PPRuNe Forums - Cloud blamed in fatal plane crash (2024)

TONY

Ah, understood. Difficult one to deal with though. The opportunity to train for this in flight isn't realistically going to present itself. Drawing on my own experience, unless one has experienced marginal VMC one just doesn't appreciate how awful it can be.

Y

This not only teaches a climb to MSA on instruments or a turn back but it teaches making a quick command decision. Obviously there is a lot more than this but it occupies a complete lesson and we always finished with a PAR at Shawbury.

My point all along(and its been hilarious seeing no one being able to get anywhere near understanding it) is that not only do we need to teach instrument flying on the PPL we need to teach making command decisions based on training. Being able to come to the correct decison is more important tham flying on limited panel!!!

This pilot made a multitude of incorrect decisions but he more than likely had never been faced with a flying day in his life before like this.

By the way I have seen many experienced commanders of public transport aircraft make poor decisions(you would not belive some of them) again decison making is a skill that most people on here feel they wake up with one morning. Its not,it needs to be taught, understood and practiced.

Think of any life threatening situation in an aircraft, its making the right decison that will save the day. You may not be an accurate pilot, you may be very inexperienced but if you make the correct decision you will survive.

Gemma yes and thats why I would have not authorised this PPL to fly to Caernarfon on that day.(remember the return flight needed authorisation too)

There was SC on the mountains from a moist SW airflow. i would have expected the Cheshire gap to have been clear so would have expected Hawarden -- Shrewsbury to be OK but the AIB have not supplied weather for that side.

Its the exit from Caernarfon that intersts me as I believe the pilot did not know where he was soon after leaving Caernarfon.

Consider this--why draw a line on the map, there is a better and safer one on the ground--The Menai Straits

Looks like you're blaming training to me.....

If you want to ensure everybody always knows the answer and reacts te right way none of us would get off the ground.

Not authorising the flight? I think some decent advice might be more useful. If people are never exposed to 'difficult' conditions they will never develop any worthwhile skills.

The influence that other people in a similar position can have on other peoples thinking and actions is amazing. I've been there a few times either waiting for things to improve or deciding to go. It's very easy to set a trend.

G-EMMA,

If you are using the MEF from the squares you cross on the map then I must point out a few things that your instructor has not;

It is very inefficient and unless you combine it with another rule is dangerous.

Imagine a 5000ft hill with a 3000ft mast on top just north of the southern line of latitude defining your box. The MEF is 8000ft making a minimum altitude of 8000ft + 2000ft = 10,000ft. Your airfield is just south of the northern line of lattitude some 28nm from the mast and there is no other obstacles in the box above 500ft.

You are setting yourself a criteria of minimum level VFR of 10,000ft. You are not going to do much flying without breaking your own safety limits!

Because of the lack of flying, you move to another airfield. This airfield is only 2nm south of the obstacle described above but because it is in the next "box" and few obstacles, the MEF here is 500ft making a minimum level of 1500ft.

So using your system, you can be 28nm from an obstacle but have to keep safely above it but only 2nm and be happy some 6500ft below it!

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Far better to use some distance each side of planned track and beyond a fix that represents you navigation accuracy. eg 5nm or 10nm each side of track. That will be more efficient and will based on the above be safer.

You can get some clear plastic and cut it to form a corridor of the desired size and a line down the middle that you place over the track.

If faced with such a departure from caernarfon and the weather described, you know how high the highest obstacle can be and thus you simply anchor your plastic track line on Caernarfon and rotate the track round until your plastic corridor gives you a route with the required obstacle clearance........probably to the north or northwest towards the coast.

Please note that the CAA in the navigation exam use the MEF figures to base the safe level on (add 1000 or 2000 as appropriate) simply because in a multiple choice exam there can not be a paragraph for justification of using 10nm each side of track or 5nm or 3nm or 60nm.

However, from a practical training and testing point of view ther are plenty of safe systems in use.

Regards,

DFC

I agree DFC, that method actually makes you look closely at your track when you plan it, which just adding 1000ft to the box doesn't.

I should also point out that using the 5nm or 10nm or whatever corridor as described above helps you spot airspace and restrictions that since the corridor is based on your ability to navigate accurately will be of interest.

Regards,

DFC

You reminded me of an IFR arrival at Baden some time ago. I had the Jepp ED-2 chart out, with EDSB 10 miles north of its southern boundary. Strasbourg vectored us at 6000 east of the field to the south-west over the Black Forest on a right hand circuit for the 03 ILS. A 3291 ft hill was prominently displayed on that downwind in a white box -- highest terrain on the entire chart. As we passed the hill, I assumed we had passed the limiting obstacle and requested further descent. "Negative, maintain 6000".

The next day we climbed the hill with the tower on top comprising the 4371 ft obstacle we were flying over at the moment I requested descent. It was about 2 miles south of the southern boundary of the ED-2 chart.

To Jepp's credit, the grid square MSA was 5500 even on the ED-2 chart, but it was a salient reminder that even if you use a highest-obstacle-in-square shortcut, there can be a higher obstacle lurking just beyond the boundary of the square.

