101 Emergency Landing: Controller Talks Down Student Pilot After Oil Covers Windshield
Aviation News Talk podcast
Glass Cockpit Publishing
4.8 • 730 Ratings
🗓️ 7 March 2019
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
101 Emergency Landing: Controller Talks Down Student Pilot After Oil Covers Windshield
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Summary
101 On Sept 30, 2018, a student pilot with 4 hours solo time departed Potomac Airfield on a cross country flight. Within minutes after takeoff, she noticed oil starting to cover the windshield. She immediately requested a vector from Potomac Approach controller Casey Whittaker to return to the airport. Her first attempt to land had her skimming the treetops of the neighborhood next to the airfield. Her next plan was to ditch the aircraft in the Potomac River, to avoid any loss of life on the ground.
The pilot asked that her voice not be used. My thanks to pilot Tricia Belkin Vernola, whose voice you hear in this episode, for reading from the transcript of my interview with the pilot. Thanks also to controller Casey Whittaker and PCT NATCA FACREP Brandon Miller for sharing their stories. Finally, thanks to the student pilot for sharing her story.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I kind of just settled in and realized that I think it was probably my time to go. |
| 0:13.0 | Of course I was mad about it. |
| 0:17.0 | I was like, I literally thought about that note that I wrote up on the whiteboard. |
| 0:21.9 | I was like, I left a messy house and my dog is not home and who's going to take care of my dog. |
| 0:27.0 | And so I was like, I'm going to have to put this thing in the Potomac River. |
| 0:32.1 | So the Potomac River, as I'm making the turn back to the south, I was trying to kind of look out to my right side to see if I could get some kind of eyes on the river to take |
| 0:42.2 | it into the river. |
| 0:44.5 | Today we have the story of two people and how an emergency oil completely covering the |
| 0:49.3 | windshield brought them together for a few minutes last September and left them with |
| 0:53.1 | recommendations that they'd like to share with you. |
| 0:55.7 | The pilot asks that we not use her voice for reasons that I won't go into. |
| 0:59.7 | Instead, pilot Trisha Belkin-Vernola read the transcript of my interview with a pilot. |
| 1:04.6 | The ATC audio and the other voices you'll hear are real. |
| 1:08.2 | Hello again and welcome to Aviation News Talk, a weekly show with news and safety tips for pilots and student pilots. |
| 1:14.1 | I'm Max Truscott. |
| 1:15.2 | If you were listening to us for the first time, please touch the subscribe button so that new shows will download each week for free onto your smartphone. |
| 1:22.4 | And if you have thought about maybe someday buying a Cirrus or a Cirrus Vision jet or you'd like flight training in one. Please call me |
| 1:28.5 | today at 650967-2500 for a free consultation and possibly a free demo flight. Now here's their |
| 1:36.0 | story. So I was born and raised in what I'll call the not-so Texas part of Texas in Austin, |
| 1:42.2 | which is a beautiful city. I'm actually ninth generation Texan. |
| 1:46.7 | Didn't really have any exposure to aviation until I was dating a guy in college who was in |
| 1:50.8 | Houston. At the time, he flew me back and forth between Austin and Houston a couple of times. |
... |
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