Last week a family member found themselves sitting at an airport gate for many hours due to a delayed flight. The airline did what it could to keep passengers informed. Boredom and scheduling pressures tend to make those updates feel insufficient and weak, however. Hours turned into more hours until the flight was ultimately cancelled.
What was supposed to be a reasonable but uninspiring wait for a commercial flight turned into an unexpected overnight stay followed by a rebooking in the morning on the first available flight — which is not necessarily synonymous with the first flight.
That’s the world of commercial air travel. Delays and cancellations happen. Summer brings thunderstorms and thunderstorms bring risk. The smart move may be to re-route the flight. Or delay. Or cancel. What can a poor passenger do?
That’s at the commercial level where highly trained and credentialed crews fly larger, more capable aircraft than most general aviation pilots have access to. They have better equipment and full redundancy. Yet they take weather seriously — even if passengers and loved ones awaiting their arrival are less than enthused by the scheduling problems that arise as a result.
Every general aviation pilot on the planet should take this to heart. Because the reality of our history deserves to be considered with great care before we launch off willy-nilly into the ether just because we planned on going.
This summer we are likely to see metal bent, blood spilled, and easily preventable deaths as pilots fly into weather they have no business being anywhere near. That’s a bleak, depressing prediction, but one that is based on what has happened in the past. Not mere conjecture, but an expectation based on actual accidents caused by the proximity of aircraft to weather the pilot or the aircraft could not safely transition through.
Believe it or not, thunderstorms are a factor in roughly one quarter of all fatal weather-related accidents that befall general aviation pilots and their passengers. Thunderstorms. The kind of weather phenomenon that is so remarkably common throughout the United States every summer season. From Maine to Florida, from the fruited plains to the mountain’s majesty, thunderstorms are out to get us.
Fortunately, we general aviation pilots can take the exact same precaution my dogs take when those thunder-boomers roll into the neighborhood. We can simply tuck ourselves into a nearby building and wait out the nastiness. It’s really that simple. Be on the ground, get yourself inside, and wait.
That’s not such a complex solution to an otherwise life-threatening problem.
Of course, we may not be so lucky to be on the ground when the weather turns. We may encounter those cumulonimbus monsters of the sky after we’ve already been airborne for a while. Halfway between here and there. The weather at our departure point may be stellar. The weather at our destination may be beautiful. But in between exists a weather phenomenon we may be tempted to think we can weave our way through.
After all, we have a schedule to keep. Right?
Here’s a nifty little statistic. In 2008, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s Air Safety Institute (then known as the Air Safety Foundation) published a document focused on this very topic. In that brief collection of pages it was revealed that nearly every pilot back then who was dashed into the ground due to thunderstorm activity was in contact with ATC when the accident occurred.
There is a lesson to be learned here. The radio won’t save us. ATC means well and will do all they can to help. But they’re on the ground in a hardened building. We are far more vulnerable. Our only real protection is our wits and our skills.
Getting our butts on the ground quickly or changing course to get many miles away from the weather can be our only safe course of action. Not the preferred course of action, mind you. The only safe course of action.
Contrary to popular belief, thunderstorms are not always easy to spot and avoid.
They may be obvious. A pillar of cumulonimbus climbing from near ground level to far higher altitudes than our piston engines could possibly reach. Or they may be embedded in a layer of clouds that completely obscure these killers from our view. And it isn’t unheard of for those thunderstorms to form up like a murderous chorus line to dance across the landscape below, sweeping clean anything foolish enough to be in the sky ahead and bold enough to get close.
This is not a small thing. If a Boeing 767 with a full crew and all the modern conveniences of flight takes the option of delaying, re-routing, or cancelling in deference to the weather, perhaps we should consider that course of action, too.
As a general aviation pilot, I could decide it’s okay to launch off to carry friends and family over the horizon because I didn’t see a Convective SIGMET pop up on my iPad. Or I could be the pilot who watches the morning news show while downing a coffee. If I see thunderstorms forecast along my route, I might get a bit more into the weeds with my planning. And while I may decide to GO, rather than NO-GO, I might also pick an intermediate option for landing just in case.
When I brief my passengers, I might also include this. The weather ahead may be a little rough. So, we may need to take off earlier, or later, or not at all. Today might not be our day. Which, ironically, might mean today we’ve made our best decision ever.
May you have many happy tomorrows as a result.
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