The Right Brothers

The other day I had my first small plane experience. I have flown eight-seaters and sixteen-seaters into islands and small airports and such but I had never before flown in a truly small plane.

The plane was new. A four-seat Cirrus prop plane, built in the town I was born, Duluth. The most encouraging fact about this plane is that it has a parachute in the airframe. In case of emergency and at 3000 feet, you can pull a lever in the ceiling of the plane and a rocket-propelled chute will land you safely.

This is unless you land in water, on a house, a busy freeway or other such formidable landscape. But nonetheless, the parachute is and was comforting.

The morning of the last flight on this particular trip, we took off from Henderson Airport near Las Vegas. The flight was great and the sights interesting, flying near Death Valley and numerous, restricted air bases, including the western landing site of the space shuttle.

The first sense of trouble came during an approach to Monterey Airport. Coming from the Central Valley of California, the airport suddenly appears in a canyon, just over a small mountain. Because of the topology of the area, the wind gusts curling off the mountain provide an exhilarating ride on the way into the airport. The approaching storm made the gusts intolerable and my pilot aborted the landing on approach. I thanked him and God as it was becoming very scary.

The pilot informed the control tower of our re-route to our end destination; Palo-Alto airport. We skirted the edge of the storm and proceeded up the valley toward San Jose. As the population density increased, the storm did too. As we began to near the San Jose airspace, the wind gusts began throwing the plane around like a small toy. I began to worry when the pilot pulled the safety pin from the parachute. He gave me a sly smile.

The stall speed on this small aircraft is 60 knots. The maximum flap speed 120 knots. As we were flying over San Jose at approximately 95 knots, the wind was gusting ferociously, throwing the plane about violently. The gauge on the plane was oscillating between 120 and 60 knots. Wind shear.

This was my first week on my new job. The pilot was my new boss. I started to really worry as he called for an unscheduled landing at San Jose International airport, amongst all the big jets. He told the control tower we were experiencing severe wind shear during his explanatory conversation with the tower.

We landed safely and later he told me that was the scariest flight he had ever flown. He’s 48 years old and he obtained his pilots license at age 17…

Following are the most recent statistics for small aircraft accidents from the NTSB :

Accidents Aircraft Hours Flown

Year Major Serious (millions)

2000 3 3 18.299

2001 5 1 17.752

2002 1 1 18.012

Definitions of NTSB Classifications

Major - an accident in which any of three conditions is met:

• a Part 121 aircraft was destroyed, or
• there were multiple fatalities, or
• there was one fatality and a Part 121 aircraft was substantially damaged.

Serious - an accident in which at least one of two conditions is met:

• there was one fatality without substantial damage to a Part 121 aircraft, or
• there was at least one serious injury and a Part 121 aircraft was substantially damaged.