I awoke at 4:30 a.m. to check weather and finalize a VFR flight plan from Dyersville Area Airport (IA8) in Dyersville, Iowa, to Rock Hill/York County/Bryant Field Airport (UZA) in Rock Hill, South Carolina, with fuel stops in Illinois and Kentucky. My father and I planned to take my son in a Cessna 172 to visit his cousin in Charlotte, North Carolina.
I logged into DUATS for a route weather briefing and to check notices to airmen and temporary flight restrictions. Then, I called flight service for a verbal briefing.
Groundspeed was consistent throughout the first leg as I cruised at 3,500 feet with a light tailwind. At the first fuel stop, exactly two hours into the trip, both fuel gauges indicated that the tanks were more than half full. The next stop would be in 90 minutes, according to my navigational equipment. I thought I had enough fuel to reach that airport with an adequate reserve, so I skipped the first fuel stop. I was very conscious of my fuel situation, as well as my groundspeed.
By the time I was midway between the last available alternative fuel stop and my planned Illinois stop, the fuel gauges read one-quarter full and were heading toward empty at a faster rate than the first three-quarters of the trip. I had lost about 10 mph of groundspeed for about 10 minutes during this last portion of flight, so I considered turning around and going back—but turning around into a headwind was not a viable option.
About 30 miles from the airport I tuned in the automated weather observation system. We had just flown over another potential fuel stop, but decided that we had enough fuel to make it, so we continued on. To this point I had heard no notams that the airport was closed for runway resurfacing.
The airplane was getting uncomfortably low on fuel when I announced my approach at 10 miles and the FBO informed me that the airport was closed. I pulled the throttle back to 1,500 rpm and trimmed the nose up to slow the airplane, conserve fuel, and buy time. Three private airports were within gliding distance, but I was unsure of their condition. I asked the FBO whether it was possible to land and was informed that I needed to declare an emergency to do so. I believed that was my best option to land safely.
The airport manager guided me to parking near the FBO and said he had to call the FAA because of the emergency declaration. He refused to fuel the airplane because of the pending investigation. I asked if there was a notam issued about the airport closure. He said a notam had been posted on the Internet for several weeks.
I borrowed a ladder from the FBO and checked the fuel levels. The right tank indicated three usable gallons; the left tank indicated that I was into the unusable fuel.
The FAA representative and I talked about the events that led to the emergency declaration, and then we inspected the airplane. The fuel levels had balanced between the two tanks, and each held about one and a half gallons of usable fuel.
In a follow-up email the FAA representative told me that the audio file of my conversation with the flight briefer indicated that the briefer had not told me that the airport was closed, or that a runway at the airport was closed.
The FAA eventually closed the case with airman counseling, which the representative said had taken place at the airport while discussing the incident. He said my flight planning for the trip was not what it needed to be, but the experience gained from the flight would help to keep me safe in the future. He also commended me for choosing to declare an emergency and land at the closed airport rather than risk a fuel-exhaustion accident. Some suggestions when preparing cross-country flights in small aircraft come to mind:
1. Gather as much information as possible from as many resources as are available to you. I should have called the planned stops before taking off.
2. Fly like you have less fuel than you actually do.
3. Know your airplane. The FAA agent made a pretty thorough inspection of our airplane and asked questions about this specific airplane’s performance. The answers to these questions required me to reconsider many factors in how I fly the airplane, fuel consumption, burn rate, and performance.
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