Emergency

Doug Daniel

I saw Denzel Washington's latest film, Flight. I loved it perhaps because something
uncannily similar happened to me. I won't spoil it for you, but let me tell you just that
the movie is about an airplane that crashes because the elevator control fails, jammed
in the full down position.

I had an elevator control fail on me once. As you can tell, like the character that
Denzel plays, I lived to tell the story. So here it is:

Departing from Livermore Municipal Airport in a Cessna 182 on an instrument

training flight, I was assigned 3,000 feet and a heading of 300 degrees. I was flying
the plane. Upon reaching 3,000 feet, I pushed forward on the controls. After about 8
inches of travel I started to get elevator response.

So I quit putting any force on the elevator and trimmed the airplane for level flight. I
told Bay Approach that I was level at 3,000, canceling IFR and would return to the
Livermore Airport because there was something wrong with my elevator control. I
was afraid to use the elevator any more because I did not know what was wrong and I
certainly did not want it to get jammed.

I knew I could fly with trim elevator alone, so I did.

I called Livermore Tower, told them that I had cancelled IFR, was 3 miles northwest,
needed to land and requested a left downwind entry.

The tower asked me if I was declaring an emergency. I told them that I was not.

Pilots are reluctant to declare emergencies for some reason. I probably should have. It
really could have been a very serious situation. Obviously Bay Approach thought that
it was serious or they would not have called Livermore Tower.

I continued and landed by controlling pitch with the elevator trim alone. As I taxied
back to the T-hanger, I noticed that some fire trucks were following me. Silly me, I
called the tower and asked if there was some emergency and if I should pull over to
let the trucks past. They told me that I was the emergency.

Clearly Livermore Tower thought that it was an emergency.

Maybe the reason we are reluctant to declare an emergency is because we don't want
to admit to ourselves that we are in the middle of one.

A post mortem showed that the pilot who flew the airplane before I did had made a
hard landing that bent the firewall. This shortened the distance between the control
wheel and the elevator putting slack in that control cable. The weight of the elevator
itself kept the cable tight until the elevator started to fly. The first time after take off

Copyright 2013 Douglas W Daniel, All rights reserved

that I tried to move the elevator with the control wheel was when I started to level off.
Until then, I was oblivious.

Copyright 2013 Douglas W Daniel, All rights reserved