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6 Answers

Whoops! I hit a runway light. It’s an official “incident” how screwed am I?

Asked by: 5898 views
Commercial Pilot, FAA Regulations, General Aviation, Private Pilot

I passed my private checkride on Monday and had my first major mistake today(it’s Friday of the same week.) I was taking a short solo in the pattern to work on my crosswind landings. Winds were reported as 3 knots and variable when I listened to atis. I was aware that a front moving in and winds were forecast to build to full gnar throughout the day. My plan was to do a few landings while winds were calm and was hoping that they would pick up slightly allowing me to practice crosswind landings. They picked up alright, by the time did my runup they were 10g12 and by the time I was on downwind they were 12g15 I don’t remember the exact direction but they were close to right across the runway. Long story short, I did 1 go-round, decided I didn’t want to be flying anymore, and landed on the second pass. A combination of my left heel getting caught up on a bunch in the carpet  and poor piloting on the rollout led to me losing directional control and hitting a runway light. 

 

Aside from tips to fly better and be smarter, does anyone have insight into how big of a deal this will be. I reported to ground as soon as I cleared the runway, they had me call them and give my contact information. A report will be submitted and the FAA will contact me if further info is necessary. My flight school assessed damage to the aero cowl on the landing gear and luckily it was minimal and I won’t be charged anything for it. I also reported to the airport manager and they said that once it was fixed I would be sent an invoice for the repair costs of the light.   

 

The big questions wearing on me are m: 1: how bad is an official “incident” being on my flight record? Will this negatively affect my chances for employment once I get my commercial? And 2: has anyone had to pay for a runway light? I believe it was a high intensity elevated light (hiel). Any insight would be appreciated. 

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6 Answers



  1. KDS on May 11, 2019

    Like so many things in life, the answer is \”it depends\”. The \”it depends\” part hinges on how busy people are and what their individual outlook on the situation is. Believe me, I\’ve seen some really horrible things happen and nothing came of it because the people who got the report were so swamped with work they just didn\’t have time for one more problem. Unfortunately, I\’ve also seen things go the other way too.

    However, there are a couple \”probable\” outcomes. I\’ll cover each one and what I would recommend you do.

    First is you\’ll never hear from anyone again except the airport manager who is going to send you a bill for an outrageous amount of money. Everything in aviation is tied to an outrageous amount of money and runway lights are no exception. Recommendation: Pay the bill and consider it a training expense and something you can use later to make yourself a more experienced instructor.

    Second is you\’ll get a call or a letter from the FAA asking about the incident. It won\’t be the air traffic control people. It will be the operations inspectors. My guess is it would be the person who holds the title of FAA Safety Team Program Manager. That person has some tasking sitting on their desk and they want to be done with it as quickly and easily as possible. Recommendation: Make it easy for them to dispose of it. Right now, go out to the FAASTeam site and get started doing some courses. Find ones on landings and weather that fit your situation and take and pass them. The website is http://WWW.FAASTEAM.GOV Also, be sure your instructor is clued in on what happened and talk with the CFI about what could have been done better. Then when you communicate (on the phone, in person, or in writing) with the FAA, make it known that you took the whole thing as a learning experience. That you reviewed it with your CFI. That you took some FAASTeam safety courses on the applicable subjects. Maybe that you went back up with your CFI for an hour of cross-wind landing practice. What you\’re doing is giving them every opportunity to do what they want to do, which is close the book on it and be done with it. Unless the person you\’re dealing with is that one in a million nut case, that will be the end of it.

    Third, and worst case, is you will receive a formal letter called a 44709 reexamination. The language in it will be very awkward. It\’s a boilerplate that they just stick you name and address on and mail to you. Recommendation: If you get that, call the inspector whose name is on the paper. Explain that you\’ve done FAASTeam courses since the incident, taken more training since the incident, tell them you have your eyes set on being a professional pilot and you really want a spotless record. Then let things move forward from there.

    My estimate is there is a 70% chance of the first, a 29% chance of the second, and a 1% chance of the third.

