Pilot Confessions: Low Fuel in Bosnia

In my ongoing saga of “Pilot Confessions,” I tell the tales of some of the stupidest mistakes I’ve made in an aircraft. For reference, I just broke 16,000 hours of flight time and I have 10 really good stories of personally-owned aviation stupidity. So, on average, I do something stupid every 1,600 hours, probably more frequently. Hopefully, your average is less, and one day you’ll be able to tell your stories to someone else who can learn from them.

In 2004, I was assigned to the Texas Army National Guard as a UH-60 Helicopter Instructor Pilot, and my unit was deployed to Bosnia. This was a “peacekeeping mission” to a part of the world with an incredibly ugly civil war. Civil wars are the worst because the death tolls are high and the fighting is among brethren. In the United States, our Civil War was easily the most brutal of our country’s wars (even considering WWI and WWII), with lasting effects that remain today. Bottom line: the Bosnian War was a terrible war for Bosnians.

I was in the odd position of being a Second Lieutenant (2LT) and also a Standardization Instructor Pilot. I was in my twelfth year of service and had recently moved to the “dark side” from being a warrant officer. I know – my intelligence is already being questioned because who would move from the perfect rank structure in the military (a warrant officer is easily the finest rank structure!) to a 2LT? There is no one more profoundly ignorant than a 2LT in any Army. But here I was, a 2LT with Master Aviator Wings on my chest in a foreign land. A truth like this just cannot be made up.
The men and women in my unit were looking for the butter bar to live down to butter bar expectations. Surely, the freshly minted 2LT would start acting like a 2LT. Unfortunately for me, I did exactly that.

When we first arrived in country, my job as an instructor pilot was to fly with all of the pilots to give the “local area orientation” and to give the local ground units we supported an orientation flight to ensure that everyone knew what to do in case the bullets started flying. We supported a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) unit full of ground troops. Our job on this day was to load up a bunch of grunts (what we affectionately called any soldier who is not in aviation) in the back of the Blackhawk, fly a short flight, and let them practice getting on and off the helicopter in rapid fashion. For the pilots, it was an easy flying day.

So, we’d load up about 10 grunts in the back of the Blackhawk, fly around for a short while, drop them off at an offsite location, fly away from that location, and then come back to pick them up again for a ride back to Tuzla, Bosnia. We’d then load up the next group of eager grunts for the next round-robin.

Even stranger, my copilot for this flight was another lieutenant. But, this lieutenant was a 1LT (just a step above me) with hardly any flight time – a real newbie in the cockpit. Even though I was the lowest ranking pilot in the Blackhawk, I was the experienced pilot and the PIC of the flight. I called the shots while flying.

It was a beautiful day in Tuzla and we were having fun with the mission that day. The back doors were slid completely open and the grunts in the back were having a blast as we gave them a fun low-level tour of the area around Tuzla. I’d fly one round robin and then my 1LT cohort would fly one. Everyone was having fun and we were burning fuel – lots of fuel.

The crowd of grunts awaiting a ride in our Blackhawk got less and less as we worked through the hours of flying, and our fuel gauges got lower and lower. Late in the day we saw the last of the grunts climb on board. By this time, the fuel load was low, and we discussed the potential of not having enough fuel to get the mission accomplished. But, there was just one more load of grunts and we would be finished with our mission quickly. It’s such a pain to stop for fuel, right? So, I made the call. I told my crew that we’d be just fine. We’d load up the last of the grunts and take them on an abbreviated flight and come back quickly. And that’s what we did.

So, with two “Fuel Low” caution lights blinking, I departed in the Blackhawk with two pilots, two crew chiefs, and ten grunts crammed in the back with the doors open on a joy ride. There were 14 souls onboard and I was responsible for everyone’s safety. We flew our flight and I sweated those blinking lights the whole time.

Simply put, there is no excuse for fuel exhaustion in any properly functioning aircraft today. If youaircraft today. If you have a fuel exhaustion episode in a properly operating aircraft, it is your fault. Either your planning failed or your decision-making failed.

We finally came back, landed, and everyone thanked us for a nice day of flying. I felt good about it all until about 10 minutes after the flight. After the rotor blades had stopped, my crew came to me and asked, “Is it safe to take off with two blinking Fuel Low caution lights?” Then, the fuelers came to refuel the helicopter and top off the fuel tanks. The sad state of affairs is when I landed that Blackhawk we had less than 15 gallons of fuel in each tank. Thirty gallons of fuel is nothing in a Blackhawk. The fuel receipt was given to one of the maintenance officers who ratted on me (very appropriately) to the company commander. Soon the word spread around the entire battalion that I landed with so little fuel in the tanks.

