I wrote this story many, many years ago, and it was submitted and printed by Transport Canada in an excellent safety newsletter they used to issue titled "Vortex", where one could read about other's mistakes and hopefully avoid making the same mistakes themselves. Let's call it fictional to protect the not so innocent....
I was a Captain on an Emergency Medical Service IFR twin engine helicopter, on standby in Canada's North country. The day had frequent snow showers giving reduced visibility down to one mile, and ceilings were hanging around the five hundred foot mark.
We received the call in the afternoon for a medevac flight to a medical centre just over one hundred miles away. As usual, myself and the first officer proceeded to the hangar, and the medic went straight to the local hospital to prep the patient for transport. We checked the weather, which wasn't nice, but acceptable considering the flight was over mostly flat terrain and would be during daylight hours, so we readied ourselves and waited for the call. After an hour an a half, I started to worry as night would soon be a concern. Icing in cloud would prevent climbing up and proceeding on instruments, so the flight would have to be made with visual reference to the ground, which could not be done at night in those conditions. I made a call to the hospital, and it took some time to get in touch with our medic, but we were eventually told the trip was a ‘go’. I made a few quick calculations in my head, and came to the conclusion that we could make our destination prior to nightfall.
After an uneventful flight to the nearby hospital, the first officer headed into the building to check on the situation as I sat at idle in the helicopter. Once again we were subjected to a lengthy delay as there were complications with the patient. Now I started to get worried, so I called the flight service centre to get the exact time for ‘official night’, broke out the whiz-wheel to work out an accurate estimated time enroute, and did a bit of math. I also gave myself a buffer that was nowhere near sufficient. I then passed along our launch cut-off time to the dispatcher and watched my watch. As my calculated cut-off time finally approached, I called the dispatcher again to cancel the trip and to send out the First Officer, but as we spoke, the door opened and out rolled a stretcher, medics, doctors and a few support staff. Now the acid started to flow into my stomach and I seriously considered the consequences of the decision I was to make, but I reassured myself that I had done the math and was thorough. My buffer was going out the window but I had thousands of hours of flogging around in crappy weather as a bush pilot and I forced myself to relax. Now the five minute loading time was nearing fifteen minutes with further complications and we would actually be arriving a tad after dark, but I could hardly turn things around now (something I told myself at the time), besides, there were plenty of lights in the city and I knew every power line and tower along the route like the back of my hand.
So off we went into the storm, which of course grew worse. Half way into our trip, I realized with some disgust that ‘official dark’ is dark on a clear night, but in a blizzard, well....let’s just say it gets real dark quite a bit earlier than I had calculated. So now I find myself with a fresh, inexperienced first officer, three oblivious souls in the back, unable to climb and file IFR due to heavy icing in cloud, smoking along at five hundred feet flying completely on the dials. The first officer was furiously punching in known towers into our GPS (still new technology at the time, but they weren't along the route anyway, and it kept him busy) while I kept checking that we weren't picking up any ice, and that we were well above the many power lines crossing our route. I knew I had put us in a bad spot, but I also knew we weren't going to hit anything. My biggest concern at the time was how to get into the city and contend with the skyscrapers, and how to deal with ATC. My options, as I saw them, were:
a) at the edge of the control zone, pick up a clearance for an instrument approach and hope we don't pick up too much ice as we climbed into cloud (I didn't particularly like that one though).
b) hope that when we got over some lights I'd have enough reference to get to the ground and call for a land ambulance, and spend the night right where we got our wheels back on terra firma.
c) hope the weather was VFR.
d) wake up and not share this dream with anyone, ever.
In the end, after a stressful hour of breaking most of my own rules, we neared the edge of the zone, and the numerous lights of the city gave us enough reference to find a place to land, but the visibility kept improving to the point where I’m sure the controllers almost believed us when we told them we had the airport visual. The snowfall had lessened considerably, and I was quite comfortable continuing on to the airport VFR, well above the city's skyscrapers.
As we sat over supper in the hotel that evening, I had a good chance to reflect on my stupidity. I kept pushing myself further and further into that trip. I had numerous opportunities to turn the flight down, and I knew that there would be no repercussions for doing so. Sure, some people would have been inconvenienced, and the road trip into the city would have been horrendous for the patient in the storm, but I would not have put anyone's life at risk, something I had surely done by continuing with the flight. My young first officer thought the entire trip was "the coolest" and no amount of second guessing myself that night would wipe the grin from his face. I was not a good example. I came to the conclusion that the self-induced indigestion was not worth it, is never worth it, and I proceeded to set up some very strict limits for myself that would always assure a safe and boring trip.
As my years of experience slowly build, I realize that being a good pilot isn't hands and feet or knowledge gained from hours spent in the books, as much as the choices one makes. Know when to call it.
I'm glad I found that story, I had forgotten all about it. I'm relaxing at home without much to write about......
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