Crash landing at Santa Barbara!

[Vance]

Ed and I decided to play hooky today and fly to Santa Barbara for lunch. Wind at SMX was calm and everything was going well.

I checked Santa Barbara ATIS and they had winds at 150 degrees at 14kts.

I called Approach on the frequency I was given by ATIS three times before I received this response, “inbound aircraft change to frequency 120.55.”

I changed frequencies and called twice and after getting my N number wrong twice I was assigned a squawk coed and radar contact was established.

I was to land on runway 7 and contact the tower on 119.7 when I was still 15 miles out.

When I was 5 miles out I asked for a wind check and it was still 150 degrees at 14kts.

I requested runway 15 right for safety and was told that runway 7 was the only runway available and I was cleared to land number two behind the Piper on left down wind and report in sight.

I asked how they would like me to approach 7 and they said straight to the numbers, a 30 degree turn to the right.

I did not see the Piper until he was over the numbers and when I reported in sight I was cleared to land. There were four aircraft behind me and the tower requested no delay.

The wind sock was out straight at 90 degrees to the runway and I did not have enough rudder authority to maintain runway heading. We were bobbing around and I pointed her across the runway and touched down. It was not a tidy landing.

Ground told us to taxi across runway 15 right and runway 15 left to Signature.

Before I crossed 15 Right I looked both ways and saw a fire truck and two police cars attending a Piper that looked damaged close to the center of the runway. I am sure I will read about it tomorrow.

A Grumman pilot parked at Signature couldn’t stop talking about how nice the Predator was and how nicely we had landed.

By the time we were done with lunch the wind had shifted to 250 degrees at 15kts. Clearance delivery gave me runway 25, maintain runway heading at or below 3,000 feet and squawk 0126. My read back was correct and we had a lovely flight back to Santa Maria.

Thank you, Vance

[tadgyro]

Originally Posted by Vance

Ed and I decided to play hooky today and fly to Santa Barbara for lunch. Wind at SMX was calm and everything was going well.

I checked Santa Barbara ATIS and they had winds at 150 degrees at 14kts.

I called Approach on the frequency I was given by ATIS three times before I received this response, “inbound aircraft change to frequency 120.55.”

I changed frequencies and called twice and after getting my N number wrong twice I was assigned a squawk coed and radar contact was established.

I was to land on runway 7 and contact the tower on 119.7 when I was still 15 miles out.

When I was 5 miles out I asked for a wind check and it was still 150 degrees at 14kts.

I requested runway 15 right for safety and was told that runway 7 was the only runway available and I was cleared to land number two behind the Piper on left down wind and report in sight.

I asked how they would like me to approach 7 and they said straight to the numbers, a 30 degree turn to the right.

I did not see the Piper until he was over the numbers and when I reported in sight I was cleared to land. There were four aircraft behind me and the tower requested no delay.

The wind sock was out straight at 90 degrees to the runway and I did not have enough rudder authority to maintain runway heading. We were bobbing around and I pointed her across the runway and touched down. It was not a tidy landing.

Ground told us to taxi across runway 15 right and runway 15 left to Signature.

Before I crossed 15 Right I looked both ways and saw a fire truck and two police cars attending a Piper that looked damaged close to the center of the runway. I am sure I will read about it tomorrow.

A Grumman pilot parked at Signature couldn’t stop talking about how nice the Predator was and how nicely we had landed.

By the time we were done with lunch the wind had shifted to 250 degrees at 15kts. Clearance delivery gave me runway 25, maintain runway heading at or below 3,000 feet and squawk 0126. My read back was correct and we had a lovely flight back to Santa Maria.

Thank you, Vance

You make me worry for a moment
Teddy

[mark treidel]

Bravo Vance.......you made the only safe decision there was to be made and it appears you did it as a matter of course. As long as you set it down on the runway, there is not a thing wrong with a cross landing.
We constantly have X-winds of 90* on my perfered rwy..26..and if the winds are stronger than 10 kts, I will fly the side of the rwy. & kick 90* just before touchdown.
One thing my friend Dick taught me about the gyro.......'you always land into the wind' where safety is an issue. He's never been wrong yet....

[StanFoster]

Vance- I am going to start reading your posts from the bottom to the top...you had me nervous thinking it was you and the Predator.


Stan

[fiveboy]

Grabby headline Vance! April Fool??? Glad thats all it was

Rob

[route66]

Vance, That was wrong my friend. You had my gut wrapped in a circle and then you stomped on it. If it was an April fools joke, good one! Just don't do it again....

[Heron]

Weeew! That was close . . .
One of the best moments as PIC was at Olney when another aircraft entered the pattern after some radio chat done by Brad King.
I was looking for the ship and saw it, start a semi hover and decided to climb to 800 and follow it inside the pattern.
After it did base and got final, I was right atop of it, very slow and came down gently to see it land, going about my lesson. (still miss 100 feet every complete turn)
Heron

[Vance]

Yesterdays landing accident at Santa Barbara was not in the preliminary accident reports today so I don’t know what happened to the plane that was blocking runway 15 right.

People we asked at the airport had seen the fire truck and police but were not aware of the details.

It seemed to throw the tower into a spin of dysfunction.

Thank you Mark, it seemed to work out although it was not a tidy landing.

Sorry Tadeusz, Stan and Brandon for the upset. I will endeavor to be delicate in my future thread titles.

I thought it was an intriguing title, Rob.

Hello Heron, I feel it is best to keep my speed up and be consistent in the pattern at an uncontrolled airport to instill confidence in the other pilots that they know what I am going to do and they can see and avoid me. There may also be other aircraft out there in the pattern that have not announced or that I have not seen yet.

Thank you, Vance