A Sign of Ice

Ed note: While this story is a bit dated, the winter-flying lessons are not.

Inexperience, stupidity, get-home-itis — take your pick. Any of them applied to me one late November evening as I cruised Just east of Chicago’s Loop with an electric night sign slung beneath the belly of an old but well-running Champion Citabria. It was supposed to be a routine advertising trip over Soldier Field adjacent to Merrill C. Meigs Airport (the late CGX). I’d flown the trip many times, and I knew the area well. At the time, I’d logged about 400 hours and had a fresh commercial certificate under my belt. I was already working on my instrument rating.

The night sign resembled a chicken-wire cage running underneath the aircraft from wing tip to wing tip. When folks on the ground looked up, they’d see words appearing to move from the right wing to the left, similar to a moving marquee sign you might see at a shopping center. The sign was usually hung on the Champ in the fall when the nights were longer. We removed it during the summer when I’d use the same airplane to tow banners along the Chicago lakefront. To the aircraft owner, the sign meant extra income. To me, as the pilot, the sign meant extra drag.

As I prepared for the flight from Palwaukee Municipal Airport (now Chicago Executive PWK), I was aware that light snow was forecast, but not for nearly three hours after the job would end. Unfortunately, as I approached the plane, I noticed it leaning to one side. The right main tire was flat. After some quick phone calls to the customer about the delay, I managed to find the night mechanic to fix the tire. More than an hour late, I rushed to get airborne into the already darkened sky.

I hadn’t checked the weather for almost two hours, but when I did, DuPage Airport (DPA) to the west was still good VFR. I didn’t think to check the weather at Rockford, about 30 miles northwest of DuPage. If I had, I would have known it was 200 overcast and a half mile in snow.

Giving the Customer Their Money’s Worth

I turned on the night sign while still about six miles north of the target, figuring that the customer had the extra bit of time coming. I circled around the target numerous times, and the conversation with the tower controller at Meigs made it tough to tell who was more bored. I’d been over the target for perhaps half an hour when I saw lightning to the west of the city. I called Chicago Flight Service and learned that DuPage was IFR in snow, with a thunderstorm, too. I had to do something. But with only $3 in my pocket, I wouldn’t even be able to pay for the cab ride back to my apartment if I landed at Meigs. I made a few more passes around the target to give the customer his money’s worth before I bade the Meigs controller good night and headed north up the Lake Michigan shoreline toward Palwaukee. Actually, Palwaukee is northwest of Meigs, but I didn’t like to fly directly over the city at night in a single-engine airplane.

Three miles north of Meigs, drizzle began that sounded like thousands of tiny grains of sand hitting the plexiglass windshield. The visibility was still good, so I figured I was home-free, even though the outside air temperature was near freezing. As I looked toward my destination, I realized that some of the city was beginning to disappear in the precipitation. I thought about it for a minute and decided that it was time to break my rule and fly over the city.

The intensity of the rain increased, but only for a short time. Then, the only sound was the constant drone of that 150-horsepower Lycoming. It took me a few minutes to realize why it was so quiet and why I no longer saw the rain streaming across the windshield. It was freezing. I saw tiny drops of ice clinging to the struts and tires; but, most of all, it was clinging to the hundreds of little pieces of wire on that big night sign.

One Stupid Decision After Another

As I looked behind me to the shoreline, I decided that I couldn’t turn around. Palwaukee, now six miles ahead, was reporting three miles visibility in freezing rain. I did the only thing that I thought I could — I climbed — hoping to give myself more time once this big block of ice decided to come down. Straight ahead, the rotating beacon of what was then the Glenview Naval Air Station seemed to beckon. For years, I’d been told that civilian airplanes were not allowed there except in emergencies. The lights of Glenview’s 7,000-foot runway reflected off the ice on my sign as I passed over the field.

Palwaukee was two-and-a-half miles away as I flew a straight-in approach to Runway 30 Right. Even though I was now holding full power, the aircraft began to descend from 1,500 feet AGL. A mile out, I was down to 400 feet agl. The icicles hanging from the night sign looked like stiff tinsel. I held full power almost to the ground. About six feet above the runway I began easing back on the throttle. As the rpm slowed through 2,250, the old Champ gave up the fight and fell to the runway. I don’t think that airplane rolled more than 200 feet before it stopped. The snow, sleet, and freezing rain were now so heavy that I could barely see the tower a half mile away.

As I taxied closer to the fuel pumps, I watched the line attendant’s eyes widen. I shut down and took a few deep breaths before I got out. Now it was my turn to look surprised. The little taildragger looked as though it were encased in clear, shiny plastic.

After I tied the airplane down, I headed for the airport restaurant and some coffee. I ran into one of the charter pilots I knew and told him what had happened. “Why didn’t you land at Meigs?” he asked. “Why didn’t you declare an emergency and land at Glenview?” he continued. “Why didn’t you keep closer track of the weather? What kind of decisions are those?” By now, I realized that most of my decisions had been pretty awful.

There were plenty of options, that night, but I’d been too single-minded to recognize them and make a better decision. There are always other options, but you have to look out the windows to actually see them. And if you’re lucky, you live to tell the tale.

Robert P. Mark, AOPA 634507, is a business jet pilot, a flight instructor and publisher at Jetwhine.com. (This story was originally published by AOPA Pilot and is reprinted here with permission.