Accident Report: Low and slow

Studying satellite images and online descriptions of the site has been helpful, and a few local pilots have been there once or twice. So you have decided to heed the universal advice to fly a low pass down the runway and check things out before committing to landing. That will also give you time to compose yourself for the combination short-field/soft-field landing the arrival will require—a real-world test of a technique you have only simulated at the home airport with its long, paved runway.

No doubt about it, you’re prepared. And that’s what flying is about: taking a cautious step out of your comfort zone based on preparation, training, and growing experience.

In some past instances, the words “low pass” had a naughty ring and helped tell a tale of buzzing a house or a group of people. So when fellow pilots recommended doing a low pass down the backcountry strip, you shied from the idea.

But in proper context, the low pass is a perfectly orderly, appropriate maneuver. Instrument pilots routinely perform low passes when completing an approach—when it’s known as a missed approach and is flown to specific altitudes and headings.

Aircraft with landing-gear problems sometimes make a low pass to allow ground personnel to inspect the undercarriage. And instructors sometimes take advantage of extremely long runways by having the student fly a low pass down the runway without touching down to get practice with the necessary control inputs for aircraft control in a crosswind.

There is one major difference, however, between those low passes and the one you will make in the backcountry. In all the instances cited, the low pass is the main focus of the pilot’s attention. You will have to divide yours between aircraft control and gathering information about conditions on the surface. That means making a pretty slow low pass (or more than one not-so-slow passes) with eyes out and down for much of the time, flying at low altitude and low airspeed.

How will you configure the aircraft for that maneuver? How will you transition back for your landing approach? Is any of that a problem?

A low pass went problematic on October 21, 2015, in Gerlach, Nevada, when the pilot of a single-engine Rans S–7 airplane overflew a remote desert airstrip “to assess its suitability for landing in the future.”

“The pilot reported that prior to the pass, he slowed the airplane and added full flaps. He said that in this airplane configuration, following a left turn, the ‘flight controls in pitch became loose as if the tail stalled,’ and right afterward ‘the nose pitched down.’ He reported that he added power, and that his sensation was ‘that the plane was flying but being pushed to the ground with no feedback from the elevator,’” said a National Transportation Safety Board report. As he approached the ground, “he applied back pressure but the airplane impacted the ground hard.”

The board found the mishap’s probable cause to be “the pilot’s failure to maintain pitch and airspeed control, in conjunction with full flaps, while maneuvering at a low altitude, resulting in a tail-stall and subsequent impact with the ground.”

Another risk of a low pass is an inadvertent touchdown. As winter approaches, pilots sometimes use low passes to inspect unplowed or ice-covered runways to assess landing risks. Again, prudent. But the pilot of a Cessna 180 overflying a snowy strip in Alaska to determine the condition of the snowpack discovered last Valentine’s Day that an extra little bit of altitude would have saved a lot of trouble. “As the main landing gear wheels touched down atop the frozen layer of crusty snow, the wheels broke through, and the airplane subsequently nosed over, sustaining substantial damage to the left wing and vertical stabilizer,” said an NTSB report.

Don’t let good intentions produce a bad outcome. You’ve known for weeks that this backcountry trip was coming. That means there was time to instruct yourself, or get instructed, on the flight’s most