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Posted By:
Hal Brown
Date Posted:
Oct 14, 2007
Description:
The weather briefer did not mention fog, but it sure looked foggy around Sitgreaves Mountain.
On the otherhand, it might not be exactly fog.....
Date Taken:
Oct 14, 2007
Place Taken:
Ash Fork, AZ
Owner:
Dan Nickens
File Name:
Foggy_Mountain_Don_t_Breakdown.jpg - Photo HTML
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Category:
289, An Indirect Relocation
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Dan Nickens - Oct 14,2007
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The Burning Earth Below<br /><br />Some mighty tall tales have grown out of the dry earth of the Wild West. I was beginning to believe that the flight briefer had told me one before departure. He had talked of nothing but clear skies, yet up ahead there was a large mass of low lying clouds.<br /><br />“Must be some early morning fog,” I decided. “That can be hard to forecast. Oh, well, it can just be another tale I’ll have to tell.”<br /><br />As I got closer to the foggy area, red flashing lights on the Interstate highway caught my attention. There were emergency vehicles blocking the east bound lanes.<br /><br />“Must have been a bad accident in the fog,” I thought.<br /><br />That’s when I noticed there was no traffic coming out of the smoke going westbound. “Wow. That’s gotta be a really bad accident.” I was starting to rethink my planned over-flight of the foggy area.<br /><br />There was something definitely strange about the situation with the trucks. Just on the other side of them, the lanes looked like they had been sharply shifted to the south. The lanes were offset by more than a lane width.<br /><br />“An earthquake? Hey, maybe there has been an earthquake!”<br /><br />I thought about that. “Strange that there is fog covering an area that has been struck by an earthquake.”<br /><br />By this time I was almost over the fire trucks blocking the highway. I could see the “fog” boiling up from big cracks in the ground. “I’ve never seen any fog like that,” I decided.<br /><br />I was now almost overhead. Looking down into the deep cracks I could see glimpses of thickly moving black crusted red globs. “Lava! There is magma in those cracks.” There was no fog, it was smoke from oozing lava.<br /><br />Ahead the smoke got thicker. There was no way I was going to fly over a developing lava bed. I immediately turned south to parallel the smoking mass.<br /><br />I followed the edge of the smoke for several miles out over the high desert plain. Finally, I came to the southern end and turned back east.<br /><br />It took a few minutes to realize that I was constantly adjusting my course to the southeast. Looking more closely at the ground I saw that great cracks and crevices were growing southward out of the expanding field of smoke now billowing to the northern horizon. I adjust course to give myself some separation from the gray, growing mass.<br /><br />A break in the smoke appeared ahead. It was like a clear path extending a mile or two back into the massive smoking field. At the northern edge of the clearing was a trailer home.<br /><br />“I sure hope no one is home,” I said out loud. As soon as I had spoken the words, I saw a figure standing outside beside the home. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would be standing there as the smoking ground surrounded them. I turned the airplane toward the trailer.<br /><br />The trailer sat up on a broad, shallow rise. The washes on both sides of the rise were cracked and spewing smoke. Only the north wind was keeping the trailer in the clear.<br /><br />As I flew over the trailer, the figure below waived one hand in my direction. The other arm tightly held a large bundle.<br /><br />“Why is that person just standing there?” I could see an old car sitting in front of the trailer as I circled back around. “Now what?”<br /><br />Just beyond the trailer the smoking ground was closing in. As I circled overhead, the waving figure below seemed to become more frantic.<br /><br />I was perplexed. Any reasonable person would be fleeing in front of the surrounding magma. I wasn’t sure what was going on. I waved back.<br /><br />The smoking ground was clearly starting to encircle the little desert outpost. “You’ve got to get out!” I yelled to the wind as I circled.<br /><br />The person was making no move to get in the car and go. There had to be some other problem, I decided.<br /><br />Studying the rise the trailer sat on, it seemed to me to be mostly flat. The dirt road leading up to the trailer was generally straight. I began to think I could reasonably land there. There was some low scrub and brush and the road was rutted, but it seemed that it might be doable.<br /><br />With no movement from the person below to escape the growing smoke, I figured I better see what the problem was. “Don’t fail me now,” I implored the SeaRey’s frail little gear legs.<br /><br />I had to do an approach over the smoke to land into the wind out of the south. As I flew over the smoking ground, the airplane began to bounce wildly in the turbulent rising air. A torrent of hot air blasted into the cockpit. I could see glimpses of deep red, rising magma through the smoke. I made darn sure that I could glide beyond the smoke if the engine decided to quit.