June 1992
Kathryn reviewed her briefing notes as the squadron auditorium filled with instructors and students. She would be presenting her findings from the investigation of the crash of Lieutenant Mike Harris. The flight yesterday with Casey had cleared her mind so she could focus on this important but difficult duty today. She scanned the audience. All the IPs, students, and both the T-37 and T-38 squadron commanders were present. She also saw Lieutenant Dave Carter scowl at her as he sat next to Captain Bailey Grant. They were often seen together at the O Club bar, usually leering at the local women. Now here they were whispering and laughing as a briefing about a dead student was about to start. The group jumped to attention as the wing commander walked in and took his seat in the front row center.
A hush fell across the room as she started with slides of the accident site and pictures of the burned plane. “This accident was not the result of anything mechanically wrong with the aircraft, the engines, the oxygen system, or the physical condition of the student pilot. The weather was not a factor, neither was air traffic control. The cause of this accident was G-induced loss of consciousness by the student pilot.” She paused to let her words sink in.
“This was the first solo flight after the introduction of advanced acrobatics. The GLOC was most likely caused by a poorly flown acrobatic maneuver where the student was unable to recover from a high-speed dive and consequently blacked himself out. The student had seen the advanced acrobatic maneuvers one time, with a grade of Unsatisfactory on all maneuvers, prior to this mishap. He had been briefed by his IP to practice all the acrobatic maneuvers on this flight.” A mumbling rippled through the audience.
Kathryn stopped and asked the student pilots to leave the room as she had additional information for the IPs only. She noticed Casey and Mike’s IP, Lieutenant Carter, looking around nervously.
“There are some other facts concerning this student pilot, Lieutenant Mike Harris. During the investigation, we discovered that Lieutenant Harris was extremely self-critical about his flying. He had notes in his room documenting and berating himself on every flight where he made mistakes. Now, we critique every student on every maneuver on every ride, but this student took this critique very personally. There were also letters from his father demanding that Mike excel in this program. We will never know what kind of internal, self-imposed pressure this student put on himself, but we can still try to learn from this mishap. We need to pay more attention to our student pilots and how they’re dealing with the stress of this program. We need to be mindful of the demands we impose on them, and the type of instruction we give them, especially when we send them out on solo missions.” She looked directly at Lieutenant Carter. He couldn’t look at her.
*****
Life went on in pilot training as they entered the instrument flying phase of training. There were a million things to remember when flying on instruments. Casey had to figure out where she was in the sky by looking only at the navigation instruments, think about where she wanted to go and how to get there. There were all kinds of new procedures to memorize for flying course intercepts, holding, precision and non-precision approaches, and all the instrument flying rules. Some of the guys who had been hotshots at the beginning were, all of a sudden, busting instrument sim rides and getting washed out.
Lieutenant Carter had been taken off the flying schedule for ten days after Mike Harris’s accident report came out. None of the IPs would talk about it, but the student rumor mill said he had to go through remedial instructor training with wing standardization and evaluation. Casey and Jeff got a break from his screaming and flew with other flight IPs. Casey liked flying with most of them, but she was mentally exhausted after an hour and a half in the simulator looking only at round dials.
Casey was excited, and a little bit scared, to see she was flying her next instrument sim with Captain Hardesty. She knew she had to study hard to learn all the procedures and chair fly the approaches because Captain Hard-Ass wouldn’t cut her any slack.
Casey felt claustrophobic in the instrument sim with no horizon picture out the windscreen and just the reddish glow of the instruments illuminating the small space. Captain Hardesty had her fly simple climbs and descents, but then made it more difficult by having her also turn to headings. Casey was missing the rollouts and level-offs. She was chasing the altitude and airspeed and failed to notice when her heading drifted off course. This is so difficult. I don’t think I’ll ever get it.
“Let go of the stick, Casey.”
Crap. I forgot to trim the plane.
When Casey let go of the stick, the nose abruptly pitched down and she lost three hundred feet of altitude.
