CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER 2 ALEX STEPHENS
A Company, 2nd Battalion, 135th General Support Aviation Battalion
Fort Liberty, North Carolina
I was a relatively new pilot in command (PC) who just arrived at Fort Liberty. After getting my local area orientation and going through PC verification, I was ready to start flying with pilots. The mission was a standard training flight that would include some cross-country, hot-refuel and goggling up and end with terrain flight.
It was the middle of summer and pop-up storms were the norm in this part of the country. However, our initial weather brief looked decent — not clear and unrestricted by any means, but ceilings forecast to hang out about 2,000 feet for the period. There wasn’t any lightning nearby, so we carried on, keeping an eye on the looming clouds. I didn't have much experience flying in bad weather, as my crews always did well avoiding it. I figured the weather on this day wouldn’t be any worse than what I had flown in before.
The cross-country portion of the flight went as planned, and ceilings stuck around 2,000 feet for the first hour. As we were heading toward our fuel stop, the crew noticed the ceilings pushing us lower and lower. Still, there was plenty of wiggle room, and we weren’t concerned about making it to the refuel point. Once we arrived at our fuel stop, ceilings dropped to about 1,500 feet and the sun began setting. The plan was to goggle up after topping off the tanks.
After refueling and getting our goggles set, we looked over the radar and current weather. We noticed a few pop-up storm cells stood between us and our home airfield. The cells were small but growing quickly. Due to our forecast not remaining true, as well as the obvious degradation of weather, we called it a night, cut out the terrain flight portion and headed straight home. Before takeoff, tower advised us of light rain in our proposed flight path. Another aircraft ahead of us to take off decided to wait it out. This should have been my first clue to be more patient.
Once the other aircraft moved aside to wait out the weather, my crew pushed ahead and took off. The only concerning weather we saw on the radar was a thin, perpendicular line of precipitation. We figured we could push through it quickly without much issue because tower described the rain as “light.” The rain was definitely light, at least for the first 10 seconds, before turning into an absolute downpour.
It looked nearly instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) with the heavy rain, under goggles, low illumination and the landing light still pushed out and on. Things got serious in a hurry and I backed up my pilot, who was on the controls, with his altitude and heading to fly. We decided the landing light was hindering us and turned it off. I was concerned about towers in the vicinity and lack of visibility, so I used my map to steer us clear of any obstacles. Luckily, after about two minutes, we finally pushed out of the heavy rain and could see again. We quickly hauled it back home and shut down while there was still a light drizzle.
Lessons learned
This flight could have turned out differently if that cell of precipitation was any larger. We might have been forced to climb into the clouds to avoid obstacles. Looking back, there were obvious lessons learned. Above all, we should have waited on the ground with the other aircraft to let the cell pass. However, we were concerned we might get weathered-in at this airfield, which was an hour’s drive from home, but that would have been better than a catastrophic mishap.
Since that flight, I’ve picked up some indications of a bad situation. When weather is much different than what was forecast, be cautious and update your brief. When other crews are taking a more conservative option, discuss with your crew if you should too. Patience can be a virtue in situations where you may want to rush to get home. Tower personnel can also misjudge weather just as the actual weather briefers, so stick to your instincts and do what you feel is right.
I am definitely more cautious when it comes to underestimating weather. I never realized how degraded my vision could get in rain like I experienced that night. While we broke no regulations, kept our weather minimums and didn’t fly into a storm with lightning, better decisions could have been made. I'm glad I could learn from such an unsettling experience.