This brought back one of my worst memories. I was 16 and a student pilot in 1967. I worked at the small airport in our rural Georgia town and was by myself on an early Saturday morning. A family arrived to wait for their family members. Time passed, then I answered the phone. I don't remember who called, but whoever it was reported the plane due to arrive had crashed with no survivors. I had to tell the family members. A little too much for a sixteen-year-old.
@@jadenhalstead7290 Well, nobody made me tell them. I was the only one there and these people were waiting for people I knew had died. This was a small airport. The FBO building had a small lobby with a counter and office area. They were standing around right where I answered the phone. I felt obligated to tell them what I knew.
These ATC recordings are always haunting in fatal crashes. So sad for his family. I don't know if there's some emotion in my observation but there seemed to be some hopelessness in his voice during the last 3 or 4 transmissions. Going down with a failing engine in the dark...just awful to think about. RIP.
I think the only thing he could have done to give a better chance would have been climbing when the engine first started giving issues. Always worse when you know the pilot did his best and still didn't make it.
@@tieoneon5240 It didn't fail right away it was running rough with low oil pressure and eventually stopped. If your engine starts running rough gain as much altitude as possible.
As a retired TRACON controller I've had the unenviable task of talking with pilots or hearing passengers in the background before an aircraft crashed. I worked an Angel Flight from BOS to Western New York -- when the pilot checked in, I could hear the two young girls (one the patient and the other her friend -- each about 12) laughing in the background; the two girls were dead an hour later (pilot and mother survived) in an ice storm. That was 25 years ago BTW and I still remember it. I really feel for this poor gentleman because I could hear in his voice he know he was in big trouble -- he handled it well, I must say...
@@RyanMiller3039 I think it’s taking a patient somewhere for a medical appointment. The patient would be in good enough condition to not need a medic or nurse to accompany them.
@@RyanMiller3039 It's more of a charity flight than a medivac. People with serious illness treatment needs can get usually free flights on small aircraft to whatever city is near the hospital their doctor is at
@@RyanMiller3039 No. Medivac will have some type of medical staff onboard, usually one nurse and one paramedic. Pt has to be sick/injured enough to require continual medical care/monitoring. Angel Flight is a volunteer group that provides transport to patients who are well enough to travel without medical attendants. Basically a private pilot using his own plane to transport the patient (and family/friends) without charge. In the case above, the patient was probably going to/coming from one of the hospitals that specialize in various types of pediatric problems (cancer probably being the most frequent). Patient/family are spared the expense/trouble of flying "cattle style" (aka commercial).
So sad I was the one flying the Wisconsin flight and remember hearing this over the radio. Couldn't imagine a worse time and place for engine troubles.
Having an engine failure in a single sucks. Yet, if you do things right you have a good chance of surviving. Having an engine failure in a single at night in a dark area and with no airport within reach... Skills are still necessary to keep it under control all the way to the crash, but chance will define if you end up sliding in a field or hitting a thick trunk of a tree.
@@cgtbrad ... So it's IFR (or IFMR) 😜 Now, in all seriousness, I come from a country where night flight outside of the pattern is IFR, as well as anything where you don't have at least 4/8 of visual contact with the ground (so no VFR on top or VFR between layers). Not that "night VMC" being legally IFR in my country would be of any help in case of an engine failure.
Yeah…I’ve had 4 of them in piston singles..and 1 in the jet at the airlines. There’s a reason lots of us airline guys still fly GA..but won’t do it IMC or at night.
Such a sad feeling in the last few transmissions. I feel so sad for this pilot. He stayed professional throughout, and the controller did a nice job providing help. I might have said a final goodbye to my loved ones over the air, but he surely had hope of surviving the impact. Lost engine, in the dark, that’s an impossible situation. RIP.
Rest In Peace and condolonces to the family. He sounded resigned to the situation (we learn this in ADM) and was not able to change that mindset. Night flight and terrain wasn’t helpful but he had enough altitude to try a precautionary landing on road or private field (there were two right below him early on). We won’t know. His death is a reminder when flying night VFR, always plan ahead where you will be overflying. I like to stay over populated areas, road/highways and close to airports with runaway lights.
@@TheCaioKyleBraga I concur. I've always flown as high as practical at night, and generally in the vicinity of highways. I also click on the lights of any airport I get close to as I go by just in case. I'm semi familiar with this area his best option would probably been Hwy 29 which he was effectively paralleling. Some parts have nice clear median and others have trees but hard forest presents issues.
