By STEVEN LONG
“I can’t see anything!”
Above South Carolina, en route VFR to Palatka, Florida, late for a reunion party, I should have had good visibility under a 2,000-foot ceiling. Instead I seemed to be inside a translucent gray balloon.
And I was having an argument.
“You should descend another 100 feet,” the Dangerous Passenger insisted. To him, the only problem was my growing reluctance to continue.
“It’s solid gray out there! There’s nothing!”
“No, look down. That’s Lake Marion, you’re right on course, you’re halfway across South Carolina. The briefer said the ceilings were 2,000 at Walterboro, 3,000 at Savannah, and improving southward. You got that briefing two hours ago. This weather’s probably some local lake effect.
“See, there’s the south shore. Visibility’s a little low, but you’re under the clouds, you’re still legal. You’ve logged over 300 hours. You can fly in this.”
“I’ve never flown in crap like this! I don’t care what the briefer said, this is freaking me out. I’m turning around!”
“If you turn around you’ll miss the reunion. Come on, isn’t this what you earned your wings for?”
No, I thought at first, but I gave in.
“All right. I’ll land at Walterboro and wait for good weather. Oh, man, that’s rain on the windshield. No one said anything about rain!”
“It’s just a little rain. See? It’s stopped already.”
“I’m at 1,000 feet! 900 AGL!” Shying from the menacing clouds overhead, I’d descended further without noticing. “Is there anything tall around here?”
“You checked the sectional when you plotted your course line. There aren’t any. Just hold that GPS track. See, only 20 miles to go! You’ll be touching down at Walterboro in 15 minutes. Can’t you do this for 15 more minutes?”
“Maybe … No! Look, there are clouds BELOW me!” I could see feathery fluff ahead of my left wing, above the treetops.
“Look, if it goes solid below you, you can 180 back to Florence. Just keep going and see what —”
“Oh God, more rain. And the altimeter says 900!”
“Hang on, you can make it! Fly just a few more minutes. Hold that GPS track, keep the wings level. You don’t want to miss that party!”
Keep on? Turn back? I struggled to decide, until a sudden voice in my headphones rasped my call sign. “Cherokee Seven Three Tango, are you receiving Mooney Two One Kilo Bravo?”
What the heck? I was tuned to the Charleston Approach frequency, which I realized I hadn’t heard from in a while.
“Seven Three Tango is receiving the Mooney,” I responded, trying to sound calm as the clouds around my airplane closed in and the gray blankness ahead shaded towards the color of slate.
“Seven Three Tango, this is a relay from Charleston Approach. They say that you’re too low for direct radio communication. You’re flying towards a Level 3 thunderstorm currently over Walterboro, and they want to know your intentions.”
A thunderstorm? My indecision fled. So did I, banking Tango into a left turn. Beyond the wingtip I could see a clutch of paint cans in the bed of a dingy pick-up. I glanced at my instruments — 800 feet! I continued the turn, carefully watching my altitude.
“Mooney, thank you, please inform Charleston that Seven Three Tango is reversing course and returning to Florence.” I felt grateful that someone had watched out for me as I heard the Mooney relay my message.
But before I was on my new course, the argument resumed.
“When you get back to the lake,” the Dangerous Passenger said, “you can circle until the storm leaves, and try again in 15, 20 minutes.”
“No!” I actually yelled. “I’m going back to Florence! Tango could have been bloody scrap metal in some Carolina cotton field. That was stupid — incredibly stupid. I’m landing at Florence!”
There was only silence as I backtracked northward, and it felt good to fly without that distraction. As I neared Lake Marion conditions improved. I could see both shores ahead as I climbed through 1,500 feet.
“Umm … ?”
“No!”
More silence. My mind was set, and that felt good, too. For the next half hour things remained quiet except for radio communication: Positions, instructions, requests.
On the ramp at Florence I shut off Tango’s lights and electronics and cut the engine, watching the propeller come to its usual bouncy stop.
Then I brought the Dangerous Passenger, who flies everywhere with me, thinks I can do anything, and believes I can conquer or escape any risk, into the Flight Ops building. I wanted a reality check.
Florence’s NEXRAD displayed a wound-like blotch east of Walterboro. More interesting were the crimson lumps west and south, following like sharks stalking a floating wreck.
“I should have turned back sooner,” I said.
