For last month’s survey I asked you what your biggest fear in aviation is, the event that scared or stressed you the most during your flying activities. In the same post I shared about my scariest event, which involved flying in a cold front. The idea behind this post was to share some experiences and learn from each other.
Learning from someone else’s mistakes is a key part of safety in aviation. Airlines and air traffic control agencies have Safety Management Systems that include incident reporting and protection for those who report unnoticed events. Many incidents occur daily that are known from the involved pilot only. Safety is not only about processes, but also about culture. It’s not easy for a pilot to report about his mistakes, or to say “yes, this scared me”. Think of the macho attitude we’re told about in the Human Factors classes.
Each and every pilot I know has at least a scary story. I’m not sure I would fly with a pilot that never scared himself in flight. Such a pilot is either always flying in perfect conditions and thus not fit for any adverse things that can happen or not conscious of the hazards related to flying.
What surprised me about the “biggest fear in aviation” is that only two persons left comments and did dare to share. So I’m asking you the same question again: what what your biggest moment of fear when flying? What happened that scared you? Leave a comment here on or the “biggest fear in aviation” survey.
Vincent Lambercy is a Swiss private pilot now living in Germany. He holds a private pilot certificate with single-engine, multi-engine and instrument ratings and has logged more than 430 hours of flight.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
(It may be that your invitation to contribute content is simply not compelling enough.)
Maybe we just don’t like to admit that we’re scared. Thankfully, such events are less and less frequent as I get older. But they still do happen.
Just recently, I had to fly my boss and some of his guests back from a football game to his hunting camp in the helicopter. As you can imagine, the camp is out in the exact middle of nowhere, with very few lights. A front had pushed through during the football game, and I *hoped* it would also clear past the camp by the time we got there. (It had not. *Almost,* but not quite.)
Although we took off before sunset, by the time we caught up to the front it was very dark. I slowed down and nosed into the rain, keeping visual contact with the ground. As we got within a mile of our pad…close enough that I thought I had it made…we flew into an area of heavy rain and very low clouds. I lost virtually all forward visibility except for the trees directly below me, illluminated by the landing lights. Scared? Oh yeah! Angry too. A whole bunch of emotions, actually. For the first time in a long, long time I actually believed that I had pushed it too far and gone over the edge. I honestly thought we were done. At that moment, I caught sight of our barn. I did the ugliest, most ill-planned and executed approach of my life.
Safely (more or less) on the ground, I kicked myself for letting myself be pushed into the situation. I really thought I had better judgment than that, but apparently I don’t. Lesson? Even very experienced pilots screw up. What really hurts is the realization is that “very experienced pilot” is yourself.
I am a beginner and low time pilot and try to be safety conscious. I read books like “The Killing zone” and do everything I can to avoid the main risks and to learn as fast as I can. Thank God so far I never had any dangerous experience that would be useful to share.
I could share my main fears though (their order has probably nothing to do with statistic relevance, but is my personal order).
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No. 1 is collision as I don’t have a clear concept of what “look-out” really means (technically I know the scanning technique, but it does not seem to work) and for my taste I see other airplanes too late. But I have no idea if that is really true or only a feeling. Whatever, my solution will most likely be a PCAS.
No.2 is weather. My solution is a current personal limit of O (GAFOR) and getting an instrument-rating.
No. 3 is going beyond my personal limits because other people put pressure on me. This is frankly the most likely one, so I am very strict with passengers and set clear rules upfront. However, I might tend to comply with ATC suggestions “to please” although I am uncomfortable with something. At least I know about this risk, but I don’t have a real solution yet.
One time I was coming in for a landing at an airport I’d never been to before. The winds were slightly gusty and variable, but not outside of my limits. Just before I touched down I got a strong quartering tailwind gust and decided to do a go-around – no big deal, right? It was then that I really saw the power lines, and remembered reading in the ugly green book that they were obstacles for this airport. But they were a lot closer and a lot taller than other power lines I’d seen at the ends of other runways. I was fortunately able to climb enough to get over them with plenty of room to spare, but I decided I wasn’t going to use that runway again any time soon.
I’m a low time pilot, and have had my ticket less than a year. My scary moment happened about two and half hours ago.