I'm just an aviation enthusiast so I have no irl flight time only flight simulators but this made my heart sink at the very end. He was so calm yet you could tell he was so scared. RIP may you continue your flight in the great skies above. My condolences go out to the family and the controller who had to deal with this :(
You could hear the engine starting to eat itself in those last transmissions. The pilot also seemed reserved to knowing that this wasn’t going to be a good outcome. RIP
Thanks for posting this, I’m from over at W13 Eagles nest and I heard about it the morning after. this one hits a little too close to home. My condolences to the pilots family
Grew up in this area - very sparsely populated, steeply rising terrain all around, few lights on the ground, no busy roads outlined in headlights (I-81 to west and I-64 north), thousands of acres of national forest below ... in daylight it's a huge farmed valley with your pick of corn fields for an emergency landing, but at night, sigh. RIP sir. :-(
Sadly, the poor guy had little to no shot if he couldn't have coaxed that Piper to KCHO. I grew up a ways south of there (Amherst) but drove frequently between Amherst and Harrisonburg (JMU) so I think he must've gone down somewhere in the Rockfish Valley area? East of VA 6?
Thank you for posting this, hard as it is....so many lessons and reminders....(1) That pilot was calm and professional to the end. Managing your emotions in that scenario is the hardest thing to do, and he did it well. (2) My old CFI used to say "airspeed is life, altitude is life insurance." This is a reminder to immediately climb if possible in an emergency, at least until you have things figured out and a plan. (3) I wish the pilot had told ATC "I need vectors NOW. Closest field or highway, i've got maybe 8 miles of glide from my current position" . Maybe it wouldn't have mattered, but hearing the ATC discuss Charlottesville --25 miles away -- made my heart sink. I feel for this pilot and his loved ones. The deck was stacked against him for sure. I pray that none of us ever finds ourselves in a similar situation.
I remember doing engine-out training with my CFI and talking about what to do when you have to do a forced landing at night. He said you could head for a dark area and hope it's a field, but it might be a lake/pond. The procedure was pick a spot and hope for the best, then when you get close to the ground, turn on your landing light. If you don't like what you see, turn it off and keep flying the plane. I was never sure if he was serious or not, but I never liked flying at night for that very reason.
@@vincelam1998 By "keep flying" he meant "continue the forced landing." IOW, just land the plane as best you can since it's too late to change your mind now.
@@dfscott62 This is EXACTLY the same guidance I got when I asked how to pick an emergency landing spot at night... all the way to the decision tree for landing light use. It really is a crap shoot.
Flew bank checks for 4 years in a PA-32R, lot of it at night. Lost one during daylight and landed successfully in a field. Really lucky, as a lot of the flying was night or IMC. This scenario in this video was our worst nightmare. We tried to stay within gliding distance of roads, but it wasn't always possible. RIP sir.
Flew bank mail early in my career in PA 32-300s and PA 31 310 B Navajos. One night in the "6", IFR in icing over high terrain. I remember shining my flashlight on the wing looking for rime accumulation, and catching a glimpse of my reflection in the plexiglass, gave me a lonely feeling. I recently purchased a PA-32R 300 operated by the same company. You can bet I won't go looking for trouble...Day VFR will be the general rule. Night or IFR will come with much preflight contingent planning. It wasn't all skill that got me to retirement..."Fate is the hunter".
Be rightfully proud of your uncle. He was calm on the radio because he fully intended to land safely even though his options were terrible. Rather than succumb to panic, he kept flying the plane and kept trying, which is what every excellent pilot is trained to do in difficult situations. He gave himself the best odds possible of making it. He went down fighting. I’m very sorry for your loss.
RIP to the pilot. This is why I do not fly single engine piston aircraft at night. If this happened during the day time, he would have had a very high chance of walking away from this. There are plenty of flat fields in that area that would be totally unobservable at night
Same here. The only time I am willing to fly at night is over a metropolitan area where all the roads and highways are lit up. There is no reason for me to make a long cross country trip late at night, even when I have an early meeting in the morning. This flight took off at 10pm
@@bardo0007 Tell that to people flying medivacs/emergency flights nighttime doing VFR. So many clueless people around. Like sure, I only fly in sim, but I know more than enough you wouldn't have options to fly in perfect weather all the time.