    Then, to the second part of your question about how it would affect any possible career. Almost certainly not at all. It won\’t even be a question until you get into some heavy equipment job areas. Then if they ask if you have ever had an accident, the answer is no. You did NOT have an accident. What happened doesn\’t fit the definition of an aviation accident even though you and I might call it that in an informal discussion. I\’m not sure under PRIA if operators can get information from the FAA. Maybe someone who knows more about that can answer. But, even at that, it would have to be something that is maintained in the FAA\’s database related to certificate actions and FAASTeam and counselling\’s are not certificate actions. So, the only (and it\’s very remote) risk is if something were to happen again and an FAA inspector pulled up the records from their database and saw you have a 44709 reexamination (that\’s the almost sure not to happen thing) before, they could worry about there being a trend and view things differently.

    Having said all of that, I\’d summarize it this way \”Don\’t worry.\” Just show a positive attitude when dealing with people and everything is going to be fine.

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  2. Mark Kolber on May 11, 2019

    That is one terrific answer by KDS. The only thing I would add, even though it should be implicit, is that both the ground session and the flight sessions with the CFI should be logged.

    And do them now. You want to have that under your belt if you get that call.

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  3. KDS on May 11, 2019

    Thanks for those kind words Mark.

    Mark is of course right about logging everything and maybe keep an ancillary record of you FAASTeam course completions even though they are in the database.

    I just thought of one more point. Say thank you to the FBO that isn’t charging you anything. I can recall two experiences where the pilots did NO damage to the rented aircraft but in one case they charged the pilot $5,000 for what was preexisting damage and in another where they did some insurance fraud to get an engine rebuilt.

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  4. Ak wannabe pilot on May 11, 2019

    Thanks guys! I’m still pretty embarrassed about the whole thing but I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I already filed a NASA report and vigorously thanked the flight school and airport manager for their understanding. I took the weekend off for family stuff but I’ll be flying solo again tomorrow I had an instrument training flight planned for Wednesday but I turned it into a crosswind review/ground lesson. I’ll be sure to log it as such. Good tip! I will also complete some FAAst team training very soon.

    Stay tuned for final costs/consequences though I’m sure it’ll take awhile. Thanks again!

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  5. KDS on May 12, 2019

    We will appreciate hearing the outcome. So often we hear the start of stories, but never how they end.

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  6. Kris Kortokrax on May 12, 2019

    Since you mentioned ground control, I’m assuming this is a towered field. Second, you said that they took your contact info. ATC will submit a report of the incident to Flight Standards. When Flight Standards receives the report, they will contact you to investigate it. They don’t have the discretion to ignore the report. You will be contacted by an operations inspector. It will not be the FAAsTeam Representative. FAAsTeam reps are not allowed to investigate accidents, incidents or PDs per Order 8900.1, Chapter 15, Chapter 1, Section 4, Paragraph 15-1-4-5-B. The only time you might hear from the FAAsTeam would be if the investigating inspector recommends remedial training.

    The FSDO may or may not determine that a 709 re-exam is necessary. Since you just got your certificate and were evaluated on crosswind landings, there would not be much point to the re-exam. They might talk to the DPE and see how much of a crosswind existed on you test day.

    I also don’t see any real benefit to remedial training, since you just finished training for your certificate and took the practical test.

    I wouldn’t worry about the effect of your little miscue on future employment. Airlines would be much more concerned about regulatory violations. You didn’t violate any regulation during this event.

    I had a serious glider accident 27 years ago and it had no effect on my ability to fly commercially. It also had no effect on my ability to be insured as a pilot of any aircraft I have flown since. The insurance agent just said to list the accident and note that “No certificate action was taken”. That was in the beginning. After a few years, pilot’s names are expunged from accident reports. Insurance forms generally ask about any accidents in the last 3 or last 5 years.

    Good luck with your future endeavors. It seems you are taking a proactive approach to assuring that this doesn’t happen again.

    One last thing. What was the strongest crosswind you experienced during training? If I were a benevolent dictator, I would not issue a certificate to any pilot who had not demonstrated the ability to land with a crosswind equal to the maximum demonstrated crosswind for the airplane brought to the test. There are so many accident/incident reports where the cause is “failure to maintain directional control on the runway”.

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