Sometimes our eyes play tricks on us, especially during flight at night in instrument conditions. Try an approach to Runway 33 at Griffiss International Airport in Rome, New York, in a sparsely populated environment and you’ll have an opportunity to experience several optical illusions at once.
Think you’re ready? Take this AOPA Air Safety Institute quiz to test your savvy (www.airsafetyinstitute.org/quiz-intoablackhole).
‘Real Pilot Story: From Miscue to Rescue’
The price of unrealistic expectations
On May 26, 2012, a Cessna 172 departed on a cross-country flight from Lodi, California, to Mountain Home, Idaho. On board were the noninstrument-rated 300-hour private pilot; his wife; and one of his daughters. The pilot, Brian Brown, had carefully checked weather conditions the week before the flight. On the day of departure he noticed that some adverse weather had moved across their flight path over the Idaho mountains. But he felt confident it would clear out of the region by the time they would reach the area, so the family launched on the trip.
Unfortunately, that confidence became wishful thinking as the flight proceeded: Only 25 miles away from its destination, the 172 and its occupants were scud running—just below the cloud layers—at 1,000 feet above the inhospitable terrain to stay out of the weather.
In Real Pilot Story: From Miscue to Rescue, Brown takes you along on a personal and emotional journey as he reflects on how a series of delays, poor decisions, and lack of preparation turned the four-hour cross-country flight into a 30-hour survival crisis for him and his family.
Brown shares several hard lessons learned, including the importance of matching expectations with experience and skill levels, not to press on in adverse conditions, and to be prepared with a Plan B—and using it. After their forced landing into a ravine in the unforgiving Idaho backcountry, he knows you can’t count on luck alone. Watch the video story (www.airsafetyinstitute.org/rps-frommiscuetorescue) and consider your actions when presented with a similar scenario.
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