Page 22 - February 2016

Twin Proficiency:by Thomas P. TurnerThe multiengine instructor radioed Air Traffic Control that an engine was on fire. The nighttime training flight was about four miles from Okmulgee Airport, near Tulsa, Oklahoma. The instructor requested a straight-in approach to Runway 1L at Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Riverside Airport, where the Beechcraft twin was based.The controller asked the pilot to repeat the nature of his problem and the instructor restated that one of the airplane’s engines was on fire. The controller then asked the standard ATC questions in an emergency– how many people on board and how much fuel–and added another query of little import to controllers but potentially distracting to the pilot: “which engine is on fire?” The instructor quickly replied, “Two people, two hours of fuel, and the right engine.”Riverside Tower controllers later said they saw the airplane coming in “fast” and that they saw smoke coming from its right engine. One controller “reported seeing flames coming from the right engine,” according to the NTSB report. Shortly afterward, the instructor reported he did “not have a green light” for landing gear down-and-locked indications. The flight instructor then stated he was “going to go around and land on Runway 19R,” the reciprocal of the runway he had first asked to use. Controllers witnessed the airplane initiate a climb, then begin to “roll over to the right and pitch nose down” The airplane impacted the ground and exploded on impact.Numerous witnesses at various locations on the airport reported the airplane approached downwind to Runway 1L and was “very fast on the approach.” Several witnesses said they heard an application of engine power before the airplane nosed up into a climb and control was lost. Most described the loss of control as the airplane rolling right “until it was inverted,” thennosing vertically into the ground. Tower controllers and some of the other witnesses stated “the landing gear appeared to be extended” prior to the attempted go-around/circle-to-land maneuver.The NTSB determined the Probable Cause to be the instructor pilot’s failure to maintain the airplane’s minimum controllable airspeed during a single-engine go-around, which resulted in his loss of control of the airplane. Contributory factors were the engine fire, the pilot’s failure to follow the emergency checklist and feather the propeller, and the partial failure of the landing gear indicating system, which resulted in the instructor’s diverted attention.Extreme stress ... can blind us to another status our brain dismisses as unimportant; it can cause us to focus on items of much less import, perhaps because we feel we can deal with those lesser items when we cannot control the more-demanding event.Prepared for stressBeing inside an airplane that’s burning in flight is one of the deepest-seated fears of most pilots. Certainly, coming in with a student at night with an active engine fire, the instructor commanding the flight had to have been under some of the worst stress of his life. Extreme stress tends to tap all our mental reserves. It makes us rely in large part on preprogrammed responses to the stressful conditions. It can blind us to another status our brain dismisses as unimportant; it can cause us to focus on items of much less import, perhaps because20 • TWIN & TURBINEFEBRUARY 2016