It’s not often we get to learn – in such a graphic way – from an inflight emergency. At the May 8, 2015 Arsenal of Democracy Flyover a TBM Avenger suffered a “1500psi pinhole hydraulic leak vaporized in the cockpit, appeared like smoke, and prompted a decision to abort the flyover and land at Reagan DCA airport.”
The two-part video first shows the flight in real-time, then a second run-through interjects the pilots thoughts and lessons learned. A dramatic flight – with a safe outcome – on a special day.
In flight fires mean you get on the ground ASAP.
Ben, you hit some great points here, and I really appreciate your willingness to humbly share the good and especially the “I could have done this better” portions of your flight. I was on the footbridge to Teddy Roosevelt Island taking video with my phone and saw you start “smoking.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more perfect position (if one exists) for a problem to manifest. As an Air Force Viper guy, I had drilled into my melon for years: 1) maintain aircraft control, 2) analyze the situation and take proper action, and 3) land as soon as conditions permit. As a retired career Flight Safety Officer, I’ll throw out a couple more observations and questions from my one-G “I wasn’t in the airplane, ” luxury-of-hindsight, zero airspeed chair. Please interpret them with my complete respect for you and how you handled the emergency. I suspect you’ve already covered them all in your mind since you made the video.
Starting with the preflight brief: there’s a hole that you covered already: the cockpit comm plan. On the rare times when I had a passenger in our “family model” we thoroughly briefed our comms to include comm-out hand signals, including passing notes (not that you had time for notes here). I also briefed them that if they perceived a problem, to tell me exactly what they saw, WITHOUT interpretation (e.g., “I see smoke/vapor coming out of the ____ and my legs are hot” vs “we’re on fire” although it sounded more like “are we on fire?”). You obviously already hit the issue of going on and off comms without telling you. I’m assuming that you had time to give your passengers an adequate egress briefing.
Suit-up: I’m glad the airplanes are so well-maintained by superstars. Your confidence is clear, however, this is still a high-performance complex aircraft. Yes, it was warm and their’s no air conditioning, but flying in these types of aircraft still should require nomex and gloves, especially since the designs are so old. We do a lot better job now of not leaving jagged edges where you can tear your hands on egress but a buddy of mine did exactly that and severed all the tendons across the palm of his hand. We have better wiring and circuit protection to reduce the likelihood of electrical fires. We don’t route hydraulic lines through cockpits and crew compartments in our fighter/attack airplanes anymore. A helmet and gloves protect your melon while you fly around in an old single-engine airplane. (Another friend had a gearbox failure in a T-28 while doing an airshow in Houston many years ago. No helmet/mask resulted in a busted face on the instrument panel when his shoulder harness failed during the belly landing.) As far as gloves, even a small fire in a cockpit, extinguished quickly, could take out your hands and your ability to maintain aircraft control. Sweaty hands and sweat rolling down your back are a small price to pay for the privilege of flying a TBM in a magnificent demonstration to honor those who have gone before us, but even less of a price to return you safely to Deb, Savannah, Brenna and Jack. For your pax? It’s a TBM that is no longer carrying an aerial torpedo. It can probably handle a bag of extra flight suits for your pax and 4-5 pairs of flight gloves (in a few different sizes).
Another hole in your comm plan was not informing your lead you had a problem, or simply being directive to him or the other wingman. I know you were busy, but “lead, 2’s got smoke in the cockpit, heading for Reagan” should have brought either lead or the other Avenger with you immediately as chase. He could have given you his observation about what was going on outside of your airplane, and could perhaps even have told you that your passenger was climbing around vs passed out. The flyover was much less important than his duty to you as a leader/wingman. For that matter they could have both come with you. My guess was that every aviator on the ground watching would agree. I was wondering in real time why no one in the formation chased you, and I’ll bet our brethren on the ground were as well. I’m confident that ATC would have gladly worked your chase back into a trailing formation once you were safe on deck. This goes back to the mass brief as well: what is the plan for chase/escort if there is an emergency? Who is primary escort? Flight member? Airboss? In this case, it would have probably been preferable to send the other Avenger instead of trying to have him acquire his interval on the preceding formation if lead left with you. Regardless, it was still lead’s responsibility (if he was aware) to either chase you or direct your other wingman to do so. (More importantly, why did he miss your radio call? He was only making an easy left turn, not dodging AAA or evading a SAM.)
