The Fuel Flow Fiasco

Circling in a narrow sliver of uncontrolled airspace in the midst of one of the world’s largest cities, surrounded by some of the world’s busiest airports with dwindling fuel and no way to communicate our predicament, I considered our options on Easter Sunday in 1986.

The weekend had started easily enough. Mary and I had been married only a few months when we traveled from our home in New Jersey to visit my parents in upstate New York for Easter. Normally a drive of more than two hours, it would take a lot longer with the holiday traffic, but we could do it in an hour and a half in my 1941 Taylorcraft, which I had owned for four years by that time. The weather forecast was good for both days, so the decision to fly was a no-brainer.

I had made the flight several times before and had the routine down. Departing from my home base of Miller Airport (MJX) in N.J., I’d angle northeast to the coast and follow the shoreline to the mouth of the Hudson River, dipping a wing in salute to the lady in the harbor (the Statue of Liberty) as I descended to 1,000 feet to stay below the ceiling of the “slot.” This VFR corridor was a sliver of uncontrolled airspace (now called Class G) above the river that allowed NORDO and other VFR aircraft to transit through the middle of the New York Terminal Control Area (TCA; now Class B) without talking to anybody.

This was important because, like most small planes of that vintage, the T-Craft had no electrical system, so no starter (hand prop to start) and no lights or radio. Handheld radios were starting to become available by 1986 but were expensive and didn’t play well with the plane’s unshielded ignition. Actually, a battery-powered “Harvey-Wells Beacon Receiver” and “Ranger Aircraft Transmitter” had been installed in the 1940s but were removed some years later. The obsolete radios themselves were long gone, but the antique radio faceplates were left in place covering the holes in the panel … a nice nostalgic look.

With no Air Traffic Control (ATC) distractions, it’s a beautiful scenic flight along the river; all you had to do was stay over the river and below 1,100 feet, which is below the tops of the taller skyscrapers. The corridor is still there, but nowadays it’s a “Special Flight Rules Area,” with mandatory reporting points and other rules. Then as now, it could get quite busy on a nice day; the procedure was to keep to the right and pass to the left, just like on the highway. Of course, there aren’t many forced landing options…

Exiting the corridor at the north end, I would follow the river north as far as the Tappan Zee Bridge, then angle northwest and cross over the Appalachian mountains and buzz my parents’ house in Blooming Grove, circling until Dad came out and waved. Once I knew he’d seen me, I’d proceed the final 10 miles to Orange County Airport (MGJ). Dad would arrive to pick me up around the time I was tied down and fueled if necessary. On this occasion, I didn’t take on fuel, as my 18 gallons was adequate for the round trip.

Dad showed up while I was talking to a couple of Air Force pilots. They had passed us in their UH-1 Huey as we were heading up the slot and happened to also be going to MGJ. “I don’t believe it,” one of them said. “We’re so slow, that’s the first time we’ve actually passed anybody!” The T-Craft cruises at 95 mph.

It was a nice visit. Mom cooked an early dinner on Sunday so we’d have plenty of time to make it home before sunset, then they drove us back to the airport, and Mary and I headed back the way we came.

Like many similar aircraft, the T-Craft has a 12-gallon fuselage tank feeding the engine. The optional six-gallon wing tank has a valve to let it refill the main tank when it’s half empty. With no markings on the cork-and-wire fuel gauge, to avoid overflowing it was wise to wait until the main tank was well below half; I usually waited until the wire was close to the cap, which indicated a half hour of fuel remaining. To avoid the hassle of refilling it, which required a ladder and often involved spillage, I only used the wing fuel when necessary. It was all gravity feed, and one of the plane’s quirks was that occasionally the fuel would be reluctant to start flowing from the wing tank. It was a well-known issue with the type, and when it happened, a few steep turns or otherwise thrashing the plane about would usually shake loose the air bubble or whatever it was blocking the flow.

Around the time we entered the slot, I opened the valve, and … nothing. I continued on, expecting to see the gauge wire start to rise, but it just continued to slowly drop, reaching the cap and half-hour mark around the time we passed the Empire State Building, which for many years was the world’s tallest building until briefly eclipsed by the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1971.

At this point, I was starting to get concerned. Some tight circles and violent gyrations did nothing to get the fuel flowing. Teterboro Airport was only five miles away, but it was a very busy towered field, there was a lot of low jet traffic, and I had no radio. I didn’t even consider penetrating the TCA to Newark International, which was even closer, or La Guardia. I knew of a private fish spotter’s airstrip in N.J. just south of New York Bay, but I wasn’t sure we had the fuel to reach it, and running out of fuel over the bay would put us in the cold water.