I was at the field doing TOALs, and decided to do one of my favorite simulated engine out routines: while crossing mid-field, 3K AGL, pull the throttle and work my way down to the field. It helps me to work on descents and timing, as well as makes my landings better. In a 172 it’s quite a bit of altitude to lose while being sure to not stray from the runway. This occurred at the edge of the DFW area at a non-towered airport, under the Class B shelf. My examiner actually had me do this maneuver during my checkride.
I called my intentions several times while approaching the field starting at 6 miles out. Another pilot in the pattern asked me to clarify what I was doing, and as a result, I made it very clear over CTAF exactly what I was going to do, and how I was going to do it: engine out at 3.5K MSL with circling descents over mid-field and an entry into the downwind at pattern altitude. I made at least four detailed calls to announce my intent including one while over mid-field when I pulled the power.
About halfway through my first 360 an aircraft passed directly under me no more than 50 feet away. I guess he just wasn’t bothering to monitor the airport frequency as he was passing one thousand feet over the pattern. Since I was banked doing my turns I was as visible as an airplane can get, so he probably wasn’t paying too much attention outside of his cockpit either.
50 ft is close enough to get my heart rate up a bit. I’m going to have to think about my favorite engine out practice procedure quite a bit before trying it again.
@Frank: given the reactions on this post and the additional comments on the original post where I asked the question, it seems that you’re right. The original post was probably not appealing enough. Lesson learned.
@Bob, Sigourney, Jack and Bill: thank you for sharing. I believe we can all relate to these stories in one way or the other. The feeling of doing something wrong is probably common to all pilots. My personal wording for that is “It looks like the begin of an accident report”.
@Sigourney: With all due respect, I’m not sure your solutions will work. IFR is not solution to weather, unless you buy a turboprop aircraft. Light aircraft without radar don’t mix with thunderstorm, and non-turbo / non-pressurized aircraft don’t mix with icing. Regarding the PCAS, it certainly adds a level of safety but there are many aircraft out there that don’t turn their transponder on… I’d love to talk about this with you again in 100 hours. Trust yourself without crossing the line and you’ll become an old pilot.
@vincent – I’ll be quite honest for the purpose of feedback, not a personal attack – I’ve been a bit turned off your blog since you’ve been pushing the flying across america project (gimme money), and not really flying so much. The content’s not so fresh or personal (and there are plenty of forums in the world). I (personally) felt flying across america – so what? When I wanted to do a big trip, I had to finance it myself ;o)
Anyhow, with that, I’ll add, scaring myself – for sure. Many different levels from uncomfortable I know I shouldn’t have done that, to ‘oh ****’
The defining, really frightening oh-crap-I’m-dead moment was – spinning. Held a few more turns than normal (like 6 or 7), and sure it says in the POH that after 3-4 turns there’s a bit of a mode change and it may take up to a turn to recover. A turn is a *VERY* long time when you’re used to an instantaneous recovery. Enough time to start thinking Oh ****, what do I do now, and how long have I got.. (and “this is a silly way to die”)
Otherwise, I’ve had a miscellaneous list of things like a fuel gauge that drops to zero, only getting 2 greens on the wheels, radio failure, and flying into a cloud that I couldn’t see (rain and a stepped cloudbase). All have been -? concerning?worriesome?stressful? in various measure – I wouldn’t like to use the words scared or fear – someone much smarter than me said that fear kills you. Fear blocks the ability to think clearly and flying requires a calm, considered response, and has been met and dealt with with some degree of success so far (i.e. I’m still here..). Sure, the animal inside yells loud, but I strongly suspect the difference between the accident statistic, and ‘I learned from that’ is the ability to put down the animal voice, and consider the appropriate course of action. Hope I can continue to do so; it’s usually on the ground afterwards that it hits.
@Mark: I received your feedback, no offense taken. We heard this a lot during the whole project and it makes no sense to have the same discussion here again.
Your point about the difference between stress and fear is good. Stress is probably the best proposition in your list. When I had my personal encounter with icing and turbulence in a cold front, I felt the urge to act and the reflexes I developed thanks to my instructors took over and saved the day. The last 30 minutes of flying were just as usual, but as you said… it hits on the ground afterwards. I don’t know if this ability to delay the effects of stress is something I learned through my flying activities or if it is innate, but it is for sure a great thing.
Thanks for sharing.