Have you been through an in-flight emergency?

[Copterpilot213]

Today I had what I would consider to be an in-flight emergency. It got me thinking about how many of us have been through these types of situations and what the outcome was.

 

Thankfully, it wasn't a big issue. I was flying an R22 Beta II and the clutch light came on for 8 seconds (steady light). This happened on takeoff and we pulled the clutch circuit breaker and landed immediately on a taxiway. There were no injuries, the belts did not break and so there was no damage done to the aircraft, other than whatever happened to cause the clutch issue.

 

I've heard that once every 10 years something will happen in this career, so I'd like to hear everyone's stories and learn from them.

[Rob Lyman]

Pilot assist servo/boost failure at night/no NVGs. Landed on the back of a navy cruiser at 1:15 am with no boost/SAS/AFCS/ Autotpilot, etc... 2nd time it happened (same aircraft) but first time was during the day 3 months earlier.

 

No damage except irreparable skid mark in the skivies.

 

I didn't exactly consider them emergencies: 1 engine chip light, 1 transmission chip light, several stabilator failures, 1 retreating blade stall on a post maintenance check flight due to a poorly tabbed blade

Edited October 12, 2007 by Rob Lyman

[PhotoFlyer]

I've had my share of abnormal situations, and one "emergency" that wasn't really an emergency. While on a cross country I had a low fuel light come on when the wire broke and shorted out. We landed in the middle of a wheat field, and shut down. Mechanic came out, repaired the wiring, and we finished the flight. Not a true emergency, but we didn't know that until we landed.

 

I had an engine nose seal fail (300C), oil started spraying on the exhaust and we thought we were on fire. Don't really feel like that was an emergency since we were hovering at the ramp when it happened, so we just landed, shut down, and got out quickly.

 

Had alternator failures, ground resonance, complete electrical failure at night, spark plug failure (resulted in rough engine), spontaneous canopy failure, and a dozen things found on preflight that would have resulted in an emergency.

Edited October 12, 2007 by PhotoFlyer

[JDHelicopterPilot]

Well,

 

 

Inflight emergency: clutch light due to bad belts(R-22), lost hydraulics in AS350

 

Other notables, radio failiures, engine chip, tail chip, complete electrical failure in R-22, busted electrical relay AS350 as a result I lost my fuel pump, gyros and generator, ground ressonance (300CB) due to bad dampener, motoring servo(hydrualic). That's about all I can think of.

 

The reason I posted everything was to show you that while they weren't emergencies, things do happen. That is why we spend so much time training for them. I would offten ask students what they would do if............ and lots of times they couldn't tell me what they would do if a simple light came on. Get it memorized, repeat over and over with your students. It's true most of us will go our careers with out a problem but being ready for anything is the best insurance I can recommend.

 

 

JD

[Hedge36]

I've been the hapless passenger during a few (M/R gearbox seizing and grenading, bird strikes, T/R strikes), but nothing exciting in my 40 hours up front

 

In fixed wing, though... ugh.

[veeany]

Engine failure IMC, with a busted SAS computer.

 

The usual Mag faults, spark plugs (which if you fly Piston for long enough will happen) and I don't tend to think of them as emergencies, but one was still attention getting.

 

Torque Matching failure, caused by PTG arm being stiff, and sticking at really the wrong point in the flight (Min Power from 1 Engine).

 

JDHP I agree that getting these things out and talking about them, is a good educator for students and peers alike. Also even if there is no set course of action for a given problem, your training will come in useful if you touch on enough things and can work out the solution for yourself, which I guess is what comes with experience.

 

Gary

Edited October 12, 2007 by veeany

[Mike Murphy]

Let's see:

 

Engine failure on take-off from a Destroyer one morning...full load of buoys and aux fuel tanks...pickled the buoys, dropped both aux tanks, recovered my Nr and altitude then went and landed on an AOR (nice big deck for SE landings)

 

Had a massive fuel leak about 40nm from the ship. #1 engine fuel purifier failed and was spraying fuel down the side of the aircraft...and it was coming into the cabin by the sensor operator...secured electrical equip except #1 UHF, had the ship turn toward us...luckily the engine never failed....but there was fuel everywhere

 

Lost the hydraulic pump one night, the H-2 can fly without any hydraulics

 

Had a bleed-air failure in the aux fuel tank pressurization system which shuts off fuel flow from the aft tank to the sump fuel tank (which feeds the engine). Beat feet for the ship, had the ship turn toward me. When the sump fuel was down to 200# (normally always at 600#) we did the pre-ditching checklist then jettisoned the offending aux tank. Without the aux tank the sump began filling normally from the aft tank and we recovered without incident.

