No Time for a Mayday Call

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Awakenings

In September of 2012 I experienced one of those events which keep pilots up at night. The memory of such an event, we replay in our minds over and over. As a fairly professional helicopter pilot, I war-game many scenarios in my mind, both before and during various flights. One of the most common war games I play out is the one in which the engine quits, and I am forced to enter an autorotation with a termination to the ground.

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 In many of these war games I imagine being over the mountains, at night, in a hopeless scenario with bad weather and have to eat what I call, a "shit sandwich,"  in a scenario where the successful outcome is highly in doubt. I once had a dream where I was flying an A-Star, in the mountains with a weather ceiling which obscured the mountain tops where I could only see out the right door but ironically, I could only make left turns. Talk about weird.

On that beautiful September Sunday one of my worst case war game scenarios occurred. My engine quit over the amazing rolling terrain of the far corner of northeastern Iowa. Ironically, this area is the ancestral home of the oldest known relative which bears my last name. Before the caution lights came on, the engine noise stopped and simultaneously the aircraft violently yawed. My left hand instinctively dumped the collective to full down and my awareness focused inside for a quick check of the caution lights and engine instruments. In about 1/4 of a second I knew without a doubt, I had lost my engine.

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A new movie now plays out in my minds eye. The movie which starts from the time my engine quit to the time I found myself looking at Iowa dirt at the end of the sequence. A pilot, prior to experiencing such an event, may ask himself over and over, how will I respond to such a scenario? The answer is, you don't know until it happens. In my case, the war-gaming and self talk, in addition to a great deal of practice autorotations, paid off in spades.

After my initial look inside at my instruments, I moved my awareness outside the aircraft. How long did I move it outside? Just long enough to make a decision on where I was going to terminate my autorotation. The amount of time was probably between 1/2 to 1 full second. Unlike an airplane pilot, who may have a 10:1 glide ratio, a helicopter is coming down at a rate of around 1700-3500 feet per minute. An immediate decision is required and I had no lack of training in this realm. Because I was, generously, estimated to be at about 500' above the surface of the earth, I needed an immediate and really, really good landing decision.

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I  am sitting in the left seat flying over the top of a hill which had a farm positioned on the top. To my right, numerous outbuildings and cows. To my front, a heavily treed river embankment and small power lines. To my left, a cornfield, maybe 80 acres. (I also noted but ruled out, a gravel road which would have required a 270 degree left turn which I somehow intuitively knew I couldn't make) So in this case I will be required to make a 180 degree left turn from 500' with a planned termination point in the center of the unpicked cornfield. In perfect concert with my decision to land in that field, my right hand is rapidly rolling the aircraft to the left. Now, in hindsight, it gets really interesting.

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 Have you ever experienced a moment where time slows down? Where even the smallest detail now becomes acutely apparent? At the point in which my engine quits, time now has changed for me. It is no longer loping along at it's usual pace but has slowed until it is like watching slow motion replays of an NFL game. My awareness, in my opinion, is now moving at 10 times its normal speed. Because of the lack of time, there was no panic, no "Oh Shit!" exclamation, just a series of inquiries and decision gates. What is my rotor rpm? Unacceptable, make an adjustment. Outcome? Acceptable. What is my airspeed? Slowing, make an adjustment. Outcome? Acceptable. And for what seemed like minutes I played out, over and over, these decision gates and made rapid adjustments to arrive over my intended landing area at exactly 10' with 0 forward airspeed. In reality, the entire autorotation event probably took less then 10 seconds.

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Now, I had never trained nor had I ever planned to autorotate into an unpicked cornfield in Iowa. The corn was about 8' high. My seat position, as I rolled the aircraft level and began to settle into the corn, was probably about 13'. I detected the rapid vertical sink rate and began applying rapid collective to arrest this rate as I sank into the corn, with no sight of the actual ground. Probably about 5-7' above the ground I was low on RPM and out of ideas. The aircraft landed vertically, at about 2-3 gravities, enough to activate the emergency locator beacon, which I now heard in my helmet. Surprisingly, the initial contact was nicely cushioned by that beautiful black Iowa loam. At this point, the main rotor blades violently flexed down and chopped off the tail causing the entire tail assembly to fly through the air and land about 20' in front of the aircraft. The aircraft rebounded into the air and rotated about 45 degrees to the left and landed again, rolling onto its right side.

(David Tappe Photo)

(David Tappe Photo)

Experiences

Neither myself, nor my passenger experienced any injuries. I would like to tell myself that it was because of my sharp acumen and skill as pilot, but is that really true? Obviously I was VERY happy to be alive, having survived one of my worst case scenarios, without a scratch. But I would not have been in this position were it not for a long trail of decisions I made in this chain of events leading up to this accident. So, despite my best efforts, I found myself sideways in my shoulder harness and seatbelt in a cornfield with nary an injury. I have friends who have died in this career under much less difficult circumstances. Why? Why did they die while myself and my passenger lived?

This blog is replete with stories of my own near-misses. But there are more near-misses, both in and out of aviation, which I have not written about. Time and time again, I have survived very close calls, without a scratch and found myself back in the saddle. In 1982, despite literally hearing a voice tell me to put on my seat belt, I survived a vehicle roll-over at highway speed, with my belt off. During operation Desert Storm, in what I can only describe as the intervention of the Hand of God, my helicopter was lifted out of a fatal situation, allowing us to us clear a sand dune as we suffered a long and drawn out compressor stall. My conclusion? God put me here for a reason.

(David Tappe Photo)

 And that's how I got this scratch on my new helmet.