Lost Pilot Sends Text MSG for Help!?!

Doug Taylor said:
But that avatar is awesome. I miss our Beagle!
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My sister in law just got a new one. Mine is on the left:

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Doing what Beagles do best.
 
Waaaaay off-topic, but we used to get little blood splotches on our furniture because she'd constantly wag her tail and stare at Kristie and I when we were in the living room.

Happy, hungry or asleep that dog was! :)
 
chris said:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/01/27/m1a_KEMPER_0127.html

High above a rural stretch of Florida east of Fort Myers, a young student pilot on her first solo flight began to panic.

She had stopped receiving the radio signals that served as her way points in the sky. Now she was lost, and her single-engine trainer was running out of fuel.
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Two things have me baffled.
1) If she's on her FIRST solo, how did she get lost? Really, she was sent out before she knew how to fly a traffic pattern.

2) If it was her FIRST solo, how did she run out of fuel. If you are just in the pattern there should be plenty of fuel (even if you do somehow get lost).
 
chris said:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/01/27/m1a_KEMPER_0127.html

High above a rural stretch of Florida east of Fort Myers, a young student pilot on her first solo flight began to panic.
She had stopped receiving the radio signals that served as her way points in the sky. Now she was lost, and her single-engine trainer was running out of fuel.
Desperation set in.
If her instructor were there, he would have told her to call for help on an emergency frequency. Instead, the student reached for her cellphone and thumbed a text message to a friend, also enrolled at Kemper Aviation flight school near Lantana.
I'm lost, the message read. What do I do?

Moments later, the student's plane crash-landed in a field of tall grass near LaBelle. She emerged with minor injuries.
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*sigh*

Oh, Florida. ;)
 
Crism said:
Hmmmm...
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So that's why ERAU doesn't have many females. Never could figure that one out.:sarcasm:

Mike H said:
it is possible to get lost in the traffic pattern?
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Heard that happen on the radio one day. Was getting a checkout from a CFI, who when we got on the ground, had to call tower, because his student who was in the pattern soloing got lost. Couldn't figure that one out, but it happened.
 
Accident occurred Thursday, August 23, 2007 in Labelle, FL
Probable Cause Approval Date: 11/29/2007
Aircraft: Cessna 152, registration: N4824B
Injuries: 1 Minor.
The pilot stated that she was on her first solo cross country VFR flight from Lantana, Florida, to Immokalee, Florida, to Air Glades, and back to Lantana. She stated that she departed from Lantana at 0930 eastern daylight time, for Immokalee, Florida, and further stated that she deviated from her course and tried to locate airports, but she could not find them. She said she was aware that she had endurance for 3 hours 30 minutes of flight, and keeping in mind that she was running out of time and fuel, decided to head back to Lantana. On her way back she said she tried to track Labelle and Pahokee VORs but could not, and by that time it was 1310, and she could not locate any airport in the close vicinity, so she decided to make an emergency landing in a field. During the landing the grass was tall and the pilot said she could not land properly, and the airplane incurred damage. An FAA Inspector who responded to the accident scene stated that during his examination of the accident airplane, he found the airplane sitting in a field, left wing down, at about a 45-degree angle, with the right side fuel tank was empty. When he dipped, the left fuel tank he stated that it contained about "two inches" of fuel. According to the inspector, his examination revealed no preaccident anomalies with the airplane or either of its systems, and there was no evidence of fuel spillage at the scene of the accident.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:

The student pilot's attempted precautionary landing on unsuitable terrain which resulted in damage to the airplane during the landing.
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Okay, I am even more puzzled now. LNA-IMM is 71nm. Probably what, .8 on the hobbs in a 152?

So presumably, the student spent more than 2.5 hours near La Belle circling without finding a field. I can almost understand not finding an airport out there for a student - there ain't a ton of landmarks in the Everglades.

But why not call Miami Center or RSW approach until you run out of gas??? You would think any CFI would have at least made sure a student would know to do this, as the student had 77 hours at the time of the accident...
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Okay, I am even more puzzled now. LNA-IMM is 71nm. Probably what, .8 on the hobbs in a 152?

So presumably, the student spent more than 2.5 hours near La Belle circling without finding a field. I can almost understand not finding an airport out there for a student - there ain't a ton of landmarks in the Everglades.

But why not call Miami Center or RSW approach until you run out of gas??? You would think any CFI would have at least made sure a student would know to do this, as the student had 77 hours at the time of the accident...
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Theres just some people that simply dont have the right stuff to be a pilot
 
Rosstafari said:
Nah, he means the ATC forum that has a wanted poster of Doug and censors the phrase "jetcareers".
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Oh lord! Still? :)

Good gravy man, I'm just going to go ahead, get it over with and change my name to "Dr. Evil"! :) WTF, yo!

Of course, ya know, there'd be those out there with their hair on fire screaming to innocents on facebook that I'm not, in fact, a Doctor!

:)
 
Rosstafari said:
Nah, he means the ATC forum that has a wanted poster of Doug and censors the phrase "jetcareers".
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Oh yeah, that uninteresting place. The same place where the guy is welcome here, but censors anything related to JC there?

