Whenever student pilots interact with controllers rather than fellow apprentices in the break room, there’s going to be much less forgiveness when mistakes are made. Learners are expected to absorb rapid-fire instructions, acknowledge everything verbatim, and comply without question–all with limited capacity and familiarity. It’s no wonder errors take place in such a situation.

Some ground-based role-playing is expected to prepare students for Class D operations, subsequently accompanied by actual immersion. Fortunate indeed are the learners who start out flying at a tower-controlled airport, from hour-one, with a CFI at their elbow to run interference until they get it right. Even so, there will be plenty of opportunities for unforeseen out-of-the-ordinary circumstances to come up, leaving them unprepared.

At greater disadvantage is the learner who has matriculated at an uncontrolled field, now tasked with having to enter the world of ATC. Suddenly, strange new terms are emanating from the headset, each one fraught with a paralyzing fear of descending wrath from above if misunderstood. Again, there will invariably be changing situations that require adaptive instructions, containing terms not covered in schooling. 

One contributor to learners’ mistakes is “expectation bias.” Inexperienced pilots expect to hear the usual taxi instructions, such as a simple “cleared for takeoff, left turn approved” when reporting ready to go and a welcoming “cleared to land” as they announce their arrival. It can’t always happen, and an offbeat clearance can be misunderstood or even disregarded in favor of what was expected.

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It’s also easy to read back instructions and acknowledge with one’s N-number yet not fully register the clearance cerebrally. In the rush to comply, a parroted reply can register wrongly. “Turn right zero-five-zero, maintain at or below two-thousand-five-hundred, contact departure on one-two-five-seven-seven” becomes a left turn to two-five-zero, and the ensuing straightening-out results in a busted altitude restriction. 

The simplest ATC requests sound confusing when you haven’t heard them before. “You’re number three, extend your downwind, I’ll call your base” leaves a learner wondering how to fly the approach. Staying on the downwind course leads to lost altitude unless adequate power is maintained, and they have to stay aware of the fluid traffic situation. The number-one aircraft is probably at the runway by now, and number two is turning final. If you report airplane-two “in sight” with “November such-and-such has the traffic,” you’ll hear “maintain separation with that traffic.” Turn in behind it and keep a matching speed, and you can receive your “cleared to land” as soon as it’s turning off the runway. 

“Make a right 360 for spacing” confuses a learner on a left-downwind expecting a “cleared to land.” Once acknowledged, you should make a crisp medium-bank circle away from the field that brings the plane back onto the downwind after a minute or so, not a wandering creeping orbit covering half the county. 

Tower controllers want to plan for after-landing movement of the airplanes under their control and will bark a “where are you parking?” while the learner is rolling out. Expect this, and have a reply ready like “Mom and Pop’s Aviation” so the controller will know whether you’re exiting left or right, and then be prepared for “exit at Delta Three, contact ground point-nine when clear” or “remain this frequency, taxi via Delta, Echo, Foxtrot.” 

The important rule for student pilots, or anyone struggling to comprehend, is to let the controller know if you don’t understand the instructions. Better to seek clarification than proceed blindly, bollixing up the traffic flow. Some airports’ local procedures are different than what you’re used to at home; if you don’t understand, say so. Never, ever surprise a controller; do what’s expected, and all will be well.

The post Working With ATC appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

On April 26, 2022, at approximately 11:12 a.m. ET, while in level VFR flight at 2,000 agl and cruising over the nondescript Ohio landscape, 2,000-hour-plus pilot Marc Epner experienced the unthinkable in his Cirrus SR22, N973SD—a total engine failure.

Cue the sweaty palms.

What makes this event unique is the fact that the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System, affectionately referred to as CAPS, was intentionally, albeit not consciously, not activated as Epner recalls. “The brain told me what to do,” he says. “I knew exactly what to do and reacted accordingly.” This included establishing the best glide speed, picking out a suitable landing area, a restart attempt, sending out a Mayday call on Guard—121.5—and successfully landing the airplane. Elapsed time from engine failure to safe landing: 1 minute, 36 seconds.

While the timing of the event had a positive outcome—10 minutes later and the failure would have occurred over a populated Cleveland, which would likely have necessitated the need to activate the CAPS with unknown results—Epner never doubted the need to declare an emergency to ATC. In fact, it can be said that if you are questioning whether you must declare an emergency, in all likelihood, you should. Once the “startle effect” at the outset of the engine failure subsided, previous scenario training kicked in with laser focus, allowing for Epner’s successful landing. (For more information on the startle effect, see the article “Scrubbing the Flight” in the September 2023 issue of Plane & Pilot)

The same cannot be said of an accident that might have been prevented if an emergency had been declared on September 15, 2017. The noninstrument-rated pilot, his wife, and two children took off from Fort Collins-Loveland Municipal Airport (KFNL), now known as Northern Colorado Regional Airport, en route to Canyonlands Regional Airport (KCNY) in Moab, Utah. They found themselves in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) at night over mountainous terrain in a Cirrus SR22. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reported that “…the flight was likely operating in [IMC] at the time of the accident, [which] included light to moderate icing conditions. The airplane likely encountered intermittent IMC beginning about 30 minutes after takeoff and continued into an area of solid IMC about three minutes before the accident occurred.”

