Iced Aircraft

They just don't want to fly... 

Snippet of a life of a 19-year-old pilot building his hours many years ago...

Lessons to share...

Not actual photo of event... but we can only imagine

"One morning about four months into the job Mr. Hudson called and told me they needed to go to Oklahoma City. I checked the weather and it was moderate icing forecast in cloud, on the way, but the tops were 8,000 feet. The aircraft was certified for flight into known icing conditions and it was pressurized so we would be above the clouds all the way until descent into Oklahoma City. I called Mr. Hudson back and said, “We were good to go.”

As we taxied out for takeoff, I did everything on the checklist, including inflating the boots, checking the pressure on the gauge, making sure all of the de-ice anti-ice equipment was working properly.

Everything went well in route. When we got handed off to Oklahoma City approach we were told to descend to 5000 feet. I told them we needed to stay at 8000 feet. Approach said negative. Since we were going into the Wiley Post Airport, approach needed to get us below the inbound airline traffic coming into Will Rogers airport.

I initiated the decent and within five minutes of being in the clouds the ice had built up thick enough to cycle the de-ice boots. When I did that nothing happened. I hit the switch again and nothing happened. The pressure gauge showed that everything should be working but it didn’t. I called approach and told them I needed to climb back to 8000 feet. They said negative, so I declared an emergency and told them I was climbing back 8000 feet.

I pushed the throttles up to climb power, raised the nose to achieve climb airspeed, and the aircraft would not climb. I lowered the nose to get back to cruise airspeed, had the power set at redline, and the aircraft would not maintain altitude. I called approach and told them to take me straight to the outer marker. I had absolutely no control over the rate of descent and as I crossed the outer marker I was exactly at the marker crossing altitude. What are the mathematical odd of that? 

The ceiling was about 300 feet, we broke out, it was snowing and the visibility was just under a mile. I held redline power until touchdown. As I taxied in, the marshaller pointed at the airplane and looked astonished. I could see that there was a lot of ice on the wing but when I got out I saw that the entire airplane was covered with ice from one end to the other. I was very thankful that the prop anti-ice and windshield anti-ice had worked."  Jay Sraub

Now Jay is Fighting for 

the Disabled

Learn more at: FIX LTD NOW 

Enjoy the journey!
XO Karlene