THE VINTAGE INSTRUCTOR
Emergencies . . . reports DOUG STEWART
S
everal years ago I had a job flying a Piper Mirage for a wonderful elderly lady. In the winter this airplane became a snowbird, shuttling the lady and her many friends and family from the icy skies of New England to the sun and warmth of Southern Florida. During this period of time I was establishing a love/hate relationship with the Mirage. Although the airplane was capable of flying high and fast, it kept me constantly alert for something to malfunction. Things like a gear light going inoperative or the autopilot having a brainfart and wanting to fly right through a preselected altitude were typical. At least it kept me on my toes during the long hours of en route flying. It was essential to keep a constant scan going including not only the flight instruments, but all the engine instruments and annunciators as well. Because of the complexity of the aircraft, insurance requirements mandated annual recurrent training. During the recurrent training I had received that year I learned that one of the things that had been failing on the Mirage was the turbocharging system. What would typically happen is that an oil seal would fail in the turbocharger, causing it to seize. The loss of oil would then lead to the second turbocharger failing, and soon thereafter the engine would seize. Fortunately the Mirage was a 6
NOVEMBER 2003
great “cabin class” glider. Its long, clean wing yielded great gliding characteristics. So if you were high enough when the engine failed, you could travel quite some distance before having to commit to a landing. I had even heard of an instructor who had managed to travel 50 miles down the Florida coast, riding the thermals that existed not far offshore, during a simulated power failure. On one particular flight back to Great Barrington from Florida my passengers consisted of the owner of the airplane, her teenage goddaughter, and a sedated cat. Because we were at flight level 210, the route always took us out over the Atlantic from the Del-Mar-Va peninsula toward the eastern end of Long Island. Ahead was an area of cirrus. As I turned on the pitot and stall warning heat, I had a strange foreboding feeling entering the clouds. We had not been in the clouds for much more than 10 minutes when I heard a loud, high-pitched squealing. Taking my headset off made the squealing louder, but I couldn’t determine the source of the noise. I intensified my scan, paying particular attention to the ammeters. On a previous flight we had had alternator trouble, and I thought the squealing might be coming from one of the alternators singing its swan song. All of a sudden there was a “POP” as the cockpit windows in-
stantly fogged up and the acrid smell of hot oil filled the cockpit. My eyes went to the manifold pressure gauge where I saw that the manifold pressure had dropped significantly. A quick check of the pressurization gauge showed that the cabin pressure had jumped up to 12,000 feet from 8,000 feet. A sickening feeling hit my stomach as I realized we had just lost a turbocharger. I quickly called New York Center and said, “Uh…New York, 93Q . . . we’ve just lost a turbocharger. I need a turn to the nearest airport . . . NOW!” Center responded: “93Q turn heading 260, Atlantic City is 52 miles to the west. Do you want to declare an emergency?” My response was negative. My flawed thinking was that the engine was still running. My training had told me that it was quite probable that in a short time the second turbo would fail, followed in quick order by the engine, and then I would get to experience just how good a glider that airplane would be. I would declare the emergency at that point. Center instructed me to descend to FL 190, which I refused. If I was to become a glider, with land more than 30 miles away, there was nothing as useless as altitude above me. Looking up the Atlantic City ATIS frequency on the en route chart, I dialed it into the number two comm, and listened as the ATIS reported