18.4 Survival Gear, ELT, and Forced-Landing Considerations

ACS PA.IX.D (emergency equipment and survival gear) is the after-the-glide chapter. Chapter 4 already taught that 91.207 puts an ELT on a U.S.-registered civil airplane unless an exception such as training entirely within 50 NM of the airport where that local flight began applies. This section is how the beacon works, how you test it, and what you do in the field after the engine has already been a 18.3 problem.

ELT — 91.207 hardware, AIM 6-2-4 testing

An ELT is a crash-activated beacon. Automatic types are mounted as far aft as practicable so a nose-first stop is less likely to crush them. They must be attached so crash damage is minimized. After June 21, 1995, TSO-C91 units may not be used for new installations; surviving older installations are a maintenance question, not a reason to skip the inspection.

Frequencies: analog 121.5 MHz and 243.0 MHz, and digital 406 MHz. Analog units warble a downward-swept tone. 406 MHz units send a coded burst satellites can read — owner or aircraft data, and on later models a position. FCC and TSO-C126 want each 406 beacon registered with NOAA. A 406 ELT also transmits a low-power 121.5 homing signal for the last mile of a search. Cospas-Sarsat stopped satellite monitoring of 121.5 and 243.0 on February 1, 2009. A 121.5-only airplane is legal under 91.207 but will be heard only if another aircraft or a nearby facility is listening on guard. SAR responds to 406 alerts in minutes and often calls the registered owner first; 121.5 alerts wait for an overdue aircraft or a confirming report. AIM encourages the 406 upgrade and a personal 406 locator if the airplane is still analog. Know how to arm, manually activate, and verify the unit in this airframe.

91.207(c) battery: replace or recharge when the transmitter has been used more than 1 cumulative hour, or when 50 percent of useful life (or of charge life, if rechargeable) has expired. Mark the new date on the transmitter and in the maintenance record. 91.207(d) inspection — within 12 calendar months — is not the same event as the battery: proper installation, battery corrosion, operation of the controls and crash sensor, and a sufficient signal from the antenna. Temporary removal under 91.207(f)(10) needs a logbook entry, a placard in view of the pilot that says “ELT not installed,” and a 90-day cap.

AIM 6-2-4 testing is the item PAR writes almost verbatim:

A live 406 transmission is a real SAR event. Do not “just click it” at 20 minutes past the hour to see if the warble is healthy. After landing, tune 121.5 briefly in the legal window if you need to confirm the unit is not singing from a hard arrival; then ARM it again.

Forced landing — pick the field, then survive the stop

AFH types: forced (engine or systems gone), precautionary (you still have choices), and ditching. The 18.3 A-B-C-D sequence gets you to the field. Field selection is the B that decides whether C and D matter.

Choose, in the order you can actually see them: size (longer is more forgiveness), surface (firm sod or a road beats boulders, then trees, then water if you are not equipped to ditch), slope and wind (into the wind, upslope if you must pick one), obstacles on final and in the rollout (wires are nearly invisible), and nearby help (a farmhouse, a road, a town) once the airplane will actually stop in the field. A short smooth pasture next to a highway can beat a huge plowed bog. Do not throw away a reachable field to stretch toward a distant paved runway you will not make. That stretch is macho, not ADM.

When landing is assured: secure per the AFM — typically fuel selector off, mixture idle cutoff, magnetos off, belts tight, and master off after you have the flaps and the last radio call you are going to get. Crack or unlatch the doors so a wrinkled fuselage cannot trap you. Set the ELT to ON if you have any doubt the G-switch will fire. Touch down as slowly as control allows, wings level, under control. After the stop: fire first (get people out if it is burning), then ELT on and verified, then signaling. Unless fire, rising water, or a slope is pushing the wreck, stay with the airplane. A high-wing 172 is a bigger search target than four people walking into trees.

Survival gear — climate, not a 91.509 raft fantasy

Pack for the route and the season, not for a catalog. Minimum judgment kit for a PAR trainer: water, a way to signal (mirror, whistle, bright panel, flashlight), clothing that will still work after the cabin heat dies, and a means to start a fire if the climate requires it. Mountains add layers, shelter, and more water than you think. Overwater and remote legs add flotation you can actually don, and a 406 personal locator if the airframe ELT is analog or might be torn away. Know what is already in the airplane — many schools carry a fire extinguisher and a small first-aid kit as policy. That is not the same as a regulation.

Do not apply 91.509 to a Cessna 172. 91.509 lives in Part 91 Subpart F. 91.501 limits that subpart to large U.S.-registered airplanes, turbojet-powered multiengine civil airplanes, and fractional-ownership program aircraft. The 50 NM life-preserver rule and the 100 NM / 30-minute life-raft, pyrotechnic, portable radio, lifeline, and survival-kit list are those airplanes’ rules. A normal-category 172 on a Part 91 personal or training flight does not become illegal because it lacks a 91.509 raft. The small-airplane overwater rule that does sometimes apply is 91.205(b)(12): if the airplane is operated for hire over water beyond power-off gliding distance from shore, approved flotation for each occupant and (except Part 121) at least one pyrotechnic signaling device. A not-for-hire training hop around a lake is still a judgment problem, not a 91.509 shopping list. What 91.207 does require on that 172, unless an (f) exception applies, is the ELT.

Scenario: Elena, a pasture, and the “required” raft

Elena’s engine seizes over mixed woods and fields 15 miles from the airport. She puts the nose on best glide, picks the longest firm pasture she can reach into the wind, with a road along one fence, and gives up a paved runway she will not make. She secures the engine, unlatches the doors, briefs the passenger, and lands under control. After shutdown she sets the ELT to ON and stays with the wreck. Her 172 has a 406 ELT registered to the school and a winter blanket in the baggage bay. It does not have a 91.509 life raft, and it does not need one for this land crossing. If the same airplane were a Subpart F turbojet 80 NM offshore, 91.509 would already have required the raft before takeoff. Different airplane, different subpart. The PAR answer is the field, the ELT, and the kit that matches the climate — not a raft regulation that does not attach to the trainer.

Ballistic parachutes and emergency auto-land systems

FAA-S-ACS-6C added two knowledge elements that did not exist in earlier standards, and both are fair game: PA.IX.D.K4, when to deploy a ballistic parachute and the associated passenger briefings, and PA.IX.D.K5, when to activate an emergency auto-land system and brief passengers — in each case, if equipped.

Whole-airframe ballistic parachutes are rocket-deployed canopies that lower the entire airplane. The AFM for the specific airplane is the authority, but the scenarios the manufacturers identify are consistent: structural failure, loss of control the pilot cannot recover, midair collision, engine failure over terrain where no survivable landing site exists — including hostile terrain, water, or night with no visible options — and pilot incapacitation where a passenger must act. Each system has a minimum deployment altitude and a maximum deployment speed in the AFM; below the altitude or above the speed the system may not fully deploy.

The decision that matters is early. A parachute deployed at 500 feet in a spiral may not open in time, and the recurring accident finding is not that the system failed but that it was activated too late or not at all.

Emergency auto-land systems in newer airframes will, on a single activation by a passenger or pilot, take control of the airplane, select a suitable airport, navigate to it, communicate the emergency to ATC, and land and stop the airplane without further input. They exist for pilot incapacitation.

Both systems drive the same passenger briefing obligation. If the airplane has one, the briefing has to cover where the handle or button is, how to operate it, and under what circumstances to use it — because the person who will need it is, by definition, the one who cannot ask you how it works. That briefing is part of flight deck management (Section 19.2), not an afterthought.