AURORA, Colo. (7/14/10) – Chief Warrant Officer 4 Brian Robinson and Chief Warrant 2 Larry Ciancio took off from Buckley Air Force Base to conduct a routine check flight. This check flight required both engines to be shut down and then brought back on line one at a time. The engines were successfully tested and the crew began procedures to return to Buckley.
Robinson was attempting to level the aircraft after completing a 30-degree bank to the left but the control yoke was resisting his efforts. Ciancio had just finished adjusting the navigation equipment when he looked up and noticed Robinson struggling with the yoke. Just a moment later a loud pop was heard and the yoke moved freely in Robinson’s hands.
Both Robinson and Ciancio looked at each other saying nothing but thinking the same thing. Ciancio, who is a prior colonel, was reappointed as a warrant officer in order to continue to fly, and has been flying fixed-wing and rotary-wing for 29 years. He said this was the first time he thought he was going to die.
Ciancio quickly grabbed his controls only to find he had also lost control. At this point the 30 degrees bank was nearly 60 degrees. “With a windscreen filling with a view of the ground, we both thought this wouldn’t be survivable,” said Robinson.
Robinson quickly put the left engine at maximum power and the right engine at idle. This created enough force to counteract the left-hand bank and leveled the aircraft. At the same time, Ciancio had gotten out a mayday message and air traffic control was giving them directions to the nearest airfields.
After using the rudder and engine power to gently bank the aircraft to the right, Ciancio realized that one cable was still intact and he could resist the left engine’s tendency to roll the aircraft to the right, so control of the aircraft was transferred to him.
With Ciancio at the yoke, Robinson controlled the engine power and aileron trim settings so that the two of them together could fly the aircraft. This maneuver would be akin to changing CDs with your left hand, searching for something under the car seat with your right hand, all the while having a face-to-face conversation with someone in the passenger seat.
The aircraft was currently about 10 miles from the Centennial Airport, 12 miles from Buckley and 20 miles from the Denver International Airport, where air traffic control had cleared a runway for them. They both decided that the familiarity with Buckley, the length and width of the runway, as well as crash rescue so near to the runway, they would land at Buckley.
Robinson loaded the approach into their instrument landing system and together the two flew the plane to Buckley.
“Larry accomplished one of his best landings right on the centerline and rolled out to taxi speed,” remarked Robinson.
They congratulated each other with a high-five, terminated the emergency and then taxied into park.
A subsequent investigation revealed that the aileron control cable from the left side of the left yoke had been grinding away on a bulkhead. It could have failed at any time.
“We were very lucky that it failed when it did. Had we not had both engines running at altitude in good VFR (visual flight rules) weather, the results could have been catastrophic. Years of practice and outstanding crew coordination allowed us to successfully recover from a near disaster and fly the airplane to landing without further incident,” said Robinson.