In-Flight Emergencies

Silence can be a problem even when VFR

Regulations regarding loss of communications focus mostly on flights in instrument conditions. Those rules are listed in FAR 91.185. But what if you're VFR? Can't that be a problem, too?

Rene Minjares of Englewood, Colorado, knows that it can. As an owner and instructor at Barnstormer Aero Services, an aerobatic flight school at Denver's Centennial Airport, he has had two radio failures. Each time, a combination of procedures from his civilian and military training allowed him to return to Centennial without driving the tower controllers crazy.

The airport lies under the Denver Class B terminal area, which offers no problem as long as the nordo (no radio) aircraft remains at less than 8,000 feet. Minjares first flies to an established VFR reporting point, and circles for a few minutes while squawking a 7600 transponder code. He then flies to the airport at 7,300 feet MSL, or about 1,500 feet above ground level.

He circles 500 feet above pattern altitude, dipping his wings back and forth in front of the tower, waiting for a green light-gun signal from the tower. The wing dipping was learned in military training (he now flies a Boeing 777 for a major airline). His procedure lets the tower know that while he is not part of the normal pattern, he is not an interloper who has stumbled into Class D airspace by mistake.

Obviously, a loss of communications while airborne in VFR weather is easily managed. When flying IFR, a number of rules come into play. The problem could be solved easily. For example, if you can receive but not transmit, controllers will ask you to respond with the Ident button on your transponder. Or you can pick up that handheld transceiver (you have one, right?), and the problem is over.

First, let's look at a few questions you might have, especially if you got that instrument rating some time ago. Do you still think that the proper transponder procedure for lost communications is to alternate the code between 7700 and 7600? Wrong. The new approach is to squawk 7600 and leave it there. The controller will still know who you are. Nothing in the data block on the controller's radar screen will change, including your N number, if you start squawking 7600 instead of the assigned code.

Once the radios fail, the controller anticipates (an official term from the controllers' rule book) that you will do what you said you would do, and at the time you said you would do it. If you were cleared as filed and expected to arrive at the airport at, say, 10 a.m., follow the clearance and arrive as closely to 10 a.m. as possible. If the controller had put you in a hold and told you to expect further clearance in 15 minutes, then the controller anticipates that you will depart the hold 15 minutes later.

Let's look not at the rule book, but at what really happens. Tim Hardison, president of the Washington Center local of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, was generous enough to provide some practical advice.

First of all, Hardison, a controller, will try calling you several times. He is used to pilots not responding on the first call. Then he will ask you to ident if you can hear him. Failing that, Hardison will ask another aircraft to try calling you. The next approach, one especially useful for general aviation aircraft, is to have a flight service station call you on the voice-capable VOR nearest to your postion. If the problem is with an airliner, Hardison will ask another company aircraft to have the dispatcher send a text message.

Here are a few tidbits of real-world practice. You might think that controllers would call on 121.5 MHz. In practice, that doesn't happen very often.

Additionally, controllers at Washington Center don't experience pilots of nordo aircraft calling on handheld transceivers very often. It is common to receive a relayed message from a nordo pilot calling on a cell phone. Yes, use of a cell phone from an airplane violates Federal Communications Commission rules because it blocks cell phone frequencies for miles around the aircraft (unless it is one of the new AirCell phones). But in an emergency, at least you can relay a message to a center or tower controller; but don't expect to be controlled over the telephone. In fact, Hardison said, you might wait until near your destination if you feel you must make an emergency cell phone call.

Communications failures are quite common at Washington Center, but not the kind you think. Radios are not failing; rather, pilots are getting lost among the frequencies when switching to a new controller. The solution there is to go back to the last assigned frequency, or call the nearest flight service station and ask them for a frequency in your area.

Real communications failures, in which the radios quit working, do happen. It has happened to general aviation aircraft approaching Dare County Regional Airport in Manteo, North Carolina — a popular vacation destination on the Outer Banks. That airport happens to be in a nonradar environment. What does Hardison do? He shuts down the airport. No one arrives or leaves on an IFR flight plan until the problem aircraft is down safely.

Hardison anticipates that you will arrive over the airport while still maintaining your cruise altitude, before descending and making the approach. But he doesn't take any chances. When your aircraft comes within range, he blocks the airspace in case you start down. If you are still en route, and he doesn't expect that you would start a descent, he does not block airspace.

For the details, you can either curl up with a good regulations book and read FAR 91.185, or read the Aeronautical Information Manual's section titled "Two-way Radio Communications Failure." The ideal goal is to prevent the problem in the first place. That means investing a few (hundred) bucks in a handheld transceiver. Hardison said handheld communication is heard at Washington Center as "rough, but readable," and is better than none at all. An external antenna connection will greatly aid in restoring near-normal communications.

Finally, if you encounter VFR weather while en route with a radio failure, proceed VFR to the nearest airport and fix that thing. It's better than disrupting the system. You've been meaning to for weeks, right?

For more information on communications failure, see AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/pilot/links/links9912.shtml). Other installments of our In-Flight Emergencies series are available on AOPA Online at www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/idxinflight.html. E-mail the author at [email protected].