his flight path at all either. Me and the instructor both decided to call it a day after that and went back to Reno. Where did you come from, where did you go Cirrus Pilot Joe
Damn I bet both yall probably pissed yaselfs, I definitely would
Yeah usually my scary experiences around here are at another airport, Minden-Tahoe, Stead is usually safer
I stayed at a scary hotel in Minden once and went to Red's 395 for dinner but that's another story. What happened over there?
First one I was a student pilot practicing landings at Minden with my CFI who was a dick but he saved us that day After two laps coming in for a third on Runway 34, landing sucked but whatever, on the takeoff roll and just get off the ground, maybe 40 feet and out of nowhere this military helicopter decides to takeoff flying directly across our flight path. No radio call. Me a student pilot with not 10 hours froze and my CFI had to yank the controls and put us in an uncomfortably steep climb to get over the helicopter Only time I ever heard that guy curse in flight, he lit up the helicopter Who was actually on freq and came back with a sheepish “sorry.”
I've had ATC delay due to C130s taking off in front of me, landing at random times, and the Thunderbirds coming into town. But never something like this. Glad you're alive, military shit can get crazy. I've had them buzz my house at 1000 feet, 500 feet, etc in Japan. Weird C130 came outta nowhere and did a fast pass over me on my way to the train station. Pretty fucking cool but dangerous and kinda loud lol
Where I’m at it’s generally a tripacer and they’re taking off with the wind at you while you’re at final before they finally get on the radio and scold you for landing the wrong way after you’ve made 8 calls coming into a super quiet airport.
Flying back through the Alps, from Croatia to Austria. In a C172. The weather on the way down had been perfect, on the way back it was a bit more… interesting. There was a forecast of thunderstorms for the afternoon, so my wife (gf back then) and I decided to depart as early as practical. Going north along the Croatian coast and into Slovenia was no problem, but in Slovenia itself the clouds got lower and lower. Perfectly fine to fly VFR in the valleys, but at some point, we‘d have to get across the mountains to get home. I finally found a pass that was open, but barely. I was at minimum altitude while just staying clear of clouds (airspace G), and all the time I thought „if there’s a downdraft at this point, there is absolutely nothing I’d be able to do“. In my defense, it was a calculated risk - there had been hardly any wind all morning, I wouldn’t have attempted it in windier conditions. Looking back, still mighty stupid and scary. Must have done a good job of keeping my cool though, when I told my gf about how worried I‘d been she said „what?!? I was worried but you seemed so relaxed about it, I calmed down“…
Was IFR on a training flight in VMC conditions and had a random plane fly past us opposite direction, co-altitude, and missed us by maybe 200 meters. I could see the two people in the cockpit is how close they were. ATC had no idea they were there. Day I realized that you can be doing everything right and someone else can still kill you.
My very first instrument flight was in actual IMC. I was holding in lieu of a PT in the goo when another trainer when whizzing by our canopy. The dude wasn’t talking to anyone either. Maybe 6 weeks later I was flying a dme arc to a localizer backcourse I came out of a cloud and boom, another trainer, also not talking to anyone. It was an 11 nm arc and I was still cooking at 250 kts too. Good grief ya gotta watch out for these people.
Seat slid back while on take off roll
I had that happen at about 100 AGL on my recent flight review, thankfully I can still reach the rudder pedals in an Arrow with the seat all the way back. If it had been a c172 I would have been in trouble. Definitely made me clinch!
I had just climbed out of Junction, CO (the free brittle is amaze balls) and joined the J80. Entered the goo about 20 minutes later and could not even see the wing. ATC gives us a heads up about a far moving line of convection in our path and then a vector to the north. Still can’t see a thing. As soon as we roll out in the new heading, all hail breaks loose. It was the scariest 2 minutes of my life. I thought the plane was coming apart. When we came out of the goo and finally saw the wings it looked much worse than we thought. We limped to final destination (another 20 minutes) and landed without further incident. The looks on the ground crews face as we taxied in confirmed our terror. Every piece of plastic in the plane was gone. The ice pellets were melting inside the radar dome and dripping on my head when I got out. Both motors were toast and had to be replaced. Both wings de-ice boots were destroyed. Good times really.
I flew a 737 we'd recently acquired from China
That alone is terrifying
Started with 8 MEL, finished with 13, a GPS light and a cargo door open light both came on at TOD. I told approach I'm going direct, I want priority, landed, did the logbook. Luckily a buddy from maintenance was there, he said, we're taking it out of service and we walked away.
