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Growing up in an aviation family, most of my dad’s stories tended to start with, “No kidding — there I was, inverted in my Huey. I could tell I was inverted because my Air Medals were dangling in my face.” Back then, I used to just laugh at his tales because I had no real experience in aviation. Several years later, I was in a flight of four aircraft that almost went inadvertent instrument meteoritical conditions (IIMC) while trying to return to Fort Drum, New York. The concept of going inverted and not realizing it made a lot more sense at that point.
My unit was assigned to support a Mountain Peak training exercise at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk, Louisiana. For some odd reason, we always seemed to be tasked with flying cross-country from Fort Drum during the worst time of year. We had two of the Great Lakes begging for us to pass by so they could throw as much awful weather at us as possible. Most of the troop was part of our last JRTC rotation where we were directed to fly straight into bad weather and ended up in Erie, Pennsylvania, for two days with aircraft covered in ice. This time around, however, we were given the freedom to dictate how we wanted to skin the cat so we could avoid any weather hazards as best as we could. After several days of bad weather, we were finally able to try to start our trek.
The air mission commander (AMC) for the flight was my commander. However, his AH-64 experienced a maintenance issue as we were lining up. As the backup AMC, I was instructed to take the flight and begin the movement. The AMC would catch up with us later. We now had two AH-64Ds (our lead aircraft and my aircraft as Gun 2) and a single UH-60M as a chase bird with our maintenance package. We took off without incident and began moving south.
About 15 minutes south of Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield, there’s an area of rising terrain known as Tug Hill. Everyone likes to mention this as the sticking point. It is the first hurdle — but not the only one thanks to a giant lake that you can see as soon as you take off. We made it past both and began the turn to the west when we encountered weather. The pilots in command (PCs) in the other two aircraft and I rapidly diagnosed that we wouldn’t be able to make it through what we saw building ahead. So, as the AMC, I decided we’d turn around before we got stuck in something we couldn’t escape.
About 45 minutes later, we landed at the airfield and knew we would be posturing to try again the next day. Without realizing it, failure No. 1 on my part happened due to me not bringing up that we were using 1000/3 launch criteria knowing we had to get past terrain that would quickly make that a problem.
On the second attempt, all four aircraft took off, including the AMC, which moved me to flight lead. We made it past Tug Hill and started our turn west again once we reached the southern portion of Lake Ontario. About five minutes afterward, we encountered unforecasted weather along the route of flight. The weather was a mixture of what appeared to be light rain and an intermittent scattered layer that was at our current cruising altitude of approximately 1,400 feet mean sea level (MSL). It quickly started creating visibility issues for the flight, and Gun 2 lost sight of me.
I initiated a link-up procedure by an airport just past the unforecasted weather. This is probably where I made failure No. 2 by not immediately telling the flight we should head home. I was not the AMC, though, so I relegated that call to my commander. The weather looked clear to the west, though, so after a quick link-up, we continued on our established route.
We had only continued to the west for maybe five minutes when the weather we passed returned, but worse. Due to the temperature outside, we all became concerned with the possibility of icing. The ceilings were also rapidly dropping, and we knew if we continued any farther, we would be in trouble.
As I mentioned before, we had two Great Lakes to manage. While Lake Ontario creates the initial weather havoc, as soon as you are south of it and trying to fly west, you are in a direct line to Lake Erie. The weather we were experiencing was not showing on radar, so even with flight following, we had no clue it was coming. We ended up landing at a small airfield until the weather cleared enough to continue the flight. Next, we flew to Syracuse, New York, to refuel and plan.
During refueling, one of the PCs called back to Fort Drum and talked with the weather briefers. We were clear all the way back to Wheeler-Sack, but there was a tempo near Tug Hill that would begin within the next hour and a half. The flight to Fort Drum would only take about 45 minutes, so as long as we got off the ground reasonably quickly, we determined we would miss it entirely. That’s probably failure No. 3, and ultimately the key element to how everything played out.
The commander talked with the command back at the airfield and was told it was his call. If he felt we could make it back, we should take off and return to base (RTB). All the crews rushed to their aircraft. As we began jumping in, the commander noticed he had some ice he needed to remove before takeoff. That delayed us about 30 minutes, which was precious time we needed.
After departing Syracuse, the weather was slightly better than 1000/3. As we got farther away, it improved greatly. Ceilings went up to about 4,000 feet, and visibility was easily 7 statute miles or more. Everything seemed to be good — until it wasn’t. As we approached Tug Hill, I could see that the band of weather moved faster than predicted. This is where I made my last failure, No. 4, in that I should have turned us back right then. I still had everything to be legal, but I had no way of knowing how quickly the weather band would set up.
I had the other pilot on the controls so I could focus on everything else. We entered the light-blowing snow and things were great. Then, in a span of about four seconds, I watched my visibility drop rapidly as we entered IIMC. I called it from the front as the other pilot called it from the backseat. During this, he tensed up and put us at about 30 degrees nose up and in a right turn. I quickly took the controls and got us level and the hold modes set. The three aircraft behind us all began to turn so they would not enter the band. About 10 seconds after going IIMC, we popped out the other side of the cloud into great weather where I could see.
Behind me, though, the other aircraft attempted to shoot through in another spot. This was a failure on the whole flight that no one said, “Don’t try it. Go back!” Instead, the UH-60M filed a pop-up instrument flight rules clearance to get through. The other two AH-64s eventually found a gap and shot through after three attempts. Luckily, we all got home.
Lessons learned
Throughout this article, I listed several instances where I failed during this flight, and they provide some important lessons learned. Just because you are not the AMC does not mean you should stay quiet. Speak up! Everyone in the flight has the same right to not die. We cannot accomplish our mission if we all go quietly into a bad situation and slam our aircraft into the ground. Also, never let command pressure to RTB to save money force you into a dangerous situation. Our commander had a history of past commands that got angry if you had to stay over somewhere. Remember, it’s better for you to explain why you stayed than to have someone else attempt to explain why you proceeded with the flight and crashed.