Fly the airplane first. When the engine quits, pitch for best glide speed before anything else, then work a fixed order: aviate, navigate, investigate, communicate. The “investigate” step is where a short list of memory items lives — fuel selector, mixture, magnetos, fuel pump, roughly in that order — because those are the only actions in the whole emergency you don’t have time to read off a page. Everything past that gets read from the checklist once you have altitude and a landing spot to spare.
Aviate, navigate, investigate, communicate
Most instructors teach some version of this order, and the order is the entire point. Skip ahead to the radio before you’ve got the airplane flying toward a spot, and you’ve spent altitude you needed.
Aviate. The instant the engine quits, pitch for best glide speed and trim it there so you’re not fighting the yoke while your hands are busy elsewhere. This is the one action that buys you every minute that follows. Chase airspeed instead of nailing it early and the rest of the procedure gets harder for no reason.
Navigate. Pick a landing spot within gliding distance and turn toward it. Into the wind if you have the altitude to be choosy, a road or a field over trees, and something long enough that you’re not threading a needle at the end of a bad day.
Investigate. With the airplane established in the glide toward that spot, run the restart flow (below) from memory. If it catches, you have options again. If it doesn’t, you finish the glide as planned.
Communicate. Squawk 7700, and call it in: your call sign, the nature of the emergency, your position and intentions if you have them to give. Do this last on purpose. Under 14 CFR 91.3(b), you have the authority as pilot in command to deviate from any rule to meet an in-flight emergency, and no controller can override that. A radio call that never gets answered shouldn’t have cost you an aviate step.
The memory items that need to be cold before solo
Best glide comes first, and it isn’t part of a checklist you read, it’s an attitude and airspeed you fly to on reflex. After that, still gliding toward your chosen field, the restart flow is short enough to say from memory in under ten seconds on a good day:
- Fuel selector — BOTH (or switch tanks, depending on your type). A fuel-starved engine from a mismanaged selector is one of the more survivable causes, and also one of the easiest to fix in the air.
- Mixture — RICH. If you’d leaned aggressively for cruise or altitude, check it isn’t sitting near idle cutoff.
- Ignition switch — BOTH, or cycle through L and R individually to catch a dead magneto rather than assuming both failed together.
- Fuel pump — ON, if your airplane has an auxiliary or boost pump. On a fuel-injected engine this restores fuel pressure if the engine-driven pump quit. Carbureted airplanes vary more here, and some POHs put carb heat ahead of this step entirely, since carb ice causing a rough-running or dead engine is common enough that ruling it out first makes sense.
That’s the order the brief in most training material follows, but the exact items and sequence are type-specific. The emergency section of the Cessna 172 checklist lays out the fuel-injected 172R/S version with the memory items printed in bold, separate from the read-and-verify steps around them, and flags where the carbureted M/N/P models need a different flow with carb heat added. Your instructor will have you say this list from memory, unprompted, before signing a solo endorsement — 14 CFR 61.87(d)(11) requires pre-solo training in “emergency procedures and equipment malfunctions” appropriate to the airplane.
Memory items aren’t the whole procedure
Get the restart flow cold, but don’t try to memorize the rest of the emergency procedure along with it. If the restart doesn’t work, the remaining steps toward securing the airplane for landing (mixture to idle cutoff, fuel selector off, magnetos off, master off, flaps set, doors unlatched or removed so a bent fuselage can’t jam them shut, seatbelts snug) are still a written checklist you read, because by that point you’re stabilized in a glide with a spot picked and a minute or two of margin. Trying to hold all of that in your head too is how a pilot fixates on the checklist instead of flying the approach.
That split, a short memorized core inside a longer read procedure, is a harder-edged version of the flow-then-check idea: normally you fly a practiced flow and verify it against the page afterward, with time on your side. In an engine failure you don’t get that luxury for the first few seconds, so the highest-value items get pulled out and drilled until they’re automatic, and the checklist picks up everything else once you’ve bought back some time.
