Flight Training - June 2021 - 22

PREFLIGHT ACCIDENT REPORT

BY DAN NAMOWITZ

THE FUEL REMAINING
TOO LATE OR TOO SOON

THE FAA'S PUBLISHED GUIDANCE

recognizes three types of emergency
landings: forced landings; precautionary landings; and ditching, essentially
a hydrous version of the first two.
Precautionary landings are defined
in the FAA's Airplane Flying Handbook
as " a premeditated landing, on or
off an airport, when further flight is
possible but inadvisable. Examples of
conditions that may call for a precautionary landing include deteriorating
weather, being lost, fuel shortage, and
gradually developing engine trouble. "
Given that definition, the off-airport variety, although less risky than
a Hollywood-style forced landing, is
the preferred option for safety in a situation where the safety chain is about

ALWAYS PLAN TO BE
ON THE GROUND LONG
BEFORE THE TIME ALOFT
OFFERED BY YOUR
FUEL SUPPLY.
to break. Often when it does break,
it's because a pilot senses, rightly or
wrongly, that fuel is in short supply.
The fuel shortages that lead to
emergency landings come in several
varieties. There's the fuel-exhaustion
scenario that takes a pilot by surprise,
requiring an immediate (forced)
landing on whatever surface lies
beneath. Fuel starvation is a variation
on this theme. A pilot may think fuel is
exhausted-only to find out later that
sufficient fuel was available in another
tank that was not selected for use
when the engine stopped.
Another kind of fuel shortage is
perceived when a flight seems likely
to exceed its assumed time aloft-a
scenario sometimes compounded
by the pilot's lack of familiarity with
the aircraft's demonstrated fuel
consumption. On June 22, 2020, a
272-hour private pilot flying a recently
22  FLIGHT TRAINING JUNE 2021

purchased Cessna 150 experienced a
hard landing when setting down the
aircraft (with its engine sputtering) in
a field in Shelby, North Carolina. The
accident site was about three miles
short of the destination airport.
According to the NTSB accident
report, the pilot reported departing
with full tanks, and noted that while
receiving radar flight following en
route, he complied with an air traffic
control request to " adjust his heading "
before being " routed back on course. "
" After the airplane was recovered,
the pilot drained the unbreached fuel
tanks and 3 gallons were removed
from the airplane. According to the
airplane's pilot operating handbook,
the airplane held 26 total gallons of
fuel, of which 22.5 gallons were useable, " the report said.
The pilot had been watching the
fuel gauges during the flight, and his
statements were offered in terms of
gauge indications, not calculated fuel
remaining. The accident might have
been avoided, " if I had stopped and
fueled when I was at one-quarter
tank of useable fuel, " he noted on the
NTSB's accident reporting form. " I
had only had [the] plane for 10 days
and had flown it for 11 hours, " he said.
The NTSB determined the probable accident cause as " the pilot's
inadequate preflight and inflight
fuel planning, which resulted in fuel
exhaustion. "
If fuel exhaustion occurs all too
regularly year after year, consider how
demoralizing it might be to make a
precautionary landing (substantial
damage resulting) based on a guesstimate of fuel remaining, only to learn
that an hour of usable fuel remained.
This unfortunate outcome was experienced by a 3,600-hour private pilot
flying a big-engine Bellanca Viking on
June 19, 2020, near Martinton, Illinois.
According to the NTSB, the pilot,
who had a passenger aboard, began
to suspect imminent fuel exhaustion

at a 19-gallon-per-hour fuel burn
after flying about three hours of a
cross-country. Seeing no runway
nearby, he went for a gravel road.
" During the landing the
airplane exited the road and
went into a ditch, substantially
damaging the fuselage. Post-accident examination of the airplane
revealed that it contained about
one hour of useable fuel, " the
accident report said, affixing the
probable cause as " the pilot's
improper decision to conduct an
off-field precautionary landing. "
If these two accidents bracket
the ways a pilot can fall short
on estimating fuel remaining,
their other common element is
that the precautionary landings
on terrain more or less of their
own choosing were survivable.
These accidents also illustrate
the simple steps you can take to
avoid similar predicaments and
the likely criticism that you acted
either too late or too soon.
Build a true knowledge of
your engine's fuel-consumption
before planning a flight close to
the published limits. Another
is to always plan to be on the
ground-that is, a runway-long
before the time aloft offered by
your fuel supply, despite any
inconvenience that might cause.
Until your familiarity with
the aircraft you fly rises to a
high level of confidence, plan
your flights based on a higher-then-expected fuel burn and
a lower quantity of fuel than you
actually carry. Then for good
measure, set aside more than the
fuel reserves required by regulations as a further boost to your
safety margin. No one waiting at
the destination will mind if you
show up a little late.
dan.namowitz@aopa.org
Flight Training - June 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Flight Training - June 2021