<br /><br />That put me a bit further away from the trailer than I had planned. I was still close enough to see the terrorized face of the wildly waving woman. In her arms was a small child.<br /><br />The closer I got to the dirt road, the rougher it looked. There was no way I would have intentionally landed on such a ragged patch of ground under any other circumstance. Only the glimpse of terror I saw in the woman’s face made me continue to touch down.<br /><br />The airplane bounced wildly on the ruts and through the cobblestones scattered on my path. I worked feverously to keep the wheels on what could arguably be called a road.<br /><br />I was just starting to feel I would get away with the landing when a section of earth up ahead simply fell away. It was there one minute, then it simply disappeared. It was replaced with an eruption of dust and smoke.<br /><br />I kicked left rudder and made the airplane ground loop. The left wing came dangerously close to the dirt as the airplane careened to stop in a cloud of dust. “Bugger and holy smokes!” I muttered. I shook my head to clear it, and realized the airplane, its gear, and myself were largely still intact.<br /><br />It took a bit longer to realize that there was a new chasm just beyond the airplane. Acrid smoke from that chasm quickly replaced the dust cloud I had just made.<br /><br />I gunned the engine and started bouncing down the road away from the chasm and out of reach of the smoke.<br /><br />As I got closer to the trailer I saw that the woman and young child had not moved from where I saw them on landing. The woman was as thin as a rail, with a drawn face. She looked like she was 22 going on 42. The child clung tightly to the woman. They didn’t move even as I got close.<br /><br />The airplane rolled to a stop 15’ from the two. When it was obvious that they weren’t moving, and the airplane was firmly grounded in the loose sand, I jumped out and ran over.<br /><br />“You’ve got to get out of here!” I yelled at them.<br /><br />The woman just stared back at me. I could hear soft sobs from the child who never lifted a face buried in the mother’s bosom. After an inexplicably long delay, the woman finally said, “We ain’t leaving. That ol’ car won’t start no ways. I’m a-waiting on my husband.”<br /><br />“Your husband can’t get here now,” I said with increasing urgency. “The road is completely blocked. You need to come with me.”<br /><br />“In that thang?” she said incredulously.<br /><br />“Yes, come on. We’ve got to go.”<br /><br />“But what about Toby?”<br /><br />“Your husband can’t get in here. We’ve got to go now before the smoke covers this place over.”<br /><br />“Toby ain’t my husband. He’s my dog.”<br /><br />I reached out for her arm. “Toby will be fine, but we’ve got to go,” I lied.<br /><br />The whole world started shaking. It was all I could do to stand up as waves rocked the ground. I grabbed the woman to stabilize myself as much as her.<br /><br />The trailer twisted off its foundation with the vibrating ground. One side fell with a resounding crash. A door twisted open from its frame and out bounded a small, wiry dog. Just as quickly the trailer erupted in flames from the part that had crashed to the ground.<br /><br />The ground steadied as the woman screamed “Here, Toby!” The dog clearly needed no encouragement as it ran towards us.<br /><br />I had seen enough and was way past wanting to be on the still trembling ground. “Get in the airplane, NOW!” I ordered.<br /><br />“Yessir.”<br /><br />I pushed woman and the now silent child towards the passenger side. “Just climb in and sit down. Hold on to the child,” I commanded.<br /><br />The smoke seemed to close in on us from all sides now as I raced to the other side. As I climbed in the woman pleaded, “Please, mister, don’t leave Toby!”<br /><br />The little dog was standing by the passenger side, shaking. I shook my head, “Sorry, boy, I have a full load.”<br /><br />The dog started howling. So did the child.<br /><br />“Okay. Okay, fine. I’ll get Toby.” I jumped back out and ran around the airplane. As soon as I did, Toby started backing away.<br /><br />“Come on, boy. Come on, now. We don’t have time to play.”<br /><br />The dog clearly didn’t think this was play. He was trembling with fear. The faster I approached him, the quicker he ran away.<br /><br />The ground again rumbled violently and the smell of acid smoke hit me. “That’s it. I’m outta here.” I turned and left the dog.<br /><br />Before I could get to the other side of the airplane, the dog ran back and jumped into the airplane through the passenger side window. He was in my seat when I got there.<br /><br />“Oh, no you don’t. You can’t have my seat.”<br /><br />The baggage compartment was full of my stuff. I reached in and grabbed it by the handfuls, flinging it to the ground. As soon as I had cleared a space, I pushed the dog into the baggage compartment. He didn’t fight.<br /><br />The little clearing of smoke-free air that the trailer sat in was disappearing. I could barely see 100’ in front of the airplane. “Never mind,” I told myself. I didn’t hit anything landing. I won’t hit anything taking off.” I wish I could have believed myself.<br /><br />With full flaps and full throttle, we barreled off into the choking smoke. The airplane shook and jarred with every rock and rut with increasing severity as the speed built. I gave up trying to see anything ahead. I tried to maintain the general direction and implored the airplane into the air.