Engine failure at night

At night, set up best glide, when you get 100' off the ground turn on your landing light. If you don't like what you see...shut off your landing light.


Seriously, plan your route as close to airports as you can. Dark places might be you best option. Roads are lined with power lines & obstacles.

It's not a fun scenario for sure.
 
Having just hit my 2nd deer during a night landing I would add that even airport landingsat at night has its risks.


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Cirrus.

Or AN2.

"A note from the pilot's handbook reads: "If the engine quits in instrument conditions or at night, the pilot should pull the control column full aft and keep the wings level. The leading-edge slats will snap out at about 64 km/h (40 mph) and when the airplane slows to a forward speed of about 40 km/h (25 mph), the airplane will sink at about a parachute descent rate until the aircraft hits the ground.""
 
Ernesto Castro said:
Hi all,

I always try to have a plan B when flying, just in case something doesn't go as planned.

Today I was doing my first solo night XC and one thing that worried me a bit is to find a place to land in case of a emergency such as an engine failure.

At 4500', there is not much gliding distance (8nm at most?) and even on flight following, having someone there to assist you in no time, I don't see the chances of having an airstrip less than 8nm away as great.

So I start thinking what to do in case something went wrong, I thought maybe start aligning with some lights, hoping they are street lights, of a street without much traffic, and wide enough to accomodate a landing. But again, the chances are slim.

Then I though ok, maybe aim for the darkest patch, hoping that is a field and could force land there, but again, the chances of not finding you are landing a barn or trees is slim.

So, what's the best way of having a plan B for an engine emergency at night?

Thanks!
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Interstate highways give me a little comfort, farm fields are second on my list. Like said above fly the plane all the way to the ground and try to stall it into the trees.

I bought my 172 almost 4 years ago. It is a economical plane for the most part to maintain. I am mechanical inclined and with my AP/IA have been through and replaced a lot on my plane front to back in the last 3 years, including the engine. I sprung for factory rebuilt zero time engine from Lycoming that I have flown 320 some hours now. Myself and my AP installed it, so I know my plane well now.

That is all I can do to hopefully have a reliable plane to fly. I do fly at night quite often especially this time of year.

Good luck to you.
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Assuming you have an EFB, look for charted lakes, then at least you’ll likely not have to worry about obstacles or uneven ground.
Carry a life vest and keep gear retracted if you have the option.
 
Yep, worried about this a lot myself. I am hoping for an interstate or perhaps large parking lot area if something goes wrong, but there are lots of black holes out where I live and some are mountains. I only fly at night for the views / experience so I dont do it often away from places with street or building lights. Either way, not a good time for an engine issue for sure. (when is though right?)

If you just want to fly at night, i always heard pick clear nights with a full or mostly full moon. It helps a bit with seeing what is in those black holes.
 
Fly high, go fast, leave a big crater.

Umm, I mean, increase your glide range and plan your route to be near airports. Altitude is your friend, it's worth grabbing oxygen and getting as high as your airplane and you can legally go. Bonus, all other things being equal, you will increase your ground speed higher up too.

Example, a C172 at 3000' can glide about 4 miles. At 14,000', it's 20 miles. At least in the east, I can do a lot with 20 miles. On most cross country flights, I fly past 2-3 airports before I get to one that is 50 miles away. If you're in the west, it's not perfect.
 
It is not a pretty scenario.

Power lines are by roads. Also, they are sometimes through fields. Black holes could be a nice hay field, a lake, or dense forest. Lake = instant flip inverted with fixed gear. I’d rather not be inverted in water at night. Plus there’s sharks and crocs.

i have maybe 140 hrs night time. Its nice, smooth, light winds typically, and lower traffic volume. You can see for miles and car-illuminated highways connect towns. I like it.

Night flying, I fly one or two hemispheric flight levels higher, double check aircraft configuration prior to takeoff, extra fuel, and always on flight following. In central TX, we have airports typically every 20-30 miles, so that is comforting.

Maybe take a route that puts you over more airports vs a straight shot.

remember, most engine issues on piston aircraft will be a partial power loss. That should let you limp to the nearest airport to land. Complete shutdown would be from fuel exhaustion most likely. Plan fuel wisely. Isn’t 80% of accidents pilot error? Slow down, preflight, be smart, fly safe.

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I know a lot of pilots who won’t fly at night because they worry about this situation. My mind set is stop worrying and enjoy the flight. You know what to do, and if and when that engine fails, then you have to worry about where to set it down. Have a plan, expect to adjust that plan. Just enjoy the flight. Worrying makes things less enjoyable.
 
I would never ever consider a dark patch at night. At least where I live 90% of the time I would assume it would be a heavily wooded area. Not an open field. I really don't like flying at night because of this. Your options just aren't good and night flying is really when the twin seems more attractive. If my engine quits at night unless there is an airport close I'm putting it down on a road.
 
I take comfort in thinking, “given all the hours I have in cars, how many times have I had a smooth running car simply quit cold on the highway”? The answer for me is once but it was a non-maintained VW bus.

