Left engine before the failure
As a pilot, you’ve no doubt asked yourself: how would I react in the face of an in-flight emergency? Chances are, some of you reading this already know the answer, as you’ve experienced an unexpected event that threatened the safety of your flight.
If you regularly read accident reports—and there have been some spectacular ones in the last few months—you often sense when the pilot’s response led to a worse outcome or, in some cases, saved the day and the lives of everyone on board. The perennial question, “How would I handle that?” is a never-ending learning event.
Recently, I met a pilot who faced the question we train for but hope we never experience. Ferris Pfeiffer is a reasonably new pilot who didn’t catch the flying bug until 2021. Ferris bought a Cessna 172, but like most of us, he immediately began dreaming of his next airplane. In short order, he got his instrument, commercial, and multi-engine ratings and then bought a Cessna 310L. With a little over 650 hours in his logbook, Ferris has accumulated 350 hours of multi-engine time. He also holds an advanced ground instructor certificate and is working on his CFI.
Ferris is an active volunteer pilot for Angel Flight Central, an organization he is passionate about. And that’s where our story begins.
A few months ago, Ferris was the middle pilot on a three-leg mission, flying a patient from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to her home in Louisiana. His leg required him to pick up the patient in Higginsville, MO, and meet up with the third-leg pilot in Benton, AR. After departing Higginsville, he remembers remarking how perfect the flying conditions were. “We had the tiniest of headwinds; it was a beautiful clear day. Things were progressing perfectly. We were just starting our descent when things started to happen.”
With 70 miles to go and at an altitude of 9,500 feet with the autopilot engaged, he felt the aircraft shudder as if it hit a patch of turbulence. Then, the airspeed dropped.
“I looked out to the left, and I saw a piece of metal go up through the engine cowling, and then a few seconds later, another piece, and then another piece. It didn’t take long to understand that the left engine had a catastrophic mechanical failure,” he recalled. “Instantly, my training kicked in: power up, identify, verify, feather. Then I contacted Memphis Center, who declared an emergency for me and pointed out the Clinton, AR airport, only 10 miles away.”
At that point, Ferris said the plane was flying normally on the right engine. He circled over the Clinton airport to lose altitude and then made an uneventful landing. Once on the ground, he contacted ATC to inform them all was well. He then called the third-leg pilot and requested that he fly to Clinton to pick up the patient so she could continue on home.
What made this catastrophic engine failure a non-event? Currency, training, and an immediate reaction to implement emergency memory items. Ferris had undergone a ton of recent training in attaining his ratings, and when faced with the real thing, he didn’t hesitate or dig for his emergency checklist.
“When I started my multi-engine training, I quickly found out they never let you fly multi-engine; you usually end up flying around on one-engine. I think I did more single-engine flying during my multi training than during the previous six months,” he joked. “Seriously though, my actions on that day weren’t those of a super pilot. They were the result of good training and flying regularly. We went through 30 seconds of the emergency, and then we were a single-engine airplane.”
I asked Ferris if there was anything he would have done differently. “I’ve been asked why I didn’t continue to the final destination, which was only 70 miles away. My answer is I probably could have made it there. But at that point, I just had a grenade go off in my left engine. Was the same thing about to happen to the right engine? Then I’ve got a glider without an airport nearby. It seemed prudent at the time to land at the closest airport.”
He also pointed out many things stacked up in his favor: VFR conditions, calm winds and a diversion airport within 10 miles. He said he doesn’t remember being laser-focused on airspeed, but on reviewing his FlightAware data tracks, at no time did he drop below 120 mph, which is Vyse. “That wasn’t really a conscious thing; training kicked in, and I concentrated on making a stabilized approach.”
As for the left engine, it was a 200-hour factory-new unit, which had performed flawlessly up to the point of catastrophic failure. Fortunately, a competent maintenance shop at the Clinton, AR airport immediately went to work removing the engine.
What’s the best insurance a pilot can have in the face of an in-flight emergency? The things that are squarely in our control: Regular recurrent training, especially on emergency procedures, and recency of experience. That’s our best bet in ensuring a fortunate outcome to what could be a very unfortunate day.
