|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Texas has some mean weather. In the spring, summer, and fall there are thunderstorms to fight, and behind the cold fronts that kick off the squall lines in spring and fall there is widespread fog. Winter, though, is a special case, especially in North and West Texas. I capitalize those names as those regions are certainly big enough, and the weather they enjoy (!?) is some of the worst in the nation, if not the world.
I was flying freight for Coker Aviation out of Grand Prairie, Texas. My route started at Grand Prairie each weekday morning at 6:00 AM with a preflight of the aircraft, followed by a short flight to Dallas Love Field, where I loaded as much as 1,000 pounds of FedEx freight into my Cessna 206. I then took off for Kickapoo Airport at Wichita Falls for my first stop, delivering the freight destined for that city. My normal route then went to Lubbock, Plainview, Amarillo, and Borger, where I turned the aircraft around and started back for Grand Prairie, picking up freight in each city on the way. I was fortunate this particular day to have Jeanne D. flying with me to give me some rest.
Flying freight for Coker Aviation out of Grand Prairie, Texas, my route started each weekday morning at 6:00 AM.
This particular day in late November, there was a cold front lying north of Oklahoma across Colorado and Kansas. It had been approaching for three days, down across the Great Plains, but it was slow-moving and, according to the weather briefing I received that morning, would take another day and a half to enter Texas.
On takeoff from Kickapoo, we could see the front lying north of my course, which was due west to Lubbock. As we proceeded west, it started becoming cloudy, and I contacted Ft. Worth Center for a clearance “IFR On Top,” which they quickly granted. The further west we flew, the higher we climbed, staying out of the clouds, which we could tell would contain some moisture just waiting to coat our wings with ice.
About the time we were ready to think of getting the ATIS (weather report) for Lubbock and starting my descent to the airport, Ft. Worth Center called and asked if we still intended landing at Lubbock. That was my first intimation that something was going wrong. I replied in the affirmative, and Center then told me the weather at Lubbock was overcast at 200 feet, with visibility of one-quarter mile, which was half the visibility necessary to attempt the approach. The ILS to Runway 17 was the approach in use, but it was out of service, as someone had just crashed on it—and what were our intentions? (As it turned out, two folks died that morning on the ILS.)
Since the weather was so bad, I knew the cold front had indeed moved much faster than forecast. We were in trouble, as we didn’t have enough fuel to go back to Kickapoo, and the front had moved fast enough we couldn’t get ahead of it into good weather. I inquired as to the weather at Amarillo because I knew Plainview had only a VOR approach, with weather minimums of 400 feet above the ground, and it required one mile visibility to begin the approach.
The weather at Amarillo was a 400-foot overcast condition, with two miles visibility, and an increasing temperature/dew point, though the temperature was only 30 degrees Fahrenheit. That told me the front had progressed far enough south that the low visibility conditions normally found behind a cold front were beginning to dissipate, and I told Center we wanted to change our destination to Amarillo. The controller gave me an immediate vector to the airport, which lies 100 miles north of Lubbock. We turned northwest and continued climbing to stay above the clouds.
As we were approaching our letdown point for descent into Amarillo, Center called and said, “I’m sorry to report this, but the weather at Amarillo is now a 200-foot overcast condition, with one mile visibility and light freezing rain—say your intentions.” I told him we didn’t have many options left and would continue to Amarillo. He turned us over to Amarillo Approach, which was already appraised of the situation. On checking in with him, I told him we wanted to remain above the clouds until it was absolutely necessary to commence our descent, so as to catch the glide slope at the outer marker. He replied that was fine with him, as we were the only aircraft he was working. He also indicated the tower was now reporting moderate freezing rain, which was a much worse turn of events.
We started the descent as late as possible and managed to catch the glide slope just coming off the bottom of the case as we crossed the marker at Vmo (maximum structural airspeed), and Approach turned us over to the tower.
By that time we were in serious icing conditions. Our only de-ice equipment was a heated pitot tube (to read indicated airspeed) and a meager defroster that used heat from the engine mufflers to heat and clean the windshield. The windshield was about five feet in front of us, and Jeanne had perhaps a two-inch hole through which she could see the ground forward for landing.
As we proceeded down the glide slope, accumulating ice at a prodigious rate, the airspeed continued to drop steadily as Jeanne raised the nose to try to remain on the glide slope until she could get the airport runway in sight. By the time we reached the middle marker (about two miles from the outer marker), we were falling off because we couldn’t generate enough lift even with full power to maintain the electronic glide slope. We were still in the clouds, and the electronic glide slope was all we could use to maintain our descent rate so as to arrive at the airport in a position to land out of the approach. When it was no longer possible to hold the glide slope, all Jeanne could do was keep our descent rate as low as possible without stalling the aircraft while maintaining the course to the airport by following the localizer signal. (The localizer signal gives a separate needle deflection for deviation or “on-course” as the airplane proceeds down the signal to the airport.)
On breaking out of the clouds, Jeanne had the airport in sight at our 12:00 o’clock position, and it looked as though we were going to touchdown in the overrun for Runway 4, short of the threshold. Jeanne landed (on the runway, best as I could tell), and I told the tower we were down, as they could not see us from two miles away. We cleared the runway and taxied to Tradewinds Aviation, where we normally bought fuel and dropped our freight.
As we taxied up to the hangar, the linemen opened the hangar doors for us, and Jeanne drove right in as she pulled the mixture to shut the engine down. I was shaking like a leaf in a high wind.
It took the linemen three to four minutes, hitting the side of the aircraft with rubber hammers to break the ice enough that we could get the door open and get out. After getting my rubber knees working, I walked in and called the boss to let him know where we were and what had transpired. Then we went to a hotel and had a couple of really stiff drinks!
It took two days for the weather to clear and let us make our way home, and I didn’t mind a bit.
- Ice Enough for Me - March 2, 2026
- Asserting a Captain’s Authority - November 12, 2025
- She’s Down – Helping a Cessna in Distress - May 6, 2024
Wow! Quite the story. Thanks for sharing, and glad you guys made it!