Like this:

Imagine for a moment, you’re driving your car on the highway going about 50 miles per hour, making quite the valiant attempt to drive your two-wheel drive car over the pass.  The forecast called for snow, but the roads should be plowed, and you’ve done this route a hundred times.  Only one problem, as you’re approaching the summit, the snow becomes very, very heavy.  Your windshield wipers are at full speed in an attempt to keep the wet, sticky snow from blocking your view of the increasingly snow-covered pavement in front of you.  You begin to wonder if it really would be safe to continue.  Part of you wants to make it, you’re so close, it may be a bit more of a risk, but you can handle it right?  So you press on, but now as you press on, you see a few cars that have pulled over on the sides of the roads to put on chains.  Hmm, maybe you should have put those chains in the back of your car. They certainly are of no help right now sitting in your garage collecting dust.  Then out of no where, your car starts veering left out of control.  Your left tires must have caught some slushy snow making the car begin to rotate to the left.  You turn the steering wheel to the right in an attempt to right the vehicle but there is no stopping its spin now. After sliding sideways for about 50 feet, it finally comes to a halt, in the opposite lane, facing sideways.  Phew!  At least there were no cars!  You promptly regain your composure and pull over to the side of the road.  Here you can wait for a snow plow to come through to clear the road so you can drive back, turn around, and head back home.  You’ve certainly had better days now haven’t you!

Now isn’t that convenient, if anything goes wrong in a car, you can simply stop.  If you run out of gas, your car stops, and you pull over to the side of the road.  If the weather becomes too harsh, you pull over.  If you blow a tire, you pull over.  Obviously, things are a bit less complicated when you’re already firmly planted on terra firma.  I’d now like to have you try and put yourself in a pilot’s shoes.  A few weeks ago, I had a most eventful day of flying in Nigeria… Enjoy!

In a world where getting in a long tube with wings, traveling through the air at high speeds, and somehow landing thousands of miles away hours later is perfectly normal, pilots (the men and woman controlling those long tubes with wings) simply do not get enough credit.  Of course it is our job, to transport everyone from A to B in a comfortable and safe manner.  And flying really is safe these days.  Thanks to strict regulations on maintenance, pilot training, and adherence to certain standards on an international level, being in an aircraft is a very safe place to be.

What better way to earn respect for my fellow aviators then talk about this eventful day I eluded to earlier.  A day where we (my Captain and I) were tested on numerous occasions and faced with difficult situations, which if they had been mishandled could have led to serious problems.

Our route for the day was actually a CRJ-900 route, so each of the legs was rather long in length compared to our usual 40-55 minute flights.  Lagos – Uyo – Abuja – Uyo – Lagos – Jos – Lagos was our trip for the day.  The first two flights into Uyo and Abuja were fairly typical, easy-going morning flights.  On arrival from the East into Abuja, I requested a visual approach, which allowed me to save time and fuel by flying directly to a 5 mile approach to Runway 22, rather than flying 10-15 miles away from the airport and flying the actual instrument approach.  After landing and pulling into the Domestic Terminal, I did a walk around to inspect for any damage, then walked in to grab a meat pie and small ice-cream cone.

The flight times between Lagos, Uyo, and Abuja are all over an hour, which gives us time to sit back and enjoy the view, and maybe, just maybe, get a coffee from one of our friendly cabin crew members.

Now to say the least, our next leg from Abuja to Uyo is where the fun began.  There was a Q300 aircraft operated by Aero Contractors about 20 miles ahead of us en-route to Uyo, and they certainly proved to be a big help.  As we were cleared to our final descent altitude to begin the approach, the Q300 ahead of us announced at about 1 mile from the runway that they were going around.  The Uyo controller told them to contact Calabar which is roughly 25 miles to the NE, and that aircraft eventually landed there since whatever they saw (or didn’t see rather) on their approach at Uyo, led them to believe it wouldn’t be improving anytime soon.  Javier and I looked at each other and we quickly decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea to even execute an approach until the weather was reported to improve.  This is when it would be nice to “pull over to the side of the road,” but we obviously don’t have that option in airplanes.  So our equivalent to “pulling over” is to hold.  No, we’re not going to hold hands or just close our eyes and hold on for our dear lives; it means we’re going to find a location and fly in circles!  I informed the Uyo controller that we’d like to enter a hold to the NW of the airport and wanted to climb to a higher altitude.  They told us it was approved, but in order to reach a higher altitude, we’d need to contact Calabar.  So quickly, Javier and I determined that we had enough fuel to hold for 20 minutes, and if the weather wasn’t improved by then, we’d then proceed back to Abuja.  We turned to the NW to get away from both Uyo and Calabar and were cleared to a higher altitude to save fuel and find smoother air.  I was the PNF (Pilot Not Flying), so I first helped program a hold in the FMS which has the capability to fly direct to a waypoint and hold there.  A standard hold will have you fly to the waypoint, turn right at a standard rate of turn 180 degrees, fly for 1 minute, then turn right again and fly to the waypoint again.  We decided to fly for a minute and a half on each wings level leg for the comfort of our passengers so we were not turning so much.  Once we had the flying and navigating part taken care of, I consulted the cabin crew and made a passenger announcement.  While holding, we kept in close contact with Uyo tower to see what the weather was doing there.  There was heavy rain, very low visibility, and lightning around the field.  After about 10 minutes though, the controller reported to us that it appeared to be clearing and that things were calming down.  A few minutes later, the heavy showers had passed and we decided it was ok to commence the approach.  I gave a quick passenger announcement to inform everyone of the good news, setup the approach in the FMS and, to our surprise, the weather had improved significantly. We saw the runway 5-7 miles out and Javier made a nice landing.  We both felt great about how we had handled the situation.  If we had tried the approach initially, we most likely would have done an unnecessary missed approach and entered a hold anyways, causing unnecessary concern for our passengers.  But just entering a hold, the equivalent to pulling over on the side of a road in a car in this case, really helped us slow down and assess the situation in an environment with fewer distractions.

