Real Pilot Story: Trapped On Top

my name is Jim Lawson I'm an aircraft mechanic Knapton Wyoming I got my pilot's license in about the mid-1980s and then I got my instrument rating I usually fly around 30 40 hours a year we have a son and his family that live in North Bend Washington my wife said why don't you take their Christmas presents and fly them to them and just spend a day or two with them because they're not going to be able to come and visit us this year for Christmas and I kept watching the weather and I thought you know that's really not a bad idea so on December the 10th early in the morning I headed for Ellensburg Washington which is on the the east side of the Snoqualmie Pass was an absolute beautiful day when I got to ellisburg though why there was some low-lying clouds that moved in and my GPS was showing a red flag by Ellensburg and so I thought well it's no big guy a big deal because Arlington was showing a green flag and I thought well I'll just go on over to Arlington Washington which is north of Seattle and I'll land there so I went across the pass and I went over to Arlington and I tuned in their weather and it said the ceiling was broken but by the time I got there why the weather had closed in there also and I couldn't get down so then I saw some mountains sticking up out of the clouds and I thought well maybe if I go over there why there will be a break between the side of the mountains and the clouds where I can slip down through but Marcus gets down so I'm really getting low on fuel now because I've been to my destination I've been to my alternate I've flown around like 20 minutes after my alternate and still can't find a place to get down so at that time I decided you know I'm in trouble I've been a controller for 18 plus years but all in towers until now so I've been training for about a month is all so I was training at the time but he called up said he was on top and he wanted to get down to Auburn it wasn't an IFR day but it was solid overcast most of the fields were VFR but marginal at best Seattle Saturday coffee kids being in Seattle Center is an approach 19 - okay well I'm you can help me I was flying f2 ellisburg and what I of course when I got there weather clouds were over and I went to Arlington that I can't get down through and I'll forget if you get low on fuel and sink callsign Center creme tonight then November 1 3 tango Micah 30 moon d13 tango Mike are you IFR capable and qualified I am I appar but I am NOT caught and 113 might verify every airplane is capable and what are your intentions the airplane is capable and what I what I would like to do if I go to Auburn so I get down there I was training ken and so we're started asking the other controllers in the room working arrivals in the C text they can see any holes in the clouds at all and they said that they saw one co-pilots awesome down near Sun field Pierce County Airport I heard him talking to other people also letting them know what my situation well while he was doing that the industry and so I switched from my right tank to the left and it started running again because the props was windmilling and so I'm at 7500 feet and so I let him know that I just ran out of fuel on my right tank when he reported that he ran out of gas on the first tank I was talking to a JetBlue Airbus and I was vectoring him around a little bit out of his way to find out if there was a hole down by thunder so we had never actually really heard the first time he said he ran out of gas he just later said that I'm out of gas in one tank and I don't know how much left him the other pink we have some several times how many min if she got left on board never got an answer one three tango Mike say souls on board and you know how many minutes you have left sir no I don't know how many a minute I leaned over to Canada said hey don't forget because we had training the labs together before and I leaned over and I said hey Kim don't forget I'm an instrument stricter if this guy needs any help and as I said that the supervisor came behind me and he said hey Josh go ahead and unplug from position and that way you can actually just monitor and help Ken out if he has any kind of questions or the pilot needs any help we got them probably within 20 miles of the downtown airports for he ever decided that we should set him down through the clouds would you like to start a descent through the clouds Robin yes I would r-13 tango Mike fighting two three zero and descend and maintain 4,000 and so I went into the clouds at 7,000 feet and out of my peripheral I just remember water stream up the windshield and along the side glasses we gave several instructions and obviously he was super busy inside the airplane just trying to keep it level and straight he wasn't able to really hold a good head he was able to go in a straight line just not the straight line that we were looking for and at this point we have a supervisor's behind us and a couple other controllers were actually plugged in now helping listening to us and we said okay we're going to make decision you're not going to go to Auburn anymore you're going to go over toward C Tech we figured okay a bigger runway he'll see it quicker if we can get him down to C tack in the middle of the airport he can turn left or right have any of six different runways north to south to land on so I think that was kind of the idea of it Mooney one three tanga Mike proceed direct Seattle vor okay give me a frequency for that when I gave him that instruction he was asking for the frequency of the vor wasn't paying attention to what we were telling them to do and so Ryan jumped in and just took them straight ahead given new altitude I think was down at 2500 feet so the pilot could get back to working inside the cockpit the one three tango might just fly your present heading sir descend to maintain 2503 thank you Mike and when I'm still in the clouds and when I get to five LC then I ran out of fuel my pulse is up not racin but it's up but I'm trying to be as calm and as smooth as possible so I was training on one departure and Josh Haviland was training right next to me was a flight instructor so he canceled his training and plugged the next to me kind of with some pilot knowledge which was extremely helpful because I had information that I could pass