Cal Goat
Prestige Worldwide™
This. Flying into the same 8 airports 5 days a week at Ameriflight put me in a very complacent mindset and nearly killed me twice when I was just rushing through things because I knew the airports and approaches so well.
Hagey St. Mary's crash factual
- Thread starter Roger Roger
- Start date
This. Flying into the same 8 airports 5 days a week at Ameriflight put me in a very complacent mindset and nearly killed me twice when I was just rushing through things because I knew the airports and approaches so well.
My point was that you've had two pilots in MVFR conditions on a route you describe as "not that damn special," manage to hit terrain. Consider then two pilots in that same terrain, low altitude IMC with less information then the two accident pilots. It's not a pretty picture.
Trying to compare airline flying and AK 135 is nonsensical, and you know it. There's so much difference between two guys in the Flight Levels, with all the resources that that implies, compared to one pilot down low in a 207 that MIGHT have someone to talk to on the other end of 122.9 that they might as well be on different planets.
Pat lays out a good roadmap. In the end we have the technology to create something that is in between 135 VFR and 135 IFR that makes sense in an environment like Alaska. That said, in that we also need a way that develops the necessary survival skills that lets people come out alive when things go pear shaped.
z987k
Well-Known Member
Why would they have less information? IFR is a known route to be safe at X altitude. Those two crashes would also have not happened had there been an IFR route structure in place. If you can fly IFR in Florida, you can fly IFR in ME, CA, WA, AK, Japan, Nepal, etc. IFR is IFR.
The original post of mine you replied to implied a nav failure.
z987k
Well-Known Member
Which is incredibly uncommon compared to CFIT in Alaska. You're proposing that a known solution to the CFIT issue won't work because of an extremely remote occurrence.
Yeah, and V1 cuts are an extremely remote occurrence yet I get to do them in the simulator every 6 months.
What I'm proposing is that inherent in the safe operation of a low altitude GPS/ADS-B derived IFR system (which I'd be fully in favor of) needs to be the skills to extricate yourself from bad situations, like a nav failure, when they occur.
z987k
Well-Known Member
Which would be the same skills as any other time you have a total nav failure in IMC. IFR below terrain is not unique to Alaska, in fact most every instrument approach includes this in mountainous terrain.
There should be nothing special about it at all.
alaskadrifter
Landing gear operator
We actually do have Night VFR routes, I don't know if they were in response to this accident. I haven't flown them yet either so I can't comment.
dustoff17
Still trying to reach the Top Shelf
Didn't state it was "overweight", I just stated that, based on the pilot's own words, he was probably dealing with and additional 300 pounds of ice (unless it was a TKS Caravan, then a bit less) AND a loss of lift associated with the ice build up.
But, alas, you're right; One could hardly connect my statement with flying directly into rising terrain.
ShortField
No one of consequence
Sorry to nitpic but the pilot didn't report that, passenger did.
dustoff17
Still trying to reach the Top Shelf
Good point.
Correction: my statement was based on a PASSENGER report.....
BajtheJino
I'm looking at you.
According to a passenger, they had been flying for about 30 minutes when the airplane entered thick fog
sky condition overcast at 300 ft agl
St. Mary's, Alaska, at a surveyed elevation of 312 ft msl
At 1820:31, the airplane passed 1 nautical mile (nm) west of the ONEPY intersection at 800 ft msl
Dude was in the soup. That's why his SVFR was invalid.
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
Fair enough.
ShortField
No one of consequence
I think what was more directly related to this accident was no more specials at night.
🦈💜
Well-Known Member
And with Capstone Phase II that would look like this:
Or this:
Show me a 10,000 hour pilot who, flying a "pre-determined route at a pre-determined altitude" who will do substantially better than a "1000-hour wonder" when the magic goes dark and they're solid IMC. At that point, in a 207, you have a compass and a clock, and an hour of gas if you're conservative.
I've heard three completely different statements in regard to this, from the same people:
- Why are you worried about the weather? You've got GPS.
- Why are you worried about a failing GPS? It's a VFR operation!
- Why would you dispatch any differently in one airplane versus another? It's either doable or it's not. (But the competition is going, so...)
(In an airplane without a chelton, but with a Garmin 530 (with no Alaska database) (But it has radar!)
IFR airplanes, maintained to IFR standards, with reduced-separation non-radar IFR routes and procedures that can be safely flown by low-performance single engine airplanes at MGW, and IFR-qualified and capable pilots... or this will continue indefinitely.
Capstone phase II was the right idea, I think. But the airplanes need to be redundant and well-maintained to do it safely. As long as operators are allowed to fly on these certificates on a shoestring budget, the carnage will continue.
I always had my phone running Foreflight as a backup when the weather was crappy, but I don't WANT to be comfortable doing that. I have tasted it, and I have decided that I don't like the taste, and I don't like risking the passengers.
Otherwise I guess I mostly agree with @ppragman.
Rugged terrain, few usable navaids, no radar coverage, no radio coverage, much ice above you, and a much larger chance of losing 100% of your navigation ability while pointing towards, and below the tops of, big rocks.
Sent from iPhone—forgive any typos.
-Fox
Capt. Chaos
Well-Known Member
The problems you had with the Capstone were specific to that company not following the Instructions for Continued Airworthiness for the GPS box. With close to 10k hrs on the Chelton now, I have only seen 1 failure in that box that wasn't due to running it past the 3 year internal battery life, and that was a error in the vertical position, not a complete sensor failure.
When I left JNU there were two schools of thought on Chelton training an maintenance. One focused on using the equipment in real life scenarios, including Nav and AHARS failures, and any hiccup in the system was taken care of promptly. The other was what you experienced. With a yoke mounted Garmin and training a ship Nav failure wasn't as stressful as a AHARS failure because the vacuum AH was over on the copilot side. But that was also part of the training.
Now it was a much smaller shop at that time and easier to focus time and effort on a smaller group of seasonal hires compared to the other guys. As well as keeping a tight reign on Operational Control and what each plane and pilot was capable of.
ShortField
No one of consequence
http://www.adn.com/article/20160227/faas-struggles-alaska-problem-everyone-who-flies-here
Interesting addition to the conversation perhaps.
Interesting addition to the conversation perhaps.
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
Yep. Having JNU based inspectors covering Kodiak, for example, is insane.
Capt. Chaos
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately the political response has been to push out some inspectors and bench others to show "something" has been done. Meanwhile increasing the workload on the remaining guys.
BajtheJino
I'm looking at you.
Woooord!