The pilot of a small plane that crashed in Florida’s Everglades was reportedly stranded for nine hours overnight. CBS Miami reports the pilot was the only person on board a single-engine Cessna Skyhawk 172M aircraft that went down at approximately 2:20 a.m. Tuesday. The Broward County Sheriff’s Office first posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, about the incident at 10:41 a.m. Tuesday, saying rescue teams were operating near Krome Avenue in the area of Mack’s Fish Camp. The National Transportation Safety Board is now investigating what led to the crash. Source: ‚Youtube‚.
The pilot arrived at the airport ready to fly home after having been away for the weekend seeing a child off to college. While performing the preflight, he noticed that the stall warning wasn’t sounding. The source of the problem was obvious as soon as he looked at the instrument panel: The master switch had been left on…for two full days.
Author Jeff Simon
The battery was so depleted that it was impossible to sound the stall warning or even engage the master solenoid. Anxious to get home and knowing that it would be challenging to get help on a Sunday, the pilot began to rationalize shortcuts to get home quickly. With VFR conditions forecast for the duration of the flight home, he thought that the risks of jump-starting the airplane and flying home were minimal. At his request, the ground crew at the FBO brought over a tug and hooked it up to the external power plug on the airplane. At first, there wasn’t even enough power to move the propeller, so they revved the engine of the tug and waited a bit. Finally, the dead battery and the tug produced enough power between them to drive the starter, turn the prop, and get the engine started. The cart disconnected, and the pilot let the airplane idle and assessed the situation. The ammeter was showing a very strong charge as the alternator fed the battery, but all seemed well otherwise, so he took off for home.
At first, things seemed to be going well. However, approximately 25 minutes into the flight, the pilot heard a “click” and the alternator went offline. Then, a distinct smell of something electrical burning entered the cockpit. The pilot called air traffic control and asked to return to the airport, notifying them that he might also lose radio communications. Fortunately, he remained calm, ensured that the landing gear came down properly, and made a safe landing back at the departure airport.
According to Chris Holder, Eastern U.S. sales manager at Concorde Battery, the only safe way to proceed is by following the structured approach of evaluating and charging the battery as detailed in the battery maintenance manual. That begins by measuring the open circuit voltage (OCV) of the battery. For Concorde’s RG Series of batteries, an OCV at or above 12.5 volts, but below 12.75 volts, for a 12-volt battery (25.0 – 25.5 volts for a 24-volt battery) means that the battery requires a constant voltage charging procedure (per the manual) before use. That process takes at least three hours and could be much longer depending on the amount of discharge. For batteries with an OCV below 12.5 volts for a 12-volt battery (25 volts for a 24-volt battery), the battery must go through a special charging and capacity test procedure detailed in the Concorde maintenance manual to determine if it is airworthy.
As a matter of fact, if a battery’s OCV is below 9 volts (18 volts for a 24-volt battery), it is likely permanently damaged. As batteries get to this state of “deep discharge,” the internal cells can reverse polarity and become unrecoverable.
Aircraft battery design is a balancing act between weight, power capacity, and durability. Beyond starting the engine, the primary function of the battery is to provide a reserve of electrical power in case the alternator fails, allowing pilots to navigate, communicate, and get the aircraft back on the ground safely. In order to do this, it must be airworthy before the flight. It’s a recipe for disaster to assume that the alternator will charge the battery during flight.
In this particular case, the alternator and voltage regulator most likely struggled to work with a severely depleted battery. As the regulator tried to keep up and maintain bus voltage, the voltage may have spiked and tripped the voltage regulator’s over-voltage cutoff, sending the alternator offline. The same voltage spike likely took out the alternator-out warning module, which was found to be internally shorted, causing the smell of something burning in the cockpit until its own power fuse blew.
The pressure to get home can be significant. The best way to protect yourself when you’re stranded away from home and feeling that pressure is to reach out to someone else for advice. Take a moment to phone a friend, call your mechanic, or reach out to a service such as Savvy Maintenance’s breakdown assistance service. Cooler heads always make better decisions. Until next time, I hope you and your families remain safe and healthy, and I wish you blue skies. Source: ‚Jeff Simon / AOPA‚.
