Been There Done That but no Tee Shirts

Been There, Done That, But they don't do Tee Shirts.

I have just been reading in my newspaper about the loss of an aircraft, a pilot, and a gifted soccer player called Emilio Sala.

The rescue teams are still looking for them but I fear it is now (Wednesday afternoon) a forlorn hope. I can think of perhaps a half dozen reasons why the aircraft came down but I wouldn't presume to guess the actual reason and I am not sure that anyone will ever know.

The incident does bring into my mind an occasion when Anne and I came close to disaster in the same approximate location. We were lucky and grateful and every detail is still etched indelibly upon my mind.

It was the summer of 1979 and we were returning from a trip to Fallaise France. We called for lunch at Grandville and then made our leisurely way across the twelve miles of English channel to Jersey. We re-fuelled and overnighted at Jersey then next morning we prepared to make the fairly long crossing to Hurn Bournemouth.

I had by this time accumulated 450 hours of pilot experience and had recently undertaken a short course of instrument flying. This course was intended to provide sufficient knowledge and practice to get the pilot safely around a reverse turn to escape nasty weather accidently encountered.

Well on this morning we filed a flight plan for a Northern direct exit of Jersey to the UK and prepared to depart. It was a fairly nice day with cloud ceiling at about two thousand five hundred feet and good forward visibility. We were therefore surprised when Jersey air traffic said we may not fly direct North but must fly East until we left Jersey control and arrived over the Capp de Flamanville on the Cotentin peninsular, then turn North. It seemed a bit of an imposition but I had become convinced that air traffic controllers were next to God in seniority.

However we took off soon after noon and set course East to do what we had been instructed. As we went nearer and nearer to the coast the cloud ceiling came lower and lower and in order to stay in visual contact with the sea we too had to come lower and lower. Nearing the coast say about five miles we suddenly ran into a wall of cloud down at sea level and as high as we did not know.

Now,this situation taxed my newly acquired instrument skills to the limit and rapidly changed from the comparative comfort of a lesson with an instructor sitting beside me to act as insurance to, a for real and dangerous occasion, but we were doing what we were told to do.

After a comparatively short time I realised that we must as a matter of urgency turn around and go back the way we had come. Just now we encountered a small horizontal hole in the cloud which revealed that we were about fifty yards from a cliff face which stretched out above us. Alas the view was only a glimps. We were flying at one hundred Knots (118MPH)

I commenced my instrument guided reverse climbing turn. First establish a rate one turn to Port then check airspeed then check compass to see that we were in fact turning then check altitude,now down at three hundred feet but climbing.

Must maintain air speed and altitude so back around these flying instruments. each in turn and not dwelling upon one instrument to the neglect of the others, the while hoping that the cliff face was straight and was not curving around in front of us. At this time we were many years before GPS so had no guidance from that quarter. I had no brain capacity left with which to speak on the radio.

I was far too busy.

After some minutes we had climbed in cloud to about 2000 feet and we now believed we were comparatively safe and over the sea. The next problem was to be safely positioned to enable us to let down out of the cloud.I had by now acquainted air traffic with my predicament and a radio bearing had enabled them to suggest that I made a very gentle let down. Then Hallelujah we could see again.

I now advised air traffic the details of what had occurred and that with or without their approval I was going to depart to the North.They suggested over the radio that after such a fright we might like to alight at Alderney to recover our wits. We declined and elected to proceed to Bournmouth without pause. Ceiling and visibility remained good to England.

There is no lonelier place that I know of than in an aircraft and unable to see and there is absolutely no one who can help. You really are on your own.

When with my finger over a map I retrace our route over Alderney and onward we follow almost perfectly the route taken by the missing Piper.So''..Been there done that and I am so sorry that the Piper is lost''.It's a frightening place to be when the sun isn't shining.

What else did I learn?. Well; Air Traffic Controllers come much further down the firmament than God. Since then I have considered carefully what they have to say whilst remembering always that the responsibility for the safety of the flight, my aircraft and most of all my passenger lies with me. No one else. My log book shows that I flew on instruments only for twenty minutes that day and I am eternally grateful to the instructor who took the trouble and had the patience to teach me Thank you Vic Beaumont.

My passenger, bless her.I have no idea what she thought but she never made an utterance. She has complete faith and I can only be grateful for that.

Cheers from Geoff

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