@@kopazwashere wow…strike a nerve:)? The guys was just saying, perhaps a good risk mitigation would be to avoid flying at night if flying single-engine airplane for personal flight (context of this flight). For some reason you decide to throw words into his mouth and include ALL night flying (military, MedEvac, Airlines/Charter/NASA,Goodyear blimp/Santa). Deep breath’s mate ;)
This is exactly why since doing my night rating (in the UK we have to do a night rating separate to the PPL) I refuse to fly a single at night... You need to be in a twin at least to give you some hope of making an airfield, night time ops are no joke in a single, although it is beautiful to fly at night.
This hits home to me because I recently finished my night flying currency as a student and my instructor made me do a simulated engine failure during the night flight as part of my training… that is about the worst place to have an engine out emergency! Don’t think he would’ve made it over the Blue Ridge Parkway to get to W13. Roads in that part of VA are dark and I don’t think he had enough glide to get to 64, so it was up to chance. RIP
The CFI I got a mountain checkout from, a native Costa Rican who flew commercial ops there, always told me to plan my flights to roughly follow major (aka illuminated) roads at night, when possible. Over the jungle at night is much the same as this incident - can't see any landing areas at night. Years later, I've always kept that in the back of my head when planning night cross countries.
I would have made the same choice he did about going to Charlottesville instead of W13. I know the area and he'd have to cross the high ridges on the east side of the Shenandoah Valley in order to get to W13. You can see from the chart that MSA is 4300' in that area anyway but if he stays east of the mountains he could've made it if he could hold altitude above about 2000'. In the end, it looks like he just didn't have the ability to make it. It's really rural, very few lights out that way and no lit roads so that's a really bad situation to have happen at night.
Well there's at least 1 thing I learned from this: once you pick an airport, turn towards it and go direct. He picked the closer, smaller airport first but shortly after changed the plan & chose Charlottesville. Once you make your decision, stick with it and execute.
I think he had to reconsider since he was loosing altitude quite fast and it's a mountainous area. He might had not the power to get over them. And I believe it was dark out there, so he wouldn't be able to see a thing.
The ATC suggestion to proceed at Charlottesville due to terrain might have affected his decision making. I knew he would definitely proceed to W13 but that suggestion could be a factor
@@cruxader27 Looking at the chart during the video it looks W13 is a higher elevation than charlottesville (1436 vs 640). I wonder if he would have had the height.
As the story below notes, terrain was a real concern with the aircraft losing altitude fast and the controller’s suggestion to try for Charlottesville was quite reasonable.
Yeah that’s a tough one. When I was young and hungry for time I flew singles in all types of weather and night conditions. 23 years later since becoming an airline guy I said I would never fly a single unless it’s day VFR. I remember being a 20-21 year old kid thinking to myself what I would do if my engine quit….your on borrowed time if you continue to do it.
Just this last year I was flying all kinds of IMC and even night IMC in a C172. I did it because I wanted the experience under my belt. The likelihood of an engine failure is incredibly low, but if it did happen, there are so few options. I really feel for this pilot. I'm watching his funeral as I'm typing this because they streamed it live. They were ferrying a plane he bought back to Virginia. His CFII (Kevin had been working on his instrument rating) was flying a different plane and heard the whole incident happen in real time. The whole situation is just terrible. He seemed to be in his 30's or so, much younger than I had anticipated.
@@VictoryAviation yeah I will say that I don’t know the background of this poor guy. His communication and demeanor really impressed me. He stayed calm and flew the airplane. A situation like that sometimes has led to stall spin accidents by pilots not flying the airplane. I wasn’t there and he made the best decisions he could at that particular moment. I will pray for him and his family during this difficult time. To fly west my friend is a check ride we all must take.
I had a Saratoga get sick over Lake Michigan one dark night. We were leaving what used to be the airport on the downtown lakefront. We were over the lake heading to South Bend when the engine got very rough. Was talking to Chicago departure control. Told ATC about our situation and vectors to nearest airport. That happened to be Gary In a thin line of lights to the south. The first thing ATC gave a directive to descend to 2000. That’s the last thing I wanted was lower. I told him negative and we would like to stay here at 4000’. At this point I could only maintain our altitude and could not climb. Anyway we wound up over Gary and spiraled down to the airport. It turned out to be a fuel metering problem that had to be corrected the next day.
