A veteran Whitianga pilot had about a minute to find somewhere to land when part of his propeller broke off over the sea near Mount Maunganui, forcing him down on a remote Bay of Plenty beach.
Evan Wheeler, 72, had been flying his Murphy Rebel bush plane home from a fly-in barbecue at the Ōpōtiki Aero Club on Sunday with a group of around eight or nine other planes when the propeller failed near Karewa Island, north of Mount Maunganui.
He told 1News that one moment he was flying along and the next the whole aircraft was shaking.
"It's instantaneous... all of a sudden, everything's vibrating. It gets your attention, really. Huge, big vibrations."
He pulled the throttle back straight away and the shaking eased off. He then went through a checklist, turning on the carburettor heat and adjusting the fuel mixture to work out whether he had a mechanical failure in the engine or a damaged propeller.
'There was nowhere else'
The engine restarted and ran normally, so he knew the propeller had failed, and as soon as he opened the throttle again, the violent vibration came back.
He had hoped to reach Waihī Beach airfield, about five minutes away, but said the plane was shaking too much and he had to get on the ground as fast as he could.
With open ocean below him, Matakana Island was the only option.
"There was nowhere else. If the sand's soft, you can tip over anyway... but that was a better option than being in the water."
He said he had about a minute to land, and he came close to ditching.
"If I didn't have the ability to put some throttle on, I would have landed in the sea."
He gave the engine three or four small bursts of throttle to hold his height until he cleared the sand. Once he had lined up on the beach, he switched the engine off to reduce the risk of a fuel fire, then glided in.
"If I land where the wet beach is and the tide comes in, I'm upside down... and I'm unconscious, I've got serious problems," he said.
"I thought I'm better to go for the softer sand and know that if I am upside down or whatever, at least I'm gonna still be dry."
The vibration had set off the plane’s emergency locator beacon. He said the Rescue Coordination Centre phoned him within four minutes, just after he landed.
A fellow pilot had heard his radio call and circled overhead to check he was safe.
He landed on one of the most remote stretches of the island and expected to spend the night in the plane. Instead, emergency services drove up the beach to find him and took him to the wharf at the island’s southern end. The Coast Guard then ferried him across to the mainland.
Another pilot from the group flew back from Whitianga to Tauranga Airport to take him home.
He described his feelings after landing simply: “Just having a deep breath... very thankful.”
'You never stop learning'
Wheeler said he had never experienced anything like it in his years of flying, but his biennial flight reviews include instructors cutting the throttle without warning so the pilot has to find a safe place to land.
His decisive response came down to four or five basic steps he had practiced for years and he said the biggest danger in an emergency was a pilot getting distracted and losing airspeed.
“Some people in that situation, there’s a bit of panic set in, and they forget to watch the aircraft speed, and that’s when they spin in.”
Wheeler said pilots never stop learning, and the basics they practise are what get them through when something goes wrong.
“The most important thing is you never stop learning, and remembering your training, because that’s where guys do go wrong.”
The Civil Aviation Authority confirmed it was aware of the incident and would conduct preliminary inquiries to establish what happened and whether any further action was required.
Wheeler holds a maintenance approval and he and another engineer inspected the plane on the island on Monday.
They fitted a replacement propeller and he flew it home the same day while members of his aero club followed along on Flightradar.
The engine will now be removed for a full strip-down, including X-rays of the crankshaft, before the plane can fly again.
When 1News wished him luck with the insurance claim, Wheeler replied: "Oh god. Yeah, that's the next hard part."
The morning's headlines in 90 seconds including a big problem for Apple, and the woman who patted a Great White. (Source: 1News)
SHARE ME