Some pilots like to embellish on their “saves” to inflate their own stature. Not me. I didn’t want this to happen, and I don’t want to experience another one. In fact, I’d prefer not to write this column.
However, the old saying “not if, but when” applies to October 7, 2025, when my Van’s RV-7A engine spewed its last gasp and became an inefficient nose ballast. Pilots fear single-engine failure for good reason—it’s scary. I hope this helps the next poor schmuck faced with the reality of engine failure.
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Routine Flight Turns Critical
On a sunny day after practicing approaches into Evanston, Wyoming, I casually flew home to Morgan, Utah. A single-engine pilot, or any pilot, should always have a little gremlin on their shoulder shouting “what if it quits!” I did. As such, I chose to parallel Interstate 84 westbound through some mountainous terrain. However, as we all do, I chose a few ridge crossings that were higher risk. One such crossing offered only rough dirt roads, and another was no-man’s-land until I could see the 12th fairway of a familiar golf course. Yet the engine purred on, and I enjoyed the supremely gorgeous day. No worries.
Sensibly, to avoid the ridges, I’d climbed a few thousand feet and then descended to pattern altitude 4 miles away from home plate. That gremlin sat on my shoulder whispering, so I chose to parallel the highway. Without warning, there was a loud bang.
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Before we get past the “bang,” let me impart some background to give context to the event. I’m a 24-year product of U.S. Air Force training and a retired Southwest Airlines pilot. That translates to a heap of real-world experience and simulator training. For example, in 1994 after patrolling the skies above Bosnia, my wingman’s F-16 engine rolled back to idle due to a clogged engine fuel port while over the Adriatic sea. Serious training kicked in. We had a few precious seconds to work as a team and cement a plan. Boldfaced to attempt an engine restart, maintain aircraft control (point at an airfield), analyze the situation (the restart failed), and take the proper action (prepare to eject).
During the controlled chaos, we worked in concert to declare an emergency to search and rescue forces, run pre-ejection checklists, and pick a suitable spot to plant the jet. It turned out there was a short runway airport off our nose, so we adapted our plan for him to glide for a chanced landing. He glided the jet with expertise and touched down at brick one on a 4,000-foot runway at 180 knots. For you mathematicians, that’s not enough for an F-16 on a good day. As I chased him at 100 feet offset to the runway, he ejected and got one good swing in the chute before slamming onto the runway in one piece. Thank goodness for the ACES II seat. The F-16, however, kept going off the runway. Watching the jet pile off the departure end was mind blowing. The aircraft dug into a canal, sending missiles flying into a large mass of peat moss and metal.
What did we learn? Training mattered. Along with numerous other emergencies I experienced flying the A-10, F-5, and F-16 in the Air Force, and later dealing with airline Boeing 737 emergencies, training was the pivotal key.
Training Wins When Seconds Count
Back to the “bang.” Little did I know that my RV-7A had developed a small oil leak that saturated the alternator and was about to impose a self-inflicted lightning strike on the aircraft. Without warning, the entire bank of avionics blew out, including the primary and backup electronic airspeed indicators.
As if the screens going blank wasn’t bad enough, the Lycoming IO-360
engine quit. That was not supposed to happen. Turns out the experimental dual electronic ignitions had faulty backups and were vulnerable to failure.
What would you do? It depends mostly on how you are trained. The most critical aspect of training is how you prepare for emergencies on the ground before flying. It starts with the briefing. Whether it’s a self-briefing or crew briefing, this is the moment of truth before the chocks are pulled.
Military pilots are deeply familiar with preflight briefings. It starts in pilot training with what some would consider a baseball bat approach. An entire class of students stands at attention while an instructor singles out one unlucky victim. That student pilot shakes in the crosshairs while the instructor belts out the daily emergency scenario. Oil pressure failure…what will you do? The silence in the flight room is deafening.
If the scenario calls for a brazen response, the student needs to spew that out like a lawyer’s final argument. Next is, “I will maintain aircraft control, analyze the situation, and take the proper action.” This must be verbatim, or the student will sit down abruptly while the instructor picks out another delicious target. Is this random abuse without purpose? No, the purpose is to ingrain calm behavior into a chaotic high-pressure moment, which will occur during a pilot’s flying career.
