I had logged about five hours of solo flying. My CFI wanted me to hit the 10-hour mark to do a solo cross-country properly, so I had been flying local solo flights of an hour or so each, just to practice the basic stuff.
I prepared myself for a local solo flight. I planned to depart from California’s Montgomery Field, and climb to 3,500 feet to fly over Gillespie Field Airport. I would level off at 3,500 feet, keep it until I was outside Gillespie’s airspace, then head north over El Capitan Reservoir and climb to 5,500 feet in order to avoid the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station's Class B airspace. I would do a sort of loop to Ramona Airport for a full stop, then reverse the route back to Montgomery Field. I was flying N70597, a Cessna 172M that recently had a 100-hour inspection. The bird was in pretty good shape and more than ready to fly.
The weather for the whole route of flight was just perfect. At Montgomery Field the winds were calm with cirrus clouds at 9,000 feet. After getting my endorsement and approval from my CFI, I went to the airfield and did a very through preflight inspection.
While inside the airplane I found everything to be complete except for a faulty secondary radio that had to be squawked. I started the engine and called ground to request an eastbound departure. After I got clearance for Runway 28R, I taxied to the runway and did the runup. I was very nervous. I had the idea to just turn back—but as soon as I was cleared to take off I aligned the airplane with the runway and thought, Everything is going to be OK. I’ve done this many times with my instructors. I gave it full throttle, checked airspeed, and oil temperature and pressure—all good—then 55 knots came up and I quickly said to myself This is it, let’s fly!
I did a good climb to 1,000 feet agl, and then a right downwind turn and climbed to 3,500 feet to stay outside Gillespie’s Class D airspace. At El Capitan Reservoir I climbed to 5,500 feet and had Ramona Airport in sight. The ATIS information said winds were 220 at six knots and clear visibility. I called the tower and told them about my intentions and they gave me a straight-in to Runway 23. I started going through my checklists and did a proper descent—85 then 75 and finally 65 knots. Everything was going well; the crosswind component was well within my limit.
Looking at the end of the runway with the stall horn going off, I touched down at 45 knots. As soon as I did so, I noticed something wasn’t right. I couldn’t steer the airplane with the rudder pedals because it kept going to the left. I tried very hard to do so but nothing happened. I braked hard to stop the airplane from going off the runway and possibly flip. It was just very weird because I was sure that I had made a decent landing. As soon as I stopped, I called the tower about the problem, shut down the engine, and stayed in the airplane until emergency rescue workers arrived.
The problem was obvious as soon as I turned to my left—the tire was flat. As soon as the emergency crew arrived and gave me the go-ahead to leave the airplane, I did a quick inspection and found no more damage to it.
A local mechanic shop that is in contact with my flight school performed the fix. It took only an hour, and afterward I was ready to head back to my home base.
Unfortunately, the weather had deteriorated and I wasn’t able to fly home solo. Instead, a mechanic and very experienced pilot offered to take the airplane and me back. All this time I was in contact with my CFI, who took the matter rather calmly, I guess. For me it was quite an experience—it was the first landing that I had a problem with and it was the first one when I could’ve crashed—all because of a simple flat tire.
