Sad to hear of this bear strike by a B-737-300 at Yakutat airport on Saturday evening.
Crew and passengers were fine; aircraft damaged; bear didn't make
it. This real-world incident immediately reminded me of a Microsoft
Flight Simulator X expert challenge that I attempted, quite a few years ago. It
started as a simple short night hop over the hills from an inland
valley airport to Yakutat, in the Beechcraft King Air, a twin-turboprop. It
rapidly degenerated into a nightmarish scenario, first with loss of
airspeed indication. Next came a critical (left) engine failure, then a
vacuum pump failure, with the associated attitude and directional gyro
flight instruments slowly going belly-up.
That was followed by a challenging night low-ceiling instrument
approach to Yakutat, with the failed engine catching on fire in the
procedure turn. After handling
all those challenges successfully, I found myself touching down on the
snow-covered runway, with limited braking, but thinking, "I did it!" Suddenly a bear comes
running across the runway, illuminated by my landing lights at the last moment. I
eased in a little rudder to drift left behind the bear on the slippery
runway, steered slowly back to the centerline, and came to a stop. After
taking a deep breath. I thought, “That would never happen in real life,
would it?“ ;-)
