President Nelson’s “flight of death”

A reaction to  Mormonism LIVE: 033: President Nelson’s Flight of Death

[Comment from Alan: I sent this paper to the Mormonism Live! podcast (Bill Reel & RFM) as a reaction to Mormonism LIVE: 033: President Nelson’s Flight of Death which originally streamed in July, 2021.]

Bill and RFM,

Excellent live episode yesterday! I listened to it after the fact, and I was beside myself–being unable to comment live.

My CV: 

• I’m a professional pilot with 25+ years experience.
• I’m a flying instructor for the Air Force and I teach at the graduate level (I teach future Air Force instructors).
• I hold FAA ATP, CFII, MEI and advanced ground instructor ratings
• I started teaching flying in 1999, almost 22 years ago

The outcome of the episode, discovery of the CAB write-up on the incident tells it all. Like your caller mentioned, FAA certified air carriers and charter operations are required by federal code to report certain incidents. Catastrophic failure of an engine in flight would certainly be a reportable incident. Not to mention if a fire were involved.

At the close of the episode, Bill did misunderstand the caller, any competent pilot would descend rapidly (not climb) in the event of any indication of fire. The descent serves two purposes. First, getting on the ground ensures that the pilot has the best opportunity to preserve human life in the event of a fire. Second, a rapid descent would increase airspeed (a byproduct of dissipating the potential energy stored as altitude in the case of an airplane), and yes… that additional airflow around the engine could essentially “blow out the candle.” The pilot would have been trained to turn to the nearest suitable airfield and begin a descent in the event of a fire. It’s very rare for aircraft to experience catastrophic failures accompanied with fire. Engines don’t generally “blow up,” they aren’t packed with explosives.

…But the CAB report says this particular airplane was NOT on fire so let’s not dwell on that too long.

We can all agree that the plane did have an engine issue. I think it’s totally reasonable that the pilot would calmly shut down the engine, and as RFM mentioned “feather the prop” on that engine in order to ensure the propeller didn’t cause additional drag. This would be a totally normal thing to do in that particular situation. At cruise parameters of altitude, airspeed, and engine power setting THE PLANE WOULD HAVE FLOWN PERFECTLY WELL as the pilot transitioned from flying on two engines to one. The plane would have yawed a small amount, due to the asymmetrical thrust forces acting on the plane (RFM mentioned this). If you had a cup of coffee (sorry, Postum) in front of you, the liquid would have sloshed over to one side for the remainder of the flight. But let me be clear, there would have been NO FLAMING DEATH SPIRAL as a result of this NON-emergency! Even a pilot with slightly below-average skill could have handled this scenario without drama, even if they weren’t on their A-game that day. As the story was told on the Easter special, the pilot would have had to be incompetent–even if the engine failed unexpectedly, it would NOT have resulted in a spin to the ground, unless the pilot went against literally everything they had been trained to do.

Granted, from the passengers perspective it would have been a little disconcerting to observe one engine STOP spinning, followed by the plane flying with a list created by the asymmetry mentioned above.

Okay, I have to say something about the idea that the plane might have landed in a farmer’s field. Bulls#!t. This isn’t 1924 and this plane isn’t a barnstorming tail-dragger. No professional pilot worth the paper their pilot license is printed on would consider taking the risk associated with landing a multi-engine passenger plane (with one engine still working fine) in a “farmer’s field.” This would have been a great story in 1937, but is absurd with a modern airplane. The higher landing speeds of a multi-engine plane–even a smaller one like the Piper model involved, with landing gear and tires engineered for landing on a prepared surface, would be a recipe for disaster. The plane would likely flip over or lose directional control when the wheels dig into the dirt. I could go on and on with this particular point, but suffice it to say: no, I don’t believe this part of the story, not one bit.

Now, for the idea that the left engine was shut down and needed to be restarted. No, no, and no! You are correct that the engines operate on independent fuel and ignition systems and that shutting down the right engine has no bearing on what the left is doing. I do however have a theory about what the passengers may have perceived happened: during the descent to Delta, the airplane would have needed to descend from cruise altitude, down to landing, at a rate of descent higher than what people are accustomed to. The pilot would have wanted to use a low power setting on the working engine (possibly even ‘idle’), the engine noise in the cabin would have become very quiet during that initial part of the descent. It would have been normal for the pilot to add power as the glidepath to the runway was obtained–shortly before landing. This could reasonably account for the perception that BOTH engines were OFF for a time. I’d say one engine was OFF, and the other was at IDLE. (“Idle” in this sense would be very similar to what we all experience as we sit at a red light with our foot off the accelerator pedal in our cars.)

I’m having so much fun with this. Let me wrap this up with this final thought. As a mental exercise in role reversal, let’s say that as a professional pilot, I had the opportunity to watch a surgeon in action in an operating room. How much of what they were doing would I understand? What if something got off-track for a few minutes, the patient appeared to “crash,” needing a heart massage or some sort of electric jolt from paddles to revive them? How much of that situation would I understand? What if I spent the coming decades of my life embellishing the events, never really understanding what even happened? How could I understand? I’m not a freaking cardiovascular surgeon! 

What President Nelson is doing, is essentially the same thing. With arrogance, he is retelling a highly embellished story that almost any pilot would recognize as likely B.S. (Uctdorf, please speak up here!) while every professional pilot within earshot could throw a flag on the field.

Oh, and there’s no historical record of this event ever taking place with even a smidgeon of drama.

Love your work Bill and RFM! Give ’em hell!

r,

Alan Hanks

• Command Pilot, USAF
• Airline Transport Pilot
• Certified Flight Instructor: Instrument, Multi-engine; Advanced Ground Instructor
• 6th generation (post-)Mormon