“Who is your friend, Casey?”
“Trim is my friend, ma’am,” she answered sheepishly.
“That’s right. Having the airplane trimmed is absolutely essential to instrument flying. Your cross-check is all over the place and you’re chasing the instruments. The main thing you need to look at is the attitude indicator. This is your horizon. Take your pencil out of your sleeve pocket and hold it in your hand like you are going to write something. Now hold the stick with the pencil in your hand. You can’t have a death grip on the stick as long as you have the pencil in your hand. This will force you to trim the jet.”
“Okay, I’ll try that.” Casey was pleasantly surprised. She had to keep a very light grip on the stick and fly with just her fingertips because of the pencil. She trimmed the plane to keep it level and she was able to detect tiny pressures on her fingertips when the plane was out of trim. She wasn’t flailing nearly as much.
Captain Hardesty showed her several tricks to make the approaches more stable and improve her instrument cross-check. After the sim, Casey was still mentally exhausted but was relieved the instrument flying was starting to make sense.
“You have to be able to fly the jet in the present moment and think about the future—where am I, and where do I want to go? This is one of the most difficult things you will ever do in an airplane, Casey. Overall, your instrument flying is coming along and you know your procedures. You are well ahead of your classmates. Sim grade, Excellent.”
“Thanks, ma’am.” Casey felt herself flush with heat at the compliment.
*****
Casey studied navigation in academics and learned how to read aeronautical charts, plot courses, make flight plans, calculate en route leg times and fuel burns. She couldn’t wait to go on her cross-country flights and fly to another base. She flight planned a low-level navigation leg to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson, then they would fly back to Willie at night. She used dead reckoning navigation for the low-level flight, checking the terrain to determine her turn points. She would be flying on instruments for the return flight at night.
Carter was back flying with Jeff, and she was flying with Captain Hardesty. They listened to the weather brief, which included gusty winds for the landing at Davis-Monthan and the possibility of thunderstorms developing.
Captain Hardesty sat down with Casey with her own sectional chart, whiz wheel, and instrument approach book for Arizona. “Casey, brief me on what we’re doing today.”
“I plotted the low-level route using turn points of a pair of buttes, Coolidge Dam, a railroad crossing the freeway, Picacho Peak, then direct to Davis-Monthan.”
“You’ll be flying at two hundred and fifty knots, only one thousand feet above the ground, so the most important thing you have to do is clear, clear, clear. Look outside the jet for other aircraft, terrain, and obstacles like antennas or power lines.”
They reviewed the return leg from D-M back to Willie and talked about the different instrument approaches she would fly. At base operations they filed their flight plan, got a weather briefing, and Captain Hardesty showed her how to set up the cockpit for a navigation flight.
It felt like they were flying really fast because they were so close to the ground as they skimmed over the mountain ridges. She spotted her first turn point, the twin buttes, checked her timing, and started her turn to the next point. When she wasn’t hyperventilating, she was starting to think this was actually kind of fun. The sky looked sort of fuzzy in front of her.
“What is that, ma’am?”
“That’s virga, rain that evaporates before it hits the ground. We may not be able to complete this low-level if the visibility gets any worse.”
Just then it sounded like they were hit with machine gun bullets as big raindrops struck the canopy. Captain Hardesty took the stick, made a hard turn to the right, slammed the throttles forward to full power, and pulled the jet into a climb. “My jet, Casey.”
The plane started to rock and roll as turbulence hit them, pushing Casey hard against her shoulder straps. A wall of dark, ominous clouds was in front of them as the ground faded away. Oh my God. I have no idea what to do.
“Albuquerque Center, this is Sage 75,” Captain Hardesty transmitted.
There was only static.
“Albuquerque Center, Sage 75. Do you copy?”
Again, no answer.
“We’re on our own since we’re too low to receive any radio signals. Casey, find our current position on your map, draw a line heading west, and look for the nearest navigation facility.”
