Mayday In Utah

For what it’s worth, there were very good reasons as I saw it to call
“mayday” while over the desert in Utah. But I also committed a
fundamental error of not having clearly located a suitable landing site
within gliding distance. I was soaring some low hills with good lift
about 30-40 miles west of Parowan. Conditions were good, but a cold front
was over Utah that day and nights were near freezing in the desert. The
area was so desolate that for the previous 90 minutes I had not seen a
house or a car below me.

So when my engine failed to start due to a weak battery, I immediately
called Parowan Unicom to let people know my location. There was no answer
on Unicom, so I called 121.5 “mayday” to make sure at least someone would
know where to find me if I ended up in the bush.

I immediately began flying south toward the only indication of
civilization I had seen, which were a couple of green “crop circles.”
Nellis AFB immediately responded, and I gave my position. After about
five miles southbound, I found a road and figured at least I would not
have to land in the bush. More crop circles appeared, and eventually I
saw what looked like possibly an old runway with some structures south of
it. About the time, Nellis identified it as Beryl Junction, which turned
out to be an abandoned gravel crop duster strip which was not in my Garmin
data base. I made it onto that strip with no sweat. Nellis did a great
job, and after I was on the ground I was able to let them know via cell
that all was well. (Radio contact was lost in the final 1,500 feet.)

When I made my “mayday,” I was unaware of any suitable landing site within
gliding distance. Beryl Junction shows on the sectional, but it’s on the
other side of the sheet I was using. I was too busy flying and looking
for a landing site to take the time to adequately check out the sectional.
That was another error. But the terrain and frigid weather made it seem to
me in the first minutes of my final glide that I had to make sure of
contacting someone, thus the “mayday.” Could the “mayday” have been
avoided? Sure, when looking at it in retrospect.