I had accepted an Angel Flight assignment to fly a patient from Bellingham, Washington, to Lopez Island, Washington, on a Friday afternoon in late December. The flying club’s Cessna 172 is based at Auburn, a few miles south of Seattle. The weather was easy IFR: a 500-foot ceiling over Seattle and an 800-foot ceiling for the ILS approach into Bellingham. DUATS reported a 7,000-foot freezing level, but with the minimum en route altitude at 4,000 feet, I would be well below the freezing level. My only concern was that any diversion airports along the route between Seattle and Bellingham were limited because of a heavy snowfall the night before. I used Boeing Field in Seattle as my filed alternate.
About 20 minutes after takeoff, at 6,000 feet in solid instrument meteorological conditions with rain and smooth air, Approach Control advised that Bellingham had just issued a notam that they were closing the runway until 3 p.m. for snow removal and asked, “What are your intentions?”
My first thought was to divert, but with the runway set to reopen about 10 minutes after my time of arrival, I decided to slow the cruise speed and hold somewhere along the route until the airport reopened. That “somewhere” turned out to be the initial approach fix, and after a single turn, I was cleared for the approach.
This holding pattern at 6,000 feet is also where I began to pick up icing. I reported it to Approach Control, but since I had been cleared for the approach, no special handling was required. I would be on the ground in another 10 minutes, and I was descending toward warmer air and a freshly plowed runway.
In a few minutes Approach Control canceled the approach clearance and said Bellingham had extended the notam for an additional 30 minutes, because the snow removal crew needed additional time. The nearest diversion airport was 20 minutes away with a snow-covered runway, so I requested to hold at the lowest possible altitude that approach could give me, in the hope of finding an above-freezing temperature. They told me to hold at the Whatcom VOR, just north of Bellingham, at 2,000 feet.
Leveling at 2,000 feet, the ice cleared off the windshield, but not the wings and struts. At near-freezing conditions and still in solid IMC, I was not surprised that the ice was still sticking to the airplane, but I took the clear windshield as a sign that I was not collecting any more ice.
I was wrong.
After holding for 20 minutes, I now had to use full throttle to hold an airspeed of 80 knots. I advised Approach Control to “Tell Bellingham to hurry up or we’re going to have to declare an emergency.”
They responded, “We just declared one for you. Turn to 130 degrees, intercept the localizer, cleared for the approach.”
Because of the ice-contaminated airframe, I landed flaps up at the cruise airspeed of 80 knots. After landing, I broke off an inch of rime ice from the leading edges of the wings and struts. Total time from the first indication of ice until being cleared for the approach the second time was 42 minutes.
One of the rules about flying in potential icing conditions is to always have an out. Usually that’s an airport to divert to if icing is encountered, or a revised routing along an airway with lower MEAs below the freezing level. At the point where I encountered icing, my out was to land at my destination, Bellingham. When Bellingham extended the runway closure, I attempted to accommodate air traffic control but was unable to hold for the entire 30 minutes.
Now my only “out” was to declare an emergency in order to get priority handling. Fortunately, just the threat of declaring an emergency got me an immediate clearance to land. I would advise not to wait as long as I did. When I had to increase the rpm to hold airspeed was when I should have declared the emergency—not when I ran out of throttle.
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