4 Steps to Land a Cessna 172 as a Passenger in an Emergency
3,500ft in the air, sitting in the left seat of a Cessna 172 with your flight instructor on the right, you soar above highways and landmarks in your first introductory flight. As you talk back and forth with your instructor about the indicators and switches on the cockpit panel, he suddenly quit talking. You turn to him — his eyes begin to close, his body starts to lean forward, and the plane starts to lose control and nose dive…
You urge yourself to wake up, but you realize this is no joke. So buckle up — these four steps may help you successfully execute a smooth emergency landing to save yourself and your fellow instructor.
1. “AVIATE, Navigate, Communicate” — Part 1
The well known phrase in aviation begins with the word AVIATE. Before doing anything else, try to level the plane, check your throttle to make sure if it’s providing enough thrust, scan over your instruments and see if anything’s flashing or if anything has changed before your instructor became unconscious. The most common mistake is probably worrying too much about the plane hitting the ground. Try to stabilize the aircraft’s attitude and let aerodynamics do its job.
“Try to maintain your aircraft’s ATTITUDE, but allow minor variations in the aircraft ALTITUDE.”
Do you feel like your plane is flying slower than before? Is the plane banking to the left or right? Try to get the feel of the yoke and maintain a leveled and straight flight if possible.
2. “Aviate, NAVIGATE, Communicate” — Part 2
Now it’s time to NAVIGATE — find out where you are and where the plane is headed to. Look around and see if there are any airports nearby, and immediately find some plains or open areas suitable for an emergency landing and have that backup plan in mind.
In most circumstances, landing on a field is much safer than landing in water, as it provides a safer route for escape.
Water landing can be very dangerous as it is often unpredictable and “less tangible”. In my opinion, field landing would be much safer considering that it is easier to evacuate — unless you’ve ran out of options.
Only 20–30 seconds should have passed from the time you’ve realized that your instructor has become unconscious to when you’ve found a good landing spot. Your decisions must be quick but thorough, and once you’ve made the decision, stick to your plan. Let’s get back in the cockpit and talk more about COMMUNICATION.
3. “Aviate, Navigate, COMMUNICATE” — Part 3
After making some quick decisions, you should start talking on the radio for some help. Find that push-to-talk button on the left side of the yoke (since you are sitting on the left side), and hold it to start talking to the air traffic controllers. This is a life threatening situation for your instructor and possibly yourself, so you may want to call out “Mayday, mayday, mayday” (3 times). Let give it a call to the current radio frequency:
“Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Cessna 172SP (or your callsign), I have an unconscious instructor onboard, and I do not know how to pilot the plane.”
It is crucial to state that you do or do not know how to pilot the plane, so that the air traffic controller can possibly designate a flight instructor on the ground to walk you through the controls and steps you should follow.
ATC would most likely give you vectors to the nearest landing field, while inquiring more information about the current state of your airplane. Air traffic controllers are out there to help you, not distract you from your flying the plane.
4. Landing the Plane
Now you’ve coordinated with the air traffic controller and navigated to a nearby airport, it is time for the crucial landing. If you are making a straight-in approach, that is perfect. Make sure to put down the flaps as required to increase the rate of descent and your landing gear (no need for a Cessna 172, as it has a fixed gear) as you approach the runway.
But often times you will not be perfectly lined up with the runway. You will then need to enter the airport traffic pattern if you are able to. The ground instructor will most likely tell you to enter the downwind of the pattern, while instructing you to slow down to a certain speed and descend to a specific altitude.
As you approach the airport, ATC will inform you to switch over to the tower radio frequency. And after you’ve been transferred to the tower control, remind them that you’re the aircraft in distress by giving them another call, stating your aircraft callsign. Ask them again to guide you through entering the airport pattern, including when to turn, when to put down flaps as required, and when to slow down and descent.
Generally, maintain 90 knots on downwind, 80 knots on base, and 70 knots on final.
After you’ve crossed the runway threshold, pull back the throttle and be prepared to gently raise the nose to perfect the landing. It shouldn’t be a hard pull on the yoke, but a gently pull that allows the aircraft to flare with the ground effect.
After touchdown, try to line up your aircraft nose with the centerline of the runway by stepping on either side of the rudder, depending on which side you need to correct for.
As your aircraft comes to a stop, pull back on the mixture to cut off fuel, and switch off the magnetos & master switch (located on the left side behind the yoke), and set the parking brake (located below the yoke). Emergency vehicles should be on their way. Congratulations on a remarkable accomplishment.
Conclusion
Familiarizing yourself with these steps can facilitate the process of a scenario like this, even though it is extremely unlikely to happen. Here, I’ve made a short rundown list summarizing everything.
- Aviate — Take control, maintain the aircraft’s attitude, level off and monitor speed
- Navigate — Look out for a nearby airport or an open field
- Communicate — Talk with the controllers on the radio, declare Mayday, and describe your situation, (flight instructor will talk with you shortly)
- Landing — transfer to tower frequency as instructed, enter downwind. Put flaps, monitor airspeed & altitude (90 on downwind, 80 on base, 70 on final). Throttle for altitude, pitch for airspeed.
That’s all there is to it. Have fun flying.
