Embarassing but at least it had a happy ending. What is that they say about Cessna pilots fuel managment skills..........

http://www.kxlh.com/news/plane-makes-unscheduled-landing-on-road-near-darby

A single-engine Cessna made an unscheduled landing near Darby on Thursday - right on Highway 93.

MHP Captain Greg Watson says the pilot and his female passenger are from Erie, Colorado and were flying to the Darby area for a vacation.

An operator error forced the pilot to land the Cessna on Highway 93, two miles north of Darby, when the pilot thought the plane ran out of fuel.

Watson says the plane has dual fuel tanks; the pilot can set the fuel selector switch on both tanks, so if one runs out of gas, it can automatically switch to the other. The selector switch can also be set to just one tank.

Watson says when the pilot fueled up, he accidentally set the switch on just one tank, so the plane ran out of gas and had to glide in for a landing.

No one was on the highway when the pilot made the landing.

Once the plane landed, the pilot realized what happened and told officials that he could take off again.

No one was injured in the incident.

However, MHP had to wait for FAA to decide whether or not the plane could take off from the highway or if it had to move somewhere else.

Troopers eventually got clearance from the FAA to shut down the highway and the Cessna then took off.

Can you say "i goofed up" --- the old I ran out of gas on a hot date on

Calling Tim!!!!!

Gump

GumpAir wrote:Calling Tim!!!!!

Gump

I just did -He's on exit 49 at the Arco fueling his 59 182

fern_hopper wrote: .

However, MHP had to wait for FAA to decide whether or not the plane could take off from the highway or if it had to move somewhere else.

Troopers eventually got clearance from the FAA to shut down the highway and the Cessna then took off.

The MHP needs to take lessons from the NHP. There is nothing in FAR or AIM that says you cannot take off from an interstate. Well not that I know of.

Tim

In Montana you can legally land on any state or county road. Interstate I don't know about.

hiway 93 is not an interstate, it is a 2-lane road, and near darby it does ot have ANY straight stretches more than a 1/4 mile long at best. the MHP probabally had to shut the road down to keep him from finding a very surprissed car in his lane on takeoff.

I have left yellow puddles on Montana roads before!

Watson says the plane has dual fuel tanks; the pilot can set the fuel selector switch on both tanks, so if one runs out of gas, it can automatically switch to the other.

Being that this plane has an "Automatic" fuel valve the pilot must have figured he didn't need to switch tanks when he went through the emergency engine out procedure.

Of course, you're assuming he actually conducted an engine out emergency checklist.....

No doubt trying to get every last drop into those tanks on the last fill up--so switched to one tank to prevent cross feeding as he filled up....then forgot the pre-takeoff check, which is "Fuel Selector: Both ON".

It happens....
MTV

gotta remember this move for my next date...

182 STOL driver wrote:Can you say "i goofed up" --- the old I ran out of gas on a hot date on

Nothing like not using the old checklist.

The 50s VW micro-bus had a small fuel reserve with a 'pull' nob with and no gauge. If you forgot and left it out when you filled up.....you had no reserve. It was behind the drivers right calf if his foot was pulled back so it was out of sight. An interesting/convenient feature was that half way 'out' was 'fuel off' (anyway in the '56 I drove). So:

In-fuel on
1/2 out-fuel shut off
full out-reserve on

You could 'run outa gas' any time you wanted to......
You could get a constantly freeloading friend to buy gas on occasion...
You could say on a date 'It is just vapor-lock, give it twenty minutes and it will run fine'. (Discretion was necessary, that one was a little obvious in winter.....)

So I got a little 'fuel management' exposure before I started flying.
lc

I bet his female friend probably isn't that excited about flying anymore after that adventure

Talk about a roller coaster ride...

The rush of s**t to the heart when the engine quit, followed by the exhilaration of getting it down in one piece, followed all too closely by the sickening realization that he still had go juice in the other tank.

That's a lot of emotion in a short time, especially with a lady friend sitting there watching the whole thing. Glad he kept it together and got it down on the road. Bent pride is repairable.

There but for the grace of God (and proper preflight and engine out checklisting) go all of us!

RanchPilot wrote:Talk about a roller coaster ride...

The rush of s**t to the heart when the engine quit, followed by the exhilaration of getting it down in one piece, followed all too closely by the sickening realization that he still had go juice in the other tank.

That's a lot of emotion in a short time, especially with a lady friend sitting there watching the whole thing. Glad he kept it together and got it down on the road. Bent pride is repairable.

There but for the grace of God (and proper preflight and engine out checklisting) go all of us!

Any old road-pasture-trail with 400-ft plus is "international airport " if you can have clear excess -and you can get your old motorcycle-jeep or car over at say 40 mph without knocking your self out.

He landed in about the best place possible. There are several stretches more than a mile long. If he had had it happen 10 minutes' earlier, though, over the pass, we would have had a very different news story.