<br /><br />Out of the smoke I saw a glowing mound across the road. The evil looking mound oozed red though a crust of black.<br /><br />There was no way to stop before we hit it. The only way was to make the airplane fly. I jerked back on the stick and prayed.<br /><br />A wall of rising heat slammed into the airplane. The fiery mound passed just feet below as the airplane staggered into the air.<br /><br />There was no time for relief. We were totally engulfed in an evil, choking smoke. Without real instruments for blind flight, I had to choke back fear too.<br /><br />“Airspeed…slowly climbing…vertical speed…climbing….altitude…YES…climbing!” I kept chanting hoping it wouldn’t change.<br /><br />It could only have been a few minutes, but it seemed forever that the world would be gray and the air unbreathable. It was a shock to break out into crystal clear air.<br /><br />The airplane was flying itself, because I was coughing uncontrollably. So was the woman.<br /><br />As the coughing spasms began to end, I took stock of the airplane. I still had full flaps and was climbing only slowly over the desert below. I slowly lowered the flaps and accelerated.<br /><br />The woman screamed, “My baby ain’t breathing!”<br /><br />I quickly looked over at them. Sure enough, the child was still and blue.<br /><br />The wind was howling through the open cockpit. “Try breathing in its mouth!” I yelled.<br /><br />The woman nodded and held the child’s mouth to hers. She blew into it gently. Then again. And again.<br /><br />“Nothing! He ain’t breathing nothing!” she screamed.<br /><br />“Don’t stop! You can’t stop!” I screamed right back. Sobbing, the woman went back to her task. I couldn’t hear what she was saying in between breaths, but it had the feel of a desperate prayer.<br /><br />I turned to look at the smoking fields behind us. It almost looked placid. Then, with an astonishing change, a huge column blasted upwards. I was mesmerized as what looked like a glowing red and gray column exploded skyward. The column covered the northern horizon, growing like a giant mushroom cloud.<br /><br />The first thing that went through my head was that a nuclear bomb had exploded. That didn’t make sense. A volcano? “A volcano!” I turned and yelled at the woman.<br /><br />Inexplicably she just smiled back weakly. That’s when I saw the child was coughing and crying.<br /><br />I wasn’t filled with joy. A volcano had just erupted a few miles behind us. “What’s next?” I tried to think.<br /><br />It didn’t take long to figure out. Out of the clear blue sky overhead came a flaming meteor. It struck with a small explosion just a few hundred yards out in front of the airplane.<br /><br />It was followed closely by one just off the left wing. Then another ahead. Fiery boulders and rocks started falling all around us.<br /><br />“Watch out!” my passenger screamed. A huge boulder streaked by us seemingly close enough to reach out and touch. I banked the airplane sharply away.<br /><br />“Weave! Never fly a straight line when you’re under attack,” my brain screamed. I started doing just that.<br /><br />No matter where I weaved, the flaming rocks were raining down. A primal fear of hell fire and brimstone kicked in to accelerate my thinking. “Are you crazy! Weaving will just make you stay in the drop zone longer. Get straight outta here!”<br /><br />I pushed the nose down and accelerated straight ahead in the shortest path away from the volcano. Reflexively I reached back and pulled my canopy closed, as if it offered any kind of protection. Seeing what I had done, my passenger did the same.<br /><br />A fierce impact knocked the right wing downward. My passenger shrieked. I jerked back reflexively on the control in the opposite direction.<br /><br />The wing had a gaping hole in it out near the wing tip. I could see a glowing red edge around the hole. There were no visible flames, but a wing aflame flashed through my mind. I pushed the stick down and headed right for the ground.<br /><br />In rapid succession, another three holes appeared in the wing on my side. The noise was like a machine gun staccato. Still, there was no flame on the fabric wings.<br /><br />“Hold on,” I yelled, “I’m going to put us on the ground.”<br /><br />My passenger’s face was pale white. “But there ain’t nothing to hide under out here, mister” she yelled back.<br /><br />I surveyed the ground. It was rough with boulders and brush. There was no shelter anywhere. “Still,” I thought, “I’d rather be pummeled on the ground than blown out of the sky.”<br /><br />Before I could get in position to land I started noticing that the fiery meteors were getting smaller and less numerous. I dared to hope that maybe, just maybe, we would get out from under the rock raining cloud. Indeed, I took additional hope from the fact that none of the holes had ignited the fabric.<br /><br />I leveled the airplane out just above the ground. It streaked by in shades of tan and gray and red. The airplane seemed to fly normally despite the holing it had taken. And now, there were no more meteors.<br /><br />“It looks like we’re out,” I whispered.<br /><br />“What?” my passenger yelled back.<br /><br />It was then I noticed all the noise. I had never put on a headset. I put the airplane in a gentle climb to get some separation from the ground, reached back to grab a couple of headsets and found only the dog.