Staying in Command
Article appeared in Flying Magazine March, 2016 by John King –
The light on the panel said “OIL1.” It was telling us we had low oil pressure in the left engine. We didn’t believe it.
In 14 years of flying our old Falcon 10 we had never seen an “OIL” light come on. We looked down at the oil pressure gauge to reassure ourselves that there was nothing wrong with the engine.
To our shock the gauge confirmed the low oil pressure. It was hard to believe this extraordinarily reliable airplane was letting us down.
Each of us knew what we needed to do. It was Martha’s job as captain and designated pilot-flying, to fly the airplane. As co-pilot and pilot-monitoring, it was my job to run the checklists and take care of the problem. We both knew the very first checklist was going to tell us to shut the engine down. We just wanted to do it right so we didn’t create more problems for ourselves.
Shutting down an engine in this airplane should be no big deal. It can climb at 1,000 ft./min. on one engine. Also, we practice single-engine landings every time we go to FlightSafety for simulator training. But this was for real. In the simulator you have nothing at risk except for maybe embarrassment. Now we were at risk of, in the worst case, botching a single-engine landing and suffering grievous harm, and at the minimum, trashing an engine because we didn’t shut it down soon enough. I was nervous.
The checklist for low oil pressure is very handy. Like every light on the panel, it has an easy-to-find checklist associated with it. As we anticipated, the checklist associated with the “OIL1” light said to shut the engine down, which requires the shutdown checklist. Martha had already pulled the power lever back to idle.
The first step on the shutdown checklist, I was sure, would be to pull the power lever past the detent to idle cutoff. I wanted us to go ahead and do that, but Martha asserted her authority as captain to insist I find and refer to the shutdown checklist before we do anything that might be difficult to undo. Within maybe a couple of minutes, which seemed like an eternity, we had followed the checklist to put the engine into idle cutoff, and completed the rest of the items on the list.
We hadn’t said anything to ATC yet because there wasn’t anything they could do for us. Moreover, we didn’t want the distraction of explaining our situation to them until we had the engine shut down and secured. However, we now wanted to abandon our Las Vegas destination and reverse course to land at San Diego’s Gillespie Field where our maintenance shop is located. I explained to Los Angeles Center that we had shut one engine down and wanted to head to Gillespie. The controller immediately gave us the clearance I asked for.
“Do you want to declare an emergency?” he asked. I knew that if I did so, it would start a whole new conversation which we weren’t yet ready for. Along with the engine, we had lost a generator and a hydraulic pump. We still needed to minimize our electrical load, consider the hydraulic implications, and deal with the imbalance caused by burning fuel out of only one side. We needed time to deal with the checklists for those issues.
Nevertheless, the controller was concerned. “Do you need any assistance? Is there anything we can do for you?” “No,” I explained, “The airplane flies fine on one engine and we are in no rush. We just need to take time to run some checklists.”
Controllers are in a real bind when a pilot reports a problem. They know their questions can be a distraction. But every controller is rightfully concerned when you have a problem. The last thing they would want to do is fail to give a pilot with a problem the help or information that could have prevented a catastrophe.
Plus, controllers are accustomed to being in charge of things. After all, they aren’t called “controllers” for nothing. And the hardest thing in the world for a competent, controlling person to do is nothing, even when nothing is the right thing to do. So every time we were handed off to a new controller, we understandably went through the same questions.
Getting the fuel balanced was a priority for us. Having a fuel imbalance on landing would make the landing trickier. The longer we burned fuel out of one side, the bigger imbalance we needed to correct for, and the more time it would take. Correcting for a fuel imbalance in our Falcon 10 is complicated and offers plenty of opportunity to screw it up and make things worse. We really needed to concentrate on running the checklist. The questions were truly a distraction.
As we approached the San Diego area on this magnificently beautiful San Diego day we realized that everybody and his brother was out flying. Our traffic collision advisory system showed numerous airplanes between us and the airport. We now wanted priority from ATC in the hope of avoiding a diversion or a go-around. There is plenty of power for a go-around but it is all on one side. Every power change requires coordination with a lot of rudder pressure. It is very easy to get dangerously destabilized. It would be much simpler if we didn’t have to go around.
Since we had caught up with all the checklists we decided it was time to declare an emergency. Of course, as we knew would happen, the controller asked us the required questions. “Say souls on board and remaining fuel, and do you need any assistance?”
Declaring an emergency did pay off. We could hear aircraft being vectored away from our path as we made our uninterrupted straight-in approach to the airport. Martha made a beautiful landing right on the centerline of the runway. As we turned on to the taxiway we noticed a firetruck was accompanying us on the adjacent road.
