AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2019 - 24

SAFETY SPOTLIGHT

BY RICHARD MCSPADDEN
Executive Director
AOPA Air Safety Institute

A memorable flight
Training paid off on an urgent King Air mission

RICHARD MCSPADDEN

and Bud Marston
were awarded
the Joint Service
Commendation
Medal for
meritorious
achievement in
accomplishing this
emergency medical
evacuation.

24 | AOPA PILOT March 2019

DRESSED IN FORMAL U.S. AIR FORCE ATTIRE, traditional "permission to come aboard" rituals complete, I
boarded a U.S. Navy warship anchored in Manila harbor for an evening reception and headed straight for
the makeshift bar. My boss, Col. Bud Marston, the U.S.
defense attache, intercepted me. "Have you had anything to drink tonight?" he questioned. "No sir, but
target in sight." "No, don't," he ordered. "We may have
an urgent mission."
Diversion from rendezvous with a single-malt
scotch is not normally welcome, but this was intriguing. We were two of the Beechcraft Super King Air
(C-12) pilots in the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines.
As assistant air attache, and the junior pilot in the
cadre, I managed the small fleet of King Airs and
served as instructor and evaluator pilot. We shuttled
embassy officials around the archipelago and completed the occasional odd mission. Looking back, it
was an incredible job with some unique and challenging flying into mountainous areas, tropical forests,
grass strips, and coral runways. Through all of my
military and general aviation flying, I look back on
that King Air flying frequently when I think of experiences that tasked my airmanship and sharpened
those skills.
Within minutes the boss confirmed with a medic
on scene that a U.S. Army soldier needed immediate
evacuation from a remote area of Luzon Island. The
Army had moved the sick soldier to a long-ago-abandoned airstrip, which Special Forces would line with
green Chemlight glow sticks for our recognition. The
asphalt was in such poor shape that calling it paved
was hyperbole. Night VFR in remote, mountainous
terrain, to find a forsaken airstrip lined with glow
sticks-as I said, the job required some airmanship.
With no reliable navaids in the vicinity of the airfield, we planned heading, distance, and timing from
a nearby village to the runway and plotted our map.
We studied surrounding terrain and established minimum safe altitudes. We admitted there was a good
chance we'd be unable to find the airfield or wouldn't
determine it suitable for landing. An important mission posture in relief flying is to ensure you don't
become part of the relief needed.
The weather forecast called for good VFR, but
as we flew up Luzon, we encountered reduced

visibility in smoke from rice fields burning throughout the countryside. With Marston hand-flying
from the left seat, precisely on speed and heading
outbound from our marked village, we found the
green lights, but smoke from the fires obscured our
vision and we lost sight of the field while maneuvering to land. After a couple of passes losing sight
of the field, Marston lined up on a distant fire on
extended final and we offset our inbound approach
slightly to isolate the field on one side of the cockpit. On short final, aligned and on speed, we turned
on the landing lights, and the bright white lights in
the smoke obscured the green glow lights along the
runway and ruined our night vision.
Marston executed a go-around, while I focused
on keeping the green chem lights in sight. We flew
the same approach, uitilizing all of our previous
techniques and lessons learned, and this time we
kept the landing lights off. Marston landed on speed
in the middle of the green light strips. We knew
the runway was in poor condition, so he carefully
managed brakes and propellers, stopping us in the
remaining runway. The strip was so overrun, our
wing tip scraped along the tops of the wild grasses
as we turned around to back-taxi to the parking
apron the Army had carved out of the grass.
A medic loaded the soldier in the back, where
earlier we had removed the seats, and we flew back
to Manila uneventfully. The soldier was treated and
eventually recovered.
As the pilot in command, Marston accepted
added risk for the mission in a deliberate and calculated fashion. We were well trained, proficient,
and knowledgeable, and we were operating the magnificently reliable King Air. We assessed our risks,
mitigated them, and continually updated our plan,
adjusting to the conditions and our mistakes. At the
time of my assignment to the King Air, I was a seasoned fighter pilot. Marston, a career tanker and
transport pilot, taught me a lot about the power of
crew resource management-before that became a
thing.
Go fly, and hone your skills so when the time
comes, you can call on them with confidence. AOPA
EMAIL richard.mcspadden@aopa.org

AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2019

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