I published this in Alaska Pilot several years ago and I have some more if you would like.

All Alone (And scared to death)
By Shane Horton

Sitting around the hanger at most any airport you will hear stories. Some silly, some frightening, and some serious, but the stories you hear the most are about one thing.

There are lots of stories around about terrible things that happened on first solo flights or first cross country flights, but I have one that may beat them all.

I was a student pilot taking lessons at Hillsboro Airport, just out of Portland Ore. I had progressed well enough through the basic program with only a few problems, nothing out of the ordinary, right up till I took my big solo cross-country flight, then things got real fun.

By late spring of 1980 I had just a couple of weeks left before my two-year limit on the written test ran out. I was also moving out of the Portland area soon so I had to finish up with no mistakes.

On the morning of May 18, I was scheduled for a flight from Hillsboro to Yakima Washington, then to Redmond Oregon and back to Hillsboro.

Everything started OK. I pre-flighted the blue Tomahawk, my favorite, and loaded up. After getting airborne I started up the Columbia River gorge. My first problem came when I found the overcast level dropping and the top of the cliffs on each side getting higher. I was pretty sure that my “big” flight was going to be a bust. Soon another plane went past me going in the same direction and he reported that the gorge ended just before the overcast got too low, Problem gone.

I continued on to Yakima, met all my checkpoints, handled the radio properly and everything! I landed then wandered around for a while looking for someone to sign my logbook, then off to Redmond.

No problems on this leg at all, man I thought I had this pilot stuff wired. After landing I got some lunch and a little gas then launched for home. This leg would be more interesting. Take a look at a sectional and you will see that there are some pretty darn big mountains in this area.
My line of flight put me right next to Mt. Jefferson at 10,497 ft.

I left Redmond right behind a 152 and my Tomahawk just ate him up. All went well until the big rock in the windshield got bigger faster than I was getting higher. I ended up making a big climbing circle to get enough altitude to get over the ridge of the smaller mountains.

Soon I was cruising along at 10,200 ft. in calm air with unlimited visibility in all directions except down. I could see the tops of about six great big peaks sticking out of the clouds like chocolate chips poking out of marshmallow cream. My instructors words rang in my head, “never, never, ever fly over the clouds”.

A couple of calls to Portland weather watch assured me that it was OK to continue since the clouds were only localized and I would soon be in the clear.

[imgwrap=left]http://www.backcountrypilot.org/gallery/albums/userpics/10003/mount_sthelens_eruption400.jpg[/imgwrap]Have any of you figured out what might have made this a really scary flight? The date, the location? Well, the first indication that things were about to get bad was a panic-stricken voice on the radio screaming gibberish about a bomb going off, then something about a mountain blowing up.

I looked around and saw what looked like a nuclear blast! A large peak just seventy miles away in the crystal clear air had just exploded! Wow! Huge chunks of rock, bigger than a house were tumbling over and over as they flew thousands of feet into the air. A gigantic mushroom cloud towered twenty, thirty thousand feet high. I was awe struck.

Seconds later I heard another voice screaming over the radio saying words that the FCC definitely does not approve of. He settled down a little and said “Any plane out there, for God’s sake watch out for the shock wave. It just hit me and rolled me clear over!”

I wasn’t real sure just what to do, I was scared silly. The radio was a continuous clamor of frightened voices and stepped on calls.

I wasn’t the least bit sure what to do but I figured it should be like a boat hitting a big wave, slow down and point straight into it. The only problem was that a shock wave is much faster and totally invisible. I had just barely made a turn and pulled the throttle back when it hit. Holy shit! Severe shaking and buffeting, the airspeed needle pegged solid way past the red arc then bounced all around, dust flew around the cockpit and the yoke hummed in my hands, wild but it was over in a second.

I should have been scared stupid but so far things had happened way to fast for that. The Mushroom cloud had expanded and had multiple crowns now. I could see streamers of dust trailing off. I was just flying along, dead slow, watching this incredible spectacle when the plane started to tremor slightly and the nose started to drop. “Stall, Stall you dummy, your just about at the service ceiling of this pop can and your only going about seventy knots” I shouted to myself. “Throttle up and put the nose down”, ooh boy I didn’t need this.

