C207 crash Juneau

[Roger Roger]

I also suspect that a little of the AmFlight machismo is coming out of this post about how "I would do it different if it were me." I've seen lots of guys come up there with that attitude, then they end up doing the same thing everyone else is doing, or get frustrated and go back to "America" after a year or so.

Quoted again for truth.

 

[Tommay85]

You can believe what you want, that's fine. And it doesn't bother me, I don't even live up north anymore (for now anyway, it always seems to call me back home). Still, I don't think you are qualified to comment on this sort of thing. As for for:



I assume you're just trying to push my buttons, but I would agree, it's not the worst in the world - that doesn't make flying VFR in challenging conditions any easier. It's also worth noting that in SE Alaska particular, it is consistently bad weather for much of the year. I also suspect that a little of the AmFlight machismo is coming out of this post about how "I would do it different if it were me." I've seen lots of guys come up there with that attitude, then they end up doing the same thing everyone else is doing, or get frustrated and go back to "America" after a year or so. Believe what you want - you're going to anyway, I just think you don't really know what you're talking about in regards to this. That's not a dig against you - I've never flown in the Caribbean, I'm sure there are lots of things about operating down there that I know nothing about, and if I were speaking as though I were an authority on some topic down there and I were off base, I'd fully expect you to correct me.

As for why VFR is the modus operandi - you cannot operate a 207 IFR up there for most of the year because the MEAs are too high and there is ice, and many of the legs are too short for operators to justify putting the equipment in because you'll cycle out fast, etc. Telling operators to "go buy caravans" isn't really going to happen because they're expensive to purchase and operators are price sensitive. It's really easy to sit on the sidelines and say, "no way this should have happened, pilot error as usual" but that doesn't solve the problem. I have worked in the industry up north to try to make things safer, I've been a part of implementing systems and methods to reduce risk, I was part of starting our ASAP program at my old job, and I'll tell you this - while the final link in the chain is the PIC's decision to continue, it's a cop-out to lay the blame solely at the feet of the pilot (which has been how the FAA and NTSB has been handling these sorts of things for decades). There are a lot of links in the chain that finally result in an accident: it's the culture of the pilots, the weather, the equipment, the temperatures, the company's attitude towards safety, the limited infrastructure in terms of runways, navaids, and IFPs, the pressure that the passengers put on you, the experience level of the pilots brought in to do this work, and much much more.

One of the biggest things effecting safety right now is the pilot shortage up north. It's not easy to find guys to fly your airplanes when you're paying the same thing you were 10 years ago and staffing so minimally that guys are working 60hr work weeks. That's a huge part of the problem.

No AMF machoism here. I hate it, despise it, and would fire anyone that possessed anything resembling the attitude if I were ranked higher, rather than just strongly suggest termination. The Salmon, ID run we have for example. It wouldn't go most of the time if it were my way and would gladly give that contract to someone even more shady than AMF if they want it. Weirdly, we've never crashed a plane on that run though. The amount of cowboy horse crap I saw/heard about on that flight the two days I was "trained" on it, I felt compelled to make some anonymous phone calls in fact. Legal, yes. Safe, in my opinion, no.

The only thing our flying has to offer for a challenge is the occasional inter-continental convergence zone drifting a bit north unexpectedly, which wouldn't even harbor horrendous weather for at least a couple hours, but it's never covered ALL of the islands and our planes are fast enough that the fuel might get really low, but you'd be hard pressed to run out of it unless one were to be pushing it from the get go. Which would be odd... I'm not comparing the two places at all.

More OT, WHY is a 207 still operated "VFR" on those flights these days? I already know the answer, but we haven't been running DC-3s and Beech 18s on NDB approaches into North Dakota or Montana/Idaho for quite some time either... I know, not the same need for aircraft service, but does a particular place need daily and even multiple daily 207 flights vs one 1900 flight that can get in more safely? THAT you guys can educate me on because from where I sit, it seems to me that there is a company(management and employee) culture issue that fuels a lot of the safety problems.

We're in agreement on the external factors though and I do feel like most of those need to change up there. Particularly in regards to the work environment. I've seen the shift here and it works SO much better when safety is absolutely number 1 vs what's legal/efficient. I'm not saying directly that safety was ever ranked lower here, but it carries a hell of a lot more weight these days and things have improved tremendously because of it.