Condolences to his loved ones. I hope they can find some peace. There are so many heroic “all engine out”stories (Gimli Glider, Sully, Speedbird 9, TACA 110) that it’s easy to forget that this is still the most likely outcome. RIP.
RIP. This is why I'm glad Foreflight has the glide advisory feature. I'll try to make routes that keep me within gliding distance of airports moving forward...
I got the sense he willingly started the first step down to 3000. I wonder if he had committed to W13 and stayed higher would he have made the glide or circle down.
Absolutely agree with you, I actually wonder why when the pilot declared an emergency that ATC didn't give instruction to maintain or climb altitude considering an engine issue was announced and your thought from there should be getting them to the closest airport you can if they need to glide. Also hated that ATC even brought up an alternative airport, I truly think that one an emergency has been declared there needs to be an unit of veteran pilots that get brought into the frequency, a veteran pilot would have probably saved this guy's life.
@@HypePerformanceGroup it hurts to think about it, but i can’t help but agree with you. If he truly subconsciously treated it like a normal approach, he might actually still be alive today by the mere reminder to maintain altitude…
This is a case where something like GlideAdvisor and an eflightbag may have given the pilot a better chance. It seemed to me like he started down from cruise willingly and then tried to hold 3K for a time. If he had more situational information about available emergency options and his potential glide distance it at the very least given the best chance for a better outcome. Emergencies are a hard nut to crack because sometimes they are non-issue and sometimes they are as urgent as they could possibly be. This is a case of the latter and getting the airplane pointed in the right direction and getting to best glide speed needed to happen ASAP. Heartbreaking loss.
Flying at night sucks because of the situation like this. The only place I am willing to fly at night is over the metropolitan area where it is lit up like day light. When the engine quits, I can see the roads and the highway below.
I can't imagine that he didn't have an ipad in the cockpit with him. In 3 different flight schools in the last two years, I've rarely seen a student without an EFB. Kevin was also working on his instrument rating so that's even more reason to thin he probably had an ipad with foreflight or garmin pilot. I wonder if he had ever used the glide advisor feature before. Certainly that could have helped tremendously in a situation like this. The plane he was flying was brand new to him. He had just picked it up and was flying it back to his home airport. I don't know if I'd want to do something like that with a brand new to me plane at night and in that type of area. Poor guy had only chance to determine his outcome once the engine gave up its side of the deal to get them home safely.
@@VictoryAviation As a pilot of singles I can say an i-Pad wouldn't help much more than ATC already was. I wouldn't trust the glide advisory either and in any case the glide advisory is not really helpful in the dark. I rarely fly at night, and in fact have not for a very long time. But when I do I follow roads with cars on them. No matter how far out of the way it takes me, following roads (IFR - I follow roads) is the safest bet, although power lines or whatever will still be a gamble. Here in the west it is easier, not so much in the east. RIP
I have no idea should this be a reason, just speculation. It appears there has been a lot of loss of power off runway incidents lately. The time frame to get an engine rebuild is crazy right now, months and months. Even getting an oil filter is a challenge for some models. I know several pilots who are stretching their engine times trying to get as much out of them as possible so they don't lose their plane for 6+ months. Dangerous game. Again, not saying this applies to this guy, just something this video brought to mind. So many aspects of GA is in shambles right now. Godspeed, pilot...
Single engine at night I’m either within gliding distance of an airport or I’m flying IFR (I follow roads) for this reason. The deciding factor on who survives engine failures at night isn’t the stick and rudder skills, it’s the flight planning… You can do everything right and fly all the way to the end, but if you fly into a tree or some other terrain you couldn’t see it’s not going to matter
He commented he could hold altitude at the beginning so there was a slim chance he could got to W13. But really, avoiding losing oil pressure (likely due to low oil quantity) in the first place maybe the only way to make sure he makes it.
@@AaronShenghao He thought he could hold altitude but if you watch the Altitude indicator it falls the whole time with a slight pause at 3000 ft. Hard to find alternative landing spots at night.
There's high terrain between where he was and the first airport, not sure exactly how high but probably around 2500' or higher. It's not exactly flat between where he was and Charlottesville but there's no high ridges in the way.
