Suppose I lost my engine within gliding distance to Area 51

Shawn said:
This.

Declaring an emergency only exempts a pilot from violations of the FARs…not any other law or regulation…like being shot down and disappearing the face of the earth and any know existence of your being…good luck.
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The "of this part" provision has always made me wonder about how some things play out in real life. I admit to not having even attempted to research this, but for example, you are not night current and have passengers on board. You are planning to land a little after sunset (but legal so far). You enter the pattern and the gear won't come down. You declare an emergency, and by the time you run through all the troubleshooting, now it's more than an hour past sunset. You land.

Or, you have some scenario (fire maybe) that mandates you to land ASAP. But the nearest airport is IMC and you're not IFR current.

Or you're with another pilot. That pilot is flying and is current, but your flight review is expired. That pilot has some medical issue and you have to take over and land.

All of these involve emergency situations, but also involve violations of Part 61, which is not included in the emergency authority.

Now, certainly in all cases you do what you do to get down safely and worry about the rest later. And also certainly, typically no enforcement action would likely occur for these and similar situations.

But I'd be interested to hear if anyone knows of similar situations where there was an emergency but the pilot was violated for some other part of the FARs.
 
RussR said:
But I'd be interested to hear if anyone knows of situations where there was an emergency but the pilot was violated for some other part of the FARs.
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Back when I got my CFI renewed by attending seminars, and weather briefings were only done by contacting Flight Service, the Instructor told the class about 2 pilots that had gotten a weather brief for a cross country and near their destination declared an emergency and landed because they had flown into IMC while on a VFR flight plan and weren't IFR rated. Pilot A didn't get violated because IMC conditions had not been in the forcast and the FAA determined his actions were unintentional. Pilot B did get violated because IMC was in the forcast and he had been briefed on it so the FAA determined that his actions were intentional. What I took from that is that you can violate any FAR by declaring an emergency if it is needed for the safer=ty of the flight as long as it wasn't planned on ahead of time.
 
RussR said:
The "of this part" provision has always made me wonder about how some things play out in real life. I admit to not having even attempted to research this, but for example, you are not night current and have passengers on board. You are planning to land a little after sunset (but legal so far). You enter the pattern and the gear won't come down. You declare an emergency, and by the time you run through all the troubleshooting, now it's more than an hour past sunset. You land.

Or, you have some scenario (fire maybe) that mandates you to land ASAP. But the nearest airport is IMC and you're not IFR current.

Or you're with another pilot. That pilot is flying and is current, but your flight review is expired. That pilot has some medical issue and you have to take over and land.

All of these involve emergency situations, but also involve violations of Part 61, which is not included in the emergency authority.

Now, certainly in all cases you do what you do to get down safely and worry about the rest later. And also certainly, typically no enforcement action would likely occur for these and similar situations.

But I'd be interested to hear if anyone knows of similar situations where there was an emergency but the pilot was violated for some other part of the FARs.
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I suspect the bigger part would be, did the pilot willfully put himself in that emergency. Back when I was flying VFR charter for my dad, there was a part 135 reg that said something to the effect that you can’t fly VFR over the top of a ceiling that you’d have to descend through in IMC in the event of an engine failure. He’d tell me, “it’s clear here, it’s clear at your destination. Just go over the top.”

I’d argue that the reg says I can’t do that. He’d reply that an engine failure is an emergency, so it doesn’t matter.

We never resolved that particular argument, but over the years I learned to read regs to counter employers like that.
 
I remember my first trip to Area 51 (I think it was Area 51 but they did give me something to drink when I got to wherever I arrived).

Cheers
 
Heard, not confirmed, a F-105 pilot had an issue and made an emergency landing there; either the tower or another controlling agency told him he couldn't. His response was along the lines of "I'm not asking permission, I'm telling you what I'm gonna do." FYI, a F-105 was a single engine fighter, so if his issue was power related he didn't have much choice. I was an avionics guy (Doppler) on 105s when I heard the story, sometime in the 70s, I think? My impression was they were annoyed, but brought in whatever they needed to fix the aircraft and that was that.
 
Sundancer said:
Heard, not confirmed, a F-105 pilot had an issue and made an emergency landing there; either the tower or another controlling agency told him he couldn't. His response was along the lines of "I'm not asking permission, I'm telling you what I'm gonna do." FYI, a F-105 was a single engine fighter, so if his issue was power related he didn't have much choice. I was an avionics guy (Doppler) on 105s when I heard the story, sometime in the 70s, I think? My impression was they were annoyed, but brought in whatever they needed to fix the aircraft and that was that.
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Yeah, but that's a .mil dude. They are probably granted more leeway on landing on military bases than us non-mil.
 
If you do it, make sure to post all the pictures on your Discord channel. No one will see them there, it'll all be secret.
 
UngaWunga said:
If you do it, make sure to post all the pictures on your Discord channel. No one will see them there, it'll all be secret.
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No, no, no. It's Twitter that's encrypted.
 
Tell them you have a passenger on board who is in need of immediate medical attention. Would have to be the closest option though.
 
