The NTSB says the cause of the accident was that abracadabra has five syllables, not seven. At least that was my takeaway from the final report the agency issued on the nocturnal crash of a Cessna 150 at Twentynine Palms, California.
The unfortunate hero of this drama was a 24-year-old private pilot who seriously bent metal after executing an off-airport landing on a road, after running low on fuel, after failing to find the airport at night, after he couldn’t activate the pilot-controlled runway lights.
Ummmm … right.
Okay, well, there’s plenty of aeronautical decision making (or lack thereof) to talk about, but what really caught my attention was that the NTSB took the pilot to task for not checking the procedure for turning on the lights prior to his flight and further claimed that he used the incorrect procedure.
Now, as a reminder for veteran pilots, and as an introduction for student pilots: Pilot Controlled Lighting is like one of those timers you use to turn your living room lights on and off when you’re on vacation so that burglars will think you’re at home. Only it uses a radio between the power source and the light instead of a timer. This radio is designed to listen for mike “clicks” on a designated frequency, and when it hears them, it activates a relay that allows the lights to come on like magic.
The agency, which went so far as to include a copy of the airport’s Chart Supplement on the accident’s docket — showing that the airport has medium-intensity pilot-controlled lighting — then said: “To activate the pilot-controlled lighting, the pilot must key the mike five times in five seconds. The pilot reported that he did not check what the proper procedures were for operating the pilot-controlled lighting for the runway.”
That may well be true, but neither, apparently, did the NTSB.
The Aeronautical Information Manual tells us to “always initially key the mike 7 times; this assures that all controlled lights are turned on to the maximum available intensity.”
It then goes on to say that you can use a lesser number of clicks to make adjustments to the system, if the system is equipped to allow that. Our hero clicked his mike seven times, right out of the book. He even did it thrice with no dice.
Now, I’m not giving him a pass. What about his fuel reserves? What about looking for the beacon to find the airport? How about calling ATC for vectors? All legit issues, but instead, the NTSB threw him under the bus for not keying his mike five times to turn on the lights, when that’s not the proper procedure.
Shame on you, NTSB.
“Shame on you, NTSB.”
But having said that, later the same week a report from the Aviation Safety Reporting System was released with another pilot, at another airport, having problems with Pilot Controlled Lighting. So maybe it’s not just the NTSB that needs a refresher. Perhaps we all do.
Now, the NTSB was right in calling out light-boy for not bothering to check for the 4-1-1 on the lights before his flight, because even though the agency got the procedure wrong, there are a number of potential stumbling blocks that can leave the unprepared pilot in the dark. And proper preflight action starts with the chart.
On the VFR sectional chart, between the airport’s altitude and the length of the longest runway, you’ll find your first clue on the lighting.
If there’s a small hyphen between the altitude and runway length, there are no lights at all. So don’t be clicking up a storm.
Meanwhile, a lone “L” tells you that there are lights, and that they blaze away from sunset to sunrise. But as that eats up a lot of electricity, it’s somewhat rare nowadays, so more often you’ll see “*L,” which means the lighting isn’t on all the time.
In FAA parlance: Lighting limitations exist. It could be you need to call ahead and have someone turn them on for you or it could be you can do it yourself, in flight, using your com radio.
You need to check the Chart Supplement for the 4-1-1 on all of this, but sadly, once you get to the supplement, things aren’t quite so clear, and you need to look in three different places to get the whole picture.
The first place is the airport sketch, assuming the airport has one. This is where you can find icons that tell you more about an airport’s lighting. Look for circles with letters, sometimes accompanied by numbers. These symbols tell you what kind of lighting systems are installed. Now, if the circles feature what the FAA calls “negative symbology,” which is a fancy word for white print in a black circle, the lights can be controlled by pilots.
Which is where we come to our first stumbling block. Usually, Pilot Controlled Lighting is on the common traffic frequency (CTAF), but not always, so if you didn’t bother to check, and can’t light up the night, it could be you’re calling the wrong number.
The appropriate frequency is hidden under the SERVICE section, after the bold letters LGT, which stands for lighting rather than alternate genders, at least in this case. You may just find the letters “CTAF” if the common frequency is used, or you may find a specific frequency listed, if an alternate frequency is used for the lights at the airport.
Why would a different frequency be used? I’m not 100% sure, but I suspect it’s done when two airports with the same CTAF are close enough that pilots can unintentionally activate both lighting systems.
