Our pilot was an aerialphotographer based in southwestern Ontario who was on a job that would take himto the Thousand Islands region bordering Ontario and upstate New York. On theway he stopped in Peterborough, Ontario for fuel where he consulted with flightservices to examine a line of thunderstorms that had been pelting Ottawa to thenortheast throughout the day. The storms were heading southwest in a path thatwould eventually cross our pilots route. It was anticipated that the stormswouldn’t be near the Thousand Islands area for about two and a half hours whichwould leave better than a one hour buffer for our pilot. Or so he thought. 

A short time later, airborne and on his way to hisdestination our pilot began to observe a daunting wall approaching from hisleft… quickly. The storm had picked up strength, and evidently speed, and wasclosing in fast. Within minutes, with the storm starting to surround him, ourpilot was looking for a place to land when he was faced with a decision. Allowthe storm to force him south over Lake Ontario or fly headlong into thedarkness of the angry weather. Not wanting to be placed in a position to haveto ditch, our pilot chose the latter deeming it the lesser of two evils.

Within minutes the clouds engulfed the Cessna 172. In ablink, daylight became darkness. Surprisingly, there was relatively littleturbulence, but what was terrifying were the bolts of lightning that more thana few times illuminated the darkness.

Our pilot contacted the tower at nearby Canadian Forces BaseTrenton and identified himself as being about 10 miles away, within a stormcloud, and requesting vectors and permission to land. His Cessna wasn’tequipped with a transponder but the controller did confirm that she had himidentified on primary radar at 12 miles to the northeast and provided a DFsteer to the base.

Now on his way to safety, our pilot wondered if whilechecking her radar the controller might have been thinking “You’re the onlyidiot out there on my radar.” Nevertheless, our pilot followed the controller’sdirections, located the field, and made an uneventful landing. Safely on theground, the reality of the situation struck him as he contemplated his recentexperience.

Not very long afterwards a military C-130 Hercules arrivedfrom Gander, Newfoundland. In conversation with our pilot, the crew commentedon the ferocity of the storm. “That’s got to be the worst we’ve ever been in”said the crewmember.

The lesson here is that despite obtaining a preflightbriefing and attempting to plan his flight to accommodate predicted weathertrends, our pilot learned to expect the unexpected. The weather was extremelyunstable that day, even worse than usual, so forecasts at that point shouldmerely be considered a descent guess rather than prophecy. A window of an hourahead of the weather proved to be insufficient. In hindsight, our pilot thinksthat staying put in Peterborough would have been the best bet. Failing that,ensuring that you’re always left with an out (or three) gives you your bestshot at being able to tell the story yourself rather than having one writtenabout you.