Sinistar said:
Tell them you have a passenger on board who is in need of immediate medical attention. Would have to be the closest option though.
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He’d have to provide someone in need of medical attention when he landed…getting more and more premeditated all the time.
 
MauleSkinner said:
He’d have to provide someone in need of medical attention when he landed…
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That's a service they might be able to provide once he's on the ground.

Like all good party stories, this one ends with, "Officer, the cuffs are hurting me."

Nauga,
H/T to Dave Attell
 
EdFred said:
Yeah, but that's a .mil dude. They are probably granted more leeway on landing on military bases than us non-mil.
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I’ve asked a couple military pilots questions along similar lines. One in particular stated “first, we don’t get that close to it, and second, no, I wouldn’t land there. I’d eject before I attempted to land there.”
 
Other than being granted access to fly in the airspace (i.e. "Area 51" or "the box" or "the container" or R-4808N or the giant red box on the moving map) for whatever reason, even as a mil aviator, the general guidance was "if both engines are on fire, you won't go there". Whether or not that is true in practice is probably the thing of tall tales. Also, there is Tonapah test very close (where you'd still get a hard time) and Nellis if you aren't way up in the northeast corner of the NTTR. I can tell you it wouldn't be an enjoyable experience.
 
Sundancer said:
Heard, not confirmed, a F-105 pilot had an issue and made an emergency landing there; either the tower or another controlling agency told him he couldn't. His response was along the lines of "I'm not asking permission, I'm telling you what I'm gonna do." FYI, a F-105 was a single engine fighter, so if his issue was power related he didn't have much choice. I was an avionics guy (Doppler) on 105s when I heard the story, sometime in the 70s, I think? My impression was they were annoyed, but brought in whatever they needed to fix the aircraft and that was that.
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I seem to recall reading something along those lines a long time ago. I don't recall all the details, something like: Someone was researching Red Flag exercises conducted back in the day (60s/70s). They were going through publicly available data, taking notes, etc. Not sure if it was part of a book they were doing, or what. They came across one sortie where they aircraft launched out of Nellis, had some kind of malfunction, and "diverted to Hill AFB." Aircraft was repaired, and flew back to Nellis.

If you're familiar with the geography of the Western US at all, you'd realize that, even if you're in the far corners of the Nellis range, it wouldn't make sense to divert to Hill AFB. Hill is still ~400 miles away from the closest corners of the Nellis range. After some research, the researcher deduced that "diverted to Hill AFB" was a thin cover story for "Diverted to Area 51."

Either way, obviously different scenarios if a military pilot diverts in there vs civilian. These days with modern navigation equipment, I assume it would be a lot easier to find your way to another field (Tonopah, Alamo, etc). Incidentally, according to Wikipedia, Alamo Landing Field is the "closest public use airfield" to Groom Lake (looks to be about ~70 miles or so).
 
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Hi,

SixPapaCharlie said:
When one declares an emergency, I understand they are free to do all sorts of crazy ****.
Suppose I declare an emergency and decide Groom Lake is the best place to set my plane down.

They gonna use me for target practice or be like "Awe man! You got us." and show me the aliens when I land?

I would guess it would be more disaster and less Mentos commercial but what do you think?
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If it's a fake emergency you will be alien-food. If it's a real emergency... you might end up being declared an alien and kept there (blue pill or red pill will be a valid question at that point).

Tobias
 
I’ve dropped a wingman (who was flying a substandard single engine jet) off there on the RTB from either flag or WIC ME-phase. It wasn’t that big of a deal to be honest. He got his jet fixed and was back the next day. Some guys met me at my jet at Nellis and took my media. It’s an option for mil guys most days - they brief us when it’s a punch-out-before-thinking-about-it day but those were rare the last 5 years before I hung up the spurs.
 
With all the hype about the restricted areas on the ground and airspace above being to hide some other worldly technologies, I have a hypothetical question/idea. If I’m not mistake for decades there were nuclear bomb tests in the desert north west of Vegas (civilians used to be able to take a bus from Vegas to a distant view point and sit in bleachers to watch…). If I’m not mistaken there were over 900 nuclear bombs detonated over the years in the Nevada testing grounds, if so the possibility of long half life radioactive fallout being in “elevated” levels in the area is certainly not zero. How “hot” it is there would be matter of speculation, but Chernobyl is still a restricted area after one meltdown… I put forth the hypothesis that the area is restricted because of dangerous levels of radiation, the social hype of “aliens” or supper advanced black ops government instillations, etc would actually benefit any real secret projects elsewhere if they existed by serving as a distraction. So rather than just saying “don’t go there the radiation will get you” it’s better to just keep playing the top secret restricted area card..?
 
