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A question no pilot ever wants to hear:
“How many souls onboard?”
“Souls”, as if Fate already did Gann’s hunting.
The real question would become, “how many souls on the ground?” (Or if you were my father-in-law, “how many idiots involved?”)
I use the plane to commute to work. From a home with too many animals, to a job with too many investors.
On one early Monday morning, I took things for granted. I cut corners. I made certain assumptions about a departing fuel truck and an obscured fuel gauge—no substitute for pilot responsibility.
Thirty minutes later, barely clearing the redwood ridge tops of the Santa Cruz mountains, I would dive for the first straight section of road I could find in the Silicon Valley. I may work for the investors of Joby Aviation and SpaceX, but I was not above a checklist.
Aviate — Navigate — Communicate
FlightAware indicated I had reached 3,300′. Sunlight pierced through winter’s greyscales as I looked down on the already clogged rush hour roads, backlights in one direction, headlights in the other.
I later explained to investigators that I was trying to stay under the Class Bravo. But I was also pretty beaten up. Unknowingly empty, without ballast, I was tossed around in moderate to heavy turbulence. Rather than endure the coast chop, I cut inland. Too low for Norcal Approach, I just called up Palo Alto Tower directly.
Right then my engine started to quit. I tried nursing it along and they asked if I could make San Jose.
“Negative.”
They directed me to Moffett.
“Negative.”
I needed a way down immediately. So, I made the hardest turn I would ever make, away from a field and into a sea of buildings, hard edges, right angles, steel, power lines, and most importantly, commuters. Just as Apple’s Infinite Loop appeared off my right, I was suddenly faced with rather finite circumstances.
Aviate — Navigate — Communicate
Never too late for a checklist.
Door Theory
If you give someone ten objects to carry across a room, and ask them what they just carried, it’s an easy test. But in a twist of evolutionary biology, if you ask them to recall the objects after walking through a simple doorway, they will be lucky to get three. Why? Because neurobiologically we are wired to assess the new environment. Think cave, think tiger. This comes at a cost in modern day life equal to wiping our operating system clean when new circumstances emerge. Engine out or heart surgery, we now have checklists.
Two Choices
Thirty seconds left in the bank. My head cleared. A soccer field appeared at 2 o’clock, easily reachable, no problem in the SuperCub. But it was a school, and I knew others’ kids were there. No match for a propeller.
Another hard turn away from the known. I banked again. A thin ribbon of freeway straightened out at twelve o’clock.
Then two last choices.
To land with, or against, traffic?
A propeller and wing full of fuel (I thought at the time) no match for under head, unsuspecting traffic.
I might live, they would not.
I steered over the southbound lane, and started counting overpasses. On battery power I flashed my lights, rocked my wings. Two high speed oncoming SUVs splintered around me, cleaving my once aerial view now suddenly into a terrestrial one. I dove under a high tension power line and violently pulled back up before yanking hard on my flaps.
My wing stalled. I came down with solid thud between two overpasses, using what was left of a roll to make the shoulder of the freeway. An off-duty cop swung his truck diagonally and the freeway came to halt. No cars would pass for six hours.
(Dear Father-in-Law: one idiot on board.)
It’s Not Your Father’s FAA Anymore
Twenty-four hours later, I arrived at the FAA, tail between my legs, able to show my face only because no souls were harmed.
Under a collection of pine trees, at a picnic table, I sat on on my hands across from my examiners like a schoolboy found picking on others.
“It’s not your father’s FAA anymore,” the lead investigator started. “We have been granted sweeping authority to determine your fitness and ability as a pilot”.
The magnitude of my oversight was officially dawning on me. I lowered my head, mumbled yessir.
“I know what you did,” said one of the investigators, brought in from Alaska. A line-of-sight gauge on an old plane can look full when in fact it’s empty. “There’s hardly a pilot up north that doesn’t fly without a roll of duct tape and a jerry can of gas”. But never a substitute for a flashlight and a dipstick.
Mandatory Sentencing
“All five of your infractions come with a mandatory sentencing” the investigator concluded.
Counseling, full psychiatric review; subpoenaed medical, mechanical and mental health records.
We talked through the afternoon. We talked about glide ratios, airspace, and pilot currency. They casually shared stories about flying in high winds in Alaska, backwards. They also talked about the closure of a nearby airport due to planned real estate development, and neighbors’ concerns for safety. Unspoken but on all of our minds was the contraction of a way of life, a culture built on regulators not doers.
