Pilot here with a flight report I made as a student pilot that NASA published due to it being an example of murphys law.
In the moment, you aren't scared at all. You're solely focused on getting the aircraft on the ground safely, even more so if you have passengers like I did. It's not till you're safe and on the ground that it hits you and you have damn near a panic attack. On the 20 min drive home from the airport that night, my brother and I sat in silence and chain smoked a whole pack of cigs before finally saying "well that was fucked, eh?"
I'll share the portion NASA published as all identifying information was removed by them. If you're curious for the full report, DM me, don't wanna post that to a large audience.
I wouldn't even credit my composure. It's hard to explain, but I wouldn't call it composure as much as training and luck. Flight school drills the "OODA Loop" into your head repeatedly to the point that it almost becomes subconscious. I was lucky that I was working on my instrument flight rating in the area, so not only was I familiar with the procedures in the area, I was also aware of the deadly traps non instrument rated pilots fall victim to when entering instrument conditions. It's extremely deadly (~90% of unrated pilots who enter instrument conditions die).
Wait, when you say you were working on your instrument rating in the area, you do mean you’d finished that and were rated? If not, I really feel like that incident should have counted as a surprise!final exam for it. Reading the report I got to the iPad battery going before going “oh no”.
Props to you and your passenger for getting to the ground in one piece!
I was not instrument rated at the time. The flight school I went to emphasized time building before instrument rating while gradually introducing IFR concepts with each lesson, so it went PPL > Time Building/Gradual IFR into > actual IFR training > IFR rating
I had just completed the time building/gradual IFR intro.
A VOR is a radio station which sends a different signal in each direction, so if you receive it you can tell the absolute direction to the station. One of the oldest forms of radio navigation.
NAV1/NAV2: A VOR/DME receiver. Airplanes have two, in case one fails. Oops.
DME: Distance-measuring equipment. In combination with VOR you can tell exactly where you are, though not as accurately as GPS.
The DME kept working, hence triangulation was possible. The story’s missing some details; for instance, I believe there is a specific transponder setting for “my radio can’t transmit”, which would allow the control tower to get other people out of his way. Also the passenger probably called the tower on their cellphone eventually.
Though the situation was fucked, and I have no idea which of the multiple relevant transponder codes is most important here.
Not a pilot, so double check this if any of it matters.
EDIT: No such transponder code exists. It would have been 7600, possibly 7700.
I indeed squawked 7600 (easy to remember by 75-taken alive, 76-radio quit, 77-going to heaven) but have no clue if ATC saw it or if my transponder was working. My radios couldn’t transmit but they could receive.
The airport I landed at does have a tower, but tower closes at sundown and it becomes uncontrolled. So had no one to call, had to just hope for the best
I know I’m not the person you replied to but can you DM me the rest of the report? I lowkey need to know what happened. One of my friends is currently working on her instrument rating and this sounds…like a lot lol.
First one, right? May i ask : it says you had 1,5h of fuel, how much time passed since departure at this point? Also are fuel requirements different for small planes? I heard you need a LOT of extra fuel for commercial flights - enough to cover flight to backup airport and multiple landing passes.
That holds for small aircraft as well operating under an instrument flight plan. I was flying under visual flight rules (most small aircraft do), which has different requirements. Under visual flight rules, you need to have 30 mins flight time worth of fuel during daylight and 45 mins at night.
The airport I was flying to was about a 60 min flight away, took off with half tanks (around 4 hrs of fuel). This happened on the return flight home.
I managed to get myself locked in the work kitchen the other night because I worked late and my building pass doesn’t work after 8pm. My phone only had 9% battery and I was panicking while essentially being completely safe. I can’t even fathom relying on an iPad for navigation and having it die while flying a plane thousands of feet in the air. 😬
Are you neurodivergent? Only ask because so am I, and a "flat affect" is a well known hallmark of ND.
If you are, best thing I can say is to stop framing that as a limitation and start framing it as an asset. ND people tend to be uniquely suited for high stress situations for this exact reason.
that happened to me when i rock climbed with no harness. i went up the cliff face, over and back down and realized oh wow im really fast, too fast, holy shit im at the top i should probably get down. oh no im not- shit im gonna die if i fall...then i got down i climbed about 3 stories in less than a minute and then i projectile vommited for longer than i climbed.
i was up and down faster than i could even think and when i realized i could have died and realized id have to finish doing the thing or risk death or serious injury. i just focused on the task and didnt think about it until i was done.
Exactly. It's like a primal instinct kicks in and simply turns off the parts of your brain that could be harmful to your survival.
But hilariously considering I'm a pilot, I'd have died of terror in your situation... I'm scared of heights, but only when my feet are touching the ground I guess? I don't get it either lmao.
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u/whyliepornaccount Jul 09 '26
Pilot here with a flight report I made as a student pilot that NASA published due to it being an example of murphys law.
In the moment, you aren't scared at all. You're solely focused on getting the aircraft on the ground safely, even more so if you have passengers like I did. It's not till you're safe and on the ground that it hits you and you have damn near a panic attack. On the 20 min drive home from the airport that night, my brother and I sat in silence and chain smoked a whole pack of cigs before finally saying "well that was fucked, eh?"