 

[Tommay85]

Oh ual you so cute, get that pseudo management position and all of a sudden you think you know stuff.

Oh, because I've never said any of this before?

 

[Boris Badenov]

It's not wrong to ask questions. It's not even wrong to have opinions. But I do maintain that all other things being equal, one's opinion carries more weight if one has done it.

Like, everything I know about AK flying has come from reading message boards on the interwebz. Do I think I'd biff it up there? Hell, no. I'm Superpilot, and don't you forget it.

But I've been wrong before. Just once, but still.

 

[esa17]

It's funny watching guys who have zero clue what flying in the SE is like.

I'll never forget the weather out there and how absolutely insane it is and how quickly it changes. In the space of 35 minutes I've seen it go from severe clear to solid IFR back to severe clear again.

Launching under safe conditions and fighting for 45 minutes on a 22 minute flight for clean routes.

Waking up and looking for the boats in Burners, not seeing them and going back to bed.

Mother Nature is always trying to kill you up there and those who have never done it don't have a stinking clue what it's like and should keep their hands off the keyboard and their teeth together.

 

[Boris Badenov]

Mother Nature is always trying to kill you up there and those who have never done it don't have a stinking clue what it's like and should keep their hands off the keyboard and their teeth together.

Easy, there, Mav. Mother Nature is always trying to kill everyone, everywhere. And she always does, sooner or later. I wouldn't know my skinny little posterior from a hole in the ground in AK, but I'd bet I could teach you a few things about getting through a 600 mile long line of Midwestern storms at 5 or 25k with your Ipod intact.

Everyone always wants to be freaking King Kong, the absolute Monarch of their little skull-sized Kingdom of stuff they've done, but it's not a contest, you can't do it all, and there's no way to Win.

I always come back to that boring old bromide about how flying is about "life-long-learning" or uh what was it "ticket to learn"?

Like most cliches, it exists because it has teeth...it's real. If we all put a little bit more effort in to laying down that heavy backpack of Ego and listening, we'd probably all be a lot better at our transportation-appliance-operation, in the aggregate.

 

[deadstick]

Fox is right on the money. Many folks don't understand how rapidly Wx changes in AK. They don't realize that a pilot can have good VFR at the departure and destination airports (which may be only 50 miles apart), but that the Wx can be hard IFR in between. Or the Wx can go IFR as quickly as he describes. Folks who haven't flown in AK should withhold judgment.

@MikeD this is staring to sound like a HEMS discussion from the past about lack of weather info and IIMC accidents.

Sorry for the drift, but I'm curious. Aside from the Coasties, what HEMS assets are used in AK? Are they VFR only?

 

[esa17]

The difference is the equipment, services, and options available in the lower 48 aren't commonplace up there. Having been all over the world I can honestly say SE AK has taught me more in a matter of weeks than months anyplace else. You truly are isolated out there and you're forced to develop judgment and trust in your fellow aviators that isn't like anyplace else.

The Chelton is great...but not utilized to its maximum capacity due to the FAA dragging their feet.

I'm not saying anyone who didn't ever fly in Alaska isn't a real pilot. I'm saying that it's a place like no other that has unique challenges that most pilots don't understand.

It's akin to me telling a Hornet driver about his high-alpha departure options because I fly a Learjet.

 

[🦈💜]

Don't take off when the weather is bad, but if you do, turn around before it gets really bad, but if you don't, keep the airplane over the blue, get some altitude underneath you, and turn for home. It's really not that hard but the habit pattern has to be beaten into you that the airplane flies the same inside a cloud, it doesn't fly the same after it's been driven into the trees because you tried too long to be a good boy and stay visual.

That's how I've always flown here. That's how we train.

I'd go IFR only and only if I could get back into the departure airport or one close by that I already planned for.

... so what you're saying is that you wouldn't fly in Southeast Alaska.

I get that already.

Safe>Legal>Efficient. In that order ONLY. Nothing of what you just gave me is safe. Legal, but not safe. Not anywhere with anything taller than a 300 foot cell tower at least

Departing on a VFR flight on a VFR day isn't safe? Well sure, in Alaska you're actually correct. There aren't many safety nets here. Then again, really, flying is inherently unsafe. Flying is only as safe as the pilot makes it... and you know what? I sit on the ground a lot when the other operators are pushing 'em out the door. I praise our newest noobs when they turn around, and I try to set a good example for them. What I can do is now well beyond what I should do, and what I actually do is usually far more conservative than "what I should do", except on empty legs.

