Never Again

My wife Susan and I were looking forward to spending Christmas with my brother and his family in Boise, Idaho. Close to my brother's house was a small landing strip, Strawberry Glen, which made the trip by private airplane easily the most convenient way to travel. The flight from Los Angeles in our flying club's Cessna 182 never took more than four hours.

The Hawthorne FSS forecast good weather conditions for the entire route of our flight. A storm would be moving across our route but not until late in the evening: It was still early in the morning. The local weather was beautiful, and Boise was reporting nothing more than a broken overcast at 15,000 feet.

The VFR flight was uneventful until we entered Owens Valley, 200 miles north of Los Angeles. Instead of the high clouds that had been reported earlier, we found several different layers as low as 8,000 feet. Nonetheless, there was plenty of room for safe flight underneath and between the clouds. On the western side of the valley, the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada were ominously obscured, leaving only portions of the spectacular eastern face of the range exposed.

As we left Owens Valley and headed for Walker Lake in Nevada, the weather continued to deteriorate. Yet there was still room to fly underneath the clouds, and, as I wishfully reasoned, we were headed away from the Sierra and toward the arid reaches of the Great Basin.

One by one we passed over the isolated Nevada hamlets of Hawthorne, Fallon, Lovelock, and Winnemucca until McDermitt, which nearly straddles the Nevada/Oregon border, came into view. We were now fewer than 150 air miles from Boise, tantalizingly close at our indicated airspeed of 165 mph. The weather ahead, however, looked dismal: lines of black clouds everywhere and mountain peaks obscured, and in a few places, low clouds covered the ground. I decided to exercise the cautious option and make a 180-degree turn. I headed back to Lovelock for consultation on the ground with the FSS located there.

The briefer, sitting in his climate-controlled room, was fully confident that we could make it to Boise by staying underneath the clouds and following the highway through the Owyhee country beyond McDermitt. He ruled out an instrument flight, warning of severe icing in the clouds.

I telephoned my brother in Boise to get an update on the weather at Strawberry Glen. He noted that it was becoming increasingly cloudy but that there was sufficient room below the clouds for safe flight. "We'll be waiting for you," he said. With Boise still open and the FSS operator confidently predicting that we could follow the highway and have room to spare, I made the decision to go. "If you get in trouble in the Owyhees," the operator casually called out as we were leaving, "you can always turn back and land at McDermitt."

Once back in the sky, the plan looked a lot less reasonable, especially after the ground suddenly became obscured and we lost radio contact with the Lovelock FSS as we passed over McDermitt. We were now entering the Owyhee country, a rugged and wild volcanic region of deep river valleys, cheat grass mesas, and 8,000-foot-tall mountain peaks. On a clear day, the view from the air is spectacular. We could see but little of the Owyhee country now, and what we could see was covered with snow.

Nearing the region's only town, Jordan Valley, the highway again came into view. If we could just follow it another 50 miles, I thought, we could pass through the Owyhee Mountains and descend into Boise.

To stay aligned with the highway, I was now holding 20 or 30 degrees of correction. The crosswind was tremendous. Bits and pieces of Boise's ATIS now began to crackle over the radio: ceiling 5,000, visibility four, wind 290 at 10. A few minutes later: ceiling 2,500, visibility one, wind 300 at 20. Another five minutes: ceiling 1,200, visibility three quarters, wind 290 at 25 with gusts to 40, blowing snow. Never had I heard an ATIS updated so frequently or heard the weather change so dramatically.

Our immediate weather had also deteriorated. Blowing snow reduced visibility to a mile or less, and there were layers of clouds on the deck. To make matters worse, ice began to form on the airplane, first on the wing struts, then on the wings, windshield, cowling, and propeller. There was nothing to do but turn back and land at McDermitt.

What had sounded so easy back at the FSS at Lovelock now looked a lot different. With the ground mostly obscured and the use of VORs limited by low altitude, I had to set a dead-reckoning course for McDermitt with compass and gyro. Just about the time I reckoned we should be over McDermitt, the layer of clouds covering the ground opened. Dead ahead was McDermitt. Feeling greatly relieved and a bit smug about my navigation, I began to look for the airstrip. The windsock came into view but no runway. It was down there all right but under a foot of snow. The parting words of the FSS briefer came to mind: "If you get in trouble with the Owyhees, you can always turn back and land at McDermitt."

We now tried to follow the highway south toward Lovelock. The last bit of daylight was fading rapidly, and it was snowing harder. Although a few cars and trucks slowly made their way along the snowy highway below, I thought of landing the airplane right there. But then the clouds ahead came down on the deck, and the highway disappeared into a gray, snowy fog — back to dead-reckoning navigation. The navigation had to be precise: 9,000-foot-tall mountain ridges lay on either side of our flight path.

The small envelope of hazy sky in which we flew, sandwiched between two thick layers of dense clouds, was becoming smaller and smaller. It was only a matter of time before the two layers met.

As the cloud layers began to merge, I made a decision: Climb into the layer above. I hoped that before the airplane accumulated too much ice, we could gain enough altitude to pick up the Lovelock VOR and track it into the field. If we failed, we would probably wind up in a thousand pieces on a Nevada mountainside.

Just as we began to climb, a break in the clouds to our left revealed two mountain peaks and clear sky on the far side. A diving left turn brought us between the peaks and underneath the clouds. Visibility was surprisingly good. We saw the lights of Winnemucca to the northeast and those of the town of Lovelock to the southwest. We were able to establish radio contact with the Lovelock FSS for the first time in nearly two hours. The FSS specialist canceled an alert that had been issued for us and turned on the runway lights.

Minutes later, we saw the rotating beacon flashing white-green- white and two parallel rows of twinkling lights. In the dark, the airstrip looked like a carrier deck. The rest was a piece of cake.

We later heard reports that other aircraft had gone down in the storm. They served as a tragic reminder that weather forecasts are simply that: forecasts. The very best of meteorologists, using the very latest technology, can only guesstimate what Mother Nature will do, especially in areas where weather stations are few and far between.

This storm had shocked everyone by advancing far faster than expected and by increasing suddenly in intensity. Even exercising what I thought was reasonable caution — a 180-degree turn, consultation with the FSS briefer, review of the latest weather reports, and having an alternative airstrip in mind — was not enough.

Roger McGrath, AOPA 660829, once flew as a second officer aboard a Boeing 727 and now teaches history at California State University — Los Angeles and flies a Cessna 182 occasionally.

"Never Again" is presented to enhance safety by providing a forum for pilots to learn from others' experiences. Manuscripts should be typewritten, double-spaced, and sent to: Editor, AOPA Pilot, 421 Aviation Way, Frederick, Maryland 21701.