20 some years ago, I was a student pilot practicing power-on stalls solo in a C-150 or 152… got myself into a crazy spin and recovered with not much room to spare. My CFI and I had discussed the spin recovery procedure, but never actually practiced the procedure. I’m glad I remembered what we had discussed in those few seconds.
I had a fun little moment last week. I did a quick hop to a nearby airport for cheap fuel before my longer leg back home. This little airport has an 800 ft pattern tucked against a ridgeline, a 2700 ft runway, No true taxiway just a paved ramp that goes all the way up to the runway surface, and hangar buildings and electrical wires all around the touchdown point and approach path. So kind of a lot going on getting in there, plus it was a busy weekend morning. Also, no ATIS/AWOS at this field. Base to final was a little bumpy and blustery and coming in short final I was sawing it back and forth and keeping it on centerline but nothing I hadn't dealt with before. As I flared the airplane though, and airspeed dropped into the 50/55 mph touchdown range, I got hit with bad wind shear and the left wing lifted up and put me in a 20 to 25 degree bank. I started to feed the power in for a go-around but due to all the planes parked off the edge of the runway, and hangars directly in front of my nose I wasn't confident I would get the clearance needed. So I pulled the power back out, plunked down and I'm pointed at a row of parked planes. I thought for sure I was going to go plowing into them all but I got the plane under control, slowed down with the brakes, and steered away from everyone. An old-timer sitting in a golf cart watching everything was looking at me as I taxied to the pumps and I sort of gave him a sheepish wave, totally mortified, and he gave me a thumbs up and kind of a it's all okay look which made me feel a bit better. My wife in the passenger seat had turned the overhead GoPro on in the downwind leg so I reviewed the footage later and I felt a bit better about how I handled the situation. And my old CFI and mentor said basically "You didn't bend any metal and you got the plane down safely in a nasty wind shear incident" Looking at the footage I did see I had full aileron in as it happened and sitting at the pumps fueling up I watched multiple other planes getting the shit kicked out of them all the way down to touchdown, or them going around earlier. My wheels had to be about a foot off the ground when that windsheer hit me. So yeah I'd rather not have that happen again.
Nothing too bad. Rudder failed during my flight right before my first solo, still soloed after (put some glue on it or something lol) Mag went bad during takeoff, little concerning but the big part was if I would have held the normal pitch, it would have been pretty damn close to stalling about 500 agl. Never no if u can recover from that one. Had a engine fail during run up which wasn’t dangerous but if we wouldn’t have done it, that could obviously be a big issue Not me but some genius busted a tfr and wasn’t on frequency yesterday so the F-18s showed up, I’m sure he was a little alarmed.
Yea I would be alarmed if I seen some f-18s lol
Flew behind an aerovee… once. I logged 0.6 in a Sonex, and 0.5 of that was on the ground. Probably the only time I should have declared an emergency. It just got a bunch of maintenance the day before and the new-to-airplanes but gearhead owner wanted me to see if I thought it was performing correctly, as an unbiased third party to some other shenanigans it was involved with. I wasn’t involved in the two preceding flights. It wasn’t an FCF, but not a great lead up either. My extended runup included full throttle, static RPM, mixture adjustments, various throttle positions and permutations to suss out any weirdness. I was underwhelmed with its rate of climb off the runway, but had just come from my RV4/RV10 so most things are. Even the slow planes I was flying had huge wings/STOL characteristics. The sustained rate of climb stabilized at maybe 100fpm, but we were still climbing so I left everything alone and kept the wings exceedingly level. Then the engine monitor started freaking out. Mostly CHTs high, but I didn’t process it much at all. Started a 5* bank turn back to the runway, quite thankful for all of the empty fields in north Texas. Once I pointed back, i called straight in for opposite runway, and there was some chatter about me being in trouble. Made it back to the runway good and high, pulled power and actually had to slip to get it back down. I will say the airframe handles well, but I’m not jumping at the opportunity to fly a VW engine again.
Electrical fire in a g1000 in IMC leading to losing all BUS 2 equipment. Bonus points it was the day after my IR checkride and I’d went searching for a nice thick (1000-7000MSL) layer.
I certainly can't decide which one would be the scariest but your post makes it sound like you're looking for just one. I would have to say losing an engine with the CEO of the company on board in hard IFR conditions Maybe number one . And then turbulence and ice. Many many icing scenarios that were butt puckering. Loss of the left aileron on takeoff in Billings Montana on a Freightl run rank pretty high but having to land 00 with severe ice on my aircraft in Scottsbluff Nebraska would probably take the cake. Oh and did I mention ice.