But directly below us in the town of Weehawken on the New Jersey side of the river was a heliport, surrounded by some open space, including a large empty parking lot and a long pier. A heliport should have fuel, no? The T-Craft only needs 350 feet of runway. Not knowing the condition of the pier, I set up an approach to the parking lot, only to go around when I realized it was covered with streetlamps and curbstones. The pier was unobstructed and appeared to be (and in fact was) solid concrete, so circling back and approaching from over the river, I set the plane down on the first half, taxied down to the fence on the riverbank end, and shut the engine down.

As I climbed out of the plane, I saw the fuel gauge rising; I later figured out that a slightly loose cap wouldn’t seal and, despite a forward-facing vent, low pressure over the top of the wing would create enough suction to keep the flow from starting if the line was empty. Once stopped on the ground, the pressure equalized and fuel started flowing. Bending the ears on the cap for a tighter fit permanently fixed the problem, but that revelation was in the future. What was important at the moment was that the gauge was now showing enough fuel to get home.

In the quiet after shutdown, Mary said, “There must be some really big fire or accident somewhere; listen to all those sirens!”

I said, “I’ll turn the plane around, you hold the brakes so I can prop it, and we’ll get out of here.” But the sirens were getting louder, and before I could do anything, four police cars, a few fire trucks, and a couple of ambulances came screaming up to the fence, lights flashing and sirens wailing. “It’s OK,” I said to the officers. “Nobody hurt, we just had a fuel issue. It’s fixed now, so we’ll be on our way.”

“YOU’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!” we were told. “You’ll have to wait until Mr. DeCosmis, the town director of public safety, comes here to talk to you.”

“How long will that take?” I asked. “We can’t fly after dark, so we have to leave soon.” No amount of arguing would sway them, and by the time DeCosmis arrived, pulled from his Easter dinner, it was obvious we wouldn’t be getting home that day. At first, he was insisting that the wings would have to be removed and the plane trucked out, but he finally relented and said we could fly it out if we got permission from the FAA. I told him it would be a legal flight so no permission was required, but he insisted on hearing it from them. He was actually a nice guy, just not wanting to stick his neck out, which was understandable.

One cop was particularly friendly once they realized we weren’t smuggling drugs (it was a rather ratty-looking old plane). He explained that everybody around there was a bit freaked out about airplanes in general, as only a few months before, a Falcon jet going into Teterboro had collided with a Cherokee and crashed into an apartment building less than a mile from where we stood, starting a big fire and killing all four people on the planes and one on the ground. He told us that numerous people had reported us circling and flying low before dropping out of sight behind buildings, so they all expected the worst.

Twenty-three years later, Weehawken would again be in the aviation news as the site of the “Miracle on the Hudson,” the successful ditching of US Airways Flight 1549 only a mile to the north of where we landed, when it flew into a flock of geese after departing from La Guardia. Weehawken was also the site of a famous dueling ground on the riverbank (since dueling was more tolerated in New Jersey than on the other side of the river in New York); it was here that Alexander Hamilton was shot and killed by Aaron Burr in 1804.

Politicians today no longer settle their disputes on the field of honor, though perhaps they should … but I digress. Since nothing more could be done that night, we borrowed a rope from the firemen to tie the plane down, threading the l-o-o-o-n-g rope around all three tie-down points since they asked us not to cut it. The cops then drove us to the police station to take our statement.

Since Mary’s parents happened to live in Kearny, only 10 miles from Weehawken, she called from the station and shortly thereafter her brother arrived to take us back to their house. When we got there, we took a stroll to Molly Maguire’s, a favorite local tavern, to decompress with a few drinks.

Having grown up in Kearny, Mary knew the bartender and some of the patrons. Everybody who heard our story wanted to buy us a round, so we drank a bit more than was prudent. At one point, the bartender answered the phone, started laughing, then came over to us. “That was my wife calling,” he said. “We live in Weehawken, and she said to me, ‘You’ll never believe what happened … some nuts just landed an AIRPLANE on the pier next to the heliport!’

“I told her that those nuts were now drinking at my bar, and she said, ‘You’re full of shit!'” We all laughed, and eventually we wobbled back to the house and fell asleep on the couch.

Monday was a groggy day of phone calls, starting with a call to my boss saying I wouldn’t be making it in to work that day. The local Flight Standards District Office (FSDO) said we could fly it out only if we could get a Certificated Flight Instructor (CFI) to say the pier was adequate for a takeoff, if an airframe and powerplant (A&P) mechanic verified that the plane was airworthy, and the property owner gave permission. I got them to drop the CFI requirement as the plane owner’s manual said 350 feet was needed for takeoff and the pier (which the friendly cop had measured for us with his odometer) was 900 feet long and we’d be taking off over the river, but they still insisted on the A&P and, of course, the owner’s permission.

