Fly the Plane . . . All the Way to the Ground

You are up at 8000', trolling around in your Cessena 172, enjoying the scenery. The sky is clear, winds are calm, a perfect day for flying. You've decided to venture off for a quick trip up to the mountains for a fly-in and breakfast. Then, the unthinkable happens, you lose your engine with no runway or road in sight. Your training says - 1. Pitch the plane for proper glide speed, 65kts. 2. Find a suitable spot to land (you think to yourself - NONE). 3. Try an air-restart of the engine - it FAILS. 4. Set your radio frequency - make a MAYDAY call. 5. Secure the cockpit and prepare for a forced landing. In training, this is a smooth process, almost easy. By the time you have gotten your private pilot license you have done it upwards of 30-40 times, hundreds throughout your lifetime. But in nearly every one of those cases - there was still an engine and most likely a suitable runway.

In this scenario, panic probably begins to set in at 1000' above the ground. You realize the ground is about 1.5 to 2 minutes away, and you still have no roads, no airstrip, just the normal terrain of valleys and mountains. The instinct at this point is to pull back a little, slow the descent, buy some time. Mistake one, you have strayed from your training. Glide speed no longer met. The plane slows. You look fervently for anywhere to land. You see a relatively clear bit of land a bit off but it may just be out of reach. You need to extend the landing a hundred yards, you pull back just a bit more. Now at 500', the ground is even closer, moving by slower than you are used to, but that spot you picked out is getting closer, you might make it.

The stall horn sounds, you look at your speed, now well below the recommended glide speed. The controls become squishy, they lack authority due to the lack of speed. The plane pitches forward, panic sets in further, you try to pull back, no response. The dive begins and by the time the plane gains enough speed to recover, you have buried the nose in the ground, most likely, a fatality.

What happened? When the reality of a forced landing met the illusion of a suitable landing spot outside the reach of the plane, the pilot forgot to the fly plane. A high percentage of general aviation fatalities can be attributed to be overwhelmed by either information or emotion and forgetting to do the simple thing, fly the plane . . . all the way to the ground. Even if that means a forced landing in not the greatest terrain or where the plane will surely be destroyed. If done correctly, it is likely the impact will be in the vicinity of 40-60 feet per minute(fpm) vertically (1 mph) and maybe 40-50 knots (45-58 mph) horizontally. Its not pretty, but the statistics show that the odds are in your favor of walking away. The scenario presented above results in maybe 1000-2000 fpm decent into the ground, nearly impossible to survive.

How often in life do we allow our circumstance to overcome us? Where "good ideas" begin to look better than proven ones, or we are just stopped in our tracks. It could be straying from a schedule due to production needs and taking a new route that might be safe but has hasn't been vetted like the current schedule has. It could be the ringing of alarms, flashing lights, and the erratic indications such as in the control room below that cause you to freeze.

Or maybe just a simple change in personnel manning for a shift at work that requires your team to pick up some additional duties. Do you just keep following your standards and get what can be done safely? Do you try to accomplish too much with too little? Do you give up and just finish out the day allowing the work to slip, giving into frustration?

I believe the answer is the same, fly the plane. Where you get to doesn't matter, just make sure its flown all the way to the ground. The engine is gone, it's not coming back. The illusion of the perfect spot is just that, out of reach. Get the best outcome from your circumstance. Follow your training, flex to your needs, and take the best outcome. Not reaching too far but not stopping short and giving up, just the best effort and accepting it. I think you would be surprised at how grateful and understanding that those we work for are when we do just that. Inspire your team to fly the plane!