Today was my second solo cross country. I planned on flying to Mexico, MO then to Hannibal, MO. I woke up at 6:00am to finish my flight planning, then met Matt at 8:30 so that he could review it and sign off for me to take the trip. I got to the airport around 9:45am and planned on departing at 10:15am. As I was getting ready to taxi out to the runway, one of the instructors who was out flying, recommended that I wait a half an hour because some low flying clouds had moved in. I finally took off at 10:45am.
Once airborne, I turned onto a heading of 220 and climbed to 2500ft. I then contacted the Flight Service Station (FSS) to open my flight plan so they could keep tabs on me. They said they didn't have any plans on file even though I filed one earlier. I just assumed I waited to long and it expired, so I filed and new one over the radio and had them open it. Meanwhile, I made sure I stayed on a heading of 220 but wasn't entirely paying attention to what cities were under me. After about 20 minutes of flying, I realized that I looked at the wrong number on my written flight plan. I was supposed to be flying a heading of 275 and now I had no idea where I was.
I immediately turned onto a heading of 275. After reviewing my charts, I knew that I was following the Missouri river. Several other factors indicated that I was at Washington, MO., yet at the same time some other smaller things weren't adding up. I decided to fly around the town a little bit to look for the airport, and finally located a runway. As I flew to it at 1700ft, I realized that there was more than one runway, and there was a control tower. Alright, so now I'm a little freaked because I'm in airspace that I didn't get a clearance for, plus I really had no idea where I was. I spent ten minutes circling the airport while I went back and forth with my charts and the Airport Facility Directory to figure out which airport I was actually at. I finally convinced myself that I was at Jefferson City.
I contacted Approach and told them that I was lost, but I thought I was at Jefferson City and I needed to land. They had me squawk a certain code on my transponder so they could find me on radar. They then informed me that I was indeed at Jefferson City, and made sure that I could see the airport and runways ok. After confirming that I could, they passed me over to the Jefferson City tower and I received the clearance to land and park at the ramp. I remained calm the entire time I was lost, but after turning off the airplane, I began to lose it. I called my instructor, Matt, half in tears and freaking out that I was in serious trouble. He did a great job calming me down and I managed to regain composure enough to go inside. I used the restroom, then had them add some gas to the plane just to make me feel more secure for my trip back. The employee then offered the phone number to the control tower. I called them and explained the situation and gave a deep apology. He assured me that it was ok and that I did exactly what I was supposed to do. I was not in any trouble which was a huge relief.
I decided not to continue onto my other (original) destinations, as I just wanted to go home. After departing, I flew north to Hensley airport, then found Highway 70 and began flying east. I contacted the FSS again to open a new flight plan and to get a new weather briefing, then tuned the VOR to the St. Louis station and followed it home. I will never forget how relieved I was to hear an instructors voice over the radio.
In all, I racked up 2.9 hours of flying, but was actually gone from 10:45am to about 2:30pm. I can't believe how such a small mistake could have such a huge effect. I feel pretty ridiculous about flying the wrong heading, however I have a whole new outlook on flying cross countries. I now know that it's not the end of the world if you get lost, I gained some more experience working with ATC, I learned how remaining calm can make the world of difference, and how to work with FSS even when things don't go as planned. I also proved to myself that I can use a VOR for navigation, as it played a big part in getting me home. This will be a day that I will never forget.
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| Missouri State Capitol Building |
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| Sharing the airport with the big guys |
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| Quite happy. Just visually found my home airport on the horizon. |
Wow, what a day!
ReplyDeleteYou know, things like this happen all the time, plus the Midwest is relatively featureless and very hard to navigate. You can mark every little city, powerline, river bend you can find on your map during preflight planning -- they still look all the same from above...
You were really good handling the emergency by the book -- you flew the airplane, got "unlost" and stayed that way the rest of the flight. And congrats on not freaking out mid-flight! That's the hard part of being a pilot. I'm sure your instructor is very proud of you.
Now, for the next time: I know it is stories like this that make one's life interesting but just for peace of mind you might want to carry a portable GPS (even though you're not supposed to use it for navigation, hey, an emergency is an emergency!) or using VFR flight following, if available -- among other things they'll warn you of impeding airspace violations, which is a real eye opener when you're not in the place you think you are.
Good job Sara, and keep flying!
Yeah you're right, the midwest is really hard to navigate by air! It never occurred to me in flight, but my phone has several apps that I could've used to tell me where I was. Oh well lol. I've heard several people mention flight following, but I honestly don't know anything about it. Looks like I can add that to my list of questions for the instructor :)
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