Never Again: The little voice inside me

The seller, Henry, and I agreed over the telephone that the following weekend would be perfect timing for the trip. Subsequent weather checks and chats with flight service briefers revealed the approaching weekend increasingly less promising for the flight.

Henry was anxious to get the airplane airborne. There had been several prolonged maintenance delays, so delivery of this airplane was already long overdue. As the departure time drew nigh, I was coming under increasing pressure to fly in heavy IFR all the way to the destination. Anxiety gnawed at me.

On the telephone Friday, then again Saturday, Henry pressed me to set out IFR. Each time he urged me, my anxiety worsened. “I am not going,” I told him, “with the weather as bad as it is.”

“If it clears by Sunday afternoon, would you still be willing to go?” I said yes, but added, let’s see how it all plays out. Around noon on Sunday, the heavy, low overcast did clear off, leaving higher, scattered, sunny, breezy skies. Driving to Manassas Airport, I asked myself some searching questions. What was I afraid of that would make me not want to fly in the soup? After all, I am an instrument-rated flight instructor with years of experience teaching. Was it fear or was something else driving my reticence?

Arriving at Manassas, I met Henry as he was readying the Skyhawk for the trip. We chatted briefly. The Skyhawk was in perfect working order, Henry assured me several times, so there should be no issues. After a thorough preflight inspection, I departed.

Navigation by VOR all the way to Niagara Falls Regional Airport seemed a breeze. This flight was bordering on the routine—a dangerous word in aviation.

Some 20 miles south of Bradford Regional Airport, another scan of the instruments revealed the left fuel needle not bouncing on “E,” but well past it, with the right needle not far behind. Suddenly alert, I kicked myself for not watching my fuel more carefully. What could have gone wrong? I took off with full tanks, easily enough to make Niagara Falls with fuel to spare. The winds were not that strong.

Could I make it to Bradford? Not a chance. Although I had no way of knowing at the time how serious the condition was, this was already a fuel emergency.

I searched for a closer field. There, a small airport, with fuel, just a few miles ahead. I flew the pattern to an easy touchdown, taxiing to the ramp.

The first thing I did after shutting down was climb up onto the step to inspect what I was convinced was a fuel cap I had failed to secure. The caps were tight. I climbed down, inspecting under the wing, paying special attention to the sumps. All normal, by the look of things—but then again, there was no fuel in the tank, so how could I be sure? Upon inspection of other areas, I found blue staining at the left trailing edge of the wing and onto the fuselage, directly in line with the fuel cap. Hmmm, I thought, there may be a fuel leak.

I kept an eye on the fuel truck’s fuel meter as the lineman filled the left tank. If memory serves, it stopped right around 22 gallons. That tank was dry! As he began filling the right tank, I considered that I may have had five or 10 minutes of powered flight time left.

Years later I calculated the approximate rate of fuel evaporation for this flight. The flight had lasted about an hour and a half. A Skyhawk burns around seven gallons an hour, so the engine had burned around eleven gallons. If the fuel added at my emergency pit stop totaled 39 or 40 gallons, that means that in an hour and a half, I had lost more than 27 gallons of raw fuel to the atmosphere.

I climbed up to check the fuel level and the security of the caps once again. There is no obvious fuel leak, I thought. This time, I will be sure the caps are secure. What else could it be?

I climbed back aboard, lit the fire once again, then taxied for takeoff. Everything normal, fuel tanks full again, I lifted effortlessly into the clear blue breezy sky.

As I came in sight of Bradford Airport again, I noticed the fuel needles already bouncing. Having just been through this emergency not 30 minutes before, I decided to land at Bradford as a precaution. I taxied to the corner of Bradford’s commercial ramp and climbed once again onto the Skyhawk’s step to assess my predicament.

The caps were secure, but the fuel level was noticeably lower. Even with mostly full tanks there was no obvious fuel leak. Puzzled, I knew there was nothing I could do about it here, so back into the cockpit I climbed, determined to get to my destination. With a recently freshened fuel supply, I knew I could make Niagara Falls, although I monitored my reserves closely en route. Finally, I landed safely at Niagara Falls Regional Airport with fuel to spare. Taxiing to the ramp, I was met by the Skyhawk’s new owner.

Either the rubber gasket on the left fuel cap was old and dry, or the cap simply did not fit properly, allowing the low pressure above the wing to suck fuel from the tank. Once the left tank was dry, the same low pressure now sucked fuel from the right tank via the fuel vent connecting the tanks. My scan of the instruments apparently was not adequate to keep up with the fuel leak.

Even if I had been more closely monitoring the fuel gauges, I might have dismissed the reading as instrumentation error. After all, we learn to trust the fuel gauges in only two modes: tanks full and tanks empty. Plus, the Skyhawk had just days before this flight emerged from its annual.

I discovered then the meaning of the earlier fear that kept me from flying in IMC—the little voice that was telling me that something was wrong with this adventure. It occurred to me that if I had succumbed to Henry’s pressure, I would have suffered the same fuel emergency—in heavy IMC, in an unfamiliar airplane. I would have had to declare an emergency, enlisting the help of ATC for vectors to the nearest field with an ILS.

Maybe it was a premonition that told me that what I was being pressured to do was not a good idea. I listened to the little voice this time and it saved my life.

Doren Weston is a CFI, author, and retired teacher living in Alexandria, Virginia.