Pilots often face the perils JFK did

Low visibility makes the ability to rely on instruments crucial, instructors say.

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© St. Petersburg Times, published July 21, 1999

BOSTON -- Nearly a week after John F. Kennedy Jr.'s single-engine plane plunged into the Atlantic, it remains uncertain whether the reason was mechanical failure, his own inexperience or something still unimagined.

But there is at least one certainty: Everything that is known about the conditions he encountered Friday night is anticipated by the flight instructors who train tens of thousands of Americans for private pilot's licenses every year.

The instructors know that many of the pilots they train will almost surely someday fly into conditions like those that apparently faced Kennedy: few visible landmarks or lights, a dark sea merging into a blackening sky, a horizon made smudgy by haze.

Instructors, and all but the most novice of student pilots, also know that such conditions pose two major challenges: first, simply flying straight and level; and second, recognizing when the plane, against the pilot's intentions, is turning, descending or climbing.

At 3 miles a minute, the cruising speed of Kennedy's Piper Saratoga and of similar high-powered single-engine light planes, even a small deviation can quickly become a huge problem.

"Flying isn't inherently dangerous," said Ron Godin, chief flight instructor at Fitchburg Airport, just northwest of Boston. "It's just terribly unforgiving."

Sometimes that can mean a third challenge: the need to regain control when the plane tilts in the sky and the pilot has no visual cues outside the cockpit.

Many non-pilots call this "flying blind." To aviators, it is instrument flying. No one knows whether Kennedy resorted to relying solely on his instruments or, if he did, whether that was a factor in the crash. A variety of causes, mechanical or otherwise, may have played a role. But if visibility was an issue, Kennedy would join a long list of pilots who lacked the proficiency to fly in instrument conditions but found themselves forced to do so, disoriented in low visibility.

Kennedy had no "instrument rating" -- certification, which requires 40 hours of training, that a pilot is qualified to fly by referring only to his airplane's instruments when visibility is low.

As a condition of qualifying for a private pilot's license, he would have had to take only three hours of instruction devoted to flying with no visual reference points. The training is basic, showing the pilot how to "control the aircraft, to turn around and get back to visible conditions," said Warren Morningstar, a spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, a lobbying and education group.

In that training, Godin and other instructors teach pilots to recover from unusual situations. They mimic instrument conditions -- generally those in which visibility is less than 3 miles -- by placing over the student's head a set of visors that act like blinders, allowing for a view of the cockpit instruments but not of the scene that fills the window.

The first precept in instrument flying is to ignore the body's sensations. The delicate mechanism of the inner ear that provides a sense of balance can also provide false cues. A pilot who feels that the plane is level, for example, may in fact be diving to the left.

In the cockpit, one instrument is the leading guide: the artificial horizon, or attitude indicator. It displays a tiny silhouette of an airplane against a horizontal line. Based on a gyroscope, the position of the silhouette mimics the position of the airplane. If the left wing is below the horizon, for example, the pilot is turning left.

Other instruments provide backup information that validates the artificial horizon. With a left wing low, for instance, the turn and bank indicator will show a left bank, and the compass will show a heading change to the left. A nose below the horizon means the plane will pick up speed and lose altitude, and the altitude and speed indicators will confirm such a descent.

The pilot who pays attention to the instruments, checks them regularly and cross-checks the information each one provides will have a clear picture of what is happening to the plane.

But sometimes distractions overwhelm even the most experienced pilot. Safety experts speak of the pilot's workload and point out that most errors occur around takeoff or landing, when a pilot is busy, and not during cruise, a simpler phase of flight.

Many instructors drill their students with a maxim: aviate, navigate, communicate. The message: No matter what else is going on, first remain in control of the plane.

There are drills, too, for pilots who recognize that things are headed out of control. The situation is a demanding one, and mistakes can be deadly. A pilot who, for example, suddenly recognizes that both the left wing and the nose are down is trained to reduce power first to slow the descent, then level the wings and finally raise the nose back to the horizon. The pilot who mistakenly raises the nose first will tighten the turn, which will lead to a faster descent and could start a spin. That is even more difficult to manage.

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