When we landed at Gillespie Field and had a chance to investigate, the cause of our problem became obvious. There was oil all over the left side of the airplane. Further exploration revealed that the left oil filler/dipstick cap had developed a gap in the O-ring, allowing the engine oil to escape. When the O-ring was replaced and the oil replenished, the engine didn’t leak oil and ran fine. The next day, without any problems, we made the trip we had started earlier.
A little less than a week later we got a message from an inspector at the local FAA district office, “At your convenience please email me a statement describing the events that led you to declare the emergency.”
At first I was very disappointed to have received this message. I like to tell pilots that you don’t get into trouble for declaring an emergency, and that you shouldn’t let fear of repercussions from the FAA deter you from doing so. Then Martha countered that if people are having to shut engines down due to something as simple as O-ring failure, the FAA needs to know about it. “How else would the problem get fixed?” she asked.
The experience re-affirmed our belief in the necessity in an emergency to manage your communications with ATC to minimize distractions from flying the airplane. There is no rush to tell someone about a problem unless they can help you somehow. Once you tell ATC about your problem, in their concern to make sure they give you all the assistance and information you need, they will inevitably start asking you questions.
When you decide you do need help, like priority handling or search and rescue, and are ready to answer the questions, it is time to share your problem. The “souls on board” question is pretty easy to answer, but knowing fuel remaining in hours can take a little figuring. You can lower your stress level if you make the calculation before you declare the emergency.
All in all, we were very satisfied with the way things worked out. The situation did require a competent performance on our part. But we had much more than that going for us. We had caring and capable air traffic controllers who continuously monitored our progress and were standing by, ready to help in any way possible including arranging for emergency vehicles to be there when we landed. We were very well looked after.
The write up by John King shows a very deliberate and planned course of action, including the deferred decision to declare an emergency and justification of that delay. The set of comments introduce a set of varied circumstances that could have occurred, and several question the wisdom of deferring the decision to declare. Reading the King report and the comments together give a good understanding of the considerations involved. Having read both, I would be inclined to Declare, give ATC souls on board and fuel on board, and then tell ATC to Standby while I ran the QRH and checklists. The decision to return to home base which may not have been the closest suitable landing point appears to be safe from a careless and reckless perspective as long as other data showed isolation of the problem to one engine with no expectation of a second engine failure – as the data stated by John did show.
Useful set of reports and comments.
Such a great article. The Kings have the wonderful ability to communicate that got me through Private, Instrument, Commercial, and Multi-engine.
John beautifully pointed out the semi-quandary we have when we have something wrong with an aircraft that is real, but we do not feel we are in any distress. It took them a while to get there, but they eventually did and received the assistance they needed to keep this event a non-event. I totally get it and have had the same quandary at least 2 times myself.
The mantra of always declare and do not be concerned about after reports is exactly what I reach customer pilots. Yet there are often considerations that make us hesitate. And we feel a bit distrustful about having to send in that report and having it viewed in the context of the situation versus it being a chance to “bust a pilot’s chops.”
I have declared emergency 4 times in a long career, and have had to fill out reports 2 times. I never felt mis-treated or had any problem related to the emergency or my report. I would urge pilots to have their reports reviewed by an aviation attorney before hitting “send.” The AOPA legal services plan alllows for this and we should probably all have it.
Thanks, John and Martha for more education!
Thanks for sharing your story. I shutdown an increasingly rough engine on my Twin Comanche 116 miles from home. I was over the desert and was IFR at 15,000. Conditions were VFR and I cancelled IFR and slowed to VYse,plus. The plane trimmed up well and I monitored my slow descent and continued monitoring the temperature on the running engine. (I had installed an electric aileron trim prior, which proved to be helpful.) I began a slow descent to my Class B home airport. I too decided to not declare an emergency. I was coming home from my Reserve duties. I was a Naval trained Aviator and had faced more difficult situations. While close to the airport, I mentioned I had shut down one engine. I was already on a base preparing to turn to final. Yes, he asked if I wished to declare an emergency, and I replied I was on final and a single engine landing was not a problem at this point. It was a quiet Sunday evening. (I was ready to declare an emergency, if the tower had asked me to go-around.) Which never happened. I landed and taxied in, to my hangar. (It was a simple plugged fuel injector issue.) In retrospect I passed one small airport, I could have landed at. At that point I still had plenty of altitude, and that airport had no services except for self-fuel, but no FBO. Yes, I have declared emergencies in the past, however these conditions were such I felt calm and carefully continued to evaluate the situation to a safe arrival..
Thank you for this debrief. The time to declare an emergency is BEFORE things get out of hand. When ATC asks if you want to declare an emergency we should understand that they deal with these situations all the time but this may happen to us once in a career. It was not an idle prompting on ATC’s part, it was a “foot stomper” to strongly urge you to declare the emergency which allows them to do what they do best. The smart thing to do is to take the help when offered. Secondly the decision to fly back to base on one engine and presumably over fly suitable airports could be questioned. There are certainly many reasons to want to fly back to your home base. The question is, is it “safe, legal, and smart” as we used to say at my old airline. The questions I would have been asked if I had done that is why I didn’t land at the NEAREST suitable airport. I used to like to say “every flight is a LOFT scenario”. Again thank you for sharing this and thank you so much for all you have done for aviation. You both are true hero’s.