It’s more comfortable at night in your own plane with a well maintained engine that you are the only user of.


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AnthonyS1 said:
I would never ever consider a dark patch at night. At least where I live 90% of the time I would assume it would be a heavily wooded area. Not an open field. I really don't like flying at night because of this. Your options just aren't good and night flying is really when the twin seems more attractive. If my engine quits at night unless there is an airport close I'm putting it down on a road.
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Knowing the area you are flying kind of determines what you should look for and thinking through the risks and outcomes ahead of time can help. slow controlled flight(landing?) into trees is seldom fatal. What are the other options? What are the likely outcomes. Some Areas Dark Areas are fields. Some areas the can be trees or swamps. I like highways and or freeways, at least the Emergency crews can will likely find and get to me quickly. At night I will usually look for dark areas near lights, again once I land/Crash, there is likely someone there to assist.

Brian
CFIIIG/ASEL
 
The most important things you can do to lower risk of flying at night are:
  • Proper maintenance of your engine and aircraft (to lessen chance of engine or airframe failure or fuel starvation)
  • Proper fuel planning with adequate reserves (to lessen the chance of fuel exhaustion)
  • Proper flight planning (to fly over more favorable terrain/airport density, even if it is a bit longer that way)
I do fly night XC, and do the above, plus typically fly at a fairly high altitude if practical to extend glide range. If the worst happens, and you are without power, then maintain minimum glide speed until terrain is in sight and contact terrain at the slowest possible controllable speed. I personally know of two controlled crashes into dense woods, where controllable minimum speed flight into trees resulted in pilots and passengers walking away. It is definitely higher risk to fly at night, but it doesn't have to be frighteningly so.
 
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Fly higher and know how to immediately pull up the nearest fields on your gps or efb. Do that occasionally along your route so you know which way you'll turn.
 
bflynn said:
Fly high, go fast, leave a big crater.

Umm, I mean, increase your glide range and plan your route to be near airports. Altitude is your friend, it's worth grabbing oxygen and getting as high as your airplane and you can legally go. Bonus, all other things being equal, you will increase your ground speed higher up too.

Example, a C172 at 3000' can glide about 4 miles. At 14,000', it's 20 miles. At least in the east, I can do a lot with 20 miles. On most cross country flights, I fly past 2-3 airports before I get to one that is 50 miles away. If you're in the west, it's not perfect.
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lol...so true.

Altitude is your friend for sure especially when your going places.
But when your site seeing in a 172 you want to be a little lower.
At night sight seeing I like to be at least 2500agl but I have fly a little lower under our bravo.

Yes moonlite nights are nice and can be very bright!
This night we camped along the river bottom at lee bottom 64i. The fog moves in many nights here.
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Old joke, but a good one.

As you're coming in to land in that dark patch, turn your landing light on to see what you're landing in. Don't like what you see? Turn the light back off.

Risks flying at night you don't have in the daytime. When I did my nighttime cross country flight for my PPL the next day my staff and students thought they'd seen a ghost. An airplane had gone down on my route of flight, killed everyone on board. They thought that was me.
 
Flying at night:

Fly as high as practical (oxygen). Carry oxygen with you and use it at a lower altitude than you normally would at night. 10,000 MSL or higher would be good. I fly as high as practical in daytime as well for the same reason - get as much glide distance as possible.

Don't fly direct - fly over as many airports as possible. It won't add much to your time and you would be surprised at how many airports you can find to fly over on a 200-300 mile cross-country.

I don't mind flying at night, but I do try to limit night IMC flying as much as possible. With the shorter days now, it is kind of hard to get business done and launch early enough to get back home before dark.
 
Especially in mountainous areas, a GPS that displays proximity to terrain (typically in red and yellow) is good to have.
 
I know a couple pilots who are color blind. They don't mind the night flying option being taken away just because of this.
 
all I know is it's much darker flying at night than during the day. also, lycoming and conti engines have better performance in dark air. truth.
 
I had an engine failure once. At night, while departing Albuquerque, around 11,000 msl if I remember right.

I just secured the engine, turned around and landed ABQ using the spare engine...

Seriously, I am more concerned flying over a highly populated area at night than I am flying in Alaska at night.
 
I got my PPL with 3.3 hours of night flight. Five years later I still have 3.3 night. Just not a risk worth taking for me.
 
I hated night flying when getting my PPL - unless you're IFR in a twin or there is a life-or-death reason to take off at night outside of the traffic pattern, the risk is just not worth it to me; disorientation, dark mountains you can't see, engines conking out over complete blackness - no thanks. Unfortunately when I become a CFI, night flights come with the territory so I'll make sure I'm as prudent as possible when taking students up.
 
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For the past 15 years I have flown either a Cirrus with a chute or a twin jet so night flying isn’t a major concern but a few years ago I had to go pick up my Cirrus out of annual and a friend kindly flew me in a Cessna TTX at night (and over some wildfires too!) It was an interesting experience and gave me a little bit of pucker factor…
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I don’t anticipate, nor desire to do single piston night flying in the future.
 