The instructor community got involved, the command structure got involved, and I ended up being the spotlight testimonial in a “Pilots Call” meeting. Pilots Call is a weekly meeting where all the pilots come and talk about safety issues that are facing the aviation unit. Trust me – you do not want to be the testimonial pilot in a Pilots Call.

It was easily one of the more embarrassing events of my life. I had to stand before every pilot in the task force (around 40 aviators) and explain why I did what I did. And they were right. I placed 14 people in danger that day. A dual engine failure in a Blackhawk is a potentially catastrophic event. It would mean an autorotation to the ground, a maneuver we don’t practice because the only causes of a dual-engine failure would be a well-placed RPG in a wartime scenario or an idiot PIC allowing a fuel exhaustion event. The Army wisely concluded that the risk of a dual engine failure was so low (and the training risk so high) that we didn’t even practice autorotations to the ground.

Why did I take off with two blinking Fuel Low caution lights? Well, I can’t blame it on being a 2LT. I can blame it on my being zealous to “accomplish the mission.” As a military officer, I’m expected to be a mission accomplisher. Officers that cannot accomplish their assigned missions are not respected. I learned quickly being a mission accomplisher in the Army is important.

But at what risk should missions be accomplished? I mean, we were in a foreign country earning “hazardous duty pay.” We were expected to “push the limits,” right? Or were we?

My commander used me as an object lesson to teach every pilot in that meeting that I accepted too much risk for the benefit gained. I could have easily landed, refueled and then flown that last batch of grunts. He used my decision to highlight to everyone that the mission is important but not at the risk of loss of life. We were on a peacekeeping mission, not a mission where actual bullets were flying. Loss of life on the deployment was unacceptable.

Personally, the rest of the deployment was a real downer. Many pilots in the unit lost respect for me. It was a really tough deployment for many, myself included. To make it worse, my decision to depart with the blinking lights was at the very beginning of the deployment. It was going to be one long deployment.

How does this relate to you as a civilian pilot? Well, I think two lessons are germane: fuel exhaustion and mission accomplishment.

Simply put, there is no excuse for fuel exhaustion in any properly functioning aircraft today. If you have a fuel exhaustion episode in a properly operating aircraft, it is your fault. Either your planning failed or your decision-making failed. Every pilot should know the level of fuel in their tanks and, if you don’t, it is your fault. I know there are piston-powered airplanes that have crappy fuel indicators. In those airplanes you should allow for extra margin. One old adage about fuel gauges states, “fuel gauges are only accurate when they are on the ground and full or completely empty!”

True, but you can monitor the flight time on the amount of fuel you have onboard, you can “stick your tanks” to be certain of your fuel level, and you should watch the fueler and verify the amount of fuel that is placed onboard. You should never take off without knowing how much fuel you have onboard. If you fly an airplane with inadequate instrumentation, then move up in panel or airplane. You must know how much fuel you have onboard. I know this is a harsh word, but it is a true word that might help some pilots with reality. If you sense that you are going to land with less than comfortable fuel, make that stop. In my experience, the stop is far less painful than anticipated. With prior planning, they are even less painful.

Mission accomplishment: It is the bane of aviation. For some reason, the usual people that migrate to aviation are mission-accomplishing, got-to-finish-what-I-start kind of people. We are good at so many things in life, but we are not good at making decisions near our objective. When we can see the light at the end of the tunnel; when we are on the last mile of the marathon; when it’s fourth and goal – that’s when people like us tend to kick it into high gear and accomplish that mission. And normally we do accomplish that mission. But, sometimes we put the value of accomplishing that mission above the safety of the flight.

Bottom line, we tend to be terrible at analyzing risk when in the last segments of a mission. Sometimes we accept a flight to our home airport when the weather is clearly not acceptable. Sometimes we push the limits of our fatigue knowing that our own bed will feel so much better than a hotel bed. Sometimes we land with less fuel than we should. And sometimes, thankfully rarely, we get to log some unexpected glider time in an airplane with a perfectly good engine and dry tanks.

If my story of woe resonates with you, I’m so sorry. I made a terrible decision on that day in Bosnia in the Blackhawk to fly with less fuel than I’d fly in a Piper Meridian. Decide today what you will do when that still, small voice in the back of your mind tells you, “Think about this twice.” It’s probably not a mission that must be accomplished, and a fuel stop is almost always a good idea.