Right after takeoff: don’t turn back
The lowest-altitude version of this emergency is also the least forgiving. Below roughly 1,000 feet AGL, land essentially straight ahead, within about 30 degrees of the runway heading. Pilots reliably underestimate what a level turn back to the runway costs: the bank angle, the realignment with the pavement, and a crosswind that’s now working against you on base and final, all while airspeed is bleeding off a windmilling prop. Low-altitude turn-back attempts show up again and again in stall-spin accident reports for exactly that reason.
Higher up, with real altitude in the bank, a turn back becomes a legitimate option, and it’s worth briefing a personal decision altitude for your airplane with your CFI rather than deciding in the moment. Practicing the low-altitude version specifically, straight-ahead landing site selection off a simulated failure right after rotation, is a required pre-solo item under 14 CFR 61.87(d)(13), which lists approaches to a landing area with simulated engine malfunctions.
Practicing simulated engine failures with a CFI
Your instructor pulls the throttle to idle, not the mixture and not the magnetos, so the engine is still there if you need it back in a hurry. A well-run exercise is briefed before it happens rather than sprung as a total surprise below a safe floor, keeps a real runway or an obviously landable field in gliding range the entire time, and ends with a full-power go-around well above the ground rather than an actual touchdown off-airport. The point is to make you fly the ANIC flow and the memory items under real time pressure without betting the outcome on a field that only looks landable from 2,000 feet.
The same margin-first thinking shows up in how CFIs run stall practice: pick an altitude with room to spare, brief it, then fly the maneuver for real. Ask your instructor to run several simulated engine failures across different phases of flight, on climbout, in the pattern, and at altitude, so the flow gets rehearsed under varying amounts of time pressure rather than just the version you’re expecting.
Build the memory items into your own checklist
Write the restart flow into the emergency section of your own checklist, memory items marked in bold and separated from the steps you’ll actually read, using how to build a checklist for the layout reasoning. Start from a type-specific template rather than a blank page, edit it in the checklist editor, and print a copy for the kneeboard. The free FAA handbooks behind all of this live on the student pilot hub.
Then verify every item against your aircraft’s current POH and walk the whole sequence, aviate through communicate, with your CFI before you rely on it. Drill the memory items until you can say them cold, half asleep, without the page in front of you. That’s the only way they’re actually there the one time you need them without warning.
Common questions
What is the Aviate-Navigate-Investigate-Communicate flow?
It's the priority order most instructors teach for any in-flight emergency, engine failure included. Fly the airplane first (aviate: pitch for best glide, trim it there). Pick a landing spot and fly toward it (navigate). Work the restart items while you continue toward that spot (investigate). Only then talk on the radio (communicate), because a controller can't fly your airplane for you and you may have to land without ever raising anyone.
What are the memory items for an engine failure?
Best glide speed first, pitched and trimmed for immediately, because that single action buys you the most time. Then, without stopping the glide toward your chosen field: fuel selector to BOTH, mixture to RICH, ignition switch cycled through BOTH (or L and R separately) to catch a dead magneto, and the auxiliary fuel pump ON if your airplane has one. Exact order and inclusion vary by engine type, so drill your own POH's version, not a generic list.
What's the difference between a memory item and a checklist item?
Memory items are the handful of steps you execute instantly because there's no time to open a checklist: best glide, then the restart flow. Everything else in the same emergency procedure, like securing a dead engine, briefing passengers, or working the forced-landing checklist, is still read off the page, because by the time you get to it you're established in a glide with a spot picked and a minute or two to spare.
Should you turn back to the runway after an engine failure on takeoff?
Below roughly 1,000 feet AGL, no. Land essentially straight ahead, within about 30 degrees of the nose. A level turn back to the runway costs more altitude than pilots expect once you add the bank, the realignment, and the wind you're now fighting on base and final, and low-altitude turn-back attempts are a recurring cause of stall-spin accidents. Higher up, with altitude to spare, a turn back becomes an option worth having briefed in advance with your instructor.
How do CFIs practice simulated engine failures safely?
By pulling the throttle to idle, never the mixture or magnetos, at an altitude and location that keep a real airport or a clearly landable field in gliding range the whole time. The exercise is briefed before it starts, closes with a full-power go-around well above the ground, and doesn't turn into an actual off-airport landing. It's also a required item: 14 CFR 61.87(d)(13) lists approaches to a landing area with simulated engine malfunctions as part of pre-solo training.