The pier was owned by Hartz Mountain, the pet food company that is also into commercial real estate. Once I got them to understand the situation, I got the predictable, “We’ll get back to you.” That didn’t sound hopeful, but I turned to finding an A&P. I tried the heliport first, but they didn’t want to get involved. Mary’s parents’ neighbor was an A&P working for an airline, but he was at work (no cellphones back then), so we left a message.

Around midday, the Hartz Mountain people called back. “Actually,” the man said, “we’d prefer that the plane just disappeared. Why do you need our permission?”

I explained that the police wanted official permission from them, which Hartz said they could only provide if we had the same liability insurance they required of all their commercial accounts, which was $2,000,000. Today that amount would be routine, but it was a lot in 1986. My Avemco policy only went to $300,000, and they couldn’t offer that high a limit. I asked for suggestions, and they referred me to an agent who worked with Lloyd’s of London.

I called the Lloyd’s agent, who said it should be no problem and he could have it set up in a couple of hours. I called the police (who would have to unlock the gate for us) to explain the situation and was told we’d have to stop at the police station for “special instructions” before departure. We waited, and waited, for the agent to call; he was expecting a call from England “any minute.” Again we were running out of daylight, so I asked him to call the police station with the insurance verification; we would head down there now to save time.

Before we left, we heard back from the neighbor A&P; he was sympathetic but also didn’t want to get involved as he had zero light-plane experience. I decided to forget about it, as the airplane was airworthy, in annual, and the only problem (low fuel) had been obviously corrected, so I questioned the FAA’s authority to require an additional inspection.

Mary’s father drove us to the station and when we got there, we met the same friendly cop outside, who asked us, “Do you know how to get to the pier from here?”

“No, I figured we’d just follow whoever goes to unlock the gate for us,” I replied.

“Well, just in case,” he said, “turn here, and…,” giving us the directions, then he said, “Good luck,” whereupon he got into his patrol car and left.

When we went into the station, we got the news: “Your insurance agent never called, so we can’t allow you to fly out.” We never did find out what the “special instructions” were. There was no answer at the agent’s office and nothing to be gained by arguing, so we went back outside, where Mary’s father was waiting with a newspaper he’d purchased from a box outside the station, featuring a nice article about our plane.

“What next?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied, resigning myself to wasting another vacation day from work. “I guess we’ll have to deal with it tomorrow. But since we’re here, let’s stop by and check on the plane.”

When we got to the pier, there was nobody around, so I climbed over the tall fence and went to the plane. It was obvious somebody had been messing with it, as the propeller wasn’t horizontal as I always left it, both doors were ajar, and the inspection zippers in the headliner had all been torn open.

I walked back to the fence where Mary and her father were waiting. “Screw it,” I said. “I don’t know if it was the cops searching the plane for drugs or neighborhood punks, but I’m not leaving it here another night; this is a bad neighborhood. I’m flying home.”

Mary asked her father, “Dad, will you give me a ride home tomorrow?”

He said, “NO. Your place is with your husband,” so over the fence she too went. I hurriedly untied the plane (with a touch of guilt for cutting the fire department’s long rope rather than taking the time to pull the whole length all the way through). A quick preflight and we were off, with Mary’s father taking pictures with her camera that she’d left with him.

The flight home was uneventful, and we landed right at sunset, or close to it. And that was the end of it … or so we hoped. A month or so later I got the dreaded certified letter from the FAA: “Personnel of this office are investigating an incident …” There was a list of alleged violations: That I flew after sunset with no lights, I flew the plane without having it inspected by an A&P as requested, I flew the plane without permission from the property owner, and of course the proverbial cherry on top, “careless or reckless operation.”

Technically, the takeoff didn’t violate federal regulations but was illegal under New Jersey law, which prohibited aircraft operations anywhere but from a state-licensed airport. However, the director of public safety told me on the phone a few days later that they wouldn’t pursue the matter if I promised to never land there again. I assured him I had no intention of doing so, and shortly afterward the helicopter company moved to Teterboro and construction started on a luxury apartment complex covering the pier.

I composed a careful reply to the FAA, admitting making the flight, of course, but insisting that I’d landed before sunset (with a letter from my father-in-law attesting to how I was very careful to make sure I could complete the flight before dark), that no A&P inspection was required as mentioned above, that flying without the property owner’s permission might be trespassing or against state law but violated no FARs, and that I was flying safely, certainly not “careless or reckless.” A few months later I got another letter: “This is to inform you that our investigation has not revealed a violation of Federal Aviation Regulations, and you may consider the matter closed.”