The picture of pilots facing external pressure to fly doesn't apply to this situation. Not in the slightest. That's all I will say in public.

I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise. If it's "VFR" in most places, it probably isn't going to change all day and will probably get better, probably is the key word,

I almost never see "IFR" on the forecast in Alaska.

Why it's accepted to continue to fly up there(sorry, but AK isn't the worst weather in the world, not even close) VFR is beyond me.

Well, shoot. Us silly Alaska people... I guess we just need someone from the lower 48 to come show us how it's done. Give me a call, and I can get you a job flying up here! Then after a while, perhaps you won't say things as stupid as:

...but does a particular place need daily and even multiple daily 207 flights vs one 1900 flight that can get in more safely?

Take a careful look at these airports:
http://www.airnav.com/airport/PAGY
http://www.airnav.com/airport/PAOH
http://www.airnav.com/airport/PAHN

and then look at the cameras here:

http://avcams.faa.gov/sitelist.php?bm=pdey16tay1m5l28at1s7gw#currentImages

For those of you unfamiliar with Alaska weather, and curious, check out a few of those cameras. Look at the clear-day images, and compare the points/heights/distances. Then go into loop mode and watch how the weather changes.

Worst in the world? It can be when it catches you, because it is extremely unforgiving.

We bury our pilots on beautiful days.

I recommend the Sisters Island southwest cam, if you click on it within a few minutes of me posting this. That looks towards Hoonah, the airport in question. The airport is behind the mountain in you see there about 6sm away.

Lena point cameras are good, too, as is the Pederson Hill camera.

Those are the best weather information we have to work with. Automated weather observations are almost useless, there is no weather radar, the forecasts change constantly as the weather systems in the Gulf shift around and suck cold air down the drainages. Sometimes the pressure gradients can be extreme, such as the day last winter that the anemometer on Sheep Mountain recorded a peak wind of 130mph before being literally blown off the mountain.

You see localized mountain wave pattern as wind aloft spills high-pressure air over ridges, severe icing, freezing fog, occasional severe turbulence, windshear patterns in channeled terrain that result in unpredictable 30kt+ surface-level shears based on a few degrees of wind change aloft, 40kt winds blowing up a tight canyon in Skagway with currents that could tie a knot in a windsock, fish creek winds that nearly put a 737 into the sea, glacier-effect fog, lifting of sea-spray aloft into a different sort of mist, snow shower, freezing drizzle and weird inversions.

You can watch the air suddenly cool by a few degrees and clouds appear out of nothing, or rise up from the trees. Light rain can create a nearly opaque mist that turns into scud that turns into clouds that sticks to mountains. Clouds can roll up and stratify, and close in on holes that were there moments before. You can look through a pass and start flying through it, and watch it close in before your eyes like someone's dissolving it into whiteness.

This is all stuff I knew intellectually, coming up here, but I didn't actually believe it or understand it until I saw it with my own eyes. And believe it or not, we get pilots up here with tens of thousands of hours flying all sorts of equipment all around the world. Our pilot group has bush pilots, airline pilots, flight instructors, crop dusters, banner towers, people who've flown otters and beavers and 207s and ATRs and CASAs and Shorts and Beech 1900s and king airs and widgeons and Great Lakeses and Brazilias and MU2s. People who have flown in the Caribbean, in China, in Africa, in Guam, Bethel, Kodiak, Ketchikan, Fairbanks, Mississippi, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, the Carolinas, Idaho, Montana, Maine, Colorado, South America and all over.

Do you know what we all agree on? The fact that the weather here can really suck in a different way than anywhere we've flown before, and that it's always a challenge.

So is it the "Worst Weather Evar OMG!"? I have no idea. It can be extremely unforgiving, and Southeast Alaska can be an extremely unforgiving place to fly VFR... but I'm sorry to say that our fjords and mountains just don't meet TERPS critera any more than they meet "Build the road!" criteria.

On the other hand, my personal philosophy is that if I don't get them there, the ferry can in six hours, along with their costco and probably the medicine for their sick child, and so personally I stay on the ground, and turn around early, and don't otherwise put myself into a deteriorating situation if I can avoid it. There aren't too many questions if you're sitting on the ground, after all.

