Reporter’s Notebook : When It Comes To Small Planes, His Feelings Are Not Up in the Air

I thought I was going to die.

There we were, engulfed in smoke in the cramped cabin of a twin-engine plane with the pilot, fire extinguisher in hand, nearly hanging his head out the window for air and desperately trying to steer his ailing craft back to ground.

That experience Saturday aboard a Beechcraft King Air, one of two chase planes in 11-year-old Tony Aliengena’s quest to circumnavigate the globe, realized my worst nightmares about flying in a private plane.

Although pilot Lance Allyn landed the aircraft safely and none of us suffered too badly from smoke inhalation, I thought it was over--especially when I looked into the cockpit, clutching my T-shirt to my mouth, and could barely see Allyn through the swirling smoke.

Faced with sealed windows in the cabin and a good 10 minutes before we could land, I felt a wave of panic as I contemplated dying from asphyxiation. Fortunately for us, Allyn managed to pry open two side windows in the cockpit and shut off the source of smoke before the other four passengers or I could succumb.

Earlier in the week, while cruising with Allyn above storm clouds in Missouri, I started to write about my fear of flying in a small plane.

The fact that I could even concentrate on writing then was an improvement over when I first boarded a private plane June 5 to join Tony’s historic flight around the world.

Having rarely flown in a private plane, I found the first day of flying from Orange County to Salt Lake City an unnerving experience. Unlike a commercial jetliner, which glides effortlessly through the skies, a small plane is subject to severe jolts and lurches, occasionally taking bone-chilling dives of 100 feet or more in pockets of turbulence.

From the standpoint of general aviation, the King Air is better than most. It is equipped with a pressurized cabin and powerful enough to soar as high as 24,000 feet. Tony’s single- engine Cessna Centurion, by contrast, can muster only about 17,000 feet.

But 24,000 feet is not always high enough to avoid the cumulus clouds that are common throughout the United States at this time of the year. And the clouds frequently contain violent thunderstorms, with turbulence so severe that the wings of a plane can be sheared off.

I used to cringe at the prospect of flying through a storm, even in a commercial jet. But that fear bordered on terror Tuesday when our small plane flew into the heart of a raging thunderstorm, high over the Wyoming Rockies.

Our pilot, Allyn, had departed Salt Lake City that morning amid a forecast of scattered storms on our course to Denver, the day’s destination. Less than an hour out of Salt Lake, we began confronting towering thunderheads, and Allyn was forced to detour.

But the storm clouds soon became so numerous that we were surrounded, with no place to turn and no power to climb to a safer altitude. Suddenly, our plane became engulfed in dark storm clouds. Lightning was flashing on all sides, and one bolt appeared to strike our left wing. Then sheets of ice began to pound at the plane, covering the wings and windshield in a matter of moments.

My fingernails dug into the seat cushion as I stared out the window. I exchanged glances with Maxim Chikin, a Soviet journalist who was sitting across from me. He shook his head wordlessly, his face ashen. He clutched in his hands a snapshot of his wife, who awaits him at their home in Moscow.

I looked then at Allyn, and he was hunkered over the plane controls, desperately trying to find a way out of the mess.

His on-board radar scope was no help. It showed severe storms all around. He could not even tell how fast he was going, because ice had frozen his airspeed indicator.

Finally, Allyn muttered: “I’m making a U-turn out of here.” And he nosed the plane around and began a rapid descent below the storm clouds.

When we were safely on the ground about an hour later, Allyn cited the flight as one of his most potentially dangerous since he began flying the King Air 10 years ago.

The next day I was invited to fly in Tony’s plane, which is much smaller and more confining than the King Air. Although I had flown before with Tony and his father, Gary Aliengena, on two training flights, it was with some trepidation that I fastened myself into the six-seater.

That flight from Denver to Lincoln, Neb., was unremarkable by weather standards, but I was somewhat dismayed at the prospect of having to wear an oxygen mask in the unpressurized cabin and seeing ice form on Tony’s windshield after passing through light cirrus clouds at 17,000 feet.

On final approach to Lincoln Airport, the Cessna’s wings swayed back and forth in gusty winds from an approaching thunderstorm. That same storm later produced a four-inch downpour and three-quarter- inch hail over the Lincoln area. Viewing a brilliant lightning show from the storm that night, Chikin was moved to say: “I am very scared for the weather.”

So was I. But during Saturday’s emergency at Washington National Airport, the weather was clear and not a factor. So I remain wary of private plane flying in general, although I plan to persevere for the duration of the seven-week flight.

And then I hope to never again climb aboard one of these planes.