 

Those were my worst in 18 years of flying, so for me it was more like an "Oh $hit" every 5 years :-)

 

I cannot stress how important it is to know your aircrafts system operations inside and out.

 

Mike

Edited October 12, 2007 by Mike Murphy

[Hedge36]

Had a massive fuel leak about 40nm from the ship. #1 engine fuel purifier failed and was spraying fuel down the side of the aircraft...and it was coming into the cabin by the sensor operator...secured electrical equip except #1 UHF, had the ship turn toward us...luckily the engine never failed....but there was fuel everywhere.

 

Eep. So much for underway boredom.

[500E]

Taking off on first solo 3\400 ft cyclic starting to shake just a bit but growing, go to shake real bad very quickly.

Reduced power and made the ground real quick, hardly any shake at idle RPM ran engine to shut down, instructor appears enquiring of the sweaty student "a problem" d*m right says I its trying to kill me, explain the symptoms, he wanders around jumps up pulls a blade down removes blade tape that had lifted removes tape from other blades and we were away.

I have had it happen once again on a 500.

Did get my attention real quick, the good thing was the reaction was almost automatic don't remember thinking what to do.

Had 2 chip light incidents pulled mag plugs and only found dust, not anything you can read the part No on

[Legal Eagle]

Over the years, I've had the usual chip lights, fuel pump failures, electrical glitches and the like, along with four engine failures, one at night. All ended with no further damage to the aircraft. My general observation is that there is no substitute for training. I believe that hundreds of touchdown autorotations in training contributed to these successful landings.

 

One of these does warrant another observation. That as an engine failure at a hover in a UH-1. I was just beginning to edge forward to begin the takeoff, pulling in a little bit more power as I did. I was at or near max gross and it was hot as hell outside, with no wind. At that moment, one or more turbine blades decided to depart the engine. There was a "boom" and the aircraft snapped to the left. Witnesses outside the aircraft described a fireball from the engine exhaust to the tail rotor. The speed with which it turned was a real eye-opener. I neutralized the pedals and did an otherwise uneventful hovering auto, landing with the nose 90 degrees from where I had started.

 

All of the other engine failures had looked like and acted like what I had trained for. This one did not. Discussing it afterward, I realized that a sudden power failure at a hover leaves you instantly with no torque but a whole lot of torque correction. The aircraft reaction is sudden and swift. I've been told that a 180 degree turn is not unusual. A lesson learned that I passed on to may students thereafter. We practice hovering autos, but the real thing may look and feel different - possibly in a big way.

[southernweyr]

I have had one power failure while in a 50ft air taxi resulting in the helicopter rolling onto it's side. Gotta love it when the student stands on the pedal's. The good thing is there were no injuries. I have had an alternator failure, and main drive belts slip, but these were recognized early and landings were made in a timely fashion. Remember, if you see the engine RPM higher than your Rotor RPM then you have belt slippage. This is easily identified while in a hover.

[Gomer Pylot]

I've had a few malfunctions over the past 40 years, but nothing I would consider an emergency. An emergency is when your life is in immediate danger. The closest thing to an emergency I've had was when an SIC tried to fly visually with absolutely no outside reference way offshore on a completely dark night, and we went from straight and level at 500' to a 900 fpm descent at less than 200' in the blink of an eye. The same SIC had an attitude indicator failure just as we rotated off a drilling rig on another night, but he immediately told me about it, I took the controls, and we kept on going. He almost got sick on the way in, because the ball kept spinning at about 33.3 rpm, and we couldn't stop it.

[Goldy]

NMAC X2. The first one was about 200 feet, same altitude, the second was head on with a F/W, missed him by almost 4 feet...I think it was a lil closer, my CFI buddy (who wasnt flying) just said it was 4 feet to make me feel better. I was 300-400 AGL and 8 miles from the closest airport...over a designated Helo practice area....some guys are just clueless...gotta love LA airspace.

 

Goldy

[relyon]

Here's my list:

1. 
   1) A couple of alternator failures. One was due to a burnt out diode and the another was due to a broken belt.
    
   2) A piston engine stoppage due to an overly aggressive student throttle chop during auto entry on an engine with the idle set a bit too low.
    
   3) A severe high frequency vibration in the tail rotor driveline caused by a mechanic 's flashlight that couldn't be seen during the preflight falling down and getting lodged against the driveline and imbalancing the oil cooler fan. The worst part was that I was 65 miles offshore at the time making the choice of a place to land interesting.
   

No injuries to occupants or crash damage to the machine in any case. I've had numerous near misses (ie. under the main rotor disk) with seagulls and brown pelicans.

