Cessna 172 vs Chinook helicopter

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 was on approach for Cecil Field (KVQQ) in Jacksonville, Florida, using the RNAV 09R approach.

Approach Control cleared me for the approach and handed me off to Tower.

While receiving my landing clearance from Tower, I was notified of multiple Chinook helicopters practicing south of my arrival runway.

I continued my approach and went visual, out from under the hood, at 500 feet.

While at less than a third of a mile on the approach I noticed a helicopter hovering in close proximity to the numbers for the runway. By my visual estimation he was 150 to 250 feet to the south of the numbers over the existing concrete pad.

I continued my approach. While over the numbers at about 100 feet my aircraft rolled about 35° left, away from the Chinook, and lost 50 feet of altitude due to a loss of lift. I initiated a go-around and started to climb out after nearly rolling into the ground.

During the climb-out I reported wind shear. The Tower remarked that no reports of wind shear had been made and that the wind was calm. He then took my report of +/- how many feet.

Once I had fully recovered and turned to the downwind, I realized that the cause of the blow over and wind shear was wake turbulence from the Chinook.

I remarked on frequency that I thought the shear was caused by the Chinook and the Tower said “ok” and then asked the Chinook to land in place until I was on the ground. The Chinook complied and I executed a long landing and touched down nearly halfway down the runway to ensure I would not have any more issues.

After taxiing back to the end of the runway and receiving my IFR clearance, I asked for the Tower’s number to talk to him after my flight.

We spoke once I was back on the ground and he and I both concurred that the Chinook had caused my issue. He said that after I left he switched the active runway to Runway 36 to prevent any more issues with the Chinook.

I advised him that there is no scenario that a 172 wins against the wake turbulence of a Chinook and that if it had been a student pilot or if I hadn’t reacted as quickly, someone could have died.

Primary Problem: Ambiguous

ACN: 2167835

When you click on the link it will take you to the ASRS Online Database. Click on Report Number and put the ACN in the search box, then click Search. On that page, click on “view only the 1 most recent report.”