The radio was still a jumble of voices all yelling about what had happened, any sort of regular communication was hopeless for a while. I corrected my course and flew very carefully on toward Portland. After missing several checkpoints I broke clear of the cloud layer below and looked right down on Lake Oswego, now I knew where I was and where home was. A few really loud and prolonged calls from someone got the radio chatter shut down and the system back up.

I really wasn’t quite sure what had happened until I got home and found out that one of the greatest volcanic eruptions in modern times had just occurred on Mt. St. Helens in southern Washington.

I was luckier than some, over the next few days there were several planes and helicopters that went down from the poison gases and the ash destroying engines. I got home OK and got my license a week later.

I was not the only pilot in the air when St. Helens blew
her top but I’ll bet I was the closest student pilot and that is what makes this my entry for the scariest story of things that go “bump” in the flight.

SHANE HORTON

I was looking, and looking, and looking, for your story.

I tell it all the time when the subject comes up, but people were starting to think I was making it up.

So now you have saved me by posting your story again.


More please!

That's a fantastic story!
Have you submitted it to AOPA for consideration for PILOT magazine?
I bet lots of other readers would enjoy riding in the right seat with you for that flight, from their armchair.
Berk

Wow, THat is about all I can say to that.

I had a slightly longer version of this story published in the "bush pilot" magazine and although it got very good reviews some know it all types gave me a bad time about the dates. The incident occured on the first major eruption and some nitpickers called me a liar due to that!!

Shane

I mentioned your story on another forum and someone recalled that Mt. St. Helens blew at 8:32 AM on May 18th. He had a few questions I could not answer.

You wrote you had landed in Yakima and wandered around for a while looking for someone to sign your logbook, then off to Redmond.
At your second stop you had <b>lunch</b> and got fuel and then headed back first climbing to 10,200 ft.

Did you mean breakfast?

What time did you head out in the morning?

I was 10 years old and living in Puyallup, Wa. when the mountain blew. During the weeks before the big one, I was playing a lot of baseball and during one game as I was playing first base and watching the ash cloud in the distance, I took a line drive right to the nose. Knocked me flat but I somehow managed to catch the ball. I woke up to a very frightened mother and a coach yelling to throw out the runner on 2nd base! Man, was I sore for a while.

Man, I bet there were alot of soiled diapers in the cockpits that day...
I remember it well and especially the aftermath.
I lived in Edmonton, Alberta back then.
The fallout kept us in IMC conditions for a while. I remember the ashes on the cars every day the wind blew from the West and the sky remained dark for what seemed all summer.
Glad you kept it together when the shock hit and that you lived to talk about it.
JD

I was two months old when she blew. My dad was racing a cross country dirt bike race that Sunday in Central Idaho and they had to stop the race because it got too dark to see. So when is Rainier going to blow?

St Helens blew on May 18 1980 at 0832 PDT.

I see someone pulled this back up, I don't recall the exact times that this took place, hell I can't recall what I had for lunch yesterday!

This was my last solo flight from Hillboro Ore. and Stone aviation. Just a day or so later I took my test flight and with I think 43 hours under my belt passed my test and moved to Montana.

I was chasing a bunch of cows around in the sagebrush when the dust cloud from the second and bigger eruption hit me on the Garrison ranch just out of Dillon, the sulfur made my eyes and lips burn and even damaged tractors and cars that far away.

It was nearly eleven years later that I got to do any more flying and that was in Alaska when I bought my plane.

And yes I have some more stories I can post. Some of you read the novel I posted in segment a while back. If anyone wants to see them I will dig up and post some more.

Shane

I am more that willing to BEG for more stories from you.
Thought maybe you fell through the ice.

Waiting

Chris C

wannabe wrote:......
Thought maybe you fell through the ice.

Maybe that's one of the stories.......

Well let's see,

if you do a search on this forum for entries by sdhorton you will come up with lots of stories I have posted.

The Quest for White Majic
The one Legger
the novel Old Men's Scars

and several others. in the mean time I will see what I have posted here and try to add some more.

Thanks
Shane