Stick & Shudder!
My long-time flight instructor Jenifer Pekar and I had fun presenting Stick & Shudder: Pilot Tricks that Make Us Cringe to a packed audience at the American Bonanza Society’s Bonanza Pilot and Proficiency Program BPPP-Live Fly-In at West Houston Airport on February 24, 2018.
The presentation was designed as a cautionary educational review of stupid pilot tricks: here are some wacky situations pilots have gotten themselves into (usually as described in NTSB or NASA reports — NASA reports allow pilots to self-report incidents anonymously to a NASA database for use by others as learning tools), and how you can avoid such troubles. Some of the anecdotes:
Don’t Get Distracted by Your Phone on Landing. A JetStar airline pilot forgot to lower the gear on an Airbus 321 because he was distracted by chimes indicating the arrival of text messages on his mobile phone. (Fortunately, the plane didn’t land, but went around).
Don’t Get Distracted by Your Phone on Take-Off. A regional jet’s captain was alarmed and distracted by a rather loud “warbling” sound on take-off. Turns out the sound was the first officer’s mobile phone.
Don’t Lose your iPad GPS by Leaving your iPad in the Sun. Both a Cessna 172 pilot and a B-767 captain had their iPads shut off in flight from overheating when they were left in the sun under a window.
Don’t Let a Mosquito Wreck Your Plane. A regional jet captain accidentally activated the drop-down of passenger oxygen masks on final approach when he attempted to swat a mosquito in the cockpit with some rolled-up paperwork.
Beware the Turtle. A 2700-hour ATP pilot, having heard a radio report of a turtle on the approach end of the runway, landed long to miss it. He overran the runway and put the Cessna 525 jet into a pond.
More:
Careful What You Practice! A instructor and student pilot ran off a runway to avoid deer while practicing no-radio, no-light landings at a country airport.
Don’t Let the Gas Get Near “E”! Two pilots were practicing landings at one airport near Dallas, and left to fly to their home airport with barely enough gas to return. They ran out of fuel and crashed (no injuries, but for the plane) when their first attempt to land was stymied by a coyote on the runway.
Small Planes are Poor Getaway Vehicles. The owner of a Cirrus with an out-of-date parachute attempted to avoid an inspection by jumping in his plane to take off and almost running over the sheriff’s deputy. He took off, but crashed (no injury) trying to land on a country road, thinking that all the nearby airports would be staked out for him.
Don’t Use an Airplane to Fake Your Death. A desperately indebted stockbroker tried to fake his death by putting his plane on autopilot and pre-recording urgent calls to play to air traffic control after he jumped out of the plane with a chute. The plane crashed when it ran out of gas. The NTSB found a campground directory in the wreckage, with a few pages torn out. The police found our pilot at one of the torn-out campsites….
You can access the full powerpoint presentation here. For a PPT file with the animations and video, email scott@humphriesaviation.com.
The presentation was fun to give, and my thanks to the American Bonanza Society and to Jenifer Pekar for the opportunity.