Obviously you maintained aircraft control and flew the airplane first through a good landing. You covered your own egress issues, and yes, more practice and some concrete decisions need to be made before you fly that airplane next. If you have a flight manual, are there boldface or critical action procedures for an emergency ground egress? If not, you can make your own, and then practice them. What do I need to leave behind, take with me, disconnect. Also, why not placard the appropriate procedures at the other two crew positions for pax, then train to them when you give your egress brief. Whenever I changed aircraft, my technique for the first 2-3 months was to complete a boldface/CAPS before every sortie. Another great technique I learned from a Navy Tomcat driver/NASA staff pilot was that he went through the motions of his ground egress every single time he strapped in, touching every pin installation/arming lever, buckle, connection, etc that he would use in an egress. He taught me the same. Do you have similar procedures for your pax in the other crew positions? Can you scream theirs to them during/after you’re already out correctly and loudly enough to penetrate the chaos in their minds as non-flyers in such a situation once electrical power is off or they have disconnected?
Back to the analysis. Yours is hard to fault with the info you had at hand and the limitations on crosscheck time to gather more before landing. Great idea to burn some wire insulation to recognize it, but caution your readers to only take the briefest of scents, because those fumes are toxic. With the hydraulic fluid, you could mist some in a bottle, but I suspect that those vapors are toxic as well, so be careful. Great idea on improving your systems knowledge to have a better idea of what can fail where in the aircraft. Question:
Regarding radio discipline for the (whole) formation: “Ok fellas, here we go” is a ridiculous call when you have 50-60 aircraft on freq. Clearly that was not the first element leader, as he had already passed well ahead. If it was the Helldiver in the lead of your flight or your airboss overhead, it’s an even more ridiculous call. It gets better (facetiously) with the 2-3 calls about where you were after you left, even though you clearly declared your emergency (I’m assuming that the formation was operating on tower’s freq for the flyover, but I could be wrong). Regardless, those calls served absolutely no purpose, so I hope that was debriefed to the gang.
You guys looked and sounded great and did us all proud. Great job handling the emergency. Glad you and your pax are safe. Thank you for honoring those who went before us.
For what it’s worth….
(If you are/were a VA ANG guy, we probably have a mutual friend or two.)
Great pictures I flew TBMs ww2 great war plane I did six months in the pacific VT-24 I also flew the helldiver and the dauntless
U must have a hell of a lots of experiences and histories to tell to us…. oorah!
I’m glad to see this video. I was watching the webcast live and when I saw the Avenger peel out of the formation, I knew something was up. Then I didn’t hear anything about any problems, but was still curious. Great job, guys.
Superb last minute decision to abort and make E landing.
Back seater felt heat on his flight suit and with visible smoke perceived it as fire; took off headset to investigate the cause/ fight the fire. He had initially inquired: ‘Are we on fire?’
Oral communication through shouting was still possible but his lowered stance in the seat was mistaken as being unconscious by the P 1. The engine was running fine but smoke persisted right down to short final but did not restrict visibility at all. Back seater had experience in naval ships. SS Technician in turret with experience in aircraft maintenance; did not wear headset, and did not assist in any way the P 1 through lack of training. There were two queries about the fire being still there.
The smell is a big indicator if the smoke was electrically related and hydraulic fluid even as vapour has a distinctive odour, which cannot be mistaken.
In hindsight we can pass judgement easily or comment on an incident which was mistaken as an emergency through haste and an element of panic.
Murphy’s Law at work and Murphy was an optimist.