“You could have made it through,” I grumbled.
I’m just wondering how many of you missed it that the “Dangerous Passenger” is the PIC….he was alone in the plane.
I picked that up, he really does need to insure that his pax is totally banned from all further flights. He needs to establish personal rules and procedures that are cast in bronze, then follow them to the letter,
Nooooo! You’re kidding!!
At the risk of piling on, I have to assert that the pilot may not be qualified to act as PIC if he lacks the strength of personality to tell his chatterbox passenger to STFU. Nothing to do with stick and rudder skills.
The most dangerous, could be an epileptic,guy i think
“The Captain, not the first class passengers, or the deck hands, is in CHARGE of the ship”!
It’s the ole get there-itis story. A common one that unfortunately too often doesn’t turn out the way yours did. Keep on disregarding that dangerous passenger and stick to your common sense. It will serve you well in the future. I notice you never tried to consult with FSS or with Approach Control to get a weather update before you got too low to communicate. They’re there to provide assistance if asked. Better to consult them than that dangerous pax.
I know everybody is going to disagree with me, but before you fly again, you need to get rid of that passenger, he infects you like a cancer and one day will be your undoing, In 50 years of aviating and 48 years of instructing, i have seen many pilots that allow that particular passenger on board, they have all paid the ultimate price and unfortunately in some cases so have other passengers.
Dangerous Passenger, who flies everywhere with me
“You could have made it through,” I grumbled.
Dangerous passenger was …. the pilot himself!
Once after returning to flying after 30 years.I had about 30 recent hours, left seat, and decided that I would do right seat. After all, back in 1970 I got my instructors at age 20, and 250 hours. So what that now it is 2002?
In a C150 I took off just fine, solo. right seat. Felt great!
Then the winds came, along with the dusk. I was good in the left seat…amazing how much your body /muscles can remember. But in right seat my left arm didn’t smoothly control the throttle, and my right well it just didn’t have any idea how to crab and then kick out before landing.
Well the tree tops swayed. And so did the plane with a 90* cross wind.
After 5 aborted landings….do you know how hard it was to go from the right seat to the left seat in a C150, bouncing in the air, at 800 feet( the ceiling dropped!) My CFI / A/C owner asked if I wanted to divert… he heard me from the hanger. ” Oh no, everything is just great!”
Left seat worked just fine…muscle memory in the left seat was much better…
So I know about that “passenger”
Sounds like you both should be grounded for a while.
Great story and good reminder for us all no matter how long we’ve been flying or how many hours under our belts. That dangerous passenger can be found flying with any of us. Thanks for sharing your story.
It’s a good story. Thanks for sharing. Your PIC skills are much better (I hope!!) now that you’ve experienced the alternate “p”IC (PASSENGER In Command) problem. You also experienced the danger of incedicisiveness. Better to be “on the ground wishing to be aloft, than in the air praying to be on the ground (safely)”. I encourage you to read the ASRS reports, as well as browse the NTSB aviation accident reports. Even better than praying to be on the ground is to avoid the situation completely. It’s far better to learn from someone else’s very bad judgment than to play the odds of surviving your own.
Perfect aeronautical decision making
You learned cheap lesion. Your Luck bucket held out. Keep filling that experience bucket and LEARN. Any Plans to work on the instrument rating?
There are various endeavers in life that we deal with. Some require series thinking, however, if you read aircraft accident reports, there is a common thread which is never present – the desire to stay alive and minimize risk. Where logic is not used, death is next. Luck is not reliable, staying alive is the bottom line.
At about age 8, I started reading the Grampaw Pettibone articles in Naval Aviation News. I learned a lot about how to think aviation style. After getting my B.S. Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, I became a Flight Test Engineer at the Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, Maryland. (Now called the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Center (NAWCAD)) Flight safety requires logical and accurate thinking: life, aircraft, and accurate data. Accurate data will save the lives of future flight crews, also.
Great story, great writting!
most of us have carried that Dangerous Passenger. Let’s keep him as quit as possible.
While you did good to turn back, you really had no idea of the weather behind you either. Once across the lake you have a number of airports right under you, Summerville, St. George, Holly Hill, Moncks Corner etc. A more prudent action would be to land at one of those. What if the ceilings lowered on the long flight back to Florence?
You could have also called Flight Watch or even ATC for weather updates.