This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.
I read the NOTAMs before flight. One NOTAM identifies an unlighted obstacle .9 miles south of Duchesne Municipal Airport (U69) in Utah. No problem, I thought, I’m flying in daylight hours in VMC.
On arrival I was shocked to find that the top of the obstacle, an oil-drilling rig, is right on the centerline and glidepath for Runway 35.
NOTAM or no NOTAM, without significant lighting, this obstacle would be extremely dangerous in low ceilings, poor visibility, and especially at night.
The only instrument approach to U69 is a circling approach from the east. Maneuvering during an instrument approach to land on Runway 35 or a missed approach from Runway 17 would be extremely dangerous.
This unlit obstacle must be remedied immediately!
Primary Problem: Environment
ACN: 2002446
Each lighted and marked obstacle has a party listed who is responsible for it. Contact FAA OE/AAA Offices to find out who. Document your call to the FAA as well, and ask them to contact the responsible party. Or, you could send them a certified letter informing them of the outage along with a reference that notice is given in the interest of avoiding possible contributing legal/liability consequence in the event of an incident/accident (low flying aircraft notwithstanding). Actually, better path may be to contact the governing body (city/county) to put them on notice as well. They may well contact the company and suggest they fix the bulb in the interest of safety for all concerned. Ask them to do so in a recorded public forum and certified letter.
This should never had been allowed, I wouldn’t want to be coming in at night to land there, almost everybody comes in a little lower at night than in the day time, oil rigs are probably very strong, if someone accidently hits one its certainly instant death. Bad situation on the airport. Very bad decision making by the higher ups, again money takes preference over common sense..
That’s right they shouldn’t be at 100 AGL 1.3 miles from runway but if there wasn’t any shouldn’t be’s we wouldn’t have this great section in General Aviation News. They shouldn’t be flying that low, they shouldn’t be cutting me off on final, etc.
I’ve filed a few FAA clearances for radio towers. If you have the height and gps location of the rig, it’s a fairly easy task to use the FAA site to check and see if the rig is in the glide slope of the runway. It is truly not enough to eyeball it. A lot of radio licenses are not correct. On the other hand, I’ve never had to relocate a tower. Just had to file for special clearance a time or two. The glide slope runs directly parallel from the runway. I did stop the construction of a church with a tall steeple right off the end of a runway. They were looking to purchase the land and asked someone at the airport if it was alright. Of course everyone in authority said it would be just fine. Pilots could just swing around the obstruction! When I found out what was going on, I ran the program and of course had to tell them they could talk to the FAA but they would be obstructing the glide path if they continued. For the most part people will argue, rather than check it out. Easy process though. You might save someone’s life.
A quick check today of the NOTAMS for U69 shows the oil rig 1.3 nm North of the runway 108 ft ASL , light out of service.
108 ft ASL in Utah?
It’s a mile away from the runway, 100 feet AGL. An aircraft shouldn’t be at 100 feet AGL out there, circling, missed approach, whatever. No?
Unless one is having “engine” problems of some kind.
Take-off with an engine problem right after rotation, not enough room to land…. This can happen to a Twin or a single.
2 specific examples, based on two Lances (one in the Atlanta area the other in the Indy area)– right about rotation an injector or two gets goo in it (stuff that is a constituent of 100LL) and it blocks or partly obstructs one or more injectors. I was the pilot for the one in the Indy area (and Thankfully I had practiced operating the auto-extend lockout/unlock without looking at it). The Lance in Atlanta ended up on a freeway.
Magnetos quit sometimes. Fuel pumps quit sometimes. Prop governors malfunction.
Now, to my knowledge, all Lances have the auto retract feature. If one hasn’t locked that out, in this kind of situation, your gear will not fully retract until you lock it out. So you may not be able to climb above 200 FPM until you get the gear retracted.
A tower like the one in this story, now has a bullseye on it because you are having to get configured so you can climb and you are really paying attention to where it is while trying to maintain control of the plane….
On a twin, you are now having to clean up the plane (I learned in a Seminole) so you can get 200+ fpm climb to be able to go around for a landing.
These scenarios assume density altitude such that one CAN get 200+fpm climb.
In any of these scenarios you do not want a tower off the end of a runway that is sticking up 100′ AGL Lit or not.
I agree:
U69 sits at 5831’ MSL. Rwy 17/35 is 5800’ long. The circling MDA for the VOR/DME-A (only IAP available) is 6660’ (829’ HAA). If you’re departing on Rwy 35, or landing on Rwy 17, VFR or IFR, and you’re down at 100’ AGL, one+ mile north of the airport on an ‘extended centerline’, you’ve got bigger problems than avoiding a 100’-tall unlit obstacle…