What could go wrong now? - landing without power or engines

Approach, Jan, 2003 by Paul Neuzil

Gather a bunch of aviators, and you'll hear some hair-raising sea stories. Usually they are about someone else who met an unfortunate end or who lost a few fingers, toes, or a pound of flesh. My story centers around what happened to me. It is said, "He who tells the best story speaks of himself."

Long ago and far away, I was a young instructor pilot at VT-31 in Corpus Christi, Texas. We were in the infant stages of introducing the TC-12 to the squadron. Navy and Air Force students headed to P-3s or C-130s received TC-12 training.

Most instructors flew two events (four sorties) a day to maintain student throughput, and this day was no exception. I started the day with a T-44 flight from 0600 to 1100, followed by a second event in the afternoon in the TC-12. It was a great day for flight training. The weather was a perfect spring day in the Texas Riviera.

The first event went off without a hitch, and I was confident the second would go as well. However, as I came out of the debrief, I was told I needed to do a functional-check flight (FCF) if I wanted to have an aircraft for my second event. The command duty officer had a student as my copilot, and we were to meet in maintenance control at 1300. I grabbed a quick lunch, then went to the TC-12 hangar to catch up with my copilot and to brief. After the pleasantries, we read the aircraft-discrepancy book (ADB) and got the QA brief.

During the brief, we learned the mechanics had worked on the No. 2 propeller control and adjusted the fuel-control unit. The FCF would be a piece of cake, and my copilot and I went to preflight, which went like clockwork. Twenty minutes later, we were in the run-up, completing our final checks. All aircraft systems checked good, and we taxied to the active runway for takeoff. I received clearance to work block two central, briefed the takeoff, and took off VFR to the warning area. We flew out the climb radial to our assigned block altitude of 7,000 feet. My copilot was busy reading checklists and the FCF deck, making sure we did each step of the check flight. The aircraft had performed as advertised to this point.

We leveled off and were ready to do the required engine checks. The first step was to fuel chop the engine and try to restart it, using the windmilling-airstart procedure. I confirmed with my copilot that I had the No. 2 condition lever, then started to cut off the fuel. The engine shut down, and the propeller continued to windmill. I completed the required steps to reintroduce fuel to the engine, then placed the condition lever to the on position, but the engine did not relight.

To make matters worse, I had the classic no-fuel-flow, no-lightoff. I elected to completely shut down the engine. We feathered the propeller and discussed our options. The FCF deck called for a reattempt to light off the engine with the starter. I was certain this second try wouldn't work, because I wasn't able to get fuel to the igniters to light off the engine during the windmilling airstart. We elected to give it the ol' college try, figuring the worst thing that could happen would be another failed lightoff, and we always could refeather the engine.

We performed the procedures for a starter-assisted airstart, and, sure enough, the engine again failed to lightoff. I secured the start and completed the emergency-engine-shutdown procedure. I verified the engine switches were in the proper position while my copilot completed the checklist, which requires checking the voltmeter to make sure the remaining generator is not overworked. I checked the voltmeter, and it exceeded output requirements. I thought to myself, "This is not good."

I reverified all switches in the proper position and had the co-pilot also check their position. We began to shut down all non-essential equipment to reduce the load. I mainly was concerned with the air conditioner and the load it draws on the system, but we couldn't reduce the load. We immediately headed back to NAS Corpus Christi, declared an emergency with ATC, and hoped for a favorable outcome.

As we began our descent toward home, we again discussed the possible outcomes. We faced the real possibility we would lose the No. 1 generator, which would leave us with just battery power.

No sooner did we finish discussing this possibility than the No. 1 generator-failure light came on. A little concerned now, I turned off the generator, updated ATC, and told them of my intentions to enter a left base, for a full stop on the active runway at NAS Corpus Christi. I also advised them I probably would lose all communications because of a dwindling battery charge. They switched me to Corpus Christi tower, and I was cleared to land.

We were six miles northeast of the field at 5,000 feet when I began to configure the plane for landing. We put down the flaps, and I saw they moved very slowly. The radios were intermittent. I tried to contact the tower and update them on our situation and intentions, but, within seconds, the battery was gone--we had lost electrical power. My student copilot, a little frantic but still in control, began to read the approach and landing checklists when we were two miles from the field.