Every pilot must be continually aware of possible emergency situations occurring during towing.
The glider release handle must be immediately accessible and used if the glider prevents your control of the tug at low level. Many accidents have occurred in the past due to the tug pilot’s failure to release the glider. Whilst we must have concern for the glider pilot, the safety of yourself and the tug is paramount.
Should an accident or incident occur, then the tug pilot must ground them-self and inform the CTP and CFI as soon as possible. The accident or incident will be reviewed and tugging re-authorisation determined accordingly.
The Emergencies have been separated into two categories, ‘Tug Upset’ and ‘Other Emergencies’. Neither is more important than the other, or more or less likely to happen, but due to the amount of information and variables that can occur with a tug upset, it has it’s own dedicated page.
For the sake of completeness, additional emergencies as listed in the Aircraft Flight Manual (AFM) are shown exactly as they appear in the AFM and are annotated as such.
Return to ‘Operations’ Return to ‘Front Page’