An encounter with a lenticular cloud literally shook this pilot out of complacency.
We were on our way back from Natfly, the annual fly-in for recreational aircraft held each year on the Easter long weekend at Narromine, NSW. We attended for the full 3 days in my Rutan Long EZ which got a lot of attention as it is a unique design. This aircraft was created by Burt Rutan who designed Virgin’s spaceship. We departed late, about 2 hours before the last light, for the one-hour trip to Wedderburn, a club strip about 60 km southwest of Sydney. The forecast was for a strong easterly stream with a heavy cloud over the ranges and possible lee-side rotor and mountain wave.
On the basis that the hills would be socked in, I informed the pax our alternate would be Bathurst and he needed to prepare to overnight there if we couldn’t get through. He wasn’t happy about that option. On departure, we entered a steady 20-knot headwind that increased as we made our way east. Passing Bathurst and with 30 knots on the nose, we climbed higher to get above the increasingly rough ride from the turbulent air coming off the mountains ahead. While going through 7,500 feet and 55 miles from Sydney, we requested to climb into controlled airspace to stay above the rotor. The headwind was now 40 knots and we could see lenticular clouds forming ahead over the ranges. I didn’t like the situation as the cloud below was solid and the lenticular clouds ahead looked to be at about 10,000 feet.
I informed the pax we would be diverting to Bathurst for the night. The pax was also an experienced pilot and said we could ‘just climb over the lenni’ as we knew it was clear over our destination – and he had a date for dinner and didn’t want to miss that. After some discussion, I reluctantly agreed and we proceeded to get further clearance to 11,000 feet to clear the lenticular cloud. At least the rotor had ceased and we were in smooth air with no feeling of movement apparent – all the hallmarks of a mountain wave. At 11,000 feet we levelled off, well above the clouds, but still with 40 knots on the nose. Over the top, we saw the lenticular cloud rise up like a wave and within 30 seconds, it had washed over us and we went IFR. I immediately went onto the instruments but, as a VFR pilot, I had quite a workload. We had been in the lift going up at 1,000 feet per minute and when we levelled off, the rising air and the lenticular cloud just kept on rising until had enveloped us.
Then, without warning, the engine began to splutter so I pulled on the carby heat. The pax said, ‘Look at the wings’ and when I did, I could see ice forming on the leading edge! Then he yelled, ‘Look at the speed’ – the ASI was almost at the red line so we were diving. I resisted the temptation to pull back on the stick. I saw we were in a hard left turn so I banked right until we were level (but still steep nose down) and then eased back on the stick. We came out of the dive and started a steep climb and by the time I pushed the stick forward again, we had gone over the top of the parabola and were heading down again in a nose dive. We did this a few times before I was able to figure it out and get back to level flight. It was touch and go as we transitioned from positive 3G to negative G, again and again. The feeling was like a roller coaster at Luna Park. The ATC controller asked why I was descending without a clearance and when I told him we were IMC, he said, ‘Get your wings level’.
I confirmed that was what I intended and he vectored me towards clear air to the southeast. By this time the engine had stopped and the ice was getting thicker on the wings. The plane felt really heavy. After about 5 minutes, we were out of the cloud and thankfully, also on the windward side of the mountain. In that short space of time, we had descended to 3,000 feet after losing 8,000 feet of altitude. The mountain, only 5 miles behind us, rose up to 3,585 feet. After another 2 minutes and 1,000 feet loss, we were able to restart the engine and continued onto Wedderburn for a normal arrival.
What an experience! I was shocked at how the cloud enveloped us so quickly. Later, an instructor said he had experienced climbing cloud over the mountains that was ascending in front of him at over 2,000 feet per minute. He was also trying to get across in the strong wind but he couldn’t climb faster than the cloud so he turned away.
Lessons learnt: Evidently, my mistake was I levelled off – but the cloud didn’t. I should have done a 180 when I saw it approaching. I still believe I didn’t have enough warning to turn around, so the lesson for me is, I will never fly over a lenticular cloud again. Source: ‚flightsafetyaustralia‚. Image: ‚generalaviationnews‚.