 

Bob

[DonRow]

I had a catastrophic loss of the tailrotor. And I DON'T wish it on my worst enemy.

Edited October 13, 2007 by DonRow

[JDHelicopterPilot]

I had a catastrophic loss of the tailrotor. And I DON'T wish it on my worst enemy.

 

 

Goldy, I got your PM sorry I haven't been on here much lately. I'll get back to you. You tlk about near misses. Happens more offten than I care to admit. I have had 3 really close calls.

 

#1: Durring my IFR training I was at 3,000' holding over the CCR VOR. On with at the time "Bay Approach" I heard approach clear a lear jet through 3,000' over the CCR VOR. I was under the hood and told my CFI what I heard. Not a second later I hear my CFI yell "I have the controls!". Next I can tell we are in a really steep turn, I felt like I was on my side. When we leveled off I asked him how close we were.....(remember I was still under the hood) He told me we were so close he could see the paint scratches on the belly of the plane. It seemed the Lear Jet did the very same thing we did, entered a steep turn. Needless to say we filed a complaint with the FAA on that one.

 

#2: With the same instructor as the first time. I was on my dual night XC for my commercial. Flying from OAK to Watsonville. I entered the pattern at Watsonville after I decided to land on the runway as I was unfamiliar and it was dark. First the King Air landed. I heard on the radio a cessna was holding short of the runway. I made my approach and as I was passing through ETL I hear the cessna pilot state that she was "taking the runway". What the hell does that mean? Position and hold? Taking off? What? Not a second later I hear on the radio "Helicopter clear the runway!" I knew exactly what was happening. It took a split second for me to slide left just in time for me to look to my right and see a steady red NAV light zoom by. It was really close. I thanked the King Air pilot who was on his way to the ramp and saw the problem.

 

#3: I was flying off shore to Catalina Island. Minding my own at 500' and 120knots. I always scan for traffic because you never know out there what you are going to find. I look to my left and there was a Mooney at my 10 o'clock going as fast as he could. Let me say, he was so close that when I saw him he couldn't have been more than 100' away. By the time I could even register a reaction he was passing UNDER me. I never had a chance to make an evasive move, just kept going stright and level. The passengers didn't even notice it was a problem. Most seemed to think I had known he was there the whole time and was talking to the pilot.

 

I am really considering a personal TCAS system. You can't see everyone as I have found aircraft in my blind spots sometimes. They are expensive but worth the investment I think.

[Gomer Pylot]

I've had so many close calls I can't even remember most of them. I'm not even sure what they're doing in this thread. The last one I had was with an unmanned drone over central Texas. Not really close, because I saw it a half mile or so away, and flew behind it. Those are going to become increasingly common, and the FAA won't (can't) do anything about them. It's always see and avoid, even if you're on an IFR plan, as long as the weather is VMC. Even if you're doing instrument training, if you're on a VFR plan, ATC doesn't have to provide IFR separation, and you're always responsible for seeing and avoiding other traffic. That's why a safety pilot is required, and the safety pilot's job is to look outside for traffic, all the time. If you're just flying along VFR, you have to keep your eyes outside, scanning for traffic, because it's always there. I've come so close to other helicopters I recognized the pilots, even when I knew they were coming; I just couldn't see them until they were right on me. I hate white helicopters and airplanes, because you simply cannot see them until they're very close. White paint schemes shouldn't be legal.

[C of G]

I've had a few:

 

Engine failure first day in an EC120, due to an oil pump malfunction; fuel control bell crank failure as an instructor resulting in a stuck throttle so I had the student shut down the engine in level flight over the threshold followed by an uneventful EOL; hydraulic failure in a 206 offshore; stuck collective; tranny pressure issues; electrical issues; SAS failures; indicator failures; piston engine exhaust valve failure; Inadvertent IMC; numerous near misses; various excessive vibrations in flight; main rotor lead/lag damper rod failure; engine and gearbox chip lights, and I'm sure a few more I can't remember off the top of my head.

 

All this in slightly over 3000 hours of flying, as a reference. If I were to add any specific emergency to the survey, I'd add IIMC, and you will probably see a significant increase in your numbers. Pushing weather, I think, is the single most likely emergency pilots will face, and there isn't a significant amount of training for it. The whole CRM thing these days is working hard to increase the human factors awareness. Almost 100% of training is focusing on the 5% cause of accidents, which is mechanical failures. Nearly 95% of accidents can be attributed to human factors. Not limited to pilots. ATC, mechanics, dispatch, etc. all play roles as well. Unfortunately it is the pilot that pays the ultimate price and has the most responsibility.

 

I'll let Joker pick up on it from here. His knowledge and typing skills far surpass mine...............