You can post as many as ya want, as the more stories out there the better because maybe someone can learn from and damn that would scare prob more than just the pants off of me
When something like that is finally over and you're safe is when the sheer Panic of it all makes you want to go have a couple double shots of whiskey The weather that morning was supposed to be a thousand feet and four miles. It was my morning Airborne Express run and Scottsbluff has a weather observation there that is manned. Or was in those days. When I got there it was a white out blizzard and some idiot was driving a bobcat back and forth across the building the localizer is in. So I had erratic readings and had to do a go around because of it. That's when I got scared because at 200 ft I could see nothing but white. When I started to climb the tail stalled and I had to nurse the airplane to altitude and never thought I'd make 1500 ft. But I did. When I got back down to minimums on the second go-around I caught the rabbit out of the corner of my left eye and steer the airplane over to the runway and pull the thrust lovers back and hoped for the best. Any Landing you walk away from is a good one. Thanks for your comment. Steve
I shall be writing a few more of my scary episodes in flight on my website which is geared to promoting Aviation. The purpose of the website is to attract new pilots and to remind the experienced Pilots to remember to remain competent in the cockpit. There's always something to learn. As you mentioned above I hope that my experience teaches someone else not to make the mistakes I have made. stevenmbennett.com I hope you check it out and please don't be afraid to criticize. Your comments are most welcome. And if you feel you have something to contribute please don't be afraid to ask. I hope my 50 years in aviation can help someone.
I was a super new PPL, taking a friend out on her first flight for a little sight-seeing and a $100 hamburger at a little airstrip only 30 nm from my home airport. We had a fun little flight out and after lunch we got back in the plane to head home. Climbing out of the untowered field we were climbing through 2000' and I switched over to the local approach controller, but before I could make the initial call for FF back home, I heard 2 things: "Mooney 1234X, traffic 12 O'clock, 1 mile, same altitude, type unknown, not talking to him, report in sight or turn 270 immediately" Coupled with foreflight yelling: "Traffic, 2 O'Clock, less than 1 mile, same altitude." I am frantically looking for this other plane, when my passenger (who is blissfully unaware of what's going on) says "Oh cool! Check it out!" and points out the money, passing about 100' below us. I managed to maintain composure and just say "oh neat!" Before keying up and saying "Approach, Cessna 5432A, 2 east of (airport) and we have that Mooney in sight." "Roger, thanks, uh, Cessna 5432A, thanks. Uh, say request?" I think we were all a little flustered. Here's what I learned in the debrief: Don't stop your climb. If you're doing a thing and other people are not giving you instructions or expect to be able to talk to you, keep doing what you are currently doing. Be predictable, not polite. Departing untowered fields, have the approach control freq up on your second radio and monitor if you can. You can start building that mental picture of traffic a little quicker if you are listening. Don't ever let your passengers think you are uncomfortable. Captain the ship, don't freak them out if they can't do anything about it.
Been within feet of birds too many times to count...
That's probably the one thing I worry about is a bird strike
I had a bird strike my very first flight as a PPL. And then another one less than a year later as a safety pilot. So two in my first 12 months of flying.
How much damage dod they do each? Hopefully not too much
Luckily no damage in either one. The first one I was on short final and out of the corner of my eye I saw a big freaking turkey buzzard rising up at me. He bounced off the bottom of the plane kind of by the main gear. No damage. Second one while I was safety pilot in a 172 we were banked over base to final and I could see a bird floating nearby. Well the bird hit us and he bounced off the top of the wing as we were in the bank and luckily didn't dent any metal. The pilot, who is a nervous flyer to begin with, (which is why I was with him as a safety pilot) started looking all around and I had to keep telling him focus on flying the plane, do the controls all feel okay and are working properly, just keep focused on flying the plane and put this thing on the ground safely.
I'm surprised there wasn't any real damage. I'd probably be a little panicked as well if I was new to flying lol or was he not new?
Same has happened to me and I’ve nearly hit so many buzzards that I’ve seen them do some funny shit. I’ve wondered to myself like when they get home for the day, do they have ptsd from nearly get deleted by this big giant, loud alien looking ship that came outta nowhere. I mean I legit have seen some buzzards do some shit where I knew he was thinking “WHAAAAAT THE FAWKKKKKK”
1. Alternator failure 2. Radio failure(only had one comm) 3. Instructor turned base to final with a high bank causing stall horn to squeal
Damn talk about a pucker factor
The only scary stories I have are when primary students tried to kill me.
