In Flight Emergency

General Aviation Accident Rate: 1 per 10,000 flight hours
My flight hours: 100

While we didn't suffer an "official" accident today, we did experience our first in-flight emergency. Given the above statistics, I figured I had at least, oh, 50 years before finding myself in this situation.

The day started innocent enough. Two weeks of rain cleared off into a glorious, crisp fall day, just in time for us to fly to Nashville to celebrate some birthdays with family. We headed straight to the airport after church to make the 3PM celebration. It was just to be a 45 minute flight, and I was excited to be flying into Nashville International as this would be the biggest airport for me to date.

After my normal, thorough pre-flight inspection, me, Laura and Jackson were in the air climbing to 3500 feet. Upon reaching our altitude, just below the clouds, and accelerating to cruise speed, we commented on how perfect the day was. One of those rare, calm, unlimited visibility days in North Alabama. Jackson was handling it like normal - happily asleep in Laura's lap.

As we passed the half way point with Nashville starting to become visible in the distance, our engine decided it was time to make things interesting. With absolutely no warning, our purring 2500 RPMs started falling, rapidly, accompanied by a vibration significant enough to blur the instrument panel.

When training for a pilot's license, it usually doesn't take long to learn the basics of flying. Instead, you wind up spending the majority of your time learning how to deal with every imaginable emergency. It is understood by students that a plane with a flight instructor aboard is a most unreliable ship. They are suspiciously prone to faulty instruments, temperamental engines, sticky controls, electrical failures, fires of every type and seem to attract an unusually high number of imaginary planes, cars, people and cows crossing the runway just when you're tying to land.

In this situation, my training taught me to:
1) Fly the airplane
2) Identify a place to land
3) Pitch for best glide speed
4) Troubleshoot the problem
5) Ask for help

What was my reaction?



Let's just say I'm no Chesley Sullenberger. While I always enjoyed simulating emergencies, facing the real thing with my wife and son sitting in the right seat was almost paralyzing.

Here's a window into my thoughts:
*Oh no.. This is NOT good. What is going on???*
Too much time passes
*Uh oh, I hope the engine doesn't shake itself off the plane, that would be really bad...*
Instinctively reduce power
*Yikes! We're going down. Find a place to land NOW!*
Glance intently at the ground below and then quickly at GPS
*A few fields down there. Lots of hills and trees... Hmmm, Ellington is to our left, but I don't know anything about that airport...*
Start turn to left
*What in the world is wrong with this engine and where is the emergency checklist??? No time for that, I need to fix this!*
- Mixture rich - no change
- Fuel pump on - no change
- Magneto switch - no change
- Throttle everywhere - no improvement
*Hmmm... cylinder head temperature is dropping like a rock too...*
Engine finally stops losing power, but it's still rough
*Shelbyville's to our right, that's a familiar airport but it's just a little further away. You dummy, turning left will put us into a stiff headwind*
Quick correction to a right turn
*This is not an 'emergency' (denial)... Where is the airport, I hope we can reach it, I REALLY do not want to land in a field*
Laura asks, "What's going on?" as calm as a mother with an infant in her lap can.
Me (queuing up my most reassuring, veteran pilot response): "I don't know."
Laura starts praying.
*I could us some help from Air Traffic Control*
Me: "Memphis Center, Skyhawk 123, we've got engine trouble can you give me vectors to Shelbyville?"
Memphis Center: "123, roger, Shelbyville at your 2 o'clock, fly heading blah blah blah blah blah..."
Look intently for the airport
*How are we going to get to Nashville now? How are we going to get home? I wonder if Shelbyville has a mechanic?*
Airspeed still well above best glide speed... Shelbyville located!
Me: "Memphis Center, 123, what's the CTAF for Shelbyville?"
Engine still running rough
*It doesn't seem to be getting worse. Don't touch anything!*
Memphis Center: "muh wah, muh wah wah wah 122 point 8 wah wah muh wah..."
Tune radio to 122.8
Me: "Shelbyville Unicom, Skyhawk 123, 5 west with engine trouble, airport advisory?"
An eternity seems to pass
*Is anybody there???*
*Anybody??*
Shelbville Unicom: "Aircraft calling Shelbyville, traffic using runway 36, wind muh wah muh wah wahhh"
*Finally...*
Engine surges back to life
*What... (?)*
*We still need to get this thing on the ground*

And that we did, uneventfully, but not before I was seriously tempted to continue to Nashville primarily due to the unavailability of a mechanic in the middle of Tennessee on a Sunday (no rental cars either). Fortunately, more rational heads prevailed as Laura, who had just spent the previous five minutes in prayer with the full expectation of meeting Jesus face to face at "amen," expressed in no uncertain terms that she was done with this airplane for the day.

It turns out that an hour later the mechanic from our home airport flew up in another rental plane, which he let us use while he took 123 back home. We were already extremely late for the party and contemplated calling it a day, but decided to head to Nashville anyway so that we could at least see everyone for a few hours. While we had waited in Shelbyville, the clouds all disappeared leaving us perfect conditions to enjoy the rest of the day.

So what happened?
When we got back, the mechanic told us that it flew great all the way home (naturally) and then for a couple of more hours. In all likelihood, he said it was a stuck valve. Conditions got to be just right so that a valve in one cylinder got stuck, shutting down that cylinder, setting up a vibration and partial loss of power. Eventually, the valve in the dead cylinder freed itself and miraculously everything went back to normal.

Laura commented on my cool handling of the situation and I'm proud of myself for some things but would have done other things differently in retrospect. Fortunately this was an "easy" emergency situation and a very good learning experience. Primarily, I learned no amount of training can simulate or prepare you for your emotional response to a real emergency. In my case it took almost as much effort to manage my reaction as it did to manage the airplane. As a result, I could have done a much better job flying the plane and should have explicitly told Memphis Center and Shelbyville that I had an "emergency". In the world of aviation, that word is a trigger which allows ATC to move mountains to come to your assistance and it removes all doubt from the minds of local pilots at a place like Shelbyville. I was also fortunate to be in an established cruise at altitude with plenty of speed, especially since I didn't have an emergency landing field locked in my head when the trouble began.

Laura deserves credit too. She remained very calm and while a lot of people would have written off small planes for good after this experience, she was ready to go again when the mechanic showed up. I love my wife... And then there's Jackson. He promptly fell asleep as soon as we got back on our way.