Cirrus SR22 - Inside a Real Emergency Over Illinois - Electrical Failure

After Oshkosh 2018, Miss Grace needed some repairs. A Cirrus Center at Chicago Executive airport changed the starter adapter, the faulty EGT probe and the battery, plus adjusted the prop governor and did an oil change as well.

As you will see many compound issues led to me declaring an emergency about 40 minutes South of Chicago.

The suspicion of a very serious electrical problem was very vivid in my mind and it turned out to be a very true situation that I'm glad I got myself out of.

What would you do in this situation? Would you have continued the flight with only Alternator 2? Would you not declare an emergency? Share your opinion.

Special thanks to ATC for their great help and the nice people at Danville airport for going out of their way to help out as much as they could.

Also, I need to mention how incredibly supportive Cirrus has been for me and Miss Grace while dealing with this issue. I cannot thank Cirrus Aircraft enough for being there and giving me access to their top engineers.

Thank you for watching!
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I am NOT a Certified Flight Instructor and my videos are not for instruction purposes. The video is intended for my own personal experiences and for entertainment purposes only. Do not use my video content as information about how to fly an airplane. To properly learn how to fly you MUST visit your local flight school and work with an experienced Certified Flight Instructor.

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[wardholbrook]

Well handled Captain Niko. As for comments, let me put on my CFI and ATP hats... As a veteran of a few emergencies over the years myself including an inflight electrical fire, I think you handled yourself very well - a sign of good initial and recurrent training. My only critiques would be that you told ATC that you had lost "Alt 1". I sure he was asking himself what is an "Alt 1"? (Most controllers are not pilots.) Being that descriptive may not have been the best choice of wording to ATC. I would think that the better choice would have been to say that you had lost your alternator. He did figure it out, but other than that (very) minor detail, I believe the communications side of the event was handled very well. The other critique would be that I didn't see you pull out and refer to the checklist. Even if (especially if) you've got it all memorized, it's always good technique and procedure to pull out the checklist just to make sure nothing was missed. Please don't mind my critiques, but all good pilots and crews do post flight debriefs and self critiques after each flight. If that was myself in your video, those would be the comments that I'd be telling myself. All in all, a very good job, I think you did yourself proud. Good on you!

[bryangreen]

A commercial pilot i know says: “pilots who ignore problems don’t live to fix them”. Well managed emergency.

[geezee]

Problems begins at 5:40.
Aggravated at 10:20.
Declaring emergency 11:20
Vector for nearest airport 12:20
Approved descent to 3000 13:47
Flaps still work 19:20
Smooth as butter 20:08

[lescleaver]

your calmness is what wins over, you took things one step at a time and did just like a pro. you communicated, analyzed and decided on the right option great job sir .

[bryanslocks]

My dad lost his engine in a Cessna 182 and had to glide down and land on a highway.
He survived.

[sergiofuentes]

Holy cow! I’m at the edge of my seat. Kudos for keeping your cool. That’s a good example of fly now and be scared later

[justglenn]

I had nearly the same in-flight emergency, (crackling radio etc)... then all my electrical went dead. No radio or flaps. I didnt see any smoke but the smell of burned wires filled the cabin. I only had my pvt cert for 3 months, so I probably wasn't as cool and smooth as this guy. Since I had no radio, I couldnt call an emergency, nor could I communicate with my passenger about what he could expect. I landed on an uncontrolled runway going about 30 miles above norm for final but made it! I tried to look composed in front of my friend, but I truly was a mess inside. I learned a lot from this mishap and continue to learn as I fly.

[phillipmckie]

As an experienced pilot and ATP holder. I believe that you handled the emergency well enough to have made a precautionary landing. I do recommend that along the way you could have checked the services at the airport you chose because land as soon as possible also means land where you can have fuel and emergency services. I also do not know if you had a checklist on your iPad but it is a good Idea to have paper back ups or at least have your iPad plugged in (yeah I know you had an electrical issue). You will not want to loose your only course of information at a time like this. Never memorize checklists no matter if you have flown the airplane a 1000 times. When I fly alone I brief myself as if I were flying with someone else. That is a sound practice because that way you reassure yourself of what you need to do and you set yourself up for all events to come. Good airmanship, good flying and keep the blues side up!

[Windtee]

When in doubt, keep calm and put it down.
Great share. Thanks, Niko!

[StefanDrury]

Firstly, great to have you safely on the ground mate, that was brilliantly handled and you were really calm through the whole event. And secondly, great job putting this video together and sharing it with the community here. I'm going to share this with my maintenance team so we can hopefully prevent something similar happening on the aircraft here. Once again thanks for making this video. Stay safe mate, stef.

[Glitter]

No matter how small one might think an issue is, when you're in the air I would definitely call for an emergency in that situation. I'm originally from Chicago and when I was a little girl I ended up on a flight landing in Chicago from Michigan and we had engine failure on one of the engines, plane filled with smoke you couldn't see the person right in front of you. I thank God our pilot landed us safely, but it stayed with me and now I'm soooo fearful of flying. Yet oddly enough I love watching these awesome flight videos. You did a great job I'm thankful for cautious pilots like yourself🚁🛩️✈️🚁☁️☁️💫✨🌠🙏🙏

[magnussen]

(Just realized it’s my 2nd time watching this video). I’m very impressed with how cool calm and collected you remained under such a stressful situation. Very informative video!!

[andrewrock]

As an Aviation student, I’m in love with this video. It is insane how well you were able to recover from what could have been a catastrophic emergency.

[garywheeler]

Never fail to learn from your videos, large or small I take something away from each episode. Thank you from a low time new pilot.

[Virtualmix]

Good job on calling an emergency and taking the problem seriously. This could have become a much bigger problem if you had continued your flight. Many pilots are very hesitant to call an emergency in flight. As a low time pilot myself, I hope I would have done the same you did. Great learning and reflection on how to handle though situations. Thanks for sharing.

[robertdonald]

That music had my heart pounding ! Great job, u recognised a fault acted swiftly, u weren't afraid to declare an emergency, landed safely!! Best outcome !!!

[cptbowen]

I lost all electrics on an international flight a few years back between Swaziland and South Africa. I was extremely grateful that my delta wing days made me always carry a backup radio and always have my flight plan printed out on my knee and not rely on the GPS etc. Well done on the calm handling of the situation

[shawnsutter]

Hey Niko....I haven't been YT in a while but it is nice seeing you. Sorry to hear about your inflight emergency but you remained calm and tried to work the issue. You did an outstanding job at communicating your issue with ATC. As a student pilot, I obtained a great deal of information from your real emergency. Thank you for sharing.

[michael]

I was flying IFR over mountains in my Piper Arrow III when I lost all electrical power. The good news is I had a handi-talkie in my kit (always) that had a VOR receiver. I talked to approach on the fifteen minute mark to get updates (heading and altitude). I was cleared for a VOR approach to Long Beach and descended thru the clouds and saw the runway at my 12 o'clock. Before and after never fly without an independent communication / navigation device.

Thanks for sharing your flight and the way you handled the event.

[franciscobacino]

Good job! You were calmed at all times, and did everything you had to be safe!