My Patrol Squadron SIXTEEN aircrew was in a military airfield located in central Venezuela doing UNITAS training with the Venezuelan Air Force. We were nearing the end of a very enjoyable period of cross deck training and indoctrination with Venezuelan Navy officers. They had graciously put us up in a very nice hotel (perhaps the only hotel within 50 miles!) located in a lush tropical area near the south central part of the country near the Venezuelan military air base.
We were having breakfast at the hotel on our day of departure and as I was enjoying my huevos and bacon breakfast, I noticed my pilot in command discussing some procedures with a Venezuelan Air Force officer at an adjacent table. My PPC (chief pilot) was making some notes as he listened to the Venezuelan Lieutenant.
Having finished our breakfast, we were walking out to our Lockheed P-3C aircraft with our luggage and flight gear in the already hot and humid tropical morning. I remarked, “I noticed you were making some notes at breakfast during your conversation with the Venezuelan officer.” Hereplied that he had been taking notes on the departure procedure for leaving our tropical airfield flying back to our home plate in Jacksonville FL. I recalled from our arrival, that we had a rather unusual and exciting rapid spiraling descent (1500 FPM) through the clouds down to the airfield with flaps and landing gear down from an altitude of 7 or 8000 feet.
It was a most unusual arrival, but the arrival procedures and airfield navaids were somewhat primitive and the weather conditions could be challenging in this area just east of the Andes mountains. In this part part of Venezuela the jagged Andes ascended to an elevation close to 10,000 feet, and were often obscured by clouds (“cumulus granite”). It was already beginning to get cloudy that morning and very humid, and I suspected that the departure would probably be as interesting and challenging as our arrival had been.
I asked what the departure looked like and the PPC showed me his notes on a cocktail napkin. Somewhat taken aback, I said, “Don’t they have a printed copy of some formal procedure or something?” He replied, “No, it’s fairly simple – basically a time and distance procedure.” I thought to myself, hmm… I guess I’ll pay a bit closer attention to my inertial navigation tracking system during the departure until we get to the coastline of Venezuela.
Our P-3 was packed and we were ready for takeoff following a short planeside brief. This wasn’t a tactical mission, so as both the tactical coordinator and navigator for this flight, I would be simply monitoring the departure from a safety standpoint.
Soon after liftoff we entered the clouds and the morning sun cast a warm orange and yellow hue in the sky around us. We headed west in the direction of the Andes mountains, and I tracked our progress on my navigation terrain chart using both inertial systems.
After about 10 or 12 minutes of flying on instruments in a westerly direction we were at an altitude of about 6000 feet. The Andes mountain range was obscured by the clouds (we were in solid IFR conditions with no forward visibility). The Andes were getting closer and at that point I plotted our position at approximately 3 miles from the mountains at an air speed of approximately 180 knots, still headed in a westerly direction. Not good!
I jumped out of my navigator station seat into the cockpit and yelled out with a loud voice, “Turn right NOW!” Fortunately, the flight crew was programmed to respond instantaneously to such a command and they hard banked the plane to the right and north. As they did so the left side of the aircraft became unusually and ominously dark.
Once we stabilized on a northerly heading, we continued our climb and broke out into bright blue sky within just a few minutes. Both pilots turned around and looked at me with expressions which translated into “What in the world was that all about?” I responded, “Do you realize that we were only two or three miles from the mountains and closing?!” They silently looked back at each other and nothing more was said for a few minutes. I suggested we’d talk about it when we landed. The rest of the flight was uneventful.
After landing we huddled and I conveyed to the pilots that, according to my tracking the aircraft was approximately two miles west of the mountain slope when I asked them to turn to the north. We were headed directly toward the mountain.
“What was going on?” My PPC said that the Venezuelan officer had given him a time – distance calculation for his simplified departure and turn to the north, but unbeknownst to him the units were in metric and not English. Or vice versa. Perhaps a misplaced decimal point. Darned damp cocktail napkins!
In retrospect, contemplating the event, many things came to mind. For example, what if I had just been a contented passenger reading the newspaper on the way back? Those pilots were excellent and highly respected. A lot of “what ifs.” It brought to mind an early Mars planet lander mission which apparently smacked into the surface of Mars and was destroyed due to a metric versus English system conversion error.
Lesson learned – As part of a flight crew, or any team, don’t be shy, “If in doubt, shout it out!” My young flight crew was superb, one of the best tactical VP ASW crews I had ever known. But seemingly simple little mistakes, or misunderstandings, or assumptions, can kill you, especially when you’re flying along in the goo at 180 knots with no visibility. I will never forget how the cloud cocoon we were encased within turned dark and then brightened as we turned away from the mountains. I estimate we were a mile or less from impact.
Sea and Air Stories 