Safety Spotlight: A memorable flight

Diversion from rendezvous with a single-malt scotch is not normally welcome, but this was intriguing. We were two of the Beechcraft Super King Air (C–12) pilots in the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines. As assistant air attache, and the junior pilot in the cadre, I managed the small fleet of King Airs and served as instructor and evaluator pilot. We shuttled embassy officials around the archipelago and completed the occasional odd mission. Looking back, it was an incredible job with some unique and challenging flying into mountainous areas, tropical forests, grass strips, and coral runways. Through all of my military and general aviation flying, I look back on that King Air flying frequently when I think of experiences that tasked my airmanship and sharpened those skills.

Within minutes the boss confirmed with a medic on scene that a U.S. Army soldier needed immediate evacuation from a remote area of Luzon Island. The Army had moved the sick soldier to a long-ago-abandoned airstrip, which Special Forces would line with green Chemlight glow sticks for our recognition. The asphalt was in such poor shape that calling it paved was hyperbole. Night VFR in remote, mountainous terrain, to find a forsaken airstrip lined with glow sticks—as I said, the job required some airmanship.

With no reliable navaids in the vicinity of the airfield, we planned heading, distance, and timing from a nearby village to the runway and plotted our map. We studied surrounding terrain and established minimum safe altitudes. We admitted there was a good chance we’d be unable to find the airfield or wouldn’t determine it suitable for landing. An important mission posture in relief flying is to ensure you don’t become part of the relief needed.

The weather forecast called for good VFR, but as we flew up Luzon, we encountered reduced visibility in smoke from rice fields burning throughout the countryside. With Marston hand-flying from the left seat, precisely on speed and heading outbound from our marked village, we found the green lights, but smoke from the fires obscured our vision and we lost sight of the field while maneuvering to land. After a couple of passes losing sight of the field, Marston lined up on a distant fire on extended final and we offset our inbound approach slightly to isolate the field on one side of the cockpit. On short final, aligned and on speed, we turned on the landing lights, and the bright white lights in the smoke obscured the green glow lights along the runway and ruined our night vision.

Marston executed a go-around, while I focused on keeping the green chem lights in sight. We flew the same approach, uitilizing all of our previous techniques and lessons learned, and this time we kept the landing lights off. Marston landed on speed in the middle of the green light strips. We knew the runway was in poor condition, so he carefully managed brakes and propellers, stopping us in the remaining runway. The strip was so overrun, our wing tip scraped along the tops of the wild grasses as we turned around to back-taxi to the parking apron the Army had carved out of the grass.

A medic loaded the soldier in the back, where earlier we had removed the seats, and we flew back to Manila uneventfully. The soldier was treated and eventually recovered.

As the pilot in command, Marston accepted added risk for the mission in a deliberate and calculated fashion. We were well trained, proficient, and knowledgeable, and we were operating the magnificently reliable King Air. We assessed our risks, mitigated them, and continually updated our plan, adjusting to the conditions and our mistakes. At the time of my assignment to the King Air, I was a seasoned fighter pilot. Marston, a career tanker and transport pilot, taught me a lot about the power of crew resource management—before that became a thing.

Go fly, and hone your skills so when the time comes, you can call on them with confidence.

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