Catching the Third Wire
By M.L. Williams re-printed by permission from PRIVATE PILOT December 1998 edition.
MIKE WARREN knows what W.C. Fields meant. He knew he was in trouble a few feet above touching down on the Boeing Field runway. His Cessna 150 hit a pocket of wake turbulence that was sitting on the strip on that dead calm morning. It was 5:45 a.m. dark and clear, and he had just flown his 15-minute commute from Silverdale, Washington.
The Cessna abruptly pulled up into a left bank, a rollover at ground level. Warren now holds the vertical standing record for the Cessna 150, has 3000 hours of flight time, holds commercial, instrument and flight instructor ratings, and has 1500 hours logged in this aircraft---an extremely experienced pilot facing cartwheeling down the runway.
This ma, a crane operator who can't remember not loving aviation, knew he was in trouble. But, he was taught to fly the plane and he just kept trying to fly it. He immediately went to full throttle, nose over and ended up perpendicular to the runway. His decision was to go with that. The tower was in his way on the other side, and to turn would limit his altitude and airspeed. He went with it.
"You want to go left? OK, today we'll go left," he thought.
No stranger to Boeing Field, he knew power lines were out there. When the 60-foot-high lines came into view, he made the decision to try to get over them, rather than under, and to try to get every ounce of altitude possible. "Damn; no retractable gear."
In the darkness, with security almost in sight, the calm, methodical 17-year pilot felt the landing gear catch, as though on a bungee cord, and he was pulled back.
With, "OK; this is it," in his heart and sweaty palms, but still thinking he could fly out of it---amid fireballs and sparks---he watched the nose of the still running aircraft slice through the wires, head toward the ground and then stop. Hanging upside-down 60 feet up, rocking slowly back and forth, he was suddenly just a passenger waiting for the sunrise.
"Like four hours of negative G's" he said later.
Two hours into the drama, Tom Cathcart, of Seattle's Museum of Flight, was landing a Boeing Field, which was open to small craft. He saw the plane up in the wires and thought, "Oh, some student pilot." When he found out that it was his buddy Warren, he called and left the message: "Stop hanging around my airport!" However, he now asks, "Did he log the whole four hours?"
The local traffic helicopter covered the four hours of suspense on live television. It has been reported that the company offered him a job, since it is always looking for someone who can hover for four hours. And his Canadian pal sent him a bill for the hours his employees wouldn't work because they were all glued to the TV coverage.
And there Mike Warren was, a bird on a wire, hanging 60 feet in the sky, occasionally swaying slightly in the breeze, appearing live on Northwest television and thinking, "Gee, Mr. Wizard! Get me out of here!"
His first move was to turn off everything in the plane. He then turned one radio back on and announced, "Boeing Tower, Cessna three-nine-alpha-alpha; we have a situation here." The tower responded, "Three-nine-alpha-alpha, we see you. You're hanging from one wheel."
Another controller came on. "You're hanging by your wheel. Try to remain as still as possible." Mike responded, "I'm not planning on doing any jumping jacks."
Forty-seven year old Warren is no newcomer to brushes with danger involving wires. At the Airshow Pub and Grill in Bremerton, Washington, near a picture of "Pappy" Boyington and above a Rolls-Royce Merlin V1650 with a sign that reads, "Do Not Start," is a picture of local hero Warren, rescuing wing-walker Lee Oman at the Rose Festival Airshow in Hillsboro, Oregon.
Oman, a stranger to Warren in that 1991 incident, had slipped from his perch on the biplane and was dangling by a wire underneath it. Airshow Pub owner Bill Ammirata and Warren got in the bed of a pickup, matched the 70-mph speed of the biplane, grabbed Oman and cut him loose. Oman and Warren have been friends ever since, are now roommates and call themselves the Wire-Brothers.
His time suspended above the field was uncomfortable but better than the alternative. The seat belt dug into his 150-pound frame and made his legs numb. He tried to move, slowly, to relieve the pressure and pressed his hands into the headliner to lessen the weight on the belt. Firemen and power company personnel scurried around his plane. The Cessna was leaking fuel, so a thick blanket of foam was sprayed. "We don't get planes hanging from power lines too often," understated the Seattle fire chief.
Cranes arrived to secure the plane and a cherry picker was poised to rescue the pilot, but everyone would have to wait for the power company to make sure it was safe. This took three hours.
Warren understood that everyone wanted to make sure the power was off; so did he. After almost four hours of this inverted flight drill, he at last climbed into the cherry picker and said to the firemen, "Do you guys take Visa?" and the Cessna was lowered down by its propeller.
He was back flying the next day. He flew his Bonanza to Boeing Field to inspect the Cessna. It was virtually scratch free. He missed what would have been his last day working as a crane operator. His plan was and still is, to go on the airshow circuit with Oman. They typify grassroots aviation, live on a private airfield and are building an R1 Gee Bee from original drawings.
He thinks he might have been better off cartwheeling down the runway, maybe not; he had fuel. He doesn't know what the FAA will decide, but he has a new respect for small craft wingtip vortices. "It doesn't take a 757 to ruin your whole day."
As of April 1999, Mike has the C150 in little pieces all over his hanger. He is checking carefully for any hidden damage and making repairs as needed. Mike says that by the time he gets finnished with this aircraft, it will be in like new condition. Mike plans on installing new windows, interior, and a custom paint job.