What a pill that guy must be.
 
Doug Taylor said:
Like getting lost in California too.

Coastline in the west, I-5 & Hwy 99 in the center, Sierra Nevadas toward the east.

Heading North, water on the left, you're on the west coast. Heading South, water on the left, east coast. Look for the big freaking lake.

I think people leave out the deductive reasoning variable out of the dead reckoning equation.
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Ok ok Doug I admit it. As a student pilot I had very high standards for myself and technically got "lost" in Norcal. I was on my way back from Oroville to Petaluma, between the Sutter Buttes and the coast range. I couldn't see what was on the other side of the mountains on the west side of the valley, and it turned out my checkpoint that was marked as a "town" was actually two houses next to a river.

I was under flight following, and I'll never know why I didn't just ask for a vector (ego?). Instead I deviated a couple miles south (knowing that Davis, I-80 and Lake Beryessa were all that way), found an airport I was familiar with northwest of Sacramento and got myself back on track.

Had I trusted the dead reckoning process and my copious wind-correction calculations I would have been free and clear, but my CFI had it pounded in my head that "omgz if you don't know exactly where you are on the sectional from pilotage at any time you'll die!!!11" and I freaked out.

I let going from knowing exactly where I was to approximately where I was in a /U C152 rattle me enough that it clouded my subsequent decision-making process, and I learned a lot that day about judgment, ADM and not second-guessing my decisions (still my biggest weakness).

I completely agree that it should be impossible to get lost in California. I can't begin to comprehend how this girl ended up running out of fuel and crash-landing given the options she had, but I can also vouch for the fact that student pilots do inexplicably bizarre and idiotic things. ;)
 
Good story man. Yeah, I was a little "absolute" in my admonishment.

I got a little lost back in the day too, once. I flew from PSP to PRC purely on dead reckoning, misinterpreted a turn and thought I was at Granite Mountain (outside of Prescott) when, in fact, I was somewhere else.

I could hear PRC tower (non radar at the time) but had trouble reporting "Granite Mountain inbound" because they couldn't quite hear me transmit.

I thought "Oh crap, NORDO!", started a big 360 above a road and determined that I was 20 miles from where I thought I was and then plotted a course to the airport.

Yeup, I've been there too! :)

(edit)
You know, let me expound a little. When I got to ERAU, we were pretty much taught VORTAC navigation, some dead reckoning and being a "shirt 'n tie" style flyer at the time, that's about all I did. I did most of my planning with a IFR chart for airways, distances and NAVAIDS. MikeD was more or less a "turn off the damned radio, open the window and fly the damned airplane" so I thought I'd give it a shot, myself, on a long cross-country.

Dead reckoning is really something you have to be current on and it worked hunky-dory outbound to PSP, but back into PRC, with the sun setting, it wasn't quite so easy any more and, well, I learned a lot.

I liked to teach students flying a combination of DR, electronic NAV and random "under the hood" outbound on a cross-country and purely DR back inbound to the airport. It usually helped with division of attention, situational awareness and just using the darned "plexiglass radar".

That way, on a long solo XC if the weather went south, they wouldn't crap their pants and could sift their way out of it. If the ENAV died, they could locate themselves on a chart. Or even they were out in the practice area and got themselves "turned around", they could use a combination of ENAV and DR and find their way home.

I've probably said far too much but there it is! ;)
 
Doug Taylor said:
Like getting lost in California too.

Coastline in the west, I-5 & Hwy 99 in the center, Sierra Nevadas toward the east.

Heading North, water on the left, you're on the west coast. Heading South, water on the left, east coast. Look for the big freaking lake.

I think people leave out the deductive reasoning variable out of the dead reckoning equation.
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How to get to Sonoma: Go west until you get to the big orange bridge, and make a right.

But then again, there was the time when I was doing xc's for my commercial and got, uh, disoriented over the mountains in way Northern California. All the mountains looked the same! Middle of winter, couldn't get anyone on the radio, no transponder ('49 Clipper). I'd see a house or a tarp every few minutes. Most afraid I've ever been in an airplane. But, I just flew 080 until I hit hwy 5, then followed it south to Red Bluff. Learned a lot that day.
 
I brought a plane down from Seattle with a student lately. We never really drew any lines, much less complete an accurate nav log. My student WAG'd his distances and filed his VFR flight plans. We arrived within 3 minutes or so to what was expected based completly on mental math and never really got 'lost'. Flying completly by pilotage/dead reconing for 1200 miles was a lot of fun. I just wish we could have gone further!
 
Nice thank you for sharing that Doug! It's funny looking back on these experiences in hindsight, given all the options available at the time that inexplicably weren't utilized. Have learned so much since then, and will continue to learn as long as I'm in aviation. :beer:

Wolfy said:
But, I just flew 080 until I hit hwy 5, then followed it south to Red Bluff. Learned a lot that day.
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Right??? You knew it was that'a way, you just didn't know exactly where you were... right then... :crazy:

Anyone using the big orange bridge to get their bearings has bigger problems though... like busting the bravo.
 
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