<br /><br />In the relative calm after the stone storm, I turned the airplane slightly to survey the scene behind us. The ground was smoldering and I could see the beginnings of a brush fire back in the distance.<br /><br />It was what I saw next that confused me. In the distance there was a solid gray wall that flashed with spots of fiery red. As I stared at it, I realized that wall was getting closer. In fact, it was rapidly closing on us.<br /><br />I remembered seeing video of pyroclastic flows: walls of superheated gas and ash that wreck havoc and destruction, finally entombing the citizens of Pompeii for eternity. That was what was chasing us.<br /><br />Once again I pushed the nose of the airplane back towards the ground and shoved the throttle full forward. I checked the airspeed indicator. It was soon well within the yellow zone.<br /><br />I looked back. The cloud was still racing towards us. From the recesses of my fear battered brain I recalled that pyroclastic flows could reach speeds of hundreds of miles per hour. There was no SeaRey on earth that was going to outrun it.<br /><br />I stared back at the cloud in frustrated terror. By my best, most hopeful guess, I figured it was going to cover us in a matter of minutes.<br /><br />“Wait! It isn’t that high!” Without the benefit of further analysis I pulled the airplane into a steep climb.<br /><br />“What! Whatcha ya doing dat fer!” cried my frantic passenger.<br /><br />I just shook my head. “We gotta get higher” was my only answer.<br /><br />The airplane was now slowing to best climb speed. That made the angry cloud gain even faster. It was now within a few hundred yards. I shrank down in the seat and waited for it to engulf us.<br /><br />A giant hand seemed to shove the airplane upwards. The vertical speed indicator wound upward faster than I had ever seen one go. Blast furnace air engulfed the airplane. I looked down and could see the malevolent cloud churning just below us. We had been knocked upwards by the expanding hot air in front of the fiery flow.<br /><br />“Go, go, go!” I urged the airplane upwards even higher. “If only we don’t broil before we get away from this cloud,” I mumbled to myself. Just as suddenly as we had entered it, the plane broke out of the blast furnace and into cool air.<br /><br />We were now more than a thousand feet above the angry gray cloud covering the landscape below. It still wasn’t enough for me. I climbed until the altimeter showed over 12000’.<br /><br />Below we watched as the cloud slowed to a crawl. As it slowed, however, smoke began to billow skyward. I wasn’t sure that 12000’ would be enough until we passed over the edge of its mass.<br /><br />“Where we gonna go now?” my passenger yelled.<br /><br />My mind was blank. All I had wanted was to get away. Now that we had, I had no answer. “How far is far enough?” I asked myself.<br /><br />Seeing my blank look, the passenger yelled, “If’n you can get us over to Prescott, I got family there.”<br /><br />“Prescott? Where is Prescott?” I yelled back. It might as well have been in China as far as I knew.<br /><br />“It’s right over yonder,” the woman said, pointing slightly to the right.<br /><br />I looked at the GPS. It showed a bright circle denoting controlled airspace just where she was pointing.<br /><br />“What’s the frequency?” I asked myself. There was no time to lose as we broke through the imaginary circle. “Screw this,” I said quietly. “This is an emergency.” I punched the emergency frequency into the radio before realizing that I didn’t have a headset to talk to anyone anyway.<br /><br />I looked back behind me. The dog lay quietly there with his head on a towel. Just behind him was 3” hole in the turtledeck. With my eyes I traced the path traveled by the projectile downwards towards the fuel tank. It must have missed by a few millimeters at most.<br /><br />In an almost catatonic state I flew on towards the airport. I wasn’t sure what I could say to them anyway. I did, however, think enough to set the transponder to the emergency code. If the tower had a remote radar feed from Phonix, maybe they would pick it up. I didn’t really care.<br /><br />On the airport I could see helicopters coming and going. All sorts of emergency vehicles with lights flashing raced to and from the ramp area. I picked the closest runway and headed straight for it.<br /><br />Fortunately it was a long runway. I was high and pulled the power back to lose altitude quickly. I looked at my passenger and yelled, “Don’t worry. We’re gonna land. We’ll be okay.”<br /><br />The black object just beyond her got my attention. “What is the tire doing up there? Oh, crap!” I got the gear lowered a split second before touching down on the pavement.<br /><br />I made the turnoff at the middle of the runway and just sat there with the engine idling. In a few minutes a white truck with flashing yellow lights came screeching up. A couple of uniformed guys jumped out and headed towards us.<br /><br />“Are you okay? Is anyone hurt?” the closest one yelled.<br /><br />I could barely hear over the ringing in my ears. I just shrugged. “I could say I’m okay, but I’m pretty sure that would be another really tall tale.”<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
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Frank A. Carr - Oct 14,2007
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ILOVEITILOVEIT. BRAVO AND THANKS DAN, IT'S BEEN TOO LONG!