“We know this is how you get to work and we want to get you flying again as soon as possible.”
The Higher You Go, The Harder You Fall
I would shut down Bay Area traffic for six hours. My phone would blow up, and 50,000 messages on YouTube and Reddit later, my ego would eventually come to land. Wings torn off.
I became the Silicon Valley guy that couldn’t be bothered to fuel his plane.
The notoriety led to other notoriety and 2024 notched as a year with many learnings. “The higher you go, the harder you fall” one friend commented. But still others requested to be my first flight—get-back-on-that-horse love.
With the wings back on, I nervously test flew the Cub out of Palo Alto and it felt like it flew better than before. Probably because it had fuel, sad trombone. Departing the Bay over NASA’s Wind Tunnel, and Stanford’s Linear Accelerator — both identifiers for inbound NorCal traffic — I headed back to the coast, longing to get home. I took a short detour over some limestone quarries — pretending to shoot the “German supply trains” — before leveling out over the strawberry fields of Watsonville. I was flying again. The s-turns of the Salinas River leading me home.
- The Arrogant Pilot - February 14, 2025
- Freedom to the Form - November 6, 2024
- Burning Man for Builders - July 10, 2024
I’m impressed — and not just that you took the time to “bare it all” by writing this for all to see. I’m also impressed that in the clutch… dude, your training kicked in and you flew the airplane, managing to not kill yourself or anyone else. Any of your friends would tell you the same.
I appreciate your chancing this message, Toby. I wasn’t an enthusiastic promoter of this; Eric at AirFacts and I had been discussing it. I wanted to share something to help other non-pros like me. There’s no way to spin this any other way. I messed up. But I’m not giving up;). Really appreciate the kind message. I’m bracing for the many to come that won’t be.
It is human nature to criticize. But as aviators we know that there are those that have and those that will.
That took some real guts. You might have given me the confidence to share my mistake… we’ll see if I still think it’s a good idea in the coming days. Thank you for sharing this. Yeah, you screwed up the preflight, but you knocked it out of the park when it counted… well done. And you also clearly are a talented writer.
Greetings: if you posted this harrowing tale in search of sympathy for your errors, you’ve come to the wrong place. A more valuable contribution would be a statement summarizing the changes in your future behaviors, what you will always do and what you’ll never do again, no matter what! The laws of nature (aka “the universe”) patrol, defend, and enforce the boundaries of good practice 24/7 and will, without remorse, apology or appeal, simply destroy aircraft and occupants for violations!
You were incredibly lucky in this instance. If you ever commit these errors again, the outcome may be different.
Gravity always wins!
Hey, Low Wings. Your arrogance is noted. You, too, will have a moment in your life that makes you look stupid but you won’t have the humility to help others learn from your mistake.
Love it !
Dear Low Wings, This well written missive was courageously posted to help other pilots, even if they are well seasoned.
It’s you darling’ who have come to the wrong place. Your reply merely added toxic vitriol, nothing more.
Low Wings, it’s obvious to me the writer did not come here in search of sympathy for his errors. It is also obvious to me that he ran out of gas this time, and won’t ever let it happen again.
Peterson Conway, thanks for having the humility to write the article. Well done!
Peterson-You did a good service here for all pilots. Ignore the haters. We can learn from the mistakes of others. The article is mis-titled. It should be “The Humble Pilot”. I had my own stupid moment with some power lines in Nevada decades ago. I can relate. I walked away, the plane went to the shop and is still flying. I know your parents and have some of that professionally smuggled stuff in my house. I love it. Thank you.
“An off-duty cop swung his truck diagonally and the freeway came to halt. No cars would pass for six hours.”
Short stories can obviously never tell the ‘whole’ story, and pictures can be worth a thousand words, but its the viewer who comes up with those words.
What always irks me, when I’m that driver stuck in the traffic jam that invariably piles up at the scene of an accident, is that when you finally arrive at the scene, you’ll find 1) that the vehicles involved (or aircraft in this case) block MAYBE one lane of traffic, but they’ll have 3-4 lanes blocked, 2) a half dozen (if not more) police officers milling about doing what appears to be a lot of nothing, and 3) no one will be directing traffic around the scene to keep it moving.