And even still, I've been stuck in some serious crap before, and I've had to dive on the gauges and stay over the blue.

Do you know how much pressure I've gotten for that over the entire time I've worked here? Essentially none.

-Fox

 

[z987k]

@MikeD this is staring to sound like a HEMS discussion from the past about lack of weather info and IIMC accidents.

Sorry for the drift, but I'm curious. Aside from the Coasties, what HEMS assets are used in AK? Are they VFR only?

There is almost no HEMS. I think the assets in southeast are not full time and don't have medics of their own. It's mostly coasties with rotor assets. Lifemed has a full time one in Soldotna and Wolf Lake(both south central AK) and I think they're both staffed by Methods. The issue with rotor in most of Alaska is they don't have the range to go anywhere. My typical medevac in a BE20 is well over 2 hours in cruise.

 

[Beep]

@Acrofox
Why did you show the LDA X? I would be surprised if any IFR operators in AK don't have approval for the Z.

 

[Burrito]

That's how I've always flown here. That's how we train.



View attachment 32098

We bury our pilots on beautiful days.
-Fox

That last sentence hits home, man. No idea if you got that from somewhere or just came up with it, but that says it all.

 

[Plata]

It's nice to see the tone of this thread return to something more collegial. That's one of the things that distinguishes JC from other pilot forums: for the most part there is respectful discussion.

Back on topic, kind of: @Acrofox, when an accident or incident happens, do your pilots have formal discussions to take lessons learned and reconsider operating procedures? We don't at my company, and it seems like a huge lost opportunity. Yes, there is plenty of speculation amongst the pilots, but no well facilitated discussion. @MikeD, do military aviators have well defined post-accident discussions aimed at learning and improving safety? If yes, could you point me towards those resources?

 

[deadstick]

I was curious. The only non-USCG SAR/MEDEVAC helicopter I've seen was a Bell 412 and that's a serious helicopter, but I'm biased.

I need to think about this some more. I know some single pistons can do IFR 135. How about these 207's? What avionics mods were you all talking about? Can you elaborate on the problems with the IFR structure up there?

Thanks.

 

[Autothrust Blue]

ITT people confuse "IFR" with "conditions in which an instrument approach is required for descent from the MEA to visual conditions."

They are quite different conditions.

 

[NewYorkophile]

@MikeD, do military aviators have well defined post-accident discussions aimed at learning and improving safety? If yes, could you point me towards those resources?

It's airframe specific (ie we don't study fighter crashes, and I doubt they study ours), but yes we do. We generally receive the SIB relatively quickly after the crash which includes all factual information- typically a synopsis, a digital recreation from the FDR, and the CVR recording. Discussion and learning is highly encouraged, and it's a fantastic way to teach humility and discipline when you watch a situation devolve so easily and inconspicuously.

Unfortunately, this data is privileged and we cannot share it, because it opens those involved to criminal/civil courts. The AIB will be released publicly, which will lay blame and allow prosecution. Most military crashes are unrelated to the vast majority of civilian flying, but there are carry-overs to be learned (especially from the heavy world).

 

[Seggy]

I also suspect that a little of the AmFlight machismo is coming out of this post

Oh that is interesting.

 

[ppragman]

Oh that is interesting.

Stirring the pot as usual.

 

[Seggy]

Stirring the pot as usual.

Nah. Calling it as I see it.

 

[ppragman]

More OT, WHY is a 207 still operated "VFR" on those flights these days? I already know the answer, but we haven't been running DC-3s and Beech 18s on NDB approaches into North Dakota or Montana/Idaho for quite some time either... I know, not the same need for aircraft service, but does a particular place need daily and even multiple daily 207 flights vs one 1900 flight that can get in more safely? THAT you guys can educate me on because from where I sit, it seems to me that there is a company(management and employee) culture issue that fuels a lot of the safety problems.

Well, on this particular flight to PAOH, a 1900 isn't going to cut it. Even if you were approved for 80% operations, I doubt you could go to Hoonah full. But that logic is silly in general, "Why doesn't Delta do one daily flight in an A380 from ABC to DEF instead of 10 subcontracted flights in an ERJ?" The answer is because the money isn't in it. Caravans under IFR are a good compromise in that part of the world, but even so, there are approach infrastructure limitations.