Meanwhile, more details about the lighting systems on each runway can be found in the runway details section for each runway, but we’re not done yet. AIRPORT REMARKS may also contain some lighting tidbits. Meanwhile, if you see “NSTD” anywhere lighting is being discussed, that means “non-standard,” so in that case — which is not the case at Twentynine Palms — there may be funky procedures for activating lighting. Stumbling block number two.
Moving on to the cockpit. The magic seven clicks of the mike are supposed to be done within five seconds, but in the real world, systems vary in their sensitivity to breaks between clicks. Click too quickly and the system (especially older ones) can mistake your multiclicks as one long click. But too much time between clicks won’t work either. Really, it’s kind of like Goldilocks trying all the porridge bowls to find the one with the right temperature. Stumbling block number three.
Related to this, I suspect, is the nature of the clicker itself. Do you have a sweet little built-in push-to-talk switch on your yoke? Or a ginormous after-market garage door opener button on a ribbon of velcro?
But wait, there’s more. Airplane radios vary in strength, with some having com antennas only mounted on the top of the plane. Add that to the fact the lighting system’s radios are low sensitivity — meaning you have to be close for them to work — and we get stumbling blocks four, five, and six.
Our last stumbling block is that systems can fail or may be down for maintenance, so you have to check for a Notice to Air Mission before you launch.
So it’s not just seven clicks to turn on the lights. There are also seven ways to screw it up.
Seems like the the problem here with the lights is the same old one (The problem was solved in the 50’s so don’t change it for the better). I can think of many easy ways to make lighting safer.
1. Have the landing light turn on procedure be required to be added to the ATIS,AWOS and ASOS. I don’t see any cost or technology needed for that.
2. Add solar lighting as a backup, might not be able to see 5 miles out, but could save some one, already exist and certified, just need funding.
3. Automatically activate lights via ADS-B out when an aircraft is within 4 miles, ok that doesn’t exists now, but could do everything from controlling when the light are on to intensity.
The most important bit was left out – must have an alternate if landing somewhere with PAL…
In olden times, there were only a couple of CTAFs in use, and almost universally, those operated the PCL. The most common one was 123.6 (which isn’t common any more); the other I don’t recall. Wife 2 and I were on the way to Reno from Laramie for the races. As we flew in the dark across southwestern Wyoming at 12,000’ (IFR, although the night was clear), I could tell she was nervous, although usually she was not a nervous passenger. I asked what was bothering her, and she said she felt like there was nothing out there at all, that we were all alone. I said that we weren’t all alone, and I could show her. I switched the navcom to 123.6 and clicked the mic 7 times—and because we were flying so high, every airport for miles around lit up. Relieved, she promptly fell asleep.
Now there are many CTAFs as well as discrete PCL frequencies, which makes it harder to know what frequency to turn on the lights. As the article says, not only is that difficult, but there are other potential technical flaws, not the least of which is timing 7 clicks in 5 seconds at a rate that the somewhat antiquated PCL systems will not interpret as only one click when there were several. My first instructor back in 1972 asked me to practice counting to 7 while watching the second hand of my watch, until I had the timing down pat. I passed that “trick” on to my students when I was instructing in the 70s and 80s.
The other important lesson, though, is that PCL doesn’t always work, no matter how good the pilot’s efforts are. The frequency can be right, the rate of clicking can be right, but the system still doesn’t turn on the lights. Been there, done that. So the choice is either go elsewhere, or learn to land without airport lighting. Learning to land without operating landing lights on the airplane is common training; learning to land without airport lighting isn’t very common. I submit that it should be. It can be a life saver.
A really different scenario I encounter is taking off at night, after tower is closed, using a runway that has the lights set all the way up by a plane that has just landed. I don’t want lights blazing in my face at start of takeoff roll. Once that plane has confirmed they have cleared the runway, I set the lights back to a lower, appropriate level. Of course, this also includes checking that there isn’t still another plane also approaching for landing! Coordinate and communicate!
I appreciate this article as the FAA and NTSB often gloss over these factors and simply throw blame on the pilot. For instance, it seems accident reports commonly state accidents were caused by “the pilot’s selection of an unsuitable landing area. A contributing factor was the engine failure.” Evaluating the situation further, after all, would require additional work and review of the overall system. It’s a lost opportunity to truly understand accidents and their different factors.
Unsuitable may mean better options were present. Night flight without suitable fuel quantity or knowledge of the destination runway and an alternate is purely the pilot. Probably should not have been given a license signoff in the first place. Indeed the most glossed over component is the CFIs signing off incompetent pilots performing rote tasks. I think I read where the FAA is starting to recognize that issue.