Our pilot had 400 hours of experience in this particular rented Comanche 180 when he and his three passengers were packed and off Blue Sky City, MT for to a two-day seminar in higher education. It was a South Dakota beautiful day in December when they boarded the 180 with a thermos of coffee, full tanks, and plenty of runway 30 ahead of them.

It was about 7 degrees Celsius under party cloudy skies and generally sunny. The altimeter was a standard 29.92. Two of our pilot’s passengers were fellow educator that had flown with him before who had made arrangements to be flown to the conference rather today… with apparent confidence.

Departure was a piece of cake as the Comanche performed, as usual, with power and stability. Even though there was a 10 knot headwind, she lifted with grace.  The climb was right on at 80 mph to pattern altitude heading to the northwest as our pilot communicated their position and direction to the FBO.

The aircraft was of 1963 and had Narco radio and navigation equipment of the same vintage. But our pilot had flown this rig for three years and everything was operational and responsive to his needs. Fellow renters of the 180 were satisfied with the current equipment as well but one pilot, who was the president of the Club, told of the time when he experienced an electrical failure during a night flight. No lights or radio, and the gear wouldn’t lower. So he executed an emergency procedure safely manually lowering the gear by hand crank. But today all was going well... until…

About 100 miles into the flight, having reached their cruising altitude of 4,500 feet, our pilot was adjusting the propeller knob to 2,00 RPM. As one would do, he was twisting the knob when suddenly the whole thing came out of the dash. Knob, cable, and all were now in our pilot’s hand and separated from the aircraft! Surprise!

The RPMs immediately redlined. Our pilot recalls with humor, “I could imagine the prop leaving and we would execute an emergency landing in rugged territory. Worse yet, what if the spinning prop left for earth and clobbered an oilrig, or decapitated an elk! The paper work would be lengthy!”

Our pilot made an emergency radio call on 121.5 but there was no response so he looked up the nearest airport FBO in his GPS and made a call on that local frequency.

“What’s your problem?” a voice called back. Our pilot as calmly as he could explained the circumstances. The voice replied, “Hold on.” Thought our pilot “Wadaya mean hold on?!?”

The passengers were quiet most of the time but looking down and assessing the dilemma one said “…and I forgot my overshoes.” 

A very long five minutes later the voice from the FBO came back online and handed our pilot over to a mechanic. With authority came the instruction to “Try pulling the carb heat on.” Our pilot complied and much to his relief the RPMs backed off the redline.

They landed at the alternate airport and the grisly, bearded, mature mechanic came out to the aircraft to check it out. He lifted the cowl and told our pilot to adjust the prop pitch control knob to its usual flight configuration. The mechanic took out a spool of wire and attached some to the pitch control.  Nonchalantly he lowered and snapped on the cowl and said, “You’re good to go.” That was it!

After the anti-climax to the incident, they fired up the Comanche and continued on to their destination. They had a brand new prop control installed before returning home to ensure the trip back would be uneventful. And so it was…

Fly safe(r).