Twice In One Day!

Flying Safety,  Oct, 2001  by James M. Kohhler

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"Crew, we're going around!"

"I'm setting max power!"

"Flaps 50 percent!"

"Positive rate--gear up!"

"Flaps 20!"

"Flaps up!"

I couldn't believe we were actually doing an engine-out missed approach for the second time that day, with the ceiling now below 200 feet and less than one half-mile visibility. The weather was forecast to be 1500 feet overcast and visibility seven miles in mist when we stepped to the aircraft. Besides, the Supervisor of Flying (SOF) was going to keep a sharp eye out for any weather changes. But our Herk was now climbing into the opaque clouds, having missed the Instrument Landing System (ILS) approach with only three engines running.

The mission was a Functional Check Flight (FCF) with a very experienced crew. The maintenance folks had worked on the engines, which necessitated art FCF before releasing the plane to the line crews.

The crew had been to Quality Assurance (QA) to get a detailed briefing on all of the wrench-turning that had been completed on the aircraft. The engineers and loadmaster had completed a thorough preflight. (The engineer also noticed that a green M&M was still in the crack near the copilot's seat. It had been there since the last AEF deployment.)

The nay and pilots filed the flight plan and received a thorough weather briefing. Granted, February weather in the Northeast is not always nice, but the present weather and forecast were good enough for the test flight. Heck, the weather was VFR! All we had to do was climb to altitude, shut down and restart each engine one at a time, and then head for the barn. This was going to be a quick one. I would get to my civilian job by 1600 with no sweat. I might even make it to the snack bar before it closed for lunch.

The FCF was going very well until we got to the number four engine.

"Condition lever, number four engine, feather."

"How does she look, Load?"

"Hey, Pilot, the prop is spinning backwards," the loadmaster said.

"OK, the prop brake didn't engage," quipped the pilot. "I'll start to slow down a bit."

The whole crew felt a sudden shudder and thump as the backward wind-milling gearbox suddenly seized and the prop stopped. (That meant I would almost certainly get back in time to get that hot dog at the snack bar.) Like a good copilot I declared an emergency, and we headed for the home aerodrome. I accepted the fact that some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue. Today we were the statue.

The ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service) was still broadcasting decent weather, and we elected to shoot the VOR approach to runway 27. Then we heard the aircraft in front of us go missed approach on the VOR due to low ceilings. The ceiling was coming down really fast, but that was no problem for an old, gray-haired crew like us. With "flexibility" being the key to air power, we simply asked for the ILS approach to runway 01.

The Gulfstream jet that had gone missed approach in front of us made it in on the ILS but reported to the tower that weather was at minimums. I kept looking around the cockpit. There's always something that you've missed, and we were flying with one engine shut down in hard IFR weather. We set up for the ILS. At 100 feet above minimums, it hit me that we may actually go missed approach. At minimums, we did a three-engine go-around. As I called the go-around, I finally saw the approach lights and the runway, but it was too late. We were already climbing into the soup. Our "reality check" had just bounced.

We were getting in a little bit of a bind but decided one more try would be reasonable. I thought back to my training and remembered my instructor telling me takeoffs are optional but landings are mandatory. It's days like this that you think about being down on the ground wishing you were up here, instead of up here wishing you were down on the ground. This was starting to be no fun. Some people think a prop is just a big fan in front of the airplane to keep the pilots cool. I think that's true, because when it stops you can actually watch the pilots start to sweat. We were beginning to sweat.

The second approach looked just like the first one. We saw the runway while we were "on the go." As we executed the missed approach, the SOF told us that Dover AFB was above minimums, so away we went to our alternate.

We made a long straight-in approach on the ILS. I'm told that the probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival. A large angle of arrival equates to a small probability of survival. Our angle of arrival was a three-degree glideslope, which I guess should mean a 97 percent chance of survival. The old beast took care of us that day, even though Mother Nature had given us a challenge. We landed without further incident.

As we waited for a ride back to our home base, I did get to the snack bar and had that hot dog. On the long ride home, the crew had a chance to discuss the day's events. We had done everything right, but we still ended up in a little bit of a pickle. I still can't believe we did a pair of engine-out approaches, in the weather, in one day, but good training and experience helped us give the story a positive ending. Fly Safe!

COPYRIGHT 2001 U.S. Air Force, Safety Agency
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning