FlightFollowerPilot Dials 911 After Total Electrical Failure Lands Using Only a Cell Phone
Shortly after a Piper Lance departed Dallas Love Field on 11 October 2015, the aircraft effectively disappeared from the normal communications chain. The pilot had lost electrical power, leaving him without the normal radio, transponder and electrical indications needed to coordinate a return. What followed was an unusual chain involving two tower controllers, Dallas 911 dispatchers, aircraft on the ground and a telephone connection to the cockpit. The aircraft ultimately landed safely, but only after the controllers built an improvised communication and visual-assistance system around the failed aircraft.
Accident Facts
- Date
- 11 October 2015
The aircraft disappeared from the normal system
The electrical failure removed several of the ordinary tools that make an aircraft easy for a tower to monitor. NATCA's account states that the pilot did not respond to calls to adjust his departure course and that the transponder reply was never seen. The primary radar target could still be observed, however, allowing the tower team to continue tracking the aircraft even though conventional two-way radio communication was unavailable.
The pilot's decision to use a mobile phone created the first bridge back into the air traffic system. His first 911 call was dropped. The second reached the dispatcher, who understood that the caller was an airborne pilot trying to land at Love Field and immediately contacted the tower.
A telephone became the cockpit-to-tower link
Once the dispatcher connected the pilot to the tower, Martin could speak directly with him while the aircraft remained airborne. That changed the problem from an unidentified primary radar target into an aircraft whose pilot could again receive instructions and report what he could or could not see.
The pilot had another problem created by the electrical failure: he could not determine from his cockpit indications whether the landing gear was down and locked. Martin therefore arranged a low approach so people on the airport could inspect the aircraft. The tower increased the runway lighting, while a King Air, the Dallas Stars' Boeing 757 and an airport operations vehicle were available to observe the aircraft from the ground.
Valadez also took over the other frequencies and ground traffic so that Martin could concentrate on the emergency aircraft. The response was therefore not a single controller improvising alone. It was a coordinated division of workload between controllers, airport personnel and other pilots.
The last problem was landing without normal electrical indications
Once the landing gear had been visually confirmed as extended, the pilot still had to complete the landing without normal electrical systems. NATCA reports that he performed a dead-stick landing and shut down the engine before touchdown. The aircraft was unlit, which made it difficult for the tower to see from the air, so airport personnel confirmed that the airplane had reached the ground.
The event is notable because the electrical failure did not produce a conventional forced landing immediately. The aircraft remained controllable, but almost every normal communication and indication channel had disappeared. The response therefore depended on preserving the pilot's ability to fly while progressively restoring enough information to make a landing decision.
The documented finding
“He dialed 911 from his personal cell phone in an attempt to communicate with the tower, but the call dropped.” — National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Conclusion
The successful outcome came from maintaining the basic priorities of flight while replacing failed systems one by one. The pilot kept the aircraft under control and found another way to communicate; the controllers used radar, the telephone network, runway lighting and people on the airport to reconstruct the information normally supplied by aircraft radios and instruments. The event is a useful example of how an emergency can become manageable when the people involved treat each lost capability as a separate problem rather than allowing the loss of one system to become a loss of overall control.