But just because you aren't taking a checkride doesn't mean that distractions won't creep in. On June 10, 1996, the combination of a takeoff into instrument meteorological conditions and a surprise weight-and-balance problem proved too much for the pilot of a Beech E90 King Air, who became spatially disoriented and crashed less than two miles from the point of departure in Wiscasset, Maine.
Whether the plane would have been controllable in better weather conditions is a matter of conjecture, but this much is known: The pilot was caught off guard by the behavior and feel of his airplane, had to cope with it during instrument flight, and failed. In its accident report, the National Transportation Safety Board said that its "investigation revealed that three days before the accident, a refueler had fueled the airplane's left wing with 840 pounds of fuel, (and) then the fuel farm ran out of fuel. No further fueling was accomplished, and the pilot was not advised of the uneven fuel load."
We know the pilot was disoriented because soon after takeoff he queried an air traffic controller, "Can you tell if I'm in a turn? I have a problem here." The report also notes that while a C90 King Air must not be flown with more than a 200-pound fuel imbalance, the manual for an E90, the accident aircraft, gives no such warning. But such issues aside, the main cause of the accident was described as "failure of the pilot to maintain control of the airplane while climbing after takeoff, due to spatial disorientation, which resulted in an uncontrolled descent and subsequent collision with terrain."
An accident need not be shrouded in mystery to be a good learning tool for other pilots. The airport in Carson City, Nevada, sits at an elevation nearly 5,000 feet above sea level. A takeoff from such a location in the hot month of June requires special attention, and one sure way to get an advantage against the erosion in performance inflicted by a high density altitude is to lean your fuel-air mixture for best power. A Mooney pilot carrying three passengers aborted a takeoff attempt, cleared the runway at an intersection, did some checks during which witnesses heard backfiring, and went out for a second try.
Another pilot whose observances were included in the NTSB report on this event began his own takeoff while the Mooney pilot was making his second try. But the witnessing pilot was not satisfied with the poor acceleration of his own airplane, and he aborted his takeoff attempt. The Mooney continued. Shortly after it became airborne, the airplane began a left turn to avoid rising terrain. Its wingtip struck the ground and the airplane cartwheeled. All four aboard were seriously injured.
During the subsequent engine inspection, "debris was found in the number two fuel injection nozzle. Corrosion and rust were found in the engine driven fuel pump. The gascolator was clean, but corrosion was evident in the fuel flow divider." Did the high-density-altitude conditions mask mechanical issues? Quoting from the NTSB document: "The engine was turned by hand and thumb compression was obtained on all cylinders, but cylinder number two was weaker than the others. A hissing sound could be heard in the vicinity of the number two exhaust valve. None of the spark pugs displayed physical damage, and all had coloration similar to each other except cylinder number two The spark plugs for that cylinder were lighter in color...."
Even when a pilot recognizes a sudden problem on takeoff but concludes that it is minor and easy to address, things can go wrong in ways that introduce a whole new set of challenges. A trainer I often fly has a charming quirk whose educational value cannot be overestimated. With its worn-out door-latching hardware and a pair of stout shoulders pressing against the doors, all it takes is some slipstream flowing over the fuselage to lower the outside pressure and cause one of those doors to pop open, usually immediately after liftoff. I know from experience that this has a high probability of occurring in this airplane, but the pilot or trainee in the other seat usually does not. Most handle the surprise admirably, flying the airplane first and worrying about the door later. Many others, after hearing a sharp word or two, buckle down and fly right.
So did the pilot of a Mooney M20F in Upland, California, in June 2000 - but unfortunately his problems did not end there. As noted in the official accident report summary, "The pilot reported that the cabin door came open during takeoff. He intended to continue the takeoff and return to land and close the door; however, the passenger in the right front seat panicked. In the time necessary to calm and reassure the passenger, the pilot inadvertently lost directional control of the aircraft and it drifted off the runway to the left."
Two of the four persons aboard received minor injuries when the airplane tangled with a ditch. A realistic distraction, certainly. The importance of a passenger briefing comes to mind. Sometimes, it's not enough to cover the items - safety equipment, correct seatbelt use, emergency exit procedures - required by the FAA. I mention the quirky door of my trainer to nonpilots who may fly in it to keep the experience as anxiety-free as possible.
The litany of takeoff accidents, both avoidable and unavoidable, and their causes is long and fascinating. So is the list of might-have-been accidents that did not quite stray across the line. In my early days of flight instructing, a Piper PA-28-140 Cherokee that had flown just fine on hot summer days with me and a student on board suddenly seemed unwilling to climb out of ground effect. Odd - a cautious and thorough preflight inspection had confirmed that all was go for the lesson we were planning. I nursed the reluctant plane around the pattern and landed. That's when I learned that my student's husband, all smiles and good intentions, had added a substantial quantity of fuel to our tanks in the brief period during which I had walked back to the office for a spare headset.
On another day, a gross understatement of a backseat passenger's weight caused the airplane I was flying to rear up suddenly during the takeoff run in a dramatic illustration of an aft center-of-gravity's effect on stability and control. Should I have weighed the guy my- self? I wonder what the NTSB would have said about that.
Years later I was sitting in the jump seat of an Air National Guard KC-135 tanker, a guest on a practice air-to-air refueling session with a C5A from an air base in New York. The plan was to join up over the White Mountains and let several crews from the transport try their hand at taking on fuel from us. Our takeoff was delayed by a warning from the tower about a flock of gulls - "dump ducks" to the pilots - who had settled on and near the runway, about a mile from where we awaited the all-clear. Technology is a wonderful thing, but sometimes there's nothing like a pickup truck to shoo away birds, any one of which could have been sucked into an engine, causing a catastrophe.
And then there are the near misses that remind us to beware the airplane just out of maintenance. It was June 12, 2000, in Las Vegas, and an Airbus 320 with 152 people on board had just begun its takeoff run when part of the cowling on the left engine separated and struck the horizontal stabilizer. The pilot returned and landed uneventfully. The NTSB report noted, without assigning blame, that the "the takeoff where the cowling separated was the first flight following return to service."
The AOPA Air Safety Foundation's Nall Report for 2000 acknowledges that some 73 percent of all accidents are pilot-related, 15 percent are mechanical, and other causes fill out the list. Takeoffs and landings account for only about 5 percent of the time it takes to fly a typical cross-country but account for 54 percent of accidents for which phase-of-flight data was determined. The good news is that fatalities remain low during these phases with 22 percent of pilot-related fatalities occurring during takeoff or landing.
Most of us - especially those who read accident reports or participate in recurrency training - are inoculated against the kind of mishap narrowly escaped by a Cessna 172 pilot who landed at my home field with the rudder lock still affixed to the tail. Most studious airmen aren't so careless as the airline transport pilot who took off from Danbury, Connecticut, without checking his fuel in an M20J that had sat on the ramp for three weeks. The engine quit, and he landed in a swamp.
What we are not inoculated against is problems that are disguised by circumstances or that touch off other problems such as a panicking passenger. It is then that our training, discipline, and routine use of best practices keep us on the good side of the statistics and ready us to minimize the risks all aviators may someday confront.
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