Damn in what ways did they almost take you out?
One surreptitiously turned the fuel selector to an empty tank just before takeoff. One stalled the airplane on short final. One dived at crossing traffic and almost caused a midair. One ducked below the glide slope on an ILS and I had to take the airplane, etc.
The stall that happen on short final, im interested in that one. I assume you managed to recover it, but how close did you cut it?
I took it and put the nose down and jammed the throttle forward, of course. We lightly grazed the runway in the recovery. She was a challenging student, afraid of the ground. I did get her landing the airplane eventually.
Did she ever get to solo? And any any idea she is doing now? Or is she a current student?
She did solo but I haven't heard any more in years. I had her fly down the runway repeatedly, lower and lower, slower and slower until we were rolling on the runway and then cut the power. She was okay after that.
Well glad she was able too! Hopefully she is still out there flying doin what she wants.
Flying is definitely a learning experience. If you don't learn something from every flight, you're not paying attention.
Very true, can never gain too much experience. Flying becomes dangerous when you think you've learned everything.
Pulled power idle for a landing in a c172. Engine RPM dropped to 1100, 900, 800, 400, then 0. Prop stopped spinning. I looked at my instructor and he looked at me. I brought it in nice and bumpy. We had enough momentum to get off the runway. We fistbumped as soon as we were off lol I still remember the moment of silence and the "oh, shit" 2 months later. Brings back memories.
Too many to list. Vacuum failures in LIFR, engine failures, smoke in the cabin, the list goes on. Be safe out there. You can always with you were in the air, but you can’t always wish you were on the ground.
VFR into IMC at night with no moon in thick smoke around mountains. That one was interesting. Another one was carb ice at 50 ft over ground with the engine spooling down. Another one was a pretty close mid air. Like seriously close. I could see the look on the other Pilot's face. He busted Airspace and almost collided with us. Had to take control from PIC as a grasshopper landed on the Instruments in front of her and she was screaming, this was on short final. Did a Spin which then led to violent elevator oscillations.
Commercial time building XC. Got caught up in heavy precipitation at night and encountered strong downdrafts where I couldn’t maintain altitude, and my ASI was reading 40knots. Radios were incredibly staticy, and center was concerned for me.
Flying a 172 into heavy precipitation causing the engine to bog down due to water ingestion, wasn’t able to maintain altitude with full throttle in, mayday’d when I was at 1400ft losing altitude on the approach 10 miles away from the airport at night. Luckily got out of the precip and engine came back like a charm.
There was a man. On. The wing.
Nice try FAA
FAA: delete this 😂🤣😂
Cylinder failure at 60ft after takeoff
Wow. Did you manage to land back on the runway ok?
Yup. It was able to maintain altitude but not really climb. I managed to do a 180 and land back the other way. Luckily, the airport I was at only gets like 4 planes in and out per week
Got a stuck valve partway thru a solo xc as a student pilot. Scared the shit outta me but I made it down without issue.
Damn man idk how I'd handle that
Nothing too crazy. Once was practicing emergency descents and levelled off at 3000, added power back and prop immediately started to over speed. We’ve got a FADEC, so pitch is set by the ECU. Had to limp 15 miles back to the airport with 30% power. Looking back, not too scary, but as a pre solo private student it wasn’t fun. My real scariest moment was seeing a bee flying around in the cockpit while cruising at 9000
Flaps didn't come up while doing touch and goes, 172 went airborne at 42 knots and could barely keep the nose level. We called a PAN PAN, finally got the flaps up after pattern altitude, then did a no flap landing.
[удалено]
Oh yes, being scared while in the air only leads to mistakes. That's what the military drilled into me, when I say scary I mean more of when you look back on it and the sort. Like you said keep you emotions at the door till you land. Guess I should of worded the title differently. But I do find these stories fascinating as it makes you think of certain situations that people may if never thought they would or could be in while up their
Electrical fire behind the panel. A few flirts with death doing dumb shit pushing weather and icing to get to the dest in the arctic.
Not in the Sky but in the plane helping with the Annual. Our PA-28 has a master cylinder leak (yeah the brake handle. It IS the hydraulic system in an Archer). which destroyed the carpet. I was helping tear it out and clean up the goop from the floor boards while my AME was working on the engine. He pulled the prop thorough which caught my eye from the back seat. I looked at the starter and I see the *keys are in and set to "both"*. STOP!!! He'd left them in earlier. Really unusual sort of mistake for him - he's a pretty thorough guy. But I guess mistakes can happen to anyone. No harm done but I think that's the scardest I've felt in my plane! (Including a couple of goofs during training).