RIP man it's so hard when the pilot does everything right. Single engine at night has unique risks, I only do it when I have lit interstates around me in case I need to force a landing
Is horrible to loose a life like that. As an ex-military pilot and CFI now. With 17000 hoursI think we can all learna valuable lesson from this as pilots. Please always take closest airport.
This is the exact reason I don't fly my bonanza at night. You can not trust your life to these engines. Seen too many failures. very sorry for that pilot. 😞
RIP, I’m sure the controller didn’t expect to go to work and be the last person to talk to someone that day. From an educational point of view, the power / energy-management side of this is VERY unusual. He still had his engine, but descended out of 6000 immediately after telling ATC he’d go to W13. I’m not sure if he lost situational awareness or what, but the controller caught it as well and was equally confused “I see you’re in the descent, have you lost engine?” etc. And his answer was no? Obviously with a questionable engine, you want to maintain altitude (or climb) and get every foot you can to extend for an inevitable glide. I’d also have to say that cockpit/nav resources like an iPad and foreflight aren’t just gimmicks, they can save your life in a situation like this. This pilot didn’t know what his nearest airports were, what their identifiers were, what their field altitude was, etc. FF would have all of this up already, plus a glide radius “bubble” to instantly know what you can / can’t reach. Terrain maps would be another huge factor with FF and it can warn you as well; that is a beautiful area to fly in, but there are hills / mountains everywhere. The controller eventually mentioned it, but a little late IMHO. Also, there are hardly and visible roads or highways out there - vectors from ATC probably won’t cut it for much of anything. 😕
@@bardo0007 Maybe, but that area is pretty lumpy. I grew up about 45 miles south of there and if he was where I think he was, there's very few bits of road that he could've made a good landing on even if it was daytime. Roads aren't lit out there, it's extremely rural. Wouldn't have much other than people's occasional porch or all-night yard lights.
100% agree with this. ForeFlight is a wealth of knowledge as long as you know how to quickly access the different tools it provides. I spent hours, days, and months watching tutorial after tutorial, contacting ForeFlight directly when I couldn't find answers to my questions, and extensively using it during my training. It got to the point where the instructors would come to me for certain questions on how to use features. I still need to purchase a couple online courses and use them as refreshers just to make sure I'm getting everything I can out of the software. As pilots, we have more information at our fingertips than pilots ever have in the history of aviation. But, you have to know your way around the software and under pressure.
to add on to this in your flight-planning pilots should plan for alternate airports that are reachable in along the selected route of flight at best glide speed IFR or VFR even when its not required
This is so sad. Controllers aren’t necessarily pilots so it’s not fair to criticize the controller for not understanding that low oil pressure means total engine failure is imminent. Lots of lessons about planning and communication to be learned here.
@@Sifo_Dyas Some early comments were casting shade on the controller for suggesting the farther airport. He was just trying to be helpful (there were mountains between the aircraft and the closer airport) and the pilot didn’t tell him that he would soon be in a glider so he needed something closer. Partial power and loss of oil pressure means you can measure the engine’s life expectancy in seconds. There was no way he was going to make it to either airport. Maybe it’s harsh to say it, but this one is all on the pilot, starting with his decision to fly there at night and ending with his failure to clearly ask for what he needed.
I felt the same when I would read CVR transcripts of major airline crashes. The worst was the 1900 crash in Charlottee, talking about donuts and regional jets then boom.
So sad. Nauseous just watching and thinking about this, then realizing ATC said it was dark. Poor guy....RIP Kevin James Esh aged 30. (very surprised how quickly the investigation went...within days)
Never heard this, but kinda like it. Although, it’s a little off because it’s implying his mistake was not have a second pilot onboard…which probably would have meant 2 fatal.
Every time a watch one of these accidents reminds me of an experience I had back In 2003, a dear friend of mine crashed his RANS S12 light sport plane during a cold front in the afternoon, I had to be on the search and rescue team all night and kept contact with his friends and family all the time telling them what we were doing, we found him dead next day in the morning with the help of a Vietnam veteran helicopter pilot, first news was that he was alive and waving back so his family and friends were very happy, but the truth was that what the pilot saw was the shredded wing´s moving fabric. So when we got to the spot it was a real pain, to tell the truth to the widow and friends, I could hear the screams on the cell phone, one of his friends fainted with the news and I had to stay cool on the phone, it´s something that I have not been able to overcome even that was close to 20 years ago.
