As I stood on the snow-covered ramp, nursing my freezing hands, I watched my flight instructor check the fuel tank
of the Piper and my suspicions were confirmed: Barely two gallons remained. How did I find myself in this predicament as an instrument student? Although potentially dangerous at the time, the experience taught me some key lessons that I have carried with me in my piloting career.
I had anxiously planned my first IFR cross-country and, adding to the stress, at the last minute my instructor found someone else to fly with me. At the time, I was timid and not confident in my planning, but the two minutes that my instructor spent looking at the flight plan seemed to put me at ease. The first half of the flight was uneventful. But during the return leg the weather started to deteriorate.
Cold temperatures aloft meant we had to stay clear of the broken clouds that had thickened and visibility that slowly became worse. So we descended lower and lower. An unforecast storm was right in our path. The potential for icing in the clouds and the moderate snow that started to stick to our wings meant we were forced to cancel our IFR clearance and remain clear of the clouds.
As I meticulously filled in my flight plan, looking for some other options to divert around the weather, I noticed that I was substantially off on my estimated times. Looking closer, the realization of our situation hit me in the pit of my stomach: We didn’t have enough fuel to make it home.
The new instructor looked at my planning and denied it. “There is no way I am not making it home tonight, especially when I have a date with the bars,” he said. “Besides, I have flown on less fuel than we have now, and I was fine.” I wanted to trust him, because he did have a lot more experience than me—but according to my planning we would not make it. The discussion escalated into a 10-minute argument before I finally gave in. “Fine,” I yelled, “you are flying home, then.” I released the controls.
The tension continued to build as we flew through the storm and I watched the fuel diminish on the gauge. After touchdown, the gauges both showed empty. After confirming only two gallons remained, he handed me a bucket and told me to sump fuel out of one of the other aircraft sitting on the ramp. I looked at him in disbelief. Was he joking? He proceeded to threaten that if I told anyone what had happened, he would make sure I would never get a job at this particular flight school. It turned out that if an aircraft returned with less than 45 minutes of fuel, the fueler was supposed to notify the safety officer at the flight school. I obeyed, but vowed never to fly with him again.
Today, I share this story with many of my students and flight instructors. Every pilot is susceptible in various degrees to hazardous attitudes. In this circumstance, I didn’t know the flight instructor, I was not confident in my abilities, and I didn’t think I could make a difference. I put my life in his hands. I could have threatened to tell his supervisor, called over the emergency frequency, or at the very least tried to continue to reason with him until he realized the potential gravity of our situation. The Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge describes five hazardous attitudes: anti-authority, macho, invulnerability, resignation, and impulsivity. In my scenario three different attitudes were present. The first was anti-authority, when someone has a disregard for the rules and does not like being told what to do. The second attitude was invulnerability—when someone believes an accident can’t happen to him. The last hazardous attitude is resignation, which I displayed. Resignation is when you don’t think you can make a difference in the situation, so you give up. Know which hazardous attitudes you are most susceptible to so you can work on them starting early in flight training.
Sometimes, it is difficult to admit your weaknesses but by working on them, accidents can be prevented. In time, with practice, we all can grow.
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