Gentlemen, (Not me personally, but rather the gentleman this happened to)
Thank you for all your support. I truly would like to have a debrief on this at the squadron someday to discuss lessons learned. I’ll buy the keg.
As to the specifics of the accident, I was flying with my grandson Luki to Thomas Russell Field in Alexander City. As I reduced power in the descent (approximately 5 miles northeast of ALX) the engine gave one sputter and began losing power. I raised the nose to pick up 80 knots, turned on the boost pump, switched tanks, checked fuel (11L/10R), went mixture full rich and toggled mags. The engine was unresponsive.
Now, one of my biggest mistakes and regrets is that I looked at that big long runway and said, “I think I can make that”. I pointed it to the end of the runway, feathered the prop, and told Luki we would be a full stop. As it became apparent that making the field would be questionable, if not impossible, I made a hard right turn to land in the grass/parking lot behind the Taco Bell. I expected to land in the first field and probably hit the fence between the two portions of the lots. I did not expect the power lines (which I did not see) on the other side of the trees.
To any of you guys congratulating me or saying “great job”, I would say we got very, very lucky. Instead of hitting just one of the power lines and flipping on our back, we had one wire above the spinner and one below. The airplane slowed remarkably smoothly (relatively speaking) as we continued to the ground. I expect many of you carrier pilots have had more rapid decelerations hitting the 3-wire. What would Greese, Bill, Don, Waldo, or most of the other great pilots in the squadron have done? They would have taken luck out of the equation and headed toward the soccer fields, or even directly toward the field I chose, without first fixating on a big long piece of concrete just out of reach. That would have given them time to do a short field approach, clearing any lines or obstacles. They probably would have even been able to re-use the airplane. As for other things I should have done (but didn’t); turn off the fuel selector valve or unlock the canopy. For the record, the pictures look much worse than it was immediately after touchdown. We climbed out unscathed being careful to avoid the power lines. The power lines, however, continued to spark and started the aircraft on fire shortly after we safely exited. The fire department was on site almost immediately, but would not approach the airplane until the power company confirmed the lines were cold, so we stood there and watched the airplane burn to the ground. I do not intend to imply that wasn’t the best call. It was. I’m just explaining why it looks as bad as it does.
The obvious unanswered question is “why did the engine quit”? I don’t know.
So, thank you for your kind words and support. I just thought you should all know the rest of the story.
see the power poles, and always, always, assume there are power lines between them. If going over them requires stretching your glide (don't even try it), going under them, scary as it is, might be a better option (an option obviously not available to us balloon pilots.)