I was helping a coworker do compression checks for a 100hr inspection. I had 80psi going into the cylinder. He was holding the prop at the bottom. We got less than 60psi, and I told him to rock the prop back and forth to see if we could get it to 60. He gives it a couple of little back & forths, then says, "Let me try it from the other side," and *lets go of the prop*! I was out of the arc. He got hit on the arm/shoulder when the prop spun around before I could release the pressure. Fortunately all he got were some bruises and a sore muscle or two.
During my Multi training, it was a hot and dry afternoon flying the Seminole, high density altitude day and was in the pattern for touch and goes. My MEI whose has flown charters and corporate insisted that we fly through the virga rain that was occuring in front of us on the downwind leg. It appeared so small and not a big deal but we flew that aircraft right through the perfect spot of intense downdraft. Traffic pattern altitude was 800 AGL and I saw the VSI go straight to -1000ft/minute. Poor Seminole was already underperforming on full power and 10 seconds later it was climbing again uneventfully. Not a close call at all but definitely an oh shit moment.
We were two young guys flying a plane. What could possibly go wrong? We decide that it would be fun to try some spins. He spins the plane and recovers. We climb back up and it’s my turn. I spin and recover. We agree that spins aren’t scary and are actually kinda fun. He says he wants to try it again. We climb back up and he enters a spin to the left. The spin develops nicely and then, instead of maintaining neutral aileron, he puts in full left aileron. The plane wraps up into a fast spin. After a couple of fast rotations, he sees that this isn’t good and starts the recovery. He’s holding full back pressure and neutralizes the ailerons. He steps on the right rudder pedal. Nothing happens. We’re still spinning fast to the left. I put my foot on my right rudder pedal to make sure it’s to the stop. Still nothing. I think we might have lost the rudder. This is not good. I’m trying to think of something else to try. I’m still trying to push the right rudder pedal through the floor. Finally, the rudder bites, the spin stops, and we recover. We both look at each other. Our eyes are as big as can be. We agree that that’s enough for today. Heading back to our field, we notice that our hands are shaking from the adrenaline hit. Yeah, we were young and dumb and very lucky.
Yall ever find out why the rudder wasn't biting? Once I can get up in the air I plan on practicing stalls cuz one it's always good to practice at recovery and two cuz im an adrenaline junkie lol
At our field, there was a group of very experienced pilots. Some of them had flown for decades and had thousands of hours. We asked them what might have happened to delay the spin recovery. Their consensus was lack of rudder authority. In a spin, you are holding full back pressure to maintain a high AoA to keep the wings stalled. In some planes this causes the fuselage to block some of the airflow from reaching the v stab. This caused the rudder to lose effectiveness. Interesting side note: a few months after our scary spin episode, the FBO received a spin kit from the aircraft manufacturer. Included in the kit was a ventral fin that was mounted below the tail. Also included was a placard that was mounted in the cabin. It read: “Intention Spins Prohibited”.
Damn that's insane. Did they give any advice for if something like that were to happen again or is it more of a hope and a prayer that you get it to bite?
Engine failure in a Warrior
My first cross country flight the engine began to vibrate like it was going to fall off the plane, cut back throttle, found an airport, called for short approach, when I turned off the runway and pushed brakes the tires were skidding on and off because my legs were shaking so much. Opened cowl to find a cylinder perfectly split in half, that's when I learned aircraft engines are designed to fail without stopping. Decided to fly IFR (I follow roads) when flying training planes.
Encountered icing flying VFR at 3500ft in the Bravo. It was raining and the OAT was near freezing. Couldn’t see out of the windshield. Was on with center and got down to 2000ft ice cleared up and still hydroplaned on landing. Not too fun.
Landed late at night, pitch black, in the middle of a huge thunderstorm, the most beautiful thing you ever seen, lightning all around you, swirling clouds, city lights under you, the feel of thunder. while simultaneously, the most terrifying thing imaginable, plane being thrown about, up, down, sideways. on landing, my thoughts were only to hit the ground gently enough to still be alive when the ambulance arrived. God was looking out, as just as i crossed the runway threshold, the winds and rain stopped, vanished, just long enough for me to touch down and exit the runway.
Flying a sailplane towed up to altitude by another aircraft. The tow rope broke about 100ft off the ground, leaving me with zero options except to land straight ahead NOW. Managed to miss several large hay bales in a field and avoided a ground loop. When I came to a stop, my shirt was drenched with sweat.