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Emergencies

Emergency Landings​

Forced Landing​

Immediate landing on or off-airport, necessitated by the inability to continue flight. Engine failures, fires.

Precautionary Landing​

Premeditated landing on or off-airport. Fuel shortage, lost.

Ditching​

Forced or precautionary landing on water.

Psychological Hazards​

  • Reluctance to acknowledge the emergency situation
  • Desire to save the airplane
  • Undue concern about getting hurt

Stopping deceleration

  • Generally about 9g's of force will be deadly
  • A lower speed will drastically lower the amount of deceleration distance needed to come to a stop safely

Gear Up vs Gear Down Landing​

  • Ditching would necessitate a gear-up landing
  • Other surfaces like fields might also benefit from a gear-up landing

Emergency Approach and Landing​

Landing Area Selection​

  • 5 S's
    • Size: Big enough, use an airport
    • Shape: Square, rectangular into the wind
    • Surface: Light brown, light green
    • Slope: Look at terrain around the field
    • Surroundings: Roads, civilization nearby
  • 2 W's
    • Wind: Landing into the wing as best we can
    • Wires: Power lines

Glide​

  • Look at a stationary object in the windscreen to establish glide towards a field
  • Fly a normal pattern, if possible, with a touchdown point some point down the field

Engine Failure After Takeoff​

  • Requires a big push
  • Unadvisable to turn back to the runway on takeoff, depending on the performance on the airplane
  • Even with enough altitude, a large tailwind might make you overshoot

Electrical Fire​

  • Don't turn anything back on

Wing Fire​

  • Slip away from the smoke to keep smoke away from the windscreen

Cabin Fire​

  • Use fire extinguisher
  • Turn off an electrical equipment

Flap Failures​

  • Stuck down or stuck up failures
  • Asymmetrical flap deployment: over come with aileron

Control Failures​

  • Elevator failure: Trim is all we've got
  • Aileron failure: Rudder is all we got
  • Rudder failure: Aileron is all we got

Door Opening In Flight​

  • Fly the airplane, try to ignore it

Inadvertent Flight into IMC​

  • Try a 180 degrees level turn

Unusual Attitude Recovery​

Nose-High Scenario​

  1. Simultaneous add power and nose-down elevator
  2. Then level the wings with aileron and rudder

Nose-Low Attitude​

  1. Close the throttle
  2. Level the wings
  3. Slowly recovery the dive attitudes