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Frank A. Carr - Oct 14,2007
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Neither Earthquakes, nor errupting lava, nor loss of headsets, nor rescue of mother and child, provide enough <br />distraction for the seasoned pilot to remember to lower his gear! I'm impressed.
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Dan Nickens - Oct 15,2007
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Yeah, well Frank, remembering the landing gear is what makes this a really 'tall tale.'
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Bård Sørbye - Oct 15,2007
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Dan, you certainly have a flair for dramatic action writing!
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Don Maxwell - Oct 15,2007
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That Toby sure gets around! I think the last time we saw him, he was stuck on an ice floe.
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Dan Nickens - Oct 15,2007
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No, no, no, Don, you're getting your hounds all confused! Tawney is Toby's Canadian litter mate that escaped the ice floe in a Challenger. Tailspin is their cousin that lives in the islands. Underdog is their uncle. Porco Roso is a distant mammal.
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Tailspin''s Tale
tawney''s story
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| Attachments:
There''s no need to fear
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Don Maxwell - Oct 16,2007
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Thanks for that elucidation, Dan. But I'm still a little confused. Where does Darkwing Duck fit into all this?
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Jeff Arnold - Oct 15,2007
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Dan, I don't see when you had time to put the gear up after take off, or is that why the landig and take off were so rough? The hull on the ground also facilitated Toby junping through the window, eh?<br /><br />Thanks for the great read!
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Bruno Grondin - Oct 15,2007
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Dan I was wondering the same thing as Jeff, Me I would have forgot to put the gear up thats for shure concidering the situation.<br />Wow....Great story Dan, what happened with the baby and the skinny women ?<br />
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Dan Nickens - Oct 15,2007
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As it turned out, Bruno, the skinny lady was married to a FAA enforcement officer working out of the Prescott office. When she told him about our little adventure, he prepared an enforcement action citing 23 different violations of the regulations, including careless and reckless operations, landing at a controlled facility without clearance, failure to file and obtain clearance for flight in IMC conditions, operating a holey aircraft that was obviously unairworthy, failure to properly restrain passengers and crew, landing without authorization on private property, flight through a Temporary Flight Restriction around the volcano, and failure to file a flight plan. (I think her husband was not pleased that I retrieved his somewhat haggard bride. Looks like I’ll be grounded now for the rest of the day.) The kid threw up on the seat before getting out and the dog chewed my headset. All in all, it was a partially unpleasant day.
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Dan Nickens - Oct 15,2007
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Aw, comeon, Jeff! Every SeaRey pilot automatically raises the landing gear after every takeoff, right? Although a turbo fired SeaRey and motivated pilot don't need no stinkin gear anyways! And Toby didn't need any help jumping into the airplane after he got a whiff of the fine survival cuisine available for inflight food & beverage service.
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Jeff Arnold - Oct 15,2007
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So who ate the Nature Valley Roasted Almond bars? You or Toby?
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Dan Nickens - Oct 15,2007
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Even Toby wouldn't touch those things.
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Bruno Grondin - Oct 15,2007
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You saw it too Jeff, Dan can't hide anything to us...hahahaha
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Bruno Grondin - Oct 16,2007
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Dan..... Like Robert DeNiro said in (Analyse me this) you are good no Dan you are very good.....Dan.....you are good....!!!!!!<br />Grounded but good....<br /><br /><br />
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