Best Glide, the Dead Engine Over Unfamiliar Ground, and the Emergency Checklist You Run While Still Flying the Airplane

An engine failure in flight is survivable when you execute the right steps in the right order. The difference between a forced landing with a good outcome and an accident report almost always comes down to what happens in the first three seconds. This guide covers best glide speed, emergency field selection, checklist execution, and the judgment calls that determine whether you pass your practical exam - and whether you walk away from the real thing.

What Is the First Thing You Do When the Engine Stops?

Not the checklist. Not the radio. Pitch for best glide speed.

That’s the only task in the first second or two. Establish best glide speed and trim it in. Everything else follows from there.

Here’s why this is non-negotiable. Most single-engine training aircraft have a glide ratio of roughly 8 to 9 to 1 - for every thousand feet of altitude lost, the aircraft travels 8,000 to 9,000 feet horizontally. If you let the nose sit at cruise attitude with a dead engine, your sink rate spikes dramatically compared to flying best glide. You’re throwing away altitude, and altitude is the only resource you have.

Know your best glide speed before you fly. In a Cessna 172, it’s typically 68 knots. In a Piper Cherokee 140, it’s around 73 knots. In a Diamond DA40, it’s approximately 76 knots. Your exact number lives in the emergency procedures section of your aircraft’s Pilot’s Operating Handbook. Examiners ask for it during the oral. Have it memorized.

How Do You Choose an Emergency Landing Field?

Once best glide is established and trimmed, you scan for candidates. Commit too fast to the wrong field, or spend too long comparing options while you’re descending - both are checkride failures and real-world hazards.

Scan for these qualities in order:

• Length - enough runway equivalent to stop the airplane
• Surface - flat and smooth, not crops that could grab your gear or terrain that looks flat from altitude but slopes uphill
• Wind alignment - landing into the wind reduces ground speed and shortens your rollout
• Clear approach path - no trees, power lines, or fence lines cutting across final
• Visible surface - you need to actually see what you’re landing on

Airports are always your first choice. They’re closer than you expect when you start looking. Keep a running mental note of airports along your route during every cross-country, the same way you track landmarks. Long straight roads are a solid second option - wind-aligned, long enough, and generally free of overhead wires if you pick carefully. Open fields are third. Cultivated fields are tricky because surface conditions are difficult to read from altitude.

Know the wind throughout every flight. Monitor smoke, water ripples, crop movement. The wind direction shapes every field selection decision you make.

What Are High Key and Low Key Positions?

These are reference positions for managing energy through an emergency approach. They give you checkpoints to evaluate whether you’re going to make your field.

High key is roughly over the intended touchdown point at 1,000 to 1,500 feet above the ground. At high key, ask: do I have enough altitude to fly a reasonable approach? Too much altitude means you need to start burning it off now. Too little means you may need to select a closer field.

Low key is approximately 500 feet above the ground, in a position roughly equivalent to turning base. This is your final energy assessment. At low key, you should have a clear read on whether you’re going to make it. Add flaps to increase descent rate if you’re high. Use a forward slip if you need to shed altitude quickly without gaining airspeed.

The examiner is watching whether you actively manage the situation at every point - not whether you execute a textbook pattern to a predetermined spot.

When Do You Run the Emergency Checklist?

After best glide is established and you have a field in sight. Not before.

In a typical single-engine piston, the checklist addresses fuel-related items first, because fuel mismanagement and fuel exhaustion are among the most common causes of power loss:

1. Fuel selector - to Both, or to the fullest tank
2. Mixture - rich
3. Boost pump - on (if equipped)
4. Primer - in and locked
5. Carb heat - on (carburetor icing causes unexplained power loss far more often than most student pilots realize)
6. Magnetos - to Both, then check each independently for a failed mag
7. Throttle - vary position to check for any engine response

Work through these items while flying. One hand on the controls, one hand on the checklist. Aviate, navigate, communicate - in that order, and that order isn’t optional. Never put your head down for more than a few seconds at a time. Check items, look up, assess the field, check items again.

If the engine restarts, the flight is still over. Declare an emergency, divert to the nearest suitable airport, and get the airplane inspected before anyone flies it again. Something stopped that engine. You don’t know what it was.

How Do You Make a Mayday Call?

If the engine doesn’t restart, communicate after you have the situation under control. If you’re already on a frequency with an approach controller, center controller, or flight following, stay on that frequency - they already know your position.

