Pilot Crash Landing at Lady Bird Lake after Departing Austin Airport | Emergency Landing 

I know that area well, to the West (where he flew) is the city, to the east is miles of fields/farmland. Probably a route required for air traffic control, otherwise that’s a stupid course for a maintenance check flight.

Thanks for your input 👍

He can’t see. Probably can’t breath either. I think, given the situation, the pilot made the best choices he could.

Agreed. The high oil and engine temp suggest oil starvation and the smoke could be burning oil

He probably should've stayed in the pattern while testing out the plane instead of immediately heading away from the airport. I think that was the point ATC POV was trying to make

Perhaps we should find out exactly what actually happened before we judge and punish based on speculation?

A&P mechanics don't have licenses, they're called certificates. Same thing with pilots.

How do you know the mechanic made a mistake?

I think that was the pilot's intentions. He was headed toward Breakaway field (in Cedar Park), which would be less than a 10 minute flight from Austin-Bergstrom.

Yes, it gets difficult and you can hear how nervous the controller got as well.

❤❤

I think it is something that needs to be addressed in ATC training. I listen to a lot of these, and asking a pilot who has declared an engine out to either climb to an altitude or hold an altitude is annoying at the very least. That being said, the controller did a great job keeping up with the other flights while also trying to do what he could to help the pilot. You could hear in his voice how hard it was to keep his composure.

I think it’s a matter of context. This controllers experience on a field with commercial traffic is predominantly multi-engine. Listening to the tape I can see where the controller may have been unsure on the number of engines involved. I don’t know if it is fair to assume that the controller should have innately known that a “Stationair” is a single engine aircraft.

I believe the controller did not hear or did not understand he had lost the engine. The pilot was panicking and kinda hard to understand. And his verbiage was non standard also.

ATC is facing stress also. They may sound calm or mostly so but that is probably training. Also ATC isn’t merely having a conversation with the pilot. That would be easy. ATC is also looking at radar, the distressed aircraft’s altitude and direction and looking for other traffic while trying to find landing options in multiple locations and the directions to those locations. All of that while listening to a person in distress which in turn furthers ATC stress level. I have never been an ATC but I am a pilot and for 37 years, a police officer. I have heard many thousands of radio transmissions with at least hundreds of calls from officers in life and death situations. The police dispatcher, like ATC, is talking to a person who may die in the next few seconds. At the same time looking at the computer screen (almost identical to radar, showing unit locations), finding closest units, probably dispatching the fire department and EMS, responding to other units en route to assist, etc. Like ATC, it isn’t a one on one conversation but multitasking while trying to give life saving assistance. Like ATC, I have heard dispatchers miss information that responding officers heard clearly. I have been on both sides, being the one calling for help and many other times going to assist. It is much easier for the officer to hear the radio while only worrying about driving and not worrying about contacting multiple people, watching computer screens and so on. ATC like other humans, make mistakes. Sometimes they miss radio calls that we can all obviously hear. Listening to an after the fact recording isn’t quite the same as sitting behind the console trying to do several things at once with no opportunity for a do over. ATC like any other critical job needs to debrief after an incident to see what went right, what went wrong and how to improve. I spent 10 years on swat and after every training or actual incident, we went over a debrief to critique it and improve. I can assure people that the “perfect” incident is virtually unheard of. We can always look back in hindsight and say, I probably should have done this or shouldn’t have done that. In my opinion …..

😆

Your comment is spot on! I'm an absolute believer in Pre-takeoff briefings & the same fact...seconds count! Great call. ✌😎👍

@@alfamike7336 a very true statement, however, looking at the map, what was it he could actually have done? I mean, he was still very low over a densely populated urban area... I do not see any runway he could divert to, what were his options here?

@@stanislavkostarnov2157 in this case the pilot could have reasonably avoided the situation in the first place. The first flight immediately following major maintenance presents greater risk than your typical flight. Knowing this the pilot ought to have made a plan just for this situation. If I were him, and I’ve been in his shoes many times, I would have circled the airport and climbed until I reached cruising altitude. Had he done this he’d have had more time to deal with the issue and recover in Austin. If he even made it 2,000 feet above the airport while staying in the pattern he could have shut off his engine completely and still made it safely on the runway.

@@carlosp4521 given how busy this field is, would the ATC have ever cleared him for such a flight?... I mean, I do think it was high-risk to make a test flight out from this kind of an environment, but I guess the pilot had good reasons to do his maintenance where he did... definitely would have preferred to test my engine in a quieter more rural airport if I had the choice

@@stanislavkostarnov2157 great question! I don’t have any experience flying a check flight out of a class C airport, but of the Class C airports I do frequent, the controllers have been very accommodating to me. On the occasions that I want to fly a particular route or a sightseeing flight from a Class C airport, I’ll look up the clearance delivery or operations phone number and just give them a call. If you are familiar with the airport’s A/FD, operational tempo, and immediate airspace, the call will typically go the way you want. If it were me I’d have called ahead and let them know what I wanted to do and why. If you get the ok from clearance chances are they’ll give you a unique squawk code and pass the info off to ground control. Don’t assume anything though, it’s always a good idea to repeat your intentions to ground on initial contact.

Can’t think of a single thing the mechanic can do in this type of situation.

Good morning!

How is t you know that wasn't done?

Absolutely!

But isn’t that the phrasing we should use? Mayday mayday mayday, or pan pan pan, depending on the severity of the situation?

Those are recommended, but not required. Their purpose really is to grab the controller's attention. But saying "emergency" does the same.

@@carlosp4521 don't agree with pan pan. Something is an emergency or not. Pretty simple

@@ATCPOV The term "recommended" implies an official preference for that action, right? In point of fact he did grab the controller's attention so why fault his methods? Does it really matter that someone else would do it differently?