He can hear his heartbeat over the sound of his small plane’s engine, which has gone from a roar to a whine. The box-canyon walls are closing in, and Ron Snorgrass can’t get the plane to go any higher.
He is flying a search-and-rescue mission for the Civil Air Patrol, and he spots what he thinks is wreckage. He maneuvers the plane lower than he should on a hot day, and his engine quickly loses performance. His plane isn’t going to gain altitude at his airspeed.
He doesn’t panic.
Realizing his error, he uses his training to make some quick decisions, safely maneuvering out of the canyon.
Snorgrass, who has flown for 38 years, remembers that box canyon from years ago and hasn’t made the same mistake since.
The draw of soaring over dark-green pines, dipping into redrock canyons and skimming Rocky Mountain streams is hard for many small-plane pilots to resist. But for those who unprepared to handle the shifting weather and unusual flying conditions that come with such terrain, such geographical features can turn deadly.
It’s an issue because small planes crisscross the skies above busy roadways and populated neighborhoods every day. From 2000 to 2009, 302 small planes crashed in Utah. Fifty-one of those crashes resulted in deaths, according to a Salt Lake Tribune analysis.
This year, 14 crashes have been reported. Quinn Falk, who flew the Bees baseball team ad banner, died June 27 in 2010’s first aviation fatality.
Utah ranks as the 19th-deadliest state for small-plane pilots and their passengers, according to a Tribune analysis, which compared the number of fatal plane crashes for the 10-year period to the number of pilot certifications in 2009 in each state.
Pilot error causes the majority of crashes, because Utah’s high elevation, hot weather and tricky terrain challenge even experienced pilots.
Those who know the dangers of Utah’s skyscape say the number of crashes seems low because overly ambitious, under-experienced pilots don’t always adequately prepare themselves for Utah’s unique flying experience.
Rocky Mountain high » Neilo Q. Taylor waits in his plane at the end of a Bryce Canyon runway.
He knows he already is at an elevation of 7,600 feet, and the hot summer weather only makes the air thinner.
He zooms forward, closely monitoring his speed, realizing he needs a lot of runway to lift off and a lot of patience once he gets into the air.
“The plane just kind of mushes along,” says the pilot, who first took to the skies in 1956. “You have to nurse the plane along and gather the airspeed you need to climb.”
He and essentially every other pilot who has flown Utah’s skies can tell a story about encountering something called density altitude — where high temperatures and elevations combine to hinder engine performance.
Salt Lake City International Airport’s general-aviation airstrip sits at 4,200 feet above sea level, but on a hot July day, the heat makes a small plane behave as if it were taking off from closer to 7,200 feet. To compensate, pilots use a math formula incorporating the elevation and air temperature of the airstrip. Although many airports remind pilots to run the formula, some pilots still miscalculate or overestimate their engine’s performance.
On Aug. 9, 2008, a pilot used to flying from an airport at an elevation of 472 feet above sea level flew over a friend’s Garden City home to indicate he would be landing at a nearby airport. As he began to climb away from his friend’s house, the plane stalled and crashed into a beach, killing the pilot and passenger. The Federal Aviation Administration reported a density altitude of 7,900 feet, and the pilot’s misjudgment of his plane’s performance at that elevation caused the crash.
Density altitude, though, is only part of the challenge. Utah’s mountains present their own issues. Pilots unaccustomed to how weather behaves when it collides with a tall peak often find themselves in risky situations.
“Mountain flying is a different beast altogether,” said Lance Vaculin , director of flight operations for Westminster College. “You see these nice, smooth, pretty-looking clouds, but they’re an indication you’re in for a bumpy ride.”
A pilot ferrying a sky-diving team back from a meet on Jan. 14, 2001, flew into weather that required special navigational instrumentation, which he didn’t have. When he attempted to loop around Antelope Island, he could not see and slammed into the Great Salt Lake a half-mile from shore. Nine people died.
No teacher like experience » Awareness of Utah’s unique flying challenges builds with experience in the air, yet it takes surprisingly little time to earn a pilot’s certificate.
