 There has recently been much attention paid to mid-air collisions of a different sort. Those between aircraft and U.F.O.’s – Unidentified Feathered Objects. Bird strike incidents have resulted in consequences ranging from a dent in the airplane to shattering of the windshield, incapacitation of the pilot and even fatalities. Most recently, an Airbus was rendered disabled by birds shortly after takeoff resulting in a ditching into New York’s Hudson River. The Miracle on the Hudson, as the flight is now known, yielded only a few relatively minor injuries due in no small part to the courageous efforts of the crew.
This month in Close Calls our pilot describes an incident he experienced with feathered flying objects that had resulted in zero damage, “Not because of my superior piloting skills,” he humbly notes “but because I was lucky, period.”
It happened in the darkness very early one morning, a couple of hours before sunrise. Our pilot was heading out early in order to land at Chibougamau, Quebec just before the gas pumps opened there so that he’d arrive in Kuujjuaq, Nunavut (in Canada’s north) later that same day before their pumps closed. After a nominal run-up and taxi onto the active runway, he made his radio calls and pushed in the throttle. Everything initially seemed normal during the takeoff roll. All the gauges were in the green but then he noticed his airspeed indicator was oddly reading zero. A glance to the left confirmed the reason – he hadn’t removed the pitot tube cover! Our pilot performed his pre-flight walk around with a first time passenger following along and asking questions about the trip. This distraction was probably the reason for the missed the pitot tube cover. Recalling his thoughts during the takeoff roll after discovering the position of the pitot tube cover, our pilot reflects “Well, in a millisecond these thoughts went through my brain – ‘Can I get away with it? It’s a long trip over the Quebec trees, should I take the chance? NO DUMMY – ABORT!!!!’” Our pilot pulled back on the throttle and coasted to a stop. As he was decelerating, he rolled through about 40 geese on the runway that were totally invisible to him until they were figuratively rubbing elbows! “No collisions, but they all had to scramble to miss me, I had nowhere to go to avoid them” says our pilot. “Whew… that was close. If I had continued with the take-off I most probably would have plowed through the bunch of them at over 90 knots!!!! I was lucky.” What could our pilot have done differently? “Well, aside from the pitot tube cover, I should have done a complete backtrack of the runway before I attempted the take-off” responds our pilot. “I knew geese loved to stay the night at the airport. So, my stupid luck of leaving the pitot cover on saved me from a collision!” Fate’s sometimes funny that way, isn’t it? Fly safe(r). Anthony Nalli is the Director of Canadian Development, General Aviation Collision Avoidance and President of SciDac Corporation/PCAS.ca. PCAS.ca is dedicated to the implementation of affordable collision avoidance devices in General Aviation with a mission to eliminate mid-air collisions and dramatically reduce close calls. Anthony can be reached at
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, 1-888-PCAS-123 (GTA: 416-225-9266), and www.PCAS.ca |