I realize that emergency responders have to do their “emergency response thing” but, 9 times out of 10, the “emergency” is long done by the time I, and several thousand other drivers go by the scene. In this case, it appears (from the pictures) that numerous cones were put out and 1 lane was opened to traffic. Kudos to that! I rarely see that much at the scene of an accident to help keep traffic segregated from the accident scene. I just hope it didn’t take 6 hours to get that set up, particularly seeing as there apparently were no collisions, no injuries, and it looks like no damage to the aircraft. In other words, not a lot of stuff for emergency responders and investigators to be doing (no dead bodies, no car parts strewn about the road, no fuel and oil spills to clean up, etc.)
Hell, had I been the on-scene commander, I would have said, “Sir, I’ve got a 5-gallon can of gas in my truck. Fill her up. Fire her up. And get that plane off my highway. You’re blocking traffic!” (just joking…of course…there’s no way you could really do that).
At the end of the day, it is fortunate that no one was hurt, and you were able to relate this story for the rest of us to learn from. I have my own “dumb-sh*t” taking off with too little gas story from my F/A-18 days, but it would take too long to tell it here.
Still love to hear your F/A-18 little gas story. I’m working on my B-52 TOO MUCH gas story.
Oh, Mike, I have begun praying that you ARE the on-scene commander when I inevitably pull a stunt like this!
Peterson,
Extremely well written article about bad day that is lurking out there for all who fly GA. We do our best to keep the worst from happening but it doesn’t take much to change a routine flight into a nightmare. For all who criticize, I hope they handle their Waterloo with as much skill and aplomb as did you.
To give an idea as to how much we have advanced:
In 1967, I was the gas boy at the Winnemucca, NV airport. Two guys in a Tri-champ ran out of gas, at dusk, and landed on Interstate 80, ten miles from the airport. They pushed it off to the side and the State Patrol called me at home to meet them at the airport. Filled a 5 gallon can with 80/87 and drove out to the scene. Poured the gas into the plane and by now it was really dark. The Patrolman blocked the westbound lanes. The plane took off and landed at the airport. Total time of freeway traffic interference was less than 5 minutes. Total FAA involvement was zero.
Thanks for sharing! It takes a lot of courage but helps us all get better and safer.
I liked the Ernie Gann reference! And I think he would appreciate how you kept your head and made the best of a bad situation. Fly safe!
Great story and mostly great comments!
Years ago I helped ferry a PA 14 ( no flaps?!) for an unlicensed buddy who had rebuilt it. It too had sight gauges and seeing the port gauge over my shoulder was an effort. Having never flown one before, I had a brief 20 minute flight with an old timer before our departure. As there was an overwater leg , we had full fuel and life jackets on. Just before heading across the Gulf, my buddy said, ‘that doesn’t look right’ as the left tank was near empty. ( right tank was still full) As it was closer to continue than returning I wanted to continue but I asked him what he wanted me to do. Selector had been on BOTH and I did select the right tank but he was now not confident that it was working properly. We landed and discovered that the fuel cap vent tube was missing, allowing fuel to vent out.
I’m sure we were fine with the RH tank selected but it was his A/C and we turned around. (My Plan B was to follow a BC ferry as we weren’t much faster…)
The difference between you and many of us is that you admit to your mistake. NTSB says that fuel management is the 6th top cause of GA accidents. There are many that squeaked by that we don’t know about. Of those that landed with a drop of gas left, did they tell anyone? I know I flew one day and encountered stronger headwinds than I expected, and my fuel drained far faster than I planned for. I cut the flight short and returned to home base. But that day reminded me about the importance of fuel management. There is no pulling off on the side of the road for us aviators. You managed to avoid hurting anyone on the ground that day, and that’s pretty impressive.
All’s well that ends well. And always good to have a little luck on your side. I assume the wings came off and the Cub was trucked to Palo Alto?
Seems like an awful lot of FAA involvement for landing on a highway. No damage, no injuries. Umm…
I think luck was on his side in this highly congested area….this time. There may be another time when all the pilot’s skills won’t save property or lives. So the truth is he is at fault, and for that you need to talk to the FAA, in order to maintain safe skies for all of us.
Thanks for sharing this story. Great recovery. Glad you’re still flying.
Over a quarter century ago, my very first instructor, on my very first pre-flight imparted something that motivated me to physically check fuel levels for every flight. We all have to die, you just don’t want to die of embarrassment … words to live by. :-)
I appreciate your candor and willingness to share a very painful event in your life for the good of others.
Name me a pilot who hasn’t had a “What were you thinking?” moment, and I’ll tell you that pilot is someone who never flies. Thanks for a great honest read.