VFR Mastery Tag: Emergencies

It’s the beginning of a long flight when the engine informs you it has other plans. Now the windscreen is covered with oil and you must act fast. Do you have time to return to your departure airport? If so, how will you approach and land given your forward visibility just dropped to zero?

Practice is the stuff of prevention when it comes to avoiding bad outcomes in flying. There is a catch, however: If your practice isn’t fully thought through, it can create exactly the situation you’re trying to prevent. Now you have little more than your reaction time to pick the strategy that separates a survivable ending […]

What’s the best thing when your engine calls in sick on the descent to a metropolitan airport?  Do you stumble along over the populated area even though the motor might quit? Do you trek over a less-populated area to a different airport? Or do you land off-airport even though the airplane is still flying?

Passenger airsickness is an annoyance that almost every pilot has had to deal with at one time or another. Landing ASAP is the rule, but VFR above the clouds complicates the execution. The passenger might not be the only problem as well. Maybe you shouldn’t have ordered the fish.

It’s another installment of “You are the controller.” In today’s episode, you’re the lifeline for a VFR pilot who is stuck in IMC. Do you provide guidance the pilot requested—direct to the nearest airport—when you’re certain that’s not the best solution? And if not, what will you offer to a pilot who’s barely holding it […]

The worst has actually happened and now your Cessna is twisted aluminum on the hillside. Everyone is OK for the moment, but daylight is waning and a storm is predicted for midnight. Given the altitude of the accident, that storm might bring snow. Is there any way you can get rescued sooner with minimal extra […]

All you wanted was a day at the beach. Instead, you’re airborne in an airplane lacking a primary flight control. An air traffic controller helped you pick an airport for landing and has people standing by. Now you must configure the controls that remain and decide which technique gives you the greatest chance of walking […]

Emergencies are equal-opportunity hunters: They’ll strike high-time pilots and newbies alike. Now you’re alone in an airplane with under 50 hours of total time—and an engine that’s out of control. What are the risks and tradeoffs given four different plans to get this airplane on the ground? Can you adjust the plan on the fly?

Sometimes it’s obvious you must land right away…like today when your turbo normalized engine rolls back to low power without any input from you. The less obvious choice comes when the problem seems to go away. Do you stick with your plan to divert, or do you press on tentatively, ready to land as needed?

You’re out practicing some maneuvers, and ATC gives you a heads-up about traffic. You roll out of the turn and what do you see? There’s an airplane with no relative motion heading straight for you—close enough that you have only seconds to react. What will you do to avoid the collision?

It’s a beautiful day and a routine flight over the open fields of Kansas. A minor instrument glitch seems to have resolved itself, leaving you to contemplate the scenery. That’s until “fire in flight” changes from a POH procedure into an immediate reality. You must get much closer to that scenery right away … but […]

Flying a floatplane has inherent risks, one of which is your landing site might be impossible to use if the winds are wrong or the water is low. Amphibious gear gives you the best of both worlds—until it fails and leaves you searching for the least bad solution to a multi-headed problem.  

Seconds after rotation, the airplane has a mind of its own: It climbs; it descends; the controls seem all wrong. You get a moment of stability and have to decide what’s worse: Turning away from airlines approaching O’Hare—and risking renewed loss of control—or busting through the final approach of one of the world’s busiest Bravos.

There are few emergencies in aviation that require immediate action without time to think. One of them is an engine failure at low altitude. What will you do when faced with four options, given your actual view out the window? Or, will you use the airplane’s parachute—even though you’re so low it might make things […]

It’s just a short hop in a plane you’ve logged hundreds of hours flying. However, it’s not until rotation that you realize how poorly the airplane is performing. Now there’s not enough runway to put it back down, but barely enough climb to keep it in the air. Where will you go?

Bang: You have no engine and no hope of getting it back. In the next 30 seconds, you must decide where to put this airplane down with your daughter, your dog, and all your gear aboard. Ditch it in the lake or fly it into the trees? Think fast, you get lower with each passing […]

Fire might be the most terrifying thing a pilot can face. Even the possibility of a fire is enough to warrant an immediate diversion. But what if the nearest place has no assurance of landing, and the surest one is practically your destination anyway? And what if it’s not fire but just the smell of […]

VFR into IMC might be the deadliest trap for non-instrument pilots. It’s easy to say you’d just turn around, but the reality of cross-country flying is that deteriorating weather lures even the most resolute souls when it occurs slowly, and with tempting options–that can vanish in moments if the conditions are right.