Edited October 14, 2007 by C of G

[JDHelicopterPilot]

I admit near misses is kind of off topic here. Anyway, white paint should be eliminated! I also agree there is not enough training on human factors in relating to accidents. Flying VFR into IMC has to be one of the most common causes leading up to an accident. Not so much our ability to stay upright when we go IIMC but rather we don't have the terrian clearances when going IIMC. I have several good stories on this topic. I will start another thread on IIMC later today when I have more time. I think it would benifit us all.

Edited October 14, 2007 by JDHelicopterPilot

[Hedge36]

Anyway, white paint should be eliminated!

 

Agreed.

 

I keep trying to Jedi-mind-trick Schweizer into adopting a fluorescent yellow paint scheme.

[Gomer Pylot]

Most 'emergencies' are survivable, such as engine failure and most other mechanical failures. Flying into the ground (or the water, or some other obstacle) is one of the least survivable accidents, and it's one of the most common. Inadvertent IMC probably kills far more people than engine failure ever will.

[rotor91]

Solo XC to Santa Barbara, did the trip before with my CFI and it was 50 miles visibility, when I did it...well I got into IMC for about 5 seconds in an R-22...GOOD TIMES!

 

Almost a mid-air coming into VNY, whilst crossing mid-field, and some knucklehead does a go-around to 34R, and crosses over 34L, and is heading right for ME....ATC comes on the radio, "378, any way to avoid that aircraft?" "378, right 270, will maintain visual...." my poor passenger, had a video camera that actually held VHS CASSETTES....Man that thing was HUGE....I just told him to HOLD ON! 80 degree bank, and about 13+ inches of manifold pressure, and we dropped pretty quickly! That f/w pilot had brown air, aviator sunglasses, and I think it was a blue shirt....that's how close we were! Once we are on the ground, and doing the cool down...is when my hands started to shake, because of the adrenaline, but managed to stay calm during the whole ordeal. Got into LTE in an R-22, posted this story before....now I know what to expect with LTE! A fun 15 seconds of shear pucker-ness in the seat!

 

BTW, last time I flew up the coast to Camarillo, the F/W guys were on the Oh-two frequency, talking to helicopters, and making position reports......I actually thanked the Mooney pilot for using our frequency! I guess there's a first for everything!

 

R91

[EAGLE1]

Well not really an emergency per say but yesterday I took off from SNA in my EC120. Climbed out and leveled off, scanned the instruments/panel, and thought to myself why is that yellow light on the panel lit? I am sure they were all out before I lifted off....maybe I forgot the horn..... nope that says GB CHIP...... I guess I better put it down...... Of course that all took a nano second. I lowered the collective and put it down in the fairgrounds after advising ATC. I shut it down and called the mechanic. I pulled the plug and there were a few flakes on the plug. The mech arrived and cleaned the plug. We ran it at a hover for 15 minutes with no chip light. I shut it down and we rechecked the plug. It was clean so I flew it the 1/2 mile back to the airport. Pretty routine but it does get your attention. By the way the total flight on the VEMD logged 6 minutes.... that was from start to shut down.

 

I have had numerous chip lights over the years but no big deal.

 

Most memorable was flying along when I heard the warning "gong" go off. I checked the panel and everything was normal. No lights, pressures temps all in the green. I decided to head for the airport which was 5 miles away and I was CLOSELY monitoring everything. at 3 1/2 miles out the "gong" when off again. Everything was showing normal but I thought maybe the helicopter was trying to tell me something. I landed in a field next to Home Depot. Shut it down and got out to find oil all down the tailboom. A magnetic seal failed and was pumping oil overboard. Pressure was fine because the system was still pressurized and would stay that way until the oil was depleted. Oh yeah, I had less than a quart of oil left....had I not set it down when I did the engine was going to get very quiet, very soon. I would never have made the airport. We trucked it home.

 

The lesson I learned is if it does not feel right put it on the ground and sort it out there. That little voice is usually right!

[klmmarine]

Agreed.

 

I keep trying to Jedi-mind-trick Schweizer into adopting a fluorescent yellow paint scheme.

 

I think all training helicopters should be painted International Orange. Kind of like a Student Driver sign on the back of a car, so everyone knows they are coming....

[JDHelicopterPilot]

Jeff,

 

 

I have seen you guys flying around SNA many times. I am glad to see things turned out well after loosing so much oil. You made a great point in that sometimes you have to go by a gut feel. The warning sign can be very subtle but it can lead to something very bad. Good Call! Also, turbine helicopters seem to always have a lot of chip lights go off. Goes to show one has to learn their aircraft and what is normal and what isn't. Safe flying!

 

 

JD