A CLOSE CALL AT RED HILLS STATE PARK

It was a pleasant summer afternoon in southern Illinois, mostly sunny with temperatures in the low to mid 80’s. A few cumulous clouds loitered about, as if trying to decide whether to expend the effort necessary to build themselves up into thunderstorms or just take the day off. All in all, it was a good day to go flying!

My friend Bruce was a private pilot, working toward his commercial pilot license. Bruce worked at the airport, and like I had done a few years prior, he was spending his hard-earned money and time off building flying time and acquiring his ratings. That meant riding along on trips and getting flight instruction on the empty legs and flying with whichever of the Triangle Air Service instructors was available other times to practice the maneuvers required for evaluation on the commercial checkride.

Among the required maneuvers were a review of everything previously covered in private pilot training: Preflight planning and inspection; engine starting; taxi; takeoffs and landings; stall recovery; turns about a point; navigation; etc. but with tighter tolerances.

In addition, the commercial pilot applicants were required to perform 8’s on a pylon, Chandelles, and Lazy 8’s.

It sounds obvious and simple enough to say a pilot needs to know how to do takeoffs and landings. But a pilot must be able to handle crosswind takeoffs and landings, short field landings, and soft (grass) field landings.

We departed the Olney-Noble Airport and flew east toward Red Hills State Park near my hometown of Sumner, Illinois, performing some of the commercial test maneuvers along the way. Red Hills State Park had at that time a short grass field that was well maintained. A perfect opportunity for us to get Bruce some real-world short and soft field experience.

As I said, the field was not only soft, but also short. Adding to the list of challenges was the fact that just off the north end of the runway were some large trees. Just beyond the trees, a lake. Nothing we couldn’t handle. Nothing too taxing for the airplane, a PA28-140 Piper Cherokee.

The first few landings and takeoffs went well enough that we determined there was no need to stay and do more. We would takeoff once more to the north, then fly west to Olney-Noble, again mixing in some commercial maneuvers.

The takeoff run was fine, the engine producing full power. As per the proper procedure for a short, soft field takeoff, Bruce selected two notches of flaps and held the yoke back to keep weight off the nosewheel. The takeoff was about as close to perfect as I’ve ever seen. We broke ground and Bruce gently lowered the nose to allow us to accelerate in ground effect. Once we reached best angle of climb speed, he brought the nose up a bit and we looked to be in great shape for clearing the trees.

Until …

Without warning, the engine began to sputter.

There was no way we had carburetor ice, but we applied carburetor heat anyway as it provided another backup source of air to the carburetor in case that might be the issue.

We still didn’t have enough altitude to clear the trees and they were coming at us fast. Looking BIG!

We rechecked our fuel selector, making sure it was selected to the fullest tank. We were now just barely high enough to clear the trees, but the engine was still running rough. It could quit at any moment.

We double-checked to make sure the electric fuel pump was on as a backup to the engine-driven pump. That’s all we could do, other than maintain our best angle of climb speed, which Bruce did.

Skimming the treetops, I could now see the lake coming up. There was nowhere for us to go if the engine decided to quit. Just the lake. I remember thinking, just for a moment, that I didn’t want to die here, just outside my hometown, to have that be what I was remembered for by the people who knew me growing up.

Things were happening so fast that there was no time to brief for an emergency water landing. Flying small airplanes every day in southern Illinois farm country, ditching was not something we normally concerned ourselves with.

Try to maintain a bit more speed than we had at the moment to soften the impact. Our best angle of climb speed would be the equivalent of a belly flop. If we lowered the nose to gain speed, we would not come down in the lake, but in the trees where the playground sits just a few yards from where the restaurant stood.

If we hit the trees we were most likely dead. If we belly-flopped into the lake, we were maybe dead on impact. Maybe would drown trying to get out of an upside-down and sinking airplane. Basically, if that engine quit, we were screwed.

Bruce was doing a fine job flying the airplane, but at that moment I decided if the engine did quit I would, as the instructor and pilot in command, take the controls. I would do my best to clear the trees, then execute a shallow turn to the right toward the main channel of the lake. At the same time, I would lower the nose slightly to avoid a stall and hopefully give us a better angle on impact, increasing our chances for survival. Maybe.

Somehow, the engine kept running. Somehow it came back to life. And somehow, we lived to fly another day.