Casey’s hand shook as she drew a rough line on her chart. “I think Stanfield VOR is the nearest nav fix. I’ll tune that up.”
The needle on the navigation instrument slowly spun as it searched for a signal.
“We’re too low to get a nav lock. We need to climb higher.” They were surrounded by dark gray clouds as the turbulence got worse. An amber warning light came on—the engine ice light.
“Uh, Captain Hardesty?”
“I see it. Unfortunately, this plane has no weather radar, no deicing or anti-ice capability. That light just tells us that ice is forming in the engines and we need to get out of this as soon as possible.”
The clouds surrounding them were disorienting. Casey was enveloped in grayness. The turbulence threw her against her seat harness and made it difficult to read the instruments. She couldn’t tell if she was upside down or straight and level. She fought hard to keep her fear in check.
The needle on the navigation instrument stopped and pointed to one-two-zero degrees.
“Casey, tell me where we are.”
“We are northwest of the Stanfield VOR.”
“Good. Now where do we want to go?”
I can’t believe she’s still quizzing me as we’re about to die.
“Back to Willie?”
“Correct. Figure out which direction we need to go.”
“I think we should turn to a zero-three-zero heading, ma’am.”
“That’s exactly right. I’m descending to six thousand feet to get out of this icing since we’re over a flat part of the desert. Let’s see if we can get Phoenix Approach on the radio now that we’re away from the high terrain.
“Phoenix Approach, this is Sage 75 passing ten thousand for six thousand, northwest of Stanfield,” Captain Hardesty transmitted.
“Sage 75, Phoenix Approach, radar contact. I show your destination as Davis-Monthan, but they are closed due to thunderstorms. What are your intentions?”
“We’d like vectors to Williams for the instrument approach. What’s the current weather at Willie?”
“They are reporting a two-hundred-foot ceiling, visibility one-half mile with blowing dust, wind two-four-zero degrees at fifty knots, runway three-zero in use.”
“Fuck. Maybe we can make it to Luke,” Captain Hardesty muttered to herself.
“Phoenix Approach, what’s the current weather at Luke Air Force Base?”
“Sage 75, Luke is closed for wind shear on the field.”
“Okay, Phoenix, request vectors to Williams.”
“Sage 75, turn right heading zero-four-five, descend and maintain five thousand feet.”
“Ma’am, can we land in that weather at Willie?” Casey asked nervously.
“You tell me, Casey. Can we?”
This woman is maddening! “Well, we have the minimums for the approach, but I’m not sure if the winds are out of limits.”
“What is the crosswind limit for the T-37?”
Casey hesitated. She knew the answer to the question but was having a hard time focusing with fear choking her and the turbulence banging her head around.
“Twenty-six knots?”
“Are you sure?”
Casey was getting more and more irritated with her. “Yes, the crosswind limit is twenty-six knots.”
“Good. Now go to your checklist and figure out the crosswind for runway three-zero.”
Casey’s gloved hand shook as she looked up the table in her checklist. “I come up with a twenty-five-knot direct crosswind.”
“So, can we land in that?”
“Yes, ma’am, we can.”
“Good. Yes, we can land with those winds at the moment. But if the wind velocity gets worse or the direction changes, we may have to divert to Phoenix Sky Harbor airport.”
“Can we land at the commercial airport?”
“Not generally, but we’ll be an emergency aircraft if we have to divert so we can land there. I’m going to have to fly this approach, Casey, and I need you to back me up on the altitudes. We’re going to be flying as a crew on this—not IP and student. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.” This was serious now. Very serious.
They broke out of the clouds momentarily. Casey saw massive columns of towering black clouds on either side of them as if they were flying through a deep canyon. Lightning flashed all around them and inside the clouds. The lightning strikes were happening so fast it looked like paparazzi flashbulbs going off. They were still flying through heavy rain, but with the bright landing lights on, the big drops looked like they were shooting past them at an incredibly fast speed. It resembled the starship Voyager going to warp speed through a star field. The raw power of the weather surrounding them made her feel very insignificant flying through this in a small trainer. It was terrifying and beautiful all at the same time.
