CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER 2 DAVID M. HENRY
A Company, 3rd Military Intelligence Battalion
Camp Humphries, South Korea
As Army aviators, we are trained to a high standard and take great pride in that fact. But what happens when confidence in our abilities overrides what the aircraft is telling us?
I am a fixed-wing pilot flying DHC-7s out of U.S. Army Garrison (USAG) Humphreys in South Korea. Our fight times can vary, but at this point, we were conducting nighttime operations from 2230-0430. The normal crew is two people in the cockpit and two equipment operators in the back. Our aircraft is equipped and approved for all weather operations, and this flight took place in the middle of winter. We had freezing conditions starting at the surface.
So, there I was on a cold winter night with clear skies and unrestricted visibility. My co-pilot and I had shifted out schedules in accordance with our standing operating procedure to log some night hours. In my opinion, the first night of flying is always the worst. Afterward, your body adjusts, making the subsequent nights easier.
The plan for our flight was simple. We would take off at 1030, fly a preplanned and canned route, and return USAG Humphreys at 0430. I was seated in the left seat, controlling the aircraft, and my co-pilot was in the right seat doing everything else. Pre-flight, start-up, engine-runs and all before-takeoff checks were by the book. The aircraft had no trouble making power and climbed to our cruise altitude at flight level 180 with no trouble. During the climb, we pulled up the gear and retracted the flaps from 15 to zero degrees.
Halfway through the flight, we noticed the aircraft’s heater wasn’t working to standard, so the cockpit was freezing. We decided to stay with our planned flight and just deal with the cold. By the end of the flight, though, I had my hands tucked under my armpits for warmth and was stomping my feet on the floor just to get my blood flowing. After six hours, we were both ready to get home.
My co-pilot made the radio call to air traffic control (ATC) to proceed direct to the airfield and for a lower altitude. We departed our flight route at a predetermined location that would set us up for a direct visual approach to Runway 14 with a 1,500-feet-per-minute (FPM) descent rate. We’d conducted this type of approach several times and were very familiar with it. Before beginning our descent, we had the airfield in site. The only thing left to do was to grease it on and call it a night.
We were both cold and tired, and the only thing between us and our warm beds was 18,000 feet and 25 miles. Incheon Airport cleared us direct to USAG Humphreys and descended us to 6,000 feet. Once we switched over to Osan Air Base approach, we were cleared for the visual approach into Humphreys and then pushed to tower. No one else was flying at 0415, so 10 miles out, tower cleared us to land to Runway 14.
Doing what pilots do best, I took the controls (auto pilot off), lined up with the runway and began to configure the aircraft for landing. Landing requires that we lower the gear and extend the flaps to 25 degrees. With the aircraft configured and on short final, I began bleeding off our airspeed so I could cross the runway threshold at our landing reference speed. With a quarter of a mile and 300 feet to go, the stick shaker began to go off, indicating an impending stall. Luckily, I had been to upset recovery training, which took over.
I pushed forward on the controls to break any possible stall. I put in a handful of power and the stick shaker stopped vibrating. At that point, we were 100 feet above the runway. My co-pilot and I looked at each other and couldn’t understand why the aircraft was giving us a bad indication. If anything, my airspeed was fast, so we both assumed the aircraft was broken. Since I was in a position to land, I proceeded with the approach. I got within 50 feet of the runway and started my round-out. Again, the stick shaker went off. I ignored it and continued with the landing.
After we touched down, our aircraft was speeding down the runway and we were quickly running out of concrete. I applied full reverse and brought the aircraft to a safe stop. We made a 180 degree turn to back taxi to get to our parking spot. We were dumbfounded as to why the aircraft was acting up and discussed how to write it up. It was at that point that we noticed while we had selected flaps to 25 degrees, they hadn’t moved. The indications we were receiving for an impending stall were in fact real and we’d almost crashed. We were both in shock. We reported it to maintenance and didn’t talk about it again that night. How could we have missed something so simple?
The next night, we met up again for another flight and finally talked about what happened. Why didn’t the flaps work? Why didn’t we notice? Why did we doubt the aircraft? Maintenance informed us water had gotten between the cannon plugs and froze due to the cold temperatures. The ice pushed the cannon plugs apart enough to prevent any signal from being sent from the flap selector to the flap motor. But why didn’t we notice? After all, there is a gauge next to the selector that indicates the position of the flaps. Additionally, when flaps are extended, the aircraft pitches down and back pressure on the controls is required. I should have felt it and we should have seen it on the gauge.
We decided several factors contributed to this “almost” accident. We were both tired and cold, so we took the quickest manner to get home, which was a straight-in approach with a quick descent rate. Since we were coming down so fast, I didn’t notice the aircraft didn’t pitch forward because we were already pointed at the ground. Meanwhile, my co-pilot was rushing through the checklist to get the aircraft configured to land.
We were so focused on getting home that the gauge was overlooked. The flaps had always worked, so why wouldn’t the work that night. Even though we rushed the approach and did not noticed the flaps’ failure to move, we had one more safety but ignored it. The stick shaker went off twice on our approach — once at 300 feet and again at 50 feet when we began our round-out. The aircraft was trying to tell us something was wrong and we trusted our judgment over an airplane that was designed to fly.
We did everything in accordance with the checklist but didn’t account for a system malfunction. Luckily, our skill and training took over and prevented what could have been a Class A mishap with four fatalities. The biggest takeaway from this event was when a system in your aircraft is telling you something isn’t right, believe it!