Pilots who fly in the Rocky Mountain West are used to looking at sectional charts that are colored mostly brown. The rewards of mountain flying are many, but so are the dangers. There have been so many fatal accidents in the mountains of western Montana that the area is known as the "Bermuda Triangle." Several planes that crashed in stormy weather have never been found. My friends and I almost joined the list of those lost.
The sky was bright and sunny on a mid-September morning in Montana. I was preparing to fly my friends from Missoula to Twin Bridges, where they were to meet with a group of ranchers to discuss cattle grazing allotments in the mountains southeast of town. We were to return to Missoula by mid-afternoon. I called the Great Falls Flight Service Station for a weather briefing. In 1991 DUATS was just being tested, and there was no access via the Internet to any weather information, at least in our rural part of the nation. The briefer told me about a cold front heading our way from Canada. Isolated afternoon thundershowers were expected, with cold front passage through Missoula by 9 p.m. VFR all the way. Sounded good.
I packed a lunch since the Twin Bridges Airport is a long way from nowhere, and met my friends on the ramp in Missoula. I preflighted my 1948 Aeronca Sedan — a four-seat, 145-horsepower tailwheel aircraft with metal wings — and we were soon on our way to the southeast. The air was smooth, the morning sun on the mountains glorious, and at the sedate pace of 90 mph we eventually arrived in Twin Bridges.
My friends were met by the contingent of ranchers and waved goodbye, saying they'd be back in an hour or two. In the meantime, I wandered around the airport (no one else was in sight), watched the occasional cottontail rabbit playing in the weeds, and ate my lunch. I checked the Aeronca over for the return flight. Eventually, my friends reappeared, and I called to get a weather update and file our flight plan. There were some reported isolated thundershowers in the vicinity of Butte, Montana's mile-high city, but otherwise, the weather looked pretty good, so we launched. I was familiar with at least half a dozen different routes to Missoula, so I figured we could easily get around a few isolated storms and clear the mountain ranges without going above our 12,500-foot service ceiling.
After liftoff we could see the thundershowers over Butte, but we had clear skies to there. At Butte we were forced to make our first diversion because of a large storm barreling south through the Deer Lodge Valley toward Anaconda. No problem; the route over Georgetown Lake was open, and we could see all the way to the Bitterroot Valley some 70 miles away, although a ceiling was forming several thousand feet above us. From our entry point into the valley, we could turn north and stay low all the way to Missoula, reaching two small en route airports if necessary.
I called flight service over the Coppertown VOR frequency and amended our flight plan. Missoula was still VFR with no storms reported in the vicinity. As we passed over Georgetown Lake I noticed that our groundspeed was getting slower, but the clouds above us were still several thousand feet above the 7,500-foot Skalkaho Pass area. We had about 30 miles to go to clear the last of the Sapphire Mountains and drop down into the valley. Over Sand Basin, with only 10 miles left between us and the last high ridge, all you-know-what broke loose.
Remember Chicken Little saying, "The sky is falling!"? Someone punctured the water-balloon cloud layer above us, and we were instantly deluged. Forward visibility dropped to less than a mile, and the air was so turbulent we felt like we were inside a ping-pong ball in a washing machine. We didn't dare go ahead because we were losing altitude, and there was one more ridge to clear, somewhere ahead in the murk. We tried turning north, where there was a glimmer of light, but soon couldn't go any farther because of peaks topping 8,700 feet that became invisible in the rain and clouds. My friends, who are not pilots, were very calm and trusting, and I thought to myself, "They believe I can get them out of this mess. I'd better do something quick!" I turned back toward the east, and could just barely see the Skalkaho Road in the canyon below us. The mountains on both sides now towered thousands of feet above us. I prayed that the rain wouldn't completely obscure the road as I followed it downhill to Rock Creek, and then followed the Flint Creek Highway to Philipsburg, which has a small airport. Ten eternally long minutes later we touched down in the gusty winds and tied down just as some huge flakes of wet snow began to fall and visibility dropped to nothing.
I called flight service to tell them we were on the ground in Philipsburg. As we prepared to hoof it two miles into town to wait out the storm, two teenage boys pulled up in their parents' old black Buick and offered three dripping-wet strangers a ride to town. We found a restaurant, called for a rescue ride from Missoula, and had a big steak dinner while we waited. The storm continued for three days and laid down about six inches of snow.
Later, I called a friend who worked at the National Weather Service in Missoula. He enthusiastically described the afternoon's surprises. The cold front from Canada had progressed more rapidly than expected and blew through Missoula on its way southeast by about 3 p.m. In addition, another cold front had staged a back-door sneak attack from the southwest, and both fronts had arrived over our position in the Sapphire Mountains at the same time. Usually we can see showers marching toward us for 100 miles in the clear mountain air, but that day the sky fell without any warning. My friends and I were extremely fortunate that we were able to retreat to the east. I have now learned the importance of being a careful weather watcher. The advent of up-to-the-minute computerized weather information makes go/no-go decisions easier, but there is no substitute for careful observation of conditions en route. After this experience, unexpected changes in wind direction and temperatures aloft warrant a precautionary landing to see what develops, especially in remote areas where radio contact with flight service is impossible. Mother Nature always holds the trump card.
Wendy Ross Beye has more than 4,000 hours, most of them in the mountains, flying fire patrol and using backcountry airstrips. She has taught at the Montana Aeronautics Division Mountain Search Pilot Clinic.
An original "Never Again" story is published each month on AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/pilot/never_again/).
"Never Again" is presented to enhance safety by providing a forum for pilots to learn from the experiences of others. Manuscripts should be typewritten, double-spaced, and sent to: Editor, AOPA Pilot, 421 Aviation Way, Frederick, Maryland 21701.
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