“Attention all aircraft. This is Phoenix Approach. Phoenix Sky Harbor is now closed due to wind shear on the field.”
“Shit,” Captain Hardesty muttered. “Casey, listen to me very carefully. We have one shot to get this plane on the ground. We don’t have enough fuel to try another approach, and the other airports in the area are closed. If the winds get worse, or I can’t see the runway, I’m going to immediately zoom the jet up to two thousand feet and we’re going to eject. I will say, ‘Bail out, bail out, bail out,’ then we go.”
“Yes, ma’am, I understand.”
“Sage 75, Phoenix Approach. Turn right heading zero-nine-zero, descend to three thousand feet. You’re cleared for the ILS three-zero center approach, contact tower.”
“Sage 75, cleared for the approach.”
“Gear down, Casey.”
She put the wheel-shaped handle down and checked for three green gear-down lights.
“Speed one ten, flaps to fifty.”
Casey moved the flap lever to the one-half mark and tried to watch the instruments as Captain Hardesty flew the approach. The attitude indicator looked like a dancing meatball, and the turbulence was so severe the instruments appeared to bounce around like they weren’t even attached to the front panel. They were in complete, blind grayness, and Casey wanted to put her hand on the stick as Captain Hardesty flew the jet, just to feel connected to her. She moved the stick so fast it looked like she was furiously stirring a pot as she struggled to fly the jet.
She had to shout so Casey could hear her over the deafening sound of the pounding rain. “On glide path, on speed, flaps full, Casey.”
“Flaps full. At the final approach fix.”
They were only fifteen hundred feet above the ground and descending rapidly surrounded by dark, violent weather. Casey’s heart pounded as she checked the distance to the runway: five miles to go. Her eyes burned as sweat ran down her forehead from her helmet. She had to do her job even if it was the last thing she would ever do on this earth. “Three miles, one thousand feet.”
“Willie Tower, Sage 75, gear down, full stop.”
“Sage 75, cleared to land, wind two-four-zero degrees, thirty-five gusting to sixty knots. Wind shear advisories in effect.”
“Sage 75, cleared to land.”
There was no talking between them as they continued the descent toward the ground. Casey glanced at the little instrument they were betting their lives on, the ILS indicator. It was the size of a silver dollar and showed centered crosshairs indicating they were on the glide path and lined up with the runway. Casey looked at the bouncing altitude dial thinking about her next call as they approached three hundred feet above the ground.
“Approaching decision height,” Casey called.
She stole a peek out the front of the windscreen hoping to see the runway but saw nothing. Oh, my God. Altitude, Casey, call out the altitude!
“Decision height! I can’t see the runway!” Casey shouted.
“I have a light at two o’clock low,” Captain Hardesty said.
Casey saw one dim, pale fuzzy white light, then another, then three—they were the lead-in lights. She couldn’t see the runway and Captain Hardesty was still descending. They were one hundred feet above the ground.
“Runway in sight—landing!”
Casey saw the green runway threshold lights and the white stripes of the landing zone. The nose of the plane was twenty degrees angled off from the runway. It looked like they would go off the edge of the pavement. Captain Hardesty stepped on the rudder pedal to swing the nose around as she banked the plane into the wind. Bam! They hit the runway hard and Captain Hardesty slammed the stick full forward to keep the nose on the runway. Her feet danced on the rudder pedals trying to stay on the center line with the wind buffeting them ferociously.
The centerline lights were barely visible through the torrential rain. “Tower, Sage 75 is clear of the runway, taxiing to parking.”
“Tower copies. Did you experience any wind shear on final?”
“Yes, we had a twenty-knot loss of airspeed at two hundred feet.”
“Glad you made it back, Sage 75.”
“So are we, Tower.”