Flatiowa said:
With all the hype about the restricted areas on the ground and airspace above being to hide some other worldly technologies, I have a hypothetical question/idea. If I’m not mistake for decades there were nuclear bomb tests in the desert north west of Vegas (civilians used to be able to take a bus from Vegas to a distant view point and sit in bleachers to watch…). If I’m not mistaken there were over 900 nuclear bombs detonated over the years in the Nevada testing grounds, if so the possibility of long half life radioactive fallout being in “elevated” levels in the area is certainly not zero. How “hot” it is there would be matter of speculation, but Chernobyl is still a restricted area after one meltdown… I put forth the hypothesis that the area is restricted because of dangerous levels of radiation, the social hype of “aliens” or supper advanced black ops government instillations, etc would actually benefit any real secret projects elsewhere if they existed by serving as a distraction. So rather than just saying “don’t go there the radiation will get you” it’s better to just keep playing the top secret restricted area card..?
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Then why are there ground patrols and Janet that takes people in and out of there?
 
Idk, but are the ground patrols on the perimeter and Janet flights just to one airbase on the edge of the restricted zone? Just putting forth a hair brained thought..
 
Flatiowa said:
Idk, but are the ground patrols on the perimeter and Janet flights just to one airbase on the edge of the restricted zone? Just putting forth a hair brained thought..
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The R-zone is to keep people away from test flights, or test missiles, or any other number of reasons. There' R-areas all over the US for various reasons. One near me is a munitions range. Don't need an 80mm shell going through my wing/fuselage.
 
Flatiowa said:
With all the hype about the restricted areas on the ground and airspace above being to hide some other worldly technologies, I have a hypothetical question/idea. If I’m not mistake for decades there were nuclear bomb tests in the desert north west of Vegas (civilians used to be able to take a bus from Vegas to a distant view point and sit in bleachers to watch…). If I’m not mistaken there were over 900 nuclear bombs detonated over the years in the Nevada testing grounds, if so the possibility of long half life radioactive fallout being in “elevated” levels in the area is certainly not zero. How “hot” it is there would be matter of speculation, but Chernobyl is still a restricted area after one meltdown… I put forth the hypothesis that the area is restricted because of dangerous levels of radiation, the social hype of “aliens” or supper advanced black ops government instillations, etc would actually benefit any real secret projects elsewhere if they existed by serving as a distraction. So rather than just saying “don’t go there the radiation will get you” it’s better to just keep playing the top secret restricted area card..?
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I suspect that while important research is carried out at Area 51, the most sensitive research and development is carried out at places other than highly televised and highly staffed installations (e.g. Skunkworks, Sandia, etc...) I wouldn't be at all surprised if the hype is deliberate in order to keep focus off of other more important facilities.

Now if I disappear off the face of the earth and you never hear from me on POA again, you will know that I just gave up an important secret.
 
Think of it from a public relations perspective, the public perceptions are an area of extremely advanced research, but it may in fact be simply an area that is a post apocalyptic esc radioactive hell scape caused by close to a thousand nuclear bombs being detonated there, that would be very negative to one’s health to go camping there. If the public perception is “A” why admit it is “B”? Especially if it distracts from actual “A’s”? Idk I’m just an uneducated hillbilly deducing from publicly available info, but even without patrols on the perimeter, consequences of being found inside it, ect, you couldn’t pay me enough to take my family camping for a week there. I think it’s still “hot”.
 
remember folks, keep a tidy well painted house…
 
Flatiowa said:
If the public perception is “A” why admit it is “B”? Especially if it distracts from actual “A’s”?
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Correct, Except the actual "A" is the UFO base inside our hollow earth with the entrance at the north pole that was originally discovered by the Nazis.
Also, as I'm sure you know, the so called "Apollo Program" with all the photos taken on a sound stage was just a coverup for the use of the UFO technology to actually visit the moon.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
and show me the aliens when I land?
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They'll probably want some credentials...

Drink a lot of Red Bull or Monster Energy Drink, this will make you pee green.. ask for a cup, do the deed, show it to them, and you're in..
 
fasteddie said:
I seem to recall reading something along those lines a long time ago. I don't recall all the details, something like: Someone was researching Red Flag exercises conducted back in the day (60s/70s). They were going through publicly available data, taking notes, etc. Not sure if it was part of a book they were doing, or what. They came across one sortie where they aircraft launched out of Nellis, had some kind of malfunction, and "diverted to Hill AFB." Aircraft was repaired, and flew back to Nellis.

If you're familiar with the geography of the Western US at all, you'd realize that, even if you're in the far corners of the Nellis range, it wouldn't make sense to divert to Hill AFB. Hill is still ~400 miles away from the closest corners of the Nellis range. After some research, the researcher deduced that "diverted to Hill AFB" was a thin cover story for "Diverted to Area 51."

Either way, obviously different scenarios if a military pilot diverts in there vs civilian. These days with modern navigation equipment, I assume it would be a lot easier to find your way to another field (Tonopah, Alamo, etc). Incidentally, according to Wikipedia, Alamo Landing Field is the "closest public use airfield" to Groom Lake (looks to be about ~70 miles or so).
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If it really is 70 miles then a glider with a broken gps seems more likely to get there than usual ga plane
 
I have a friend who flew right on the edge of the restricted area and took pictures of Area 51 with a big zoom lens and posted them on the internet.

He was contacted by a 3 letter agency which he promptly told to pound sand, since he wasn’t doing anything illegal.

He is much braver than I. I just checked, 3 years later they’re still up.
 
Go straight for S4 hangers
 
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