Bill Watson said:
I take comfort in thinking, “given all the hours I have in cars, how many times have I had a smooth running car simply quit cold on the highway”? The answer for me is once but it was a non-maintained VW bus.
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I always looked at it in a similar way..... odds of complete and sudden engine failure without warning is pretty small.....

I have interestingly enough too had a sudden engine stoppage in a car...actually a pickup truck. An odd little issue where the solenoid controlling and electric fuel pump started going flaky....it would just stop...off like a switch was flipped...then after some time without warning would restart again. Anyway, that's one event out of I shudder to think how many hours of driving on the road..... combined with the assumption that the vast majority of drivers have never had it happen...... well there's almost certainly going to be some warning and it's not likely to be a complete power loss.

Also, now days with modern GPS to help find the nearest, project runway center-lines, etc..... situational awareness is potentially so much better than back when I was flying a lot.
I'm reminded of one of my 1st night flights alone.... flying right over the top of a controlled airport (KPHF) and couldn't find for a long while it with all the surrounding city lights.
 
Pretty lights notwithstanding, I don’t fly at night. I can get anywhere I want during daylight hours. An engine out is bad enough during the day, why add to it. I don’t see any benefit that makes the risk of night playing worth it.

Fwiw, I don’t ride my motorcycle at night either.
 
Most sudden engine stoppages are due to fuel mismanagement. Don't do that at night.

I don't have a fancy engine monitor, but would imagine the additional data and alarms can give you a bit more warning of pending issues, allowing you to turn to NRST.

My biggest concern in a VFR-only aircraft is stumbling into weather. Last week I was at an aerobatic contest at Sebring, about 50 miles from my home airfield. Weather was clear at Sebring but 1500' OVC at my destination. I dawdled at dinner, missed sunset, and wound up getting a hotel room rather then trying the short hop home.
 
Best glide, turn into the wind, pick a spot, full flaps and 63 KIAS before impact for most SELs.
 
This reminds me of flying single engine night cargo on my 9/11 furlough. CRG-OPF-CRG-ORL-CRG. 9 at night til 8 in the morning, 6 nights a week in a c210.
Craig to Opa Locka, our flight plan had to deal with the ILS 9L to FLL. (Now 10L) Before that it was basically I95, and 26 airports along the 275nm route- (ask me why I still remember how many and how far…For a while I could still tell you the CTAFs - maybe it’s wasteful, but I’d pull them up on #2 and click the lights on as I flew by. )
5 nights a week, the controllers would keep me on our flight plan over the top of FLL nice and high (like I like at night) then drop down into OPF before I was an issue for MIA. Took skill managing the engine for the drop, but worked well. Then Saturday night and the palm beach controller. “Turn right hdg 220, descend and maintain 1,300ft” to take me inland and under the ILS —-1300 ft over the Everglades.
I’d ask to stay on my route. “DENIED Turn right 220° Immediately” I talked to my chiefs. Tried to call the controller who basically yelled at me until I hung up. Finally I just denied the clearance. Every time. Was very nice. Professional. If anything my days in the regionals and night cargo taught me —it’s how to say “no” professionally, under pressure. I felt i was capable - not the scared of my shadow type- if there was no other option, ok… I’d do whatever i could to mitigate the risk and proceed. I’m getting paid to fly. It’s never going to be as safe as being home in bed. But when there was a perfectly good option i used every other night of the week….??? Thats an easy no. I Offered to change altitudes, hold, whatever option he wanted but I wasn’t doing that anymore.
Good bad right or wrong, that’s what I chose and felt like I could justify it.
Others have said it. Fly high and route yourself over airports. Highways are a mixed bag. Mind wires, and overpasses even more- keep a little speed at the end so you can a) give cars a warning by being faster than they are (they’ll slow down once they process what they’re seeing), and b) have one shot of energy to maneuver if you need. Plan ahead for as much as you can. But then yes—- for God’s sake, enjoy it. I encourage you to trust yourself if you feel the need to be a day VFR, calm wind flyer only… there’s nothing wrong with that. For me though, I absolutely love flying in the clouds and love flying at night. Hell, windy, turbulent days seem to energize me more than calm peaceful ones. I view flying in singles now like I do motorcycles. Its all optional and a lot less safe than the 73. But it is one of the best things mankind has figured out how to do. If something bad happens, know I did everything I could to prepare and prevent it, and… it happened doing something I love and fed my soul. I’ll always love night flying.upload_2021-11-14_1-13-12.jpeg
 
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Fields, roads and golf courses…if you use FlyQ or Foreflight setup the satellite view layer and you will have a better chance at finding one of the above emergency landing locations at night.
 
chemgeek said:
The most important things you can do to lower risk of flying at night are:
  • Proper maintenance of your engine and aircraft (to lessen chance of engine or airframe failure or fuel starvation)
  • Proper fuel planning with adequate reserves (to lessen the chance of fuel exhaustion)
  • Proper flight planning (to fly over more favorable terrain/airport density, even if it is a bit longer that way)
  • Wait for dawn.
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FIFY
 
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