Some of the passengers thanked us on the way out. I’m sure they appreciated our decision to play it safe and wait until the weather improved.  Although we all (us pilots) act as if it was no big deal, that we’re just doing our jobs, everyone likes a little pat on the back and a sign of appreciation.

Now that flight alone would have been plenty of excitement for one day, but we were in for more fun on our next flight to Lagos.  I was the pilot flying this time.  En-route, there wasn’t too much to avoid, a few slight lefts and rights to avoid some clouds, but the nasty weather loomed ahead.  A large storm was on its way from the North/ North-East making it’s way South-West right over the airport!  The weather radar on our descent wasn’t pretty. We told the controller that we couldn’t accept vectors to land yet, as we needed to dodge the worst parts of the storm before we could turn back to the West and line up to land to the South.

The cloud height was reported at about 400 feet with 2,500 meters visibility, thunderstorms, and rain.  Great day for flying eh?  We set up the aircraft during the lulls and bumps caused by the turbulence for an ILS 18L approach.  The sky grew darker and darker as we got lower but for the most part it had smoothed out.  At about 10 mile final, we could see heavy precipitation depicted on our weather radar laying over the 1-5 mile final range, so we expected heavy rain during the approach.  There was a very large crosswind from the left, so our aircraft pointed about 20 degrees to the left.  I got established with Flaps 15, condition levers max, and landing checklists complete much sooner than normal so we could be as stable as possible during the final miles of the approach.  We set our DH (decision altitude), which is a pre-determined altitude that we will execute a missed approach and abort the landing if we are not stable, in a position to make a safe landing and have the airport in sight upon reaching it (the DH).  We could hear the rain pelting the windshield and the windshield wipers on max screeching back and forth in a fury.  The clouds were thick and dark with moisture, preventing us from seeing anything.  At about 200 feet above our DH (roughly 400 feet above the ground), Javier reported that he was beginning to see the ground, while I continued to focus on the instruments.  My thumb positioned itself on the GA (Go-Around) button in anticipation of executing a missed approach, but luckily, seconds later, Javier reported the field in sight slightly to the right in front of us.  Everything was gray, no lights, darkened skies, heavy rain, but there was a runway, and I intended to land on it.  Upon disconnecting the auto-pilot, I got pushed slightly right of centerline due to the crosswind, but I quickly banked to the left while adding some right rudder to side-slip to the left and realign us.  The centerline of the runway was almost invisible with the heavy coat of water on the runway, but using my peripheral vision, I pulled back, touched the back left wheel, slowly lowered the right wing so both mains could touch, then while still holding left control input, I lowered the nose and reduced the power to begin slowing the aircraft down.  We had made it!  Javier took control of the aircraft to begin the taxi in and praised me for doing well. It wasn’t an easy landing, but twas “all in a days work!”  In hindsight, I think we both should have opted to land on Runway 18R mainly because that runway has runway lights and PAPIs (Precision Approach Path Indicators) to help you transition from the instruments to a visual with the runway.  The other Q400 which arrived 20-30 minutes later opted to do this.

Shortly after the passengers disembarked, the main part of the storm began passing over the actual field dropping very heavy rain on the tarmac.  We had arrived just in time. Other aircraft probably had to hold at that moment because the visibility would not be sufficient to land with that heavy rain.  But it passed through fairly quickly and minimal delay was experienced in the area overall.

To end the day, we had a flight to Jos and back.  Luckily that flight was uneventful.  It was quite pretty actually, watching the lightning reach across the sky, the sky turn to deep reds and oranges and, as always, the steady hum of the Pratt and Whitney engines to my left and right.

The arrival into Jos was beautiful!  I could finally see the area’s terrain.  On previous flights it was very cloudy and we were lucky to even see the runway.  The temperature is perfect there, although most of the Nigerians say it’s too cold, of course, because to them it’s about as cold as it gets in their country!

I flew us back into Lagos at night and after the 1 hour and 30 minute flight, we touched down on Runway 18R nice and softly, slowly lowered the nose, and turned left off the high speed taxiway.  Another day at the office and quite a memorable one at that!  Days like that make our job more challenging, but at the same time, most of us pilots enjoy the challenge and find it rewarding.

So there it is.  A day I just had to share with my readers and document for my own reading in the future.  And hopefully I made it clear as to why pilots deserve a bit more respect!  We can’t pull over to the side of the road when things go haywire, but you already knew that didn’t you.  A Q400 Captain who used to work for Arik once said he found airplanes more challenging than flying helicopters.  This guy flew both of them commercially, doing air-ambulance work in helicopters on his rotations and flying the Q400 for his main job.  Basically the main difference he claimed was that in a helicopter, you can come to a stop mid-air, while in an aircraft, if you attempt to hover, you’ll soon be spiraling towards the ground. In other words, he found airplanes more difficult overall because you’re traveling at higher speeds and cannot stop.

Speaking of helicopters, I aspire to learn how to fly them someday, just for fun.  But for now, I’m enjoying my position immensely as a First Officer on the Q400.

Quick Updates

I’ll be heading back to work in about one week now! All is well!  I am looking forward to another fun month of flying in Nigeria.  And I’ll be coming back in time to spend Christmas and New Years with family!  I have missed the past two years because I had to be in Nigeria for work.  Thanks for reading!  Ciao.

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