This is from the pilots home newspaper in Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Fifteen minutes before the Piper Cherokee he was flying crashed and burned in a wooded area in Virginia late Wednesday, 30-year-old Kevin James Esh of New Holland, Lancaster County, Pa. had calmly radioed air traffic controllers that he was heading toward Washington, D.C., at about 7,500 feet. He was losing altitude and seeing a problem with his engine oil pressure, radio transmissions show. The plane had taken off from Blue Ridge Regional Airport in Virginia less than an hour before, according to plane-tracking websites cited by The Daily Progress in Charlottesville, Va. The destination, which was never reached, is unknown. “I’ve got a rough engine here, and I’m gonna need an airport to land at,” Esh reported at 10:53 p.m. The controller, at Potomac Terminal Radar Approach Control, suggested three nearby airports for the 1978 piston-engine plane. Esh chose Eagle’s Nest in Waynesboro, 13 miles away.
My condolences 😳 CP 50 yrs. Get to the NEAREST useable airport. DO NOT reduce power it might quit completely. I've been laughed at for always carrying a sectional with my route drawn on, but once at night over the mountains with a electrical failure.... They were damn glad I knew "exactly" where we were when the GPS, everything, died. Situational awareness and sufficient planning. AQP. I learned from the best pilots who flew in the 1930-40s. Sad to say.... He was just putzing along and didn't know where he was... Questions: What is your airspeed for maximum distance over the ground? What is your airspeed for maximum time in the air? JME
Former Naval aviator, flight instructor here---"keep it high and fast"---good advice that might have saved this pilot, as well as "nearest port in a storm". the EaglesNest might have been a better choice.
I wonder if he could've made it to one of the private strips on the sectional almost right below him. Obviously ATC isn't going to vector him to a private field especially not knowing how bad the engine issue is but if he had a sectional handy maybe he could've known they were there. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say. RiP.
@@bardo0007 I cannot specifically say, as I'm not familiar enough with the area from that elevation viewpoint in the conditions indicated. However, the pilot did say that he couldn't see the road the traffic controller tried to help him to, so it's likely it wasn't lit enough to see.
The fact that he did not know the identifiers for the airports around him got me thinking if he was even using a EFB on that flight. The nearest button would give him that info instantly. As a good practice I use as default option for nearest fields filtered for runaway lights available and 2000ft runaway.
@@TheCaioKyleBraga He was working on his instrument rating in general, not specifically on this flight. But I would be really surprised of any student nowadays that is training for instrument and doesn't have ForeFlight or Garmin Pilot in the cockpit with them. It makes me wonder if he just wasn't that familiar with the software.
From where he first said he needed an airport to land at, Eagles Nest would not have been a good choice because even though it's closer, it's at 1437 ft with a ridge in between. From where he was, there's really no good place to land at night. Maybe that road he crossed at 3:43, but it probably wasn't lit very well.
Just looking at that terrain I knew the guy was in a really bad situation, couple that with it being dark and pretty rural he must have had a terrifying last few moments. Condolences to his family.
Some possible learning thoughts for other pilots. There’s a divided highway to his right. That might have been his best option to follow that to the airport especially if the area is heavily wooded. It’s possible landing there might have been the safest route.
Really sad thing to hear about these events. It's amazing that both the pilot and atc were so calm. Almost too calm and no sense of urgency. It looked like he started descending right away and said he was able to hold it. W13 was probably his best choice. RIP.
I agree. Of course knowing the outcome, I was hoping he stayed with W13. Stretching a failing engine, with no oil pressure, at night seemed like a lot!! My condolences to his family.
There was a ridge between him and W13, probably at least 2500'. Without knowing why he did that sharper immediate descent it's hard to say if he could have made it, the terrain is decidedly rougher up that way than it is to the northeast toward Charlottesville.
I live and fly in this area. Even during daylight hours finding a reasonable place for an emergency landing can be a challenge. An iPad with data/gps or a ballistic parachute can save your life. If you’re a pilot or have a loved one that is, please encourage him or her to invest in these tools.
I hate to judge the deceased. However I think he got tunnel vision heading to Charlottesville. He was talking with ATC, figuring out the field elevation. His engine was running so he was hoping he could make it. But he was never actually able to hold an altitude and didn’t come up with a back up plan.