Take, for example, when Thunderbird No. 6’s entire aft F-16 engine section fell off during an airshow in Columbus, Michigan. As the Diamond slot pilot at the time, my job was to be silent, fly my position, and listen to No. 6 analyze the situation and take the proper action. His training prevailed, and he flawlessly recovered the jet in a perfect flameout landing. This didn’t happen haphazardly. Every airshow performance briefing included an emergency scenario. The Thunderbird pilot handling the scenario mimicked the words he was taught in basic pilot training, which translated to a professional, skilled approach to the worst emergency imaginable.
A catastrophic emergency typically elicits a startle factor. The pilot’s human reaction is often one of disbelief. In my experience, the only way to combat that is practicing emergencies on the ground under pressure. How many Part 141 flight schools or independent CFIs include a rigorous emergency procedure with their student in every preflight briefing? I’m willing to bet very few.
So there I was, startled that not only had my avionics blown out, but the engine was toast. First, I caught myself disbelieving this was actually happening. The sun was shining, a great flight was behind me, only a few miles from home, and suddenly my world turned to chaos.
I had two choices: Freak out or rely on training. Once I swallowed that this was really happening, I instinctively lowered the nose to an attitude practiced during flameout approaches to maintain aircraft control. After analyzing the situation, I changed fuel tanks, gang-loaded the throttle, prop, and mixture forward, and turned on the fuel boost pump in line with “taking the proper action.” Nothing happened. Clearly this could have been the real freak-out point, but once again training kicked in. I said to myself to “take the proper action,” which not only was calming but cleared my head enough to know that I must commit to an engine-out landing on the only terrain in front of me. Luckily, or maybe because I flew the entire sortie thinking “what if the engine quit now?” I had a highway beneath me.
Recalling other mishaps where pilots lost control by turning their gliding aircraft, my intent was to keep the wings level and find space on the highway to put down the aircraft. With a little more luck, I targeted a semitruck that knowingly was at about 75 mph and set a touchdown point behind him, hoping follow-on traffic would stop before running me over from behind.
In retrospect, from about 1,800-2,000 feet agl, the episode took about 35 seconds before touchdown. Not surprisingly, the landing was a temporal blank in my mind. I don’t remember landing the plane, but I do recall it was ridiculously good. Why? I had survived.
After my full stop and politely clearing to the side of the road, I took a moment to assess the situation. No fire, no aircraft damage, no vehicles hit me, and it was a nice day. I counted my blessings.
The subsequent hours were filled with engaging the local sheriff’s department, the highway patrol, National Transportation Safety Board via cell phone, the FAA, a flatbed tow truck, and the
paparazzi-craved public. Before I could spit, social media had lit up like a barrage of anti-aircraft flak. It’s inevitable in today’s world, but I was not enthralled with becoming a nightly news headline.
Power of Preparation
The important conclusion is what did I learn that pilots can take away from such an event? I have a few ideas:
Preflight briefings, whether self-briefed or with a passenger or flight instructor, are necessary, critical, essential, required, compulsory, obligatory, and indispensable. Get the point?
Preflight emergency procedure briefings set the tone and your mind vector, and will translate into action should an emergency occur. Every briefing should include an emergency scenario, no matter how simple or complex.
Every emergency scenario should start with “I will maintain aircraft control, analyze the situation, and take the proper action.” Every pilot should memorize this method. It not only serves to set in motion the right course, but it forces the pilot to handle the startle factor. In the Air Force, we called it “winding the clock.”Take a moment to take in one breath and then attack any problem with a clear head.
No matter the aircraft, pilots should build a catalog of emergency scenarios for each day of the month. For flight schools, this facilitates an easy reference for instructors to use during briefings. For example, the fourth day of the month scenario is oil pressure loss. Easy.
I’m not the world’s greatest pilot. But I’m a pretty well-trained pilot. I’ve had the privilege to employ Air Force fighters in tactical environments as well as airshow demonstrations. After the military, I enjoyed a fun airline career and had the pleasure of flying L39s in airshow formation aerobatics.
I’m a well-trained monkey. It’s true, and the training, discipline, and adherence to a strict reliance on serious flight briefings made a difference when that RV-7A engine gave up the ghost.
This column first appeared in the May Issue 970 of the FLYING print edition.