“You can never be too careful.” This is an important lesson that can save many lives, including this experience that Dave had, where double-checking saved his life, and many others.
“Back in the 1970s, I was a T-29 pilot. I was the co-pilot, and I think a second lieutenant by then. There was an old gray-haired guy who was a major and the aircraft commander. We were cruising along at about 7,000 feet on the east coast, just a few hours away from the destination. The passengers were an impressive entourage of prominent civilians, because we had a two-star general on board. Everything was going smoothly.
“Many airplanes carry their fuel in the wings, just like this one did. The engine on the left wing is typically fed by fuel from the left tank, and the right engine, the right tank. Occasionally, one tank may have more fuel than the other, known as a ‘fuel imbalance.’ In this scenario, the pilot would want to make sure the fuel tank in both wings are balanced by setting up a crossfeed. By opening and closing fuel valves, both engines can use the fuel from the fuller tank to balance it out. There's a panel for that right over the pilot’s head, with the valves to open and close. The flight engineer is typically the one that does that, not a pilot. So I was surprised when I saw the pilot opening and closing the valves.
“But I didn't say anything because I was a second lieutenant and didn't have much experience. I didn't want to question anything.
“Old Max, the pilot, smiled at me, got up from his seat and said, ‘I’m gonna go back and talk to the general, so the airplane’s all yours.’ I was up in the cockpit alone. As we cruised, I looked up at the panel and noticed which valves were open. It seemed that both engines were getting fed fuel from the lower tank. After a minute or so, fortunately, the flight engineer poked his head in the cockpit. I said to him, ‘Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the valves are set up backwards.’ He looked right at it, said ‘yup’, closing the right valves, and started feeding from the fuller tank.
“After a while Old Max came back into his seat, sat down, and smiled at me again. As we’re cruising along, the smooth, rhythmic humming of the plane probably put a few passengers to sleep. We never told Max that we reversed the fuel crossing.
“And then suddenly, out of nowhere, we were shocked when both of the engines quit. The humming sound disappeared and it was quiet.
“Old Max had closed the one valve that all the fuel was going through to feed both engines. He didn’t realize that we had already reversed the crossfeed because we didn’t tell him about it. So he did what most of us would have done: he put that switch right back where we found it, and the engine came roaring back to life. We had another hour and a half until the destination and of course, nobody said anything about it for the rest of the flight.
“As the passengers were getting off the plane, I was wondering what kind of consequences I would get. But the only thing that happened was the general said, ‘You guys gotta practice your training for when you’re up there alone.’
“In that scenario, if the engines didn’t come back to life, I was going to have a pretty short career.”
For the full podcast audio, listen to “Even If You’re Sure, Double Check,” linked below and on our front page.
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