In addition to written testing, the FAA requires 40 hours of flying time. But the national average for flying time before certification is 67 hours, said Leith Grasteit, assistant chief flight instructor for Leading Edge Aviation in Salt Lake City. His students also complete the equivalent of a four-credit college course, or between 30 and 50 hours of class time, before taking their certification tests.
“There is some stuff you just can’t duplicate on the ground,” Westminster’s Vaculin said. “You learn best from the real thing.”
Pilot educators, however, insist special training shouldn’t be mandated for those wanting to climb over the Rockies’ highest peaks.
“It’s impossible to crash an airplane without breaking two or three regulations,” said Bruce Landsberg, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s Air Safety Foundation. “But is that a systemic or individual failure?”
He argues more regulation wouldn’t affect crash statistics or lower fatalities.
“We are probably the most highly regulated avocation activity on the planet,” Landsberg said. “Sometimes people think of general aviation as they do airlines, where you get on the plane with very little knowledge and just hope the people up front do their job appropriately. But G.A. is more like getting on a motorcycle than getting in a car. There’s a higher level of risk.”
Utah is less deadly than its mountainous neighbors, likely because the state’s peaks are surrounded by valleys while mountains in Colorado and Idaho stretch on for miles, leaving pilots in trouble with few options for a safe landing. To learn to navigate such dangers, the Air Safety Foundation offers an optional online mountain-flying course, and some Western states, including Utah, offer similar in-the-air training.
“The modern pilot today is being much better educated in high-mountain flying, which is indicated by fatalities decreasing,” said Bob Kinney, president of the Colorado Pilots Association. “Flying in the high country should not be missed because it’s spectacular, but you need to be safe when doing it.”
Added pressure » Part of the appeal of flying is sharing the experience, but the level of risk increases when a passenger is in the plane instead of a flight instructor or fellow pilot.
Some pilots will earn their licenses and immediately pack their families into a plane and fly to some remote, mountainous location, said certified flight instructor Jim Hoddenbach, who recommends against doing so.
Adding people adds issues of weight and balance to the equation, creating even more factors for novice pilots to monitor in the air.
“You’re under different pressures when you’re trying to take care of your passengers,” Hoddenbach said.
On Jan. 18, 2005, a pilot took two passengers on low-altitude flights to look at property near Hatch. The front-seat passenger was talking with his pilot, who apparently did not check his altimeter. The plane crashed, killing the pilot and his front-seat passenger. The passenger in back lived.
“[The surviving passenger] felt that the pilot was distracted by the conversation, which was his first priority, and second was commanding the aircraft,” the FAA’s report states.
Small-plane pilots also have to treat their passengers as active participants — handing them a radio headset, which helps mute the deafening roar of the engine, propeller and wind, but brings in the constant background babble of air traffic controllers and other pilots. While passengers on an airliner are shown the emergency exits, passengers in a small plane are shown the button to push to contact air traffic control and a quick how-to manual in case the pilot has a health emergency and can no longer fly — or land.
Playing it safe » Regardless of who is on board, it is the pilot’s responsibility to ensure a safe flight.
“Sometimes the inexperienced people don’t take the chances that the experienced people do,” said Patrick Wiggins, who has flown for 40 years. “In sky diving, you have old jumpers and bold jumpers; you don’t find many old, bold jumpers. The same is true in flying.”
That means limiting the risks inherent to certain terrain. In nearly every flight, something small goes wrong, and it takes quick thinking to stay in the air.
“You have to learn to deal with the hiccups,” Hoddenbach said.
Regardless of how much training or how many flying hours a pilot has, one unteachable trait will save a pilot’s life: good judgment.
“It’s a mind-set,” Hoddenbach said, “that has to be instilled from your first lesson.”
Landsberg said pilots who get in trouble are those who are trying to get too much performance out of themselves or out of their airplane, or they are trying to have too much fun.
“If you’re not doing those three things, your chances of having an accident go way, way down,” Landsberg said. “We work with airspeed, altitude and brains. At least two are required.”
By Sheena McFarland The Salt Lake Tribune Updated Jul 6, 2010 11:57AM
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/49514088-76/plane-pilot-pilots-flying.html.csp?page=4
Posted by Utah Airplane Crash and Aviation Attorney, Dustin Lance
