I am publicly sharing this embarrassing video of an inflight emergency that was totally due to pilot error! I hope it will help someone else learn from my mistakes.
I've decided to turn on the "comments" section so that others in the pilot community can learn from each others insights and comments. PLEASE be gentle on me! In the comfort of my home today, it's very clear how many bad decisions were made. I promise you, in the moment, it simply wasn't that clear. I made some stupid decisions that began to build as time went on. It's as simple as that.
UPDATED...... Here are some answers to additional questions raised by others...
1) Q. Why didn't I just file IFR to begin with? A. The weather on this leg of the trip looked "fine". 7,000' AGL ceilings in Farmington NM and 6,500' ceilings in Page AZ. Weather at both ends, and my last 2 hours of flight, showed that I had plenty of ceiling for a safe VFR flight. Since I was flying over Monument Valley and all its beauty, I wanted the ability to go lower and circle if I wanted. But, here's where the problem arose, there are no weather stations between those two points of my flight. This is a very remote part of the US. There is 168 NM distance between those two points with no reported weather. I had no way of knowing in advance that the clouds just after Monument Valley would erode to just below 1,000' AGL. It simply happened, but without weather reports in that area, I was not able to "plan" for it. Not saying filing IFR every time isn't a good practice. Just sharing insights on why I didn't on this particular trip.
2) Q. Why didn't you use your auto-pilot more? A. GREAT question!! I should have! But, what doesn't show well in the video (due to stabilization technology of the camera) is the turbulence I encountered. Just before entering IMC, my AP had begun to porpoise (oscillate up and down). That has happened before on rare occasions, and when it does, I simply disengage the AP, steady the plane, then reset AP. I did use the AP for much of the video, but when airspeed went to zero and stall warning kicked in, I THOUGHT I had lost my AP. I have learned since then that the AP was still working!!! When the AOA stall warning alarm went off I felt a sudden and strong pitch up of the plane. This was the anti-stall feature of the autopilot kicking off, not the AP shutting down. Garmin AP servos will pitch the plane downward if they sense and impending stall. That's what it did when I was losing airspeed. When the IAS gets below 30 KIAS, it kicks off. So, what I felt was not the AP kicking off, but the impending stall limiter kicking off (that's why it pitched up). When I took the control stick in my hand, I hit the disengage button because I didn't think it mattered at that point. The AP was off in my mind already. That's why I was "hand flying" during the worst part of this emergency.
3) Q. For an IFR rated pilot, why was this such a big deal? A. Two things to understand. One, you are seeing my piloting skills during the 15 minutes of me at my very worst. What you don't see are the 1,100 hours of safe, competent flying under my belt. 191 of those hours in IMC conditions with no previous safety concerns. This video illustrates what can happen to someone when they encounter IMC they don't plan for! It was like someone slipped me the "stupid pill" and sucked very ounce competency out of my brain! That's point of posting this. Don't let it happen to you!
Second thing to understand, I'm sure professional pilots (military and commercial) would not have panicked or had their brains shut down like mine. They are pros, with many more hours of experience and with the ability to practice such emergencies in multi-million dollar simulators! I don't have access to that level of training, or the ability to fly as much. I'm not a "pro", I'm an average amature that simply enjoys flying. I will never be as good as the pros. Just like I'll never shoot a 66 on the golf course (even though the pros can), I will never be as good or practiced as a "pro" pilot. This video is for the amature, "average" pilot to learn a valuable lesson from, TURN AROUND!!!
25 мар 2021
