Page 6 - April24T
P. 6
Position Report
by Dianne White
A Fortunate Outcome
to a Very Unfortunate Day
Left engine before the failure
Left engine after 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
4 • TWIN & TURBINE / April 2024
Left engine cowling
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
