Lesson 6 – Emergency Procedures

Today we worked on emergency procedures. This is something that every pilot hopes they will never have to use. There are many things that could constitute an emergency but for training purposes, we focus on two; engine out and engine fires. With both events, we first stabilize the aircraft, and then go through our memorized procedures and then double check that we didn’t miss anything by using the checklist. If that does not resolve the problem then we proceed to the troubleshoot phase.

First, let’s talk about the engine out situation. Most pilots will go through their whole lives without having an engine failure. How many times has your car engine died while you were driving it? Not very often and plane engines are no exception. However, if it does occur, it can turn into a bad situation quickly if you are not prepared. My instructor has over 4000 hours of flying time and I asked him if he has ever had an engine die on him in that time and he said yes but it was easily started back up again and he continued the rest of the flight uneventfully.

Most engine failures are due to things like accidentally moving the fuel shutoff valve, or forgetting to switch the fuel selector valve when the wing tank runs dry, or descending from high altitude with a leaned engine and forgetting to enrichen the mixture. These are things that can easily be fixed if you use the proper procedures and the engine can be started again in midair.

There is a true story about a pilot that was flying the Citabria and had a passenger in the back. He asked his passenger to reach up and turn off the landing lights since the switch is behind the pilots head and closer to the rear passenger. The passenger accidentally flipped the magneto switch instead and the engine died. The pilot did not follow the checklist or else he would have caught the shut off magnetos. Instead they landed in a field and it wasn’t until he was walking away from the plane that he noticed the landing light was still on. He looked inside the cockpit and saw that his passenger had shut off the magnetos instead of the light.

If an engine failure occurs in flight, the first thing you want to do is establish your best glide speed. Every airplane has a speed where you will get the most distance with the least altitude lost. In the Citabria, that speed is 65-70 MPH depending on how heavily loaded the airplane is. Once you reach the best glide speed, you begin a turn away from obstacles. For instance, if you are heading out over the ocean then you would turn back immediately. Same thing goes for mountains or a downtown area with lots of tall buildings, etc.

Next we proceed with the memorized checklist. First, check that the fuel shutoff valve is on. Then turn the carburetor heat on as the engine could have died due to ice blocking the carburetor. Next you make sure your mixture is fully rich and that the primer knob is fully locked. Last but not least is to make sure the magnetos are turned on. If one of those items caused the engine out then at this point the engine should start up again. If not then you proceed with the next phase which is to contact ATC and declare an emergency. In our case, we were over the Stanford Linear Accelerator and tuned to the emergency frequency of 121.5 since we were not in the airspace of any ATC facilities.

The call for help goes something like this, “MAYDAY, MAYDAY, Citabria 374 Delta Mike is 5 miles south of crystal springs reservoir with engine out, planning to land in a field next to the 280 freeway.” After the emergency call we set the squawk code on our transponder to 7700. This causes our plane to flash on the radar screens of all the controllers in the area, alerting them to our emergency and our position. The goal is to do all of this in less than 300 feet of altitude lost. My best today was 500 feet but that will easily get better with practice.

By the time we get to this point, we are going to have to land it somewhere. If you have done your homework before making a flight, you can minimize the risk by picking a route that is close to a suitable landing area. The best thing to do is never fly too far from an airport. This is not hard to do in the crowded Bay Area but fly out into the suburbs and it is a lot tougher. Airports are the best places to land but not the only places. Roads can be used for landing though you want to avoid really busy highways as you may not only hurt yourself but other innocent people as well. In our case, my instructor pulled the power near SLAC and there happened to be a large horse jumping area out there which would make a good landing spot.

We spent a decent amount of time flying around and picking out suitable landing areas. Golf courses with long, straight fairways can be used, smaller and less populated roads, agricultural fields, and undeveloped land. You can land in the water but it is usually not a good idea. If you must land in the water then it is a good idea to jettison the door before landing so you can ensure that you can get out quickly as the plane sinks. The water in this area is very cold which is why it is not a good idea to land in it because you wouldn’t last very long without a wetsuit.

Once you have picked a suitable landing area you need to determine which direction you are going to land. If you can figure out the wind direction, then you want to land into the wind. You then pick out a touchdown spot and proceed abeam that point just like you were flying the downwind portion of the traffic pattern. If you need to lose altitude, then you perform circles over that spot until you are roughly 1500 feet above ground level. You then proceed with your downwind, base, and final legs, just like you would in the traffic pattern.

The next emergency we practiced is an engine fire. First thing you do if you detect a fire is to shut off its source of fuel. This is done by switching off both the shutoff valve and the mixture control. Then you turn the magnetos off to stop the electrical current from flowing to the engine. You also close the air vents because pilots can often become unconscious before they land due to smoke inhalation. Shutting the vents will help keep the smoke out of the cockpit.

If the fire has stopped at this point, you can continue with your descent and landing similar to the engine out scenario. If the fire is still raging then you need to land ASAP. To do this, you perform an emergency descent which consists of doing a steep 45 degree turn and you push forward on the control stick to dive the plane toward the ground. I was tentative in performing this maneuver and hope to never have to do it for real. Fortunately, engine fires are very, very rare.

After we finished practicing emergency procedures, we headed back to Palo Alto airport. I contacted tower and let them know we wanted to do some pattern work. As we came around for the approach I was a bit high. I lowered the power to idle but we were still a bit high so I did the maneuver that I learned in the last lesson which is the slip. We lost altitude pretty quickly and I straightened it out over the runway. The flare was a little too late as we bounced a little bit on the landing. I applied full power to do a go around and my instructor said, “Nice save with that approach.”

As we turned onto downwind, ATC said we would be following a Cessna and I looked all over for him and could not see him. Finally my instructor spotted him way down low. He was traveling pretty slow and low so it was really weird to try and follow him from way above. At one point it looked like he was actually going to land at Moffet field because he was so low. I am not sure what he was doing but he eventually turned to final and I proceeded behind him. This time, my approach was much better although I felt a little low as we neared the runway. I added some power and flared at the right time. I sat up tall in my seat so I could better judge our height above the ground and held it off pretty good. As a result, the landing was smooth. There was a brief one second shimmy on the tailwheel but I pulled the stick full aft to lock the tailwheel down and the shimmy went away. We pulled off the runway and taxied back to the parking area.

My instructor wants me to start thinking about getting my medical exam and to take a look at the exam that my club requires student pilots to complete before attempting their solo. We have a few more things to cover and some more practice with landings but I am getting close enough to the solo that I can taste it. Sunday we will be flying the farthest I have flown yet. We are going out to Livermore to practice some take offs and landings. See you then...