A memorable Memorial Day flight
Benton is a small airfield with a 2,420-foot runway that sits atop a hill at an elevation of 719 feet. On what would be my fifth solo flight in a Cessna 172, I looked forward to flying to Redding Municipal, a nearby tower-controlled airport, where I planned to practice on the radio without the added distraction of wind. I still hadn't entirely lost that butterflies-in-the stomach feeling of flying on my own, and I was a bit nervous about tower communication without my CFI to help. My worst fears about communicating with a tower would pale in comparison to what happened during the flight.
I decided to begin with a practice landing at Benton before heading over to Redding. I was flying in an unfamiliar airplane, and I took extra care to make sure the control settings were correct after the runup. The takeoff went well, although the plane climbed a bit slower than the airplane I had flown the previous day. I chalked it up to a different airplane and the first warm day in a while.
I remained in the pattern and landed on Runway 33 without incident. My next takeoff from Runway 33 went much the same way. Again, the airplane seemed normal, though the climbout was slow. Was it my imagination or was it slower than the previous climb? I departed the pattern at about 1,500 feet and turned over the river, and I knew that I should have been much higher than I was by now. I looked at the tachometer and airspeed indicator to make sure I was at optimal climb performance. The airspeed was OK and the rpm was at 2,300 or so. I decided to climb to 2,500 feet for the short trip to Redding.
A few minutes later, with the altimeter reading 2,100 feet, the engine suddenly lost power. I looked at the throttle - it was fully forward, and although the tachometer showed 1,400 rpm, the engine was chillingly quiet. I realized that, while the engine had not stopped entirely, the airplane was no longer climbing - in fact, it was descending. The engine was failing!
This is the real thing! I was experiencing an engine failure in flight at an altitude of 2,100 feet, only 1,400 feet above ground level - and dropping. I remembered the drill from my most recent emergency flight training: ABCDE.
A is for airspeed attitude. I trimmed for 65 knots.
B for best place to land. I took a look around and there it was - Benton Field. I was just above pattern altitude and could almost fly a normal pattern to get down.
C for cockpit check. The throttle was all the way in, fuel mixture was rich, magnetos on both, fuel selector on both tanks - nothing I had done caused this problem, and there was nothing I could do to correct it except land the airplane. I hoped I would not lose all power or see something worse like a fire.
D for dialog. I got on the radio. "Benton area traffic, Cessna Four-Eight-Seven-Zero-Golf experiencing engine problems. I will maneuver to return to Benton." I hoped someone heard me. Was this enough of an emergency to squawk 7700? I decided it wasn't - I could make it back to Benton safely.
E for emergency procedures: shut off fuel and electrical, unlatch doors. I was not ready to do any of these. I wasn't about to say goodbye to my 1,400 rpm, I would need the electrical for the flaps, and the doors - well, I'd think about those later.
As I turned from base to final for Runway 33, I was so focused on my airspeed that I forgot to drop the flaps from 20 to 40 degrees. This turned out to be a fortuitous mistake.
On final, I lined up for the runway and noticed that I was still high. As I reduced the throttle, nothing changed. The engine stayed at 1,400 rpm; I was too fast and too high - perhaps 200 feet agl - and couldn't get down. The engine was not responding to throttle input!
Now near midfield, I had a choice: execute a dramatic forward slip with no power control, risking a hard landing at the end of the runway and perhaps rolling off it down the hill, or to keep flying with no climbing power at all. I was moving across the ground too fast to make the field - I needed to keep flying the airplane. I'm in huge trouble! I knew I was too high to land, too low to recover. This was now a serious emergency close to the ground. It was just like those "engine failure on takeoff" stories. I flew past the field.
I needed to find another place to land the airplane, and it had to be nearby. This was now a critical emergency, made worse by the terrain surrounding Benton. The airpark sits atop a hill, with wooded hillsides of oak, manzanita, power lines, and houses in the valleys nearby. I had learned in my flight training that there was not a suitable place to land in this situation. In fact, my CFI had driven the neighborhoods in the area to discover the only potential spot was Placer Road, lined on one side by power poles. It was the best of the worst. I turned that direction, losing some altitude in the turn. I was now maybe 150 feet or so above the ground.
As Placer came into view, I realized that I was still too high and fast to land the airplane - to land on Placer would still require a forward slip. Did I dare turn back toward Benton Field? I had been taught that in a total engine failure that the aircraft would probably stall or hit rugged ground before I made it back there. But here I was, still too high. And I still had some power. I turned back toward Benton.
I was dropping so low now that I knew I might need to fly between homes and land on a narrow street. My first instinct was to pull back on the control yoke and raise the nose as I saw the obstacles looming closer. It took everything in me to avoid doing that. My thoughts were fresh with flight training: Airspeed is everything. I glanced at my airspeed - just above 40 kt. Too slow! I was not going to stall this airplane. Fly the airplane - even if you have to fly it into the trees or the ground.
I kept the nose level and flew toward the field aiming between two trees. Eyewitnesses later said that they thought my landing gear might have brushed the treetops, although I didn't notice it. As I cleared the last of the trees, I was over the taxiway, almost to the ground and still moving fast. I flared and touched down on the taxiway, then traveled briskly over the grass median onto Runway 15. It took full back-pressure and brakes to avoid rolling to the end of the runway. I braked the airplane to a stop and turned back onto the taxiway. I made it!
My radio call was ridiculous: "Benton Unicom - radio check please." Why did I say that? I kept talking: "I've had a partial engine failure here and made an unceremonious landing on the taxiway. Someone needs to check the airplane." I don't remember the reply. I was shaking.
Once I had taxied to a stop, shut down, and scrambled out of the airplane, I could smell the overworked brakes. Yet, the airplane was unharmed and so was I, at least physically.
The maintenance crew later discovered that a cotter key had worked loose from the throttle control linkage bolt, and the bolt worked itself out, leaving me with only partial power and no power control at all. I had too much power to land, but not enough to climb.
My CFI, Dennis Churchill, said he had never seen an engine malfunction like this one. In addition to emergency landing procedures following a complete engine failure, he now teaches his students procedures for landing the airplane with partial loss of power and no throttle control (use magnetos or mixture to kill the engine on final approach) and loss of throttle control with engine stuck at full power (use idle cutoff abeam the touchdown point and glide to a landing).
What could I have done differently? I trained for an engine failure in flight, but I hadn't trained for partial engine power failure. First, I wish I had known of the power control failure before I was on low final approach attempting to reduce the power. If I were to face this situation again, I would test for control capability at the higher altitude, once I'm in a position to glide to the field. Also, I now know that, had I recognized the problem soon enough, I could have pulled the mixture or turned off the magnetos on final to glide in powerless for the landing. In this situation, having no power at all would have been better than having no power control.
And what about those flaps? By keeping them at 20 degrees instead of dropping them to 40 on that turn to final, I was left with just enough speed and altitude to make it back to the airfield for a second try. Recent emergency flight training (and possibly a few angels) saved the day. In the final analysis, I was able to land because I had learned how to avoid stalling the airplane and also because I had made one lucky mistake. As my grandfather used to say, "Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good."
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