Long Beach Airport rests in the heart of the very busy and complicated Southern California airspace. It claims to be the fifth busiest general aviation airport in the world. Training airplanes use runways 25L and 25R, and after departing, student and recreational pilots often will head over to the practice area, located
about eight miles southwest of the airport over the Pacific Ocean. As everyone knows, flying in a practice area must be taken seriously because of the traffic congestion.
I was a student pilot who was just short of his checkride. Much of my flying is done in my dad’s 1948 Ercoupe. I love the Ercoupe. It is much easier to fly than most airplanes and it can deliver hours of fun.
My instructor and I took off from 25R and departed the pattern to practice some maneuvers. On the way out to the practice area we had a few minutes and so my instructor started to quiz me. He asked, “If your engine failed right now, where would you land?” We looked at various options, which were limited.
After 15 minutes of practice we were ready for a new task. My instructor asked me to push in the throttle to gain some airspeed. I did, when suddenly the engine wouldn’t respond. I backed it off and tried again. The airplane idled, the nose pitched forward, and we began to lose altitude.
My instructor tried the throttle but it wouldn’t respond for him either. He applied carburetor heat. No response, and no drop in rpm. He then looked at me and said, “We are having a real emergency.”
We worked as a team. “Establish best glide speed,” he said. I did. “Where do you think we should land?” he asked. There weren’t a lot of options and there wasn’t a lot of time. We were over the ocean but I was just thankful that we weren’t so far out that we couldn’t glide to dry land.
The closest land to the practice area is the Los Angeles Harbor, one of the largest shipping ports in the world. From the air it is a mass of asphalt, shipping containers, trucks, and cranes. At the end lies a tiny piece of unused land that from the air looks like the size of a postage stamp. I had often wondered while at the practice area if that would be a good place to land in the case of an emergency. I was about to find out.
My instructor declared calmly, “You fly the airplane and try and work out the engine problem. I will work the radio.” We were descending steadily. I checked the primer, the fuel flow, cycled the magnetos; I’m sure I didn’t do everything correctly but I was glad that I had committed the steps to memory. At about 400 feet off the ground, I asked my instructor to take the controls. I felt like our best chance for survival lay with him landing the airplane. He landed the Ercoupe in that small patch of dirt as if he had done it a million times. We glided softly onto the field, with its weeds and sandy soil, and came to a stop with plenty of room to spare.
Emergencies are practiced for a reason. I was a far better pilot during my emergency as a result of knowing and having practiced engine-failure emergency procedures, as well as having them memorized. Although I’m not glad that I experienced an emergency landing, I think that I’m a better pilot as a result. I hope to never again be involved in an emergency but I know that being prepared will greatly enhance my chances of survival, as it did in this case.
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