In this case, the pilot was already on flight following and talking to ATC. He was attempting to circumnavigate mountainous terrain at night in bad weather. He was below the minimum en-route altitude (MEA) for that area and, for whatever reason, did not declare an emergency with ATC. Perhaps he believed he could salvage a bad situation. Maybe he was relying on the advanced technology of the glass panel to protect him. Or maybe he was concerned he would get into trouble after the fact with the FAA. Sadly, we will never really know his reasoning or motivation to forgo a Mayday call. What we do know, according to the NTSB final report, is the aircraft struck terrain with the airframe and engine showing severe fragmentation consistent with a high-energy impact likely caused by the pilot experiencing a loss of control because of spatial disorientation, which resulted in a subsequent descent into terrain with fatal results. 

Pilots are generally an intelligent breed. So why are some pilots reluctant to declare an emergency? Even when they know in the back of their pilot brain that such a declaration can bring valuable resources to the forefront while improving the chance of surviving the crisis, many still refuse to send out that Mayday call.

According to former NTSB senior investigator Greg Feith, there should be no ambiguity in declaring an emergency when a critical in-flight emergency occurs. The long-standing myth that sending out a Mayday call and declaring an emergency will result in copious amounts of paperwork for a pilot is simply untrue. Sure, there may be some documents to complete, but it’s not anything that should prevent a pilot in distress from taking such action.

Feith says the benefit of an emergency declaration—including having a controller one-on-one to assist, clearing the frequency and airspace as required, priority handling, and having another set of eyes available to provide critical information—should outweigh any concern of increased paperwork while increasing the chance of a good outcome.

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One of the other common myths and concerns of pilots, according to Feith, is the FAA will use the emergency to impose a fine resulting from conditions that occurred leading up to it. “The FSDO (Flight Standards District Office) is not out to ‘get’ anyone,” Feith says. “While they must enforce the rules, there should be no concern if the pilot has done what the FAR tells them to do, and you have demonstrated good ADM (aeronautical decision making).” This includes proper preflight planning and making appropriate decisions as the emergency unfolds. It is not worth risking lives because of a propagating myth.

And it’s not just the FAA and NTSB that encourage a pilot in distress to ask for help from ATC early in an emergency. Rocky Sparks, a U.S. Air Force controller at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, North Carolina, says that while he was working an otherwise normal shift, a Cirrus pilot advised him of an engine failure while at 7,500 feet msl. This quickly set a series of events in motion, including clearing the airspace and providing heading and distance information to the nearest airport (which, in this case, was unattainable). In addition, Sparks notified the appropriate emergency responders of the pending forced landing.

By declaring the emergency early, the Cirrus pilot had the benefit of a controller to keep everyone informed of the situation as it unfolded, including the aircraft’s trajectory. In this case, the pilot chose to deploy the Cirrus CAPS when a safe landing at an airport or field could not be assured. A safe descent under the canopy ensued and, with the assistance of ATC, ground-based emergency responders arrived within minutes of the disabled aircraft’s touchdown.

But what if the pilot does not decide to declare an emergency when it seems the situation would dictate that one is unfolding? According to Feith, ATC can declare an emergency on the pilot’s behalf. If the controller senses it is life-threatening, it can and will be handled as an emergency.

However, in some cases, there is a gray area, and the controller is waiting for the pilot to confirm the emergency. According to multiple sources, the controller will attempt to determine the extent of a possible emergency by asking the pilot, “What are your intentions?” At that point, it is up to the pilot to state they are declaring an emergency and need assistance. Those magic words will allow full ATC resources to be available to the aircraft in trouble.

An example of where this could have changed the outcome of an accident occurred on January 25, 1990. The commercial airline flight, Avianca 052 from Bogotá, Colombia, to New York, tragically ended when the aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed into a hillside in the village of Cove Neck, New York, on the north shore of Long Island. Eight of the nine crewmembers and 65 of the 149 passengers on board were killed.

The NTSB determined the crash occurred because of the “flight crew failing to properly declare a fuel emergency.” The ambiguity of the pilot stating he was “fuel critical” instead of declaring a fuel emergency resulted in aircraft sequencing that was not prioritized the way it would have been had an emergency been declared. This crash directly resulted in positive changes in how Part 121 carriers manage and report fuel-critical emergencies.

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With all the resources available to pilots when they are presented with an in-flight emergency, it is incumbent on the entire pilot community to remember that declaring an emergency to improve the chances of a good outcome and surviving the crisis should take precedence over any concerns about doing so. We are all taught to mitigate risk in the cockpit. According to the statistics and experts, declaring an emergency early will reduce risk and improve the odds of living to tell about an in-flight crisis during that next hanger flying session. Sweaty palms optional.

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in the November/December 2023 issue of Plane & Pilot magazine. 

The post I Do Declare appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.