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The Marshall Family

    Emergency Landing at KALO

    George Marshall  September 13 2009 04:03:36 PM
    What I thought was going to be a normal training flight turned into anything but normal.  The flight began out of Air Lake, MN where I flew my sister-in-law's Cessna Cardinal in for her to fly back with me sitting right seat as the instructor.  The agenda for the day was to head back to Iowa for some instrument training via Mason City then Waterloo and finally end up in Vinton.    The flight there was about 1 1/2 hours with the return flight expected to be upwards of three hours with all of the side trips we were going to take.  Everything went as plan and we were off Air Lake in VFR conditions.  While enroute she received her IFR clearance with a climb out to 7000'.  That altitude took us straight into IMC conditions with near zero visibility.  We initially had our clearance to Waterloo but quickly amended that for Mason City, then Waterloo and onto Vinton.  
    While talking with Rochester Approach I noticed a very brief flicker on the newly installed comm 1 radio.  It was a new Garmin 430W installed just a week prior to the flight.  Within seconds, the 430 went black.  My initial thought was a comm failure and immediately began troubleshooting the issue as such.  Given that it was the latest component installed in the aircraft it gave me greater reason to believe it was the 430.  Within the span of about 20 seconds, the second comm radio started flickering and finally quit as well.  We began squawking 7600 to indicate a comm issue and started to troubleshoot the issue further.  However, given we had no radios our troubleshooting went from a comm failure to a full-blown electrical failure.  All non-essential equipment was shut down while looking for VFR conditions to get us out of IMC.  As luck would have it a hole appeared below us with a clear view of the fields below us and she started a circling decent down below the cloud layer.  The handheld comm radio that she had was stowed in the flight bag directly behind her.  Upon assembling it - which required putting on the anntenna and inserting batteries (which I later discovered was done incorrectly) there was no joy on the handheld - it appeared dead.   I reached for my handheld comm radio and began declaring our emergency.  Unfortunately the radio appeared very marginal when transmitting.  More than likely it was due to the fact the radio was not charged properly and it subsequently quit on us.  So far this has not been a good sign with 2 built in comms and 2 handhelds failing we were flying silently.
    As soon as we got in the VFR conditions we flew a direct heading for a field that she knew would be able to provide the needed services on the Cardinal.  Fortunately she had a battery powered Garmin on the yoke to provide guidance.  With more than 40 minutes remaining in our flight I continued to try and get any equipment to work without success.
    As we approached Waterloo we passed directly over the tower looking for light signals.  Turning midfield on a left downwind and then to base I continued to look for light signals from the tower.  On final we made one last check of everything (insuring not to attempt to deploy flaps in the event they failed and we had to go around).  Despite the lack of light signals (at least what I could see) we diligently scanned for traffic and decided to make the landing.
    The no flap landing was well executed without issues.  Upon clearing the runway and stopping at the hold short line we received the green light from tower to proceed with our taxi.  Just opposite us was an emergency response team at the ready with lights going and everything.  In addition we were told that a United flight had to be delayed due to the excitement we created while waiting for us to land.
    Overall, Becky (the pilot) did an excellent job and remained calm and collected during the event.  Some of the lessons I took out this experience wasL
    1.  If you have a comm failure, or at least what you think is a comm failure, begin to look at the bigger picture (ie. electical).
    2.  Power consumption is quick.  From the start of the first signs of a failure to total failure it was less than 5 min.
    3.  Always make sure you have a fully charged handheld comm radio.
    4.  If your going to use someone else's comm radio back sure you understand how to operate it.