The MEF is supposed to include obstacles from just outside the square too. I can't remember how far out they go but there is some spec for it. Probably one spec for CAA charts and another for Jepp VFR charts...

I think the MEF is OK for an emergency situation but I never use it for flight planning.

Cars come with ABS to prevent skidding not to control it.

In an ideal world car drivers would not have to brake hard enough to lock a wheel, Thinking ahead and hazard awareness is the key, much like flying!

G-EMMA,

I flew into a cloud and scared myself - a wrong decision. I never did it again.

I also flew to Caernarfon as a low hours pilot, over the tops when it was CAVOK, back via the coast...sea level, just like in East Anglia.

Please tell me where I said flying to Caernarfon was OK for students.

I responded to IO540's comment that you could rarely fly in the vicinity of Caernarfon. The coastal route is the same as flying in East Anglia, but nav is a whole lot easier. :ok: Hawarden to Shobdon is pretty low level too.

I may have contradicted myself in places; I've been working very hard recently and posting very late. But you (and others) appear - with very little real knowledge - to be turning a flight to Caernarfon into a major mountain expedition, and it doesn't have to be.

All true.

My point is we dont live in an ideal world.

That is why ABS is a good idea and so is terrain aware GPS.

I wasnt suggesting it is an alternative to good planning, but it may prevent the worst outcome of poor planning. The scenery ahead turning yellow and then red well before you become part of it has a way of grabing attention.

It dosnt have to be, correct but for one pliot it was and it lead to him being in a wheelchair for the rest of his life and his passenger is dead.

I have flown from Fort Chimo to Sondestrom, DR with a map, it was the easiest flight I have ever done but that dosnt mean it is an easy flight. I just went on the right day in the right weather.

To suggest that Caernarfon is suitable for all PPLs to fly into or it is an airfield without the need for more care than say Wellesborne is in my opinion an irresponsible statement

I wasnt suggesting it is an alternative to good planning, but it may prevent the worst outcome of poor planning. The scenery ahead turning yellow and then red well before you become part of it has a way of grabing attention. The scenery ahead not being visible due to a reduction in visibility and the flight continuing in IMC should produce the same reaction. An alert is no good to a pilot who dosnt know what to do with that alert.

when I was a FO I was with a captain over the Cleveland Hills in cloud when the GPWS went off "Terrain Terrain" he never even reacted.

I am glad to say he lost his command.

(It was the mast on the way into Teeside)

A Garmin 496, wired to the intercom, would have most likely prevented this. I have one yoke mounted, and have tested it with a few hills in Wales. Pretty impressive... the European terrain database (derived from the space shuttle radar imagery) is accurate to something like 200ft.

Of course this assumes the pilot knows what he is doing, can fly in IMC, and can turn in the direction suggested by the display which pops up.

Why???

If you're going to fly to Wellesbourne, especially from the North, you need to know about your proximity to controlled airspace, and how not to bust it. You also need to know about avoiding other aircraft in a somewhat crowded area of the country. You also have Long Marston, a fairly busy microlight site, closeby. You have three runways, one at least of which is fairly short, and often a lot of GA traffic, particularly at weekends. There's a lot to think about, so you can quite easily get overloaded, especially as a low hours pilot.

If you fly to Caernarfon, you need to know to treat mountains with respect (as I believe I said in my very first post on this thread) and to use the coastal route unless you KNOW that flying over the mountains is safe at that time. But that's virtually the ONLY thing you need to be careful of. Flying around the coast is very easy, very safe, and involves almost no navigation. You are unlikely to bust either Liverpool's or Valley's airspace, as you can hardly miss a coastline! But you have them closeby for help or diversions if required. Caernarfon is easy to find, and has a long, wide runway, with no obstacles. And it's rarely crowded. So you are unlikely to get overloaded under normal conditions.

Of course, in bad weather or similar difficult conditions, either airfield can present problems....and so can anywhere else There was a fatal helicopter accident out of Wellesbourne a couple of years ago - a solo student in marginal weather. But no-one suggests not letting low hours pilots fly there, do they? Unfortunately it happens, everywhere.

To suggest that a flight to Caernarfon is somehow special just because there are mountains closeby that you can fly over IF you choose to is in my opinion a ridiculous statement.

Yes OK then flying to Caernarfon, with its non standard circuiit height beneath the approach to RAF Valley with the highest mountain range in England and Wales within 10 miles of it to an airfield on an exposed coast which is within 10 miles from one of the busiest MATZs in the country and has a mast 2000 feet above sea level within 10 miles to the south east of it with a circuit pattern and approach or take off over the sea is just the same as flying into Wellesbourne--

I can guarantee you one thing I bet the Herefordshire Aero Club wouldnt agree

It should, but it didnt.

GPWS might - if it had the accident need never have happened.

It is just another layer of protection.

.. .. .. and as an aside semantics I guess but doesnt the skid occur and ABS immediately react to ensure the wheels keeping turning - in other words it doesnt know a skid is about to occur but it reacts very very quickly when it has occurred?