on to the pilot so that he didn't have to worry about all the big things that was kind of my role in the whole thing was behind the scenes that you will and listening to Ken and listening to the pilot and thinking okay if he loses this engine he's not going to have a vacuum pump if he doesn't have a vacuum pump he's not gonna be I rose so he's going to have to depend on the turn coordinator which is ran off electricity which there's an alternator since there's no engine so the battery's gonna die I'm trying to think as many steps ahead of the process the Jim is going to encounter while I'm sitting there watching his track on radar so and the guy said it run out of gas Josh goes give him best glide speed and level flight and we'd kept him in a straight line mooney 1/3 tingle might continue straight ahead on your descent descend to maintain 2,000 your best glide speed CTEK is six miles off your left rentin is one o'clock in five miles so I was flying the airplane seemed like an eternity from 5,000 feet to 2,000 feet but at 2,000 feet I broke out of the clouds breaking out right now everyone three tingle Mike Renton is 12 o'clock and four miles straight into runway 3-4 let me know when you have the runway in sight and where he broke out at there's just industrial parks and hills there's nowhere to land he was about four South to Rennes and I started pointing out the airport to him at one o'clock at 1,600 feet he sees the Boeing Airport he could not make the six flying miles to get there I knew I wanted to get him to Renton you know this pilot hadn't seen the ground in two hours now he sees a 10,000 foot runway his eyes are locked it's the only way he's going to survive this he's lost the fly to that Airport so I have to talk him out of what he sees has his only salvation and get him to turn his eyes back to the right where I know there's an airport that's closer two and a half miles ahead at your one o'clock if I wanna clock affirmatives start to turn back to your right it's a single runway at two o'clock and two and a half miles I got it sir all of a sudden I saw the runway out there about two and a half miles ahead of me which turned out to be Renton I knew I could make that runway with one exception as I got closer I saw there was a thrust barrier across the end of the runway for you know to deflect the jet blast I'm thinking I'm not sure I'm going to clear that and so but everything you do is a trade-off you know if you pull back then you're going to lose airspeed and if you get too slow or you're going to stall the one thing that I really appreciate I know the guy was genuinely concerned about me because he said don't forget to put your gear down or maybe you want to wait I threw the gear check out with all my tower experience I said oh my god I don't want to tell this guy to drop his gear and then he has more drag it doesn't make the airport so in the same sense I said verify your gear down and locked or do you want to keep it up for a little while longer and I thought well I've already put it down and I don't want to be jerking the gear up and down so I'm just going to leave so anyway I started to ease back on the yoke to try to keep as much altitude as I possibly could to clear that thrust barrier and all of a sudden the engine came back to life again started running again enough to get me over that thrust barrier as I look back on it now I know that the pickup line for the fuel is in the rear inboard corner of the tank and so I when I went into my descents what little bit of fuel I had left in that one tank ran away from the pickup line but then when I leveled it out I guess there was just enough run back there to get the ends and going again he landed three three at Renton Renton called us said that he landed he was on the ground and everything was fine and big sigh relief big sigh relief my plane holds 24 gallons per side and they put in forty eight point six gallons and then those three guys there was three of them that were nominated for the Archie League award for saving my life I remember that when I saw I had the runway made I did make the statement they all want me to say paradise and that's true they did well you know I've been watching it for three days before our left I mean it wasn't just a spur-of-the-moment thing I've been planning it because there was a high pressure in that Northwest region and I thought well it's no big deal I've got a reserve fuel you know to get to my alternate I'll just go over to Arlington and land there because the flag on my GPS showed green you know he called me hey I just made it over top of the Cascades well I got about five minutes of gasoline in the airport now would have been a straight line none of these Q&A sessions this guy was on a frequency for 18 minutes and we were hunting around pecking this that and the other where if I had known from the very beginning but it ended up knowing you know there's one place I'm Center this guy this is the only place I'm senator this guy and here we go sky was $1 worth of aviation gas from living or not living almost I I met him in Atlanta when I received the award from the Union an older pilot very experienced and he didn't call soon enough because he was worried about getting in trouble I've always kind of hesitated in contacting air traffic control when there's a situation because I thought well I don't want to get in trouble and I kept putting it off thinking I can work it out by myself you know I'll find some hole here in a minute and I'll get down and under we are not a police agency we are there to serve the user users lost if he's found himself in IFR conditions if he's out of gas embarrassment doesn't matter getting in trouble doesn't matter if we can get you on the ground we can figure out everything else later but we want to teach you how to do it right not punish you when you do it wrong so let me call you on the telephone I'll explain to you what happened what you need to do next time you're not going to make that mistake again when you make a mistake and try to hide it is when people get in trouble after you see that things are not going to work out why don't put it off contact them before you wait as long as I did because I didn't get in trouble I should have contacted them as soon as I couldn't get down at my alternate and I did

