Harrison Ford landed on Taxiway Charlie at John Wayne Airport last month. Everyone who knows I am a pilot and an aviation safety columnist contacted me as soon as they heard about Ford. My mother even chimed in, certain the actor should be stripped of his license, as this was his fourth accident. I explained […]
Local procedures
I remember flying into an unfamiliar airport once and the pilots on frequency chiding me for not knowing the name of their airfield. Didn’t make sense to me. I made each callout using the FAA-charted name. When I wondered aloud what the deal was, the FBO manager told me: “That’s not our local procedure.” Ignorance […]
Cognitive dissonance
I was downwind to base, getting checked out in a light twin, when my instructor asked me if I’d done my GUMPS check yet. Most of my flying has been in large transport aircraft, so, no, I hadn’t. I’d forgotten. I fumbled my way through GUMPS, three times, before I remembered that the “U” is […]
Strange but true
At the end of last year, I presented you all with a gift of heroic acts from the annals of the reports in NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System, in the pilots’ own words. This year I give you “unusual cockpit occurrences.” Some have been edited for clarity and length. Enjoy and happy holidays! Sand trap […]
Electrical failure
One of the pilots had a handheld radio in his flight bag, in the back of the airplane. He spent a good amount of time fighting with his seatbelt, and then crawling over seats to retrieve it.
Cell phones and airplanes: A deadly combination
A cell phone fire onboard a Southwest Airlines jet parked at the jetway made news recently. Apparently, the phone was off and in the passenger’s pocket when it ignited. He managed to yank it from his pocket and throw it to the floor. The phone promptly set the carpet on fire before both were extinguished. […]
Cold case
“It was a close call,” wrote the captain in her report to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System. “If we had not realized what was happening and acted on it, all the occupants of the aircraft would have likely lost consciousness and suffocated.” What catastrophic event caused one airline captain to have a near-death experience on […]
Hypoxia, Part 1
El Paso to Phoenix, 11:30 p.m., cruising at 12,000, we could barely hear the radio calls from all the laughter in the cockpit. It was the second leg of three, after taking delivery of our newly acquired Twin Comanche in Dallas. The winds aloft were warmer than normal. We were positively giddy that neither the […]
Reckless behavior
I went to a concert at the Hollywood Bowl one January night in 1995. I remember several things about that night. First, I recall offering my jacket to my date, as it was unseasonably cold. Normally in January in the LA basin, summer temperatures prevail because of strong easterly Santa Ana winds scouring hot air […]