Risks of Flying

Those in Ottawa are likely familiar with the incident last week when a landing airplane overran the runway at the local airport. Luckily there were no serious injuries. This brings to mind a similar incident where I was a passenger on an aircraft that did something eerily similar. It is one of those things that, if you fly often enough -- and I've done a lot of business travel over the years -- is bound to happen.

In the flight I was on the landing hazard was a low ceiling combined with a sudden snow squall. I was in a window seat so I got a pretty good view of the landing as it transpired. I remember the long descent through an unbroken cloud deck, knowing that we had to be getting close to the ground, when we did break through the low ceiling perhaps only a few hundred feet above the ground. The descent continued through the heavy snow fall for a few seconds until we reached the runway lights. Alongside a few dim, snow-covered lights was a flat expanse of white where the runway had to be.

At this point our descent slowed for a moment -- it could be that the pilot was assessing the landing conditions. Then down we went, kicking up thick clouds of snow as be bounced down the runway. The pilots were braking slowly, careful not to lose control as the plane tried to gyrate on the slippery surface. It brought to mind something that a pilot once told me about one of the difficulties of flying a two-engine versus a single-engine plane: you have to finely adjust the thrust of each engine to avoid spinning the craft on a slippery surface. That's one reason why piloting a single-engine airplane requires less training. I suppose modern avionics must simplify this task, but this particular incident occurred many years ago.

I was familiar enough with the airport to know that we were getting near the end of the runway and our speed was still much too high to turn. Then we came to the very last taxiway at the very end of the runway and the pilot made the attempt. It didn't work. The plane made a half turn and proceeded to slide sideways into the field in the angle between the runway and taxiway.

At this point it is worth mentioning just how tough modern aircraft are built. To an unpracticed eye they seem to be terribly fragile machines that are at the whim of the forces of nature. In actuality, the undercarriage of an aircraft, including the wing structure, are probably the strongest part of the whole. After all, we have to remember that the entire weight of the aircraft and dynamic loading due to turbulence are supported in flight by the wings. The small motions of the wing tips look misleadingly ominous while in the air, but really say nothing about the total assembly's strength.

As we slide sideways into the snow and ice-covered field there was a violent shuddering, yet we stayed almost perfectly level. Some of the passengers had just enough time to say "oh!" or to suck air into their lungs in surprise, and then the plane stopped. We weren't about to go anywhere fast, but there were no injuries. A few people wondered what had actually happened since, like many people who fly a lot, they weren't paying any attention during the landing.

The rest of the story is boring since it relates to security and bureaucracy, and much waiting around for things to happen, so I'll skip all of that. We turned out to be the last flight of the evening as the airport authorities, belatedly, shut down the airport and diverted incoming traffic elsewhere until they could get the runways in decent shape. In the media, it is said that "if it bleeds, it leads", so, absent any bleeding or even bruises, the incident got only minor news coverage. It gets one wondering how many more of these minor incidents are never noticed because of the lack of media interest.

Happily, that was the only borderline serious incident I've been directly involved in, and it did not put me off flying a bit. We do tend to remember the few horror stories about flying, but not the vastly greater number of flights where everything ran smoothly. It remains a great way to travel, if you can overlook the tedium of getting to and from the airport and navigating security measures.