Channel: Air Safety Institute

Views: 594,158

Rating: 4.9275045 out of 5

Keywords: aviation, flying, air traffic control, general aviation, aviation safety, Air Safety Institute, AOPA, pilot, aviation weather

Id: R-EkSaw1Fqw

Length: 15min 5sec (905 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 13 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/pball2]

I really enjoy these ASI videos. This story is a great story and hopefully will make people realize they're not going to get into trouble if they ask for help.

[u/Longwaytofall]

Christ, how an instrument rated pilot would not just declare and get a pop-up clearance into a VFR airport is beyond me. Glad he lived but he showed so many shortcomings in judgement and piloting abilities. He seemed to not even understand best glide.

Bravo to the controllers, and caught in the situation he's pretty lucky to have a CFII on the other end of the radio.

[u/Twarrior913]

Just got another ATC-life-saving boner. Thank you ATC.

[u/skiitifyoucan]

I'm sure I've seen this one before, even though it was just published. Going to watch again though. just inspired me to renew my AOPA membership.

[u/Floatsm]

Holy shit when he clears it with the engine turning on at the last second.

[u/nmcgovern]

Really interesting in to how a situation can quickly turn from a "ok, let's deal with it" to a full emergency. Of course, we can all say we would have immediately declared an emergency in hind sight, but if I'm being honest, I would have probably done the same as the PIC.

[u/cashto]

I don't know, but I've been told that if you get trapped on top around these parts, head for Sequim -- it's in the rain shadow of the Olympics and consequently "blue holes" like this are not unusual.

Assuming, of course, enough fuel -- which it sounds like this guy could have done a much better job at planning. I got the distinct impression the guy looks at his fuel gauges to figure out how much fuel he has, and not his watch.

[u/L_Cranston_Shadow]

We should remember that it's easy to pick holes in the pilot's actions after the fact. That being said, anyone who's had the minimum hood time as a student pilot has the skills necessary to get through a cloud layer and back into VFR conditions.

[u/Rockleg]

When they showed the sinking sight picture on short final my guts clenched and I started sitting up higher and higher in my chair trying to somehow get the get point of view back up on a safe glide slope. The sim they use and the production work they put into assembling these videos is absolutely amazing at putting you right there in the moment.

24 gallon tank capacity per wing, and they refueled him with 48.6 gal? My reaction.