Well done, John and Martha. Regarding Martha’s comment about how the FAA can be made aware of issues like this, there is a system for that that doesn’t involve an emergency declaration: the Service Difficulty Report (SDR). I’ve probably filed a half dozen or so, and the Feds do take notice.
Thanks for the article.
Great job by both of you. I’m working on my instrument rating and used the King schools program. I am the beneficiary of this kind of candid report and thank you for sharing it with me and feel honored that you would include me in the readership. I’m of the opinion that we all benefit from each others experiences. Happy flying in that Falcon.
I’ve been retired for 25 years after nearly 37 years of airline flying, most of it with American where I was a check airman on 4 different airplanes over 9 years. In my day we had “immediate action” also known as “RED BOX” items for emergencies which the pilot was required to commit to memory and execute flawlessly before fumbling for a checklist. In your case it would have been identifying the problem, identifying the engine to be shut down with the concurrence as to which engine by the other pilot, retarding the throttle to idle to verify and then shutting down that engine, THEN fumbling for the checklist to back up the actions performed and then continuing with the remaining checklist items! And then declaring an emergency so as to obtain the most expeditious handling by ATC. Otherwise, nice job and glad it resulted in a happy ending.
You should have declared an emergency IMMEDIATELY. Making up reasons why you didn’t is what–lame? Oh, I didn’t want the controllers to ask me how many souls on board, blah blah blah. YOU LOSE AN ENGINE, YOU DECLARE AND EMERGENCY.
You will find the procedures for engine failure in most jet aircraft in the Abnormal Procedures, not Emergency. It’s a PIC and crew call when, or if, to declare an emergency. John and Martha had their reasons for their actions. Job well done!
As a former ATC controller and airline pilot, the decision to delay declaring an emergency is not a real good one. Any time you declare an emergency, you will be asked for Souls on board and fuel remaining. I always add this in the first call, makes the sim instructors stop for a minute.
Not declaring the emergency might come back and bite you. Everything goes fine, you land, taxi towards your hanger and a fuel truck loses its brakes and clips your wing. The investigation will eventually find that you landed single engine. Now the FAA will be asking your CRM. We had a pilot tell them the reason he did not land at the nearest suitable sirport, which he overflew, was that his car was not there.
Job well done!!! Been flying professionally for 23 years now. Learned a lot about aviation from your videos, and now my boys are using the same videos to learn how to fly. I liked the way you used “RRM” or “TEM” to manage your situation. Thanks for sharing!!!
Wow! Very harsh! They actually handled it beautifully and lived to tell us, all Monday night QB, who probably would have pissed in our pants. Don’t cast a stone unless to yourself!
Lame is what you said about waiting to declare an emergency because it would distract you.
Giving ATC the earliest notice gives them time to prepare.
Also how sad is it that you had to write a report. Really? You guys write for a living!
I have declared an emergency numerous times the last thing I am concerned with is the paperwork. We are suppose to be a team with ATC and by declaring early you are making their job easier.
The AIM describes the definition of an Emergency, and how a pilot should deal with it in general, very well. Urgency is also defined and great reading. It’s all about safety. We pilots (and CFIs) can benefit if we understand and follow what the AIM describes.
Thanks for the story. Glad it turned out good for all.
Aviate, navigate, communicate. Your actions were textbook. Kudos!
An emergency can be declared by the pilot, ATC, the operator (e.g., airline), or the aircraft owner. It’s not a request for help, it’s a declaration. And the only questions to answer are souls on board and fuel. Not a whole lot of distraction. And you can always reply. standby.
Nice work. I am a Check Airman on the 787 fleet with American Airlines. Also, a student of yours. I used your corse to learn about the G1000 that is on my G58 Baron.
I always teach my students to declare an emergency when an engine is shut down or in any situation that is warranted by the Crew. Judgement is key. Either a PAN PAN PAN or Mayday. This would have been a PAN PAN for us at AAL. The downside is nothing. The upside is you can have more freedom with altitudes, airspace and speeds. If ATC gets too wordy, “standby” is the go to phrase. In the end, CA’s decision. But if anything uncontrollable had happened, (unrelated blown tire on landing) resulting in departing the runway. The first Question that will be asked is “Why didn’t you declare an emergency?”. Overall, Great job!
Awesome article yet again! I look forward to these real world examples you and Marta share. I started my multi engine training yesterday and this example exemplifies all of the procedures that go along with having two engines & the possibility of losing one. Thanks again for sharing!