Captain David Summerfield, a local member of the Cumberland based Civil Air Patrol, received a Life Saving Award for his efforts in assisting a lost pilot and his wife. The two travelers were on a cross-country flight and encountered unexpected bad weather. The award was presented by Lt. Colonel Peter Gross, Commander, Group IV, Maryland Wing, in a ceremony conducted at the Cumberland Composite Squadron located at the Greater Cumberland Regional Airport.
The citation accompanying the award reads as follows:
Captain David Summerfield, a member of the CAP Composite Squadron 18065, distinguished himself and brought credit to the Civil Air Patrol on 18 May 1992 by saving the life of Mr. Jennings and his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Jennings were flying a Cessna 172 from Dulles Airport at Herndon, Virginia with a planned destination of Peoria, Illinois. Due to totally unanticipated deteriorating weather conditions, the Jennings couple became trapped in bad weather and uncertain of their position. A relatively inexperienced pilot with little knowledge of our mountainous area, Mr. Jennings was attempting to gain assistance and flight guidance from the nearest Flight Service Station at Clarksburg, West Virginia.
Captain Summerfield, airborne at the time on a different mission, overheard the communication between Mr. Jennings and the Clarksburg radio station. Summerfield, an experienced aviator and a knowledgeable individual of the mountainous terrain over which the lost pilot was known to be, volunteered to be of assistance. The Federal Aviation Administration technician, manning the radio at Clarksburg, accepted the assistance, aware that radio contact between the two airborne aircraft was better, and that the ground radio station would possibly soon lose contact with the lost aircraft.
At one point, the FAA controller instructed Mr. Jennings to assume a heading to the Kessel Visual Omni Range, a navigational aid closest to where the lost aircraft was thought to be. However, at the time Mr. Jennings’ reported altitude placed him at a position about 1,000 feet lower than the mountain top where the radio station was located. Captain Summerfield immediately recognized this precarious situation and took steps to alleviate the grave concerns of Mr. Jennings. While maintaining calm communication with the lost pilot, he gathered information that gave him an indication of the actual location. At the time Mr. Jennings was attempting to maintain visual contact under a low and deteriorating cloud cover. The Jennings couple in their high wing Cessna aircraft were actually over Dolly Sods, a desolate location on the Allegheny Front mountain range, some forty miles southwest of Cumberland.
With the scant information available and while maintaining a continuous communication with the lost pilot, Summerfield offered heading information that allowed Jennings and his wife to maintain cloud and terrain clearance and eventually directed the aircraft to a safe landing at the Greater Cumberland Regional Airport.
Mr. Jennings, his wife, and the Federal Aviation Administration credited Captain Summerfield with life saving assistance. Captain Summerfield displayed wisdom, courage, and a sense of duty, while displaying the skills as a professional pilot, that reflect credit to himself, the Civil Air Patrol and the United States Air Force.
Jennings and his wife, upon landing at the Cumberland Airport, were extremely appreciative of the assistance provided by both the Clarksburg radio station and especially to Captain Summerfield. Mr. and Mrs. Jennings personally offered profound thanks to David Summerfield for his calm and deliberate assistance. Due to the harrowing experience Mrs. Jennings chose to continue to their destination via other transportation means. Her husband, fully aware of his inexperience in the operation of an aircraft in adverse weather conditions, gave every indication that he would undertake advance training enabling him to better handle conditions such as Jennings and his wife recently experienced.
David Summerfield retired from the United States Air Force after a distinguished career as a Senior Master Sergeant. He has been a professional pilot for years, offering flight instruction and aviation services locally, and has been a member of the Civil Air Patrol since 1974, attaining the rank of Captain. David and his wife, Marie, live in Rawlings, Maryland and are owners and operators of Summerfield Aviation, located at the Cumberland Regional Airport.
The high mountain range known as Dolly Sods contains an abundance of Spruce trees with branches of little growth on the west side due to the strong prevailing west winds. This unique feature gives a strange look to the lopsided evergreen trees. This dominant feature was noted by Mr. Jennings when he was circling at a low altitude in an attempt to maintain visual ground contact. This information, when relayed to Dave Summerfield, was a key factor in the identification of the actual location of the Cessna.
This incident was a classic case of an individual relying too much on modern navigation equipment to the exclusion of following basic pilotage. The resulting loss of position awareness occurred when the navigational aids proved to be of no help in assisting the pilot under the low cloud. While not qualified to fly in the weather conditions, the pilot had only an outdated World Aeronautical Chart (WAC) for visual reference. His primary navigation reference was Loran, which offered distance and heading to his destination, but was of no help when he became disoriented and off his planned route of flight. The WAC chart offered little detail, when detail was needed to locate the actual position. A Sectional chart, normally carried by pilots operating in a visual ground environment, would have aided this pilot greatly. Had he been following his routing by ground reference points, he may well have not gotten lost. However, this incident had a successful and happy conclusion due primarily to the assistance provided by Captain David Summerfield.
Dave Summerfield by his Piper Apache at Cumberland.
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Wings Over Cumberland 