Your Mayday call, stated clearly:

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. [Callsign.] Engine failure. [Position and altitude.] [Souls on board.] [Intentions.]

If you have time, say it twice. Then set your transponder to 7700. That squawk alerts every radar facility in the area that you’re in distress.

Keep the communication efficient. Students who get so focused on the Mayday call that they drift off course or lose track of their energy have misplaced their priorities. The call matters. Flying the airplane matters more.

121.5 MHz is the international emergency frequency if you’re not already talking to anyone.

What Are the Most Common Engine-Out Mistakes on the Practical Exam?

Not pitching for best glide immediately. This is the most important action and the most commonly missed one. The moment the engine stops, your first physical input is to pitch for best glide speed. Not after you check the fuel gauge. Not after you scan for a field. Immediately.

Letting the checklist take over the flight. The checklist exists to attempt a restart - that’s its purpose. If you’re running items while the airplane drifts away from your field, or while you’ve lost your energy picture, you’ve got the priorities backwards. Keep your head up.

Not managing energy throughout the descent. Ask yourself constantly: am I high, low, or about right? If you’re high, add flaps or use a forward slip. If you’re low, aim for a closer point on the field and protect your altitude. The field is the target; altitude is the resource; your job is to arrive with enough of both to land.

Not knowing best glide speed cold - including whether it changes with weight. In most single-engine training aircraft, best glide speed decreases slightly at lighter weights because the best lift-to-drag ratio occurs at a lower airspeed when less lift is required. Examiners ask this. Know the number for your specific aircraft.

Adapting when conditions change. Examiners are not watching for a textbook-perfect pattern. They’re watching whether you can recognize that your first field isn’t going to work, switch to a second option, fly S-turns to lose excess altitude, and continue managing the airplane through all of it. Adaptability is the skill being evaluated.

Should You Turn Back to the Runway After Engine Failure on Departure?

This is one of the most important judgment calls in all of flight training, and the research on it is unambiguous.

Below 500 feet AGL: land straight ahead. No turn-back. At low altitude, attempting the turn puts you low, slow, in a bank, decelerating, over terrain where you cannot land. The accidents that follow from that decision are overwhelmingly fatal. Even a marginal field ahead of you is almost always the survivable choice.

Between 500 and 1,000 feet AGL: it’s a judgment call. The answer still leans strongly toward straight ahead for most aircraft and most conditions.

Above 1,000 feet AGL: a return to the runway may be possible - but only if you’ve already calculated the minimum altitude for a viable turn-back in your specific airplane, before the flight. That number depends on your aircraft’s glide performance, the turn radius required, and the specific runway layout. You need a real answer to this question before your oral exam, not an answer you’re working out in the moment.

How Do You Build Engine-Out Skill Between Lessons?

On every flight, at any altitude, pick a field. Point at it and run through the scenario mentally: if the engine quit right now, that’s where you’d go. Work through why you chose it, where high key would be, where low key would be, whether you’d realistically make it.

Do this on every flight until the question “if the engine quit right now, where am I going?” always has a current answer in your head. You should never be flying over terrain without that running awareness.

Also study the logic behind each checklist step. Fuel selector to Both - because running a tank dry is one of the most preventable causes of power loss. Carb heat on - because carburetor icing kills engines without warning and without sputtering. Magnetos checked individually - because a failed mag can cause rough running or complete power loss. When you understand why each item is on the list, you’re troubleshooting in real time rather than reciting a memorized sequence.

Three references are worth reading before your practical: the Airman Certification Standards for Private Pilot (which defines exactly how the examiner evaluates the maneuver), the FAA Airplane Flying Handbook (which covers emergency procedure reasoning in depth), and your aircraft’s Pilot’s Operating Handbook (which has your specific numbers and your specific checklist).

Key Takeaways

• Best glide speed is always the first action after an engine stops - before the checklist, before the radio, before scanning for fields
• Glide ratio in most single-engine trainers is 8–9:1; every foot of altitude lost to a non-optimal pitch attitude is a foot of options gone
• Field selection priorities: airports first, straight roads second, open fields third; wind alignment and surface condition matter more than size alone
• The emergency checklist exists to attempt a restart while you’re flying - never stop flying the airplane to work the checklist
• Below 500 feet AGL, land straight ahead - the turn-back accident rate is consistently fatal; know your aircraft’s minimum turn-back altitude before every flight