Maybe they got to low? King Air crash

Here's what I want to know. How do guys who have zero hours in the cockpit actually know what too low is? And why does the media quote them?
 
Wow, you guys ought to go work for the NTSB...I'm sure you could speed things up a bit with your speculations.


Two comments:

1.) If you get to the destination, you have enough fuel and you're able to at least shoot the approach (i.e., you're part 91), you might as well give it a try. Weather can vary widely over the course of a few minutes. Approach minimums are not the minimums to actually fly the approach, they are the minimums to LAND from the approach.

2.) Get-there-itis? Give me a break. You have no idea what was going on up there.

The least you could do if you are going to sit in your cozy living room and speculate is give the crew the benefit of the doubt.
 
Amen! Ditto what ESF said!

Speculation only serves on purpose - to make the speculator look foolish.

You do not know what went on, nor do the authorities.

I deal with the NTSB every day. My firm does aviation law and I see how long it takes for the NTSB to finalize a report and, believe me, until you've read one - complete with every snippet of investigative evidence, you are in absolutely NO position to say "this or that happened".

Here's what we know:

The wx was bad.
A plane crashed.
Two men died.

End of story. Let the NTSB sort it out.
 
Agreed. Some crashes like controlled flight into terrain are obvious, but ones like this take some time to get figured out. No way to tell what really happened right now.
 
I don't know exactly how bad the weather was ... I was referencing the ATL 100-1/4, which is of course thirty miles distant. Was CCO different? Almost certainly. Was it different enough to enable them to get in? I have no idea. I was flying in the Southeast yesterday, and it wasn't CAVU anywhere around that I know of, and icing, turbulence, low ceilings, and reduced visibility were forecast all over the place. As a King Air pilot myself, I probably would have tried the approach once (Part 91 after all) then, if I didn't find the field, I'd be going elsewhere ... Birmingham, Montgomery, Atlanta, Chattanooga, Macon, Augusta, wherever ATC or FSS and my preflight weather said had at least 200-1/2. I don't know what happened here, and I'm not going to jump on any bandwagons without proper investigation, but obviously something went wrong. The two most likely culprits would appear to be weather and pilot error, though almost anything is possible. No prejudgment here, just speculation, which may be (in fact, probably is) riddled with errors. But it gives us something to talk about.

In the meantime, our prayers should go out to the families and friends of those killed. I lost two close friends in crashes this year, and it is tough.

FL270
 
I don't assume to know what was going on in the air. Maybe I should have phrased it differently. The weather was bad and that is about all that we know. Bad enough not to land? Don't know. All i am saying is it may have been a case of got to get thereitis. We had a crash here in MN that killed a senator over a year ago. At some point the pilots expressed hesitation about making the flight but after several factors they decided to go ahead. Once at arrival the wx sucked and they made the approach and hit the trees. End of story.
 
here is what I do know from the comfort of my living room:
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I don't have the approach plates infront of me and my PDF reader is not working but the weather did suck. If it was not at or below mins, it had to be damn close..................[edit]found the approach plates[edit] here are the mins for Cat A/B aircraft:

Gps rw14 1380-1 410(500-1)
Gps rw32 1360-1 400(405-1)
Loc rw32 1280-1 325(400-1)
Ndb rw32 1400-1 445(500-1)
Vor/Dme GPS 1420-1 450(500-1)

The field elev is 970 and if the sky's were as reported ovc002, that would be 1170 if my addition works. 1170 is 100 ft below the lowest min listed for the airport.

----------------------------
KCCO 042359Z AUTO 07004KT 1 1/4SM OVC002 02/02 A3012 RMK AO1
KCCO 042339Z AUTO 08003KT 1 1/4SM OVC002 02/02 A3012 RMK AO1
KCCO 042320Z AUTO 09004KT 1 1/4SM OVC002 02/02 A3012 RMK AO1
KCCO 042259Z AUTO 10004KT 1 1/4SM OVC002 02/02 A3013 RMK AO1
KCCO 042239Z AUTO 07004KT 1 1/2SM OVC002 02/02 A3012 RMK AO1
KCCO 042219Z AUTO 08004KT 3/4SM OVC002 02/02 A3012 RMK AO1
KCCO 042159Z AUTO 07004KT 3/4SM OVC002 02/02 A3013 RMK AO1
KCCO 042139Z AUTO 08004KT 3/4SM OVC002 02/02 A3012 RMK AO1
KCCO 042119Z AUTO 07003KT 3/4SM OVC002 02/02 A3013 RMK AO1
KCCO 042059Z AUTO 06004KT 3/4SM OVC002 02/02 A3012 RMK AO1
-----------------------------
My thoughts go out to the families, but I just wanted to clarify what the wx was. If the wx was as stated I would question why it happened. The only way I or anyone else will learn is to ask questions, speculate, whatever one wishes to call it.
 
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If the wx was as stated I would question why it happened. The only way I or anyone else will learn is to ask questions, speculate, whatever one wishes to call it.

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Yes, but weather like that doesn't make planes crash. It's maybe almost cold enough for icing, but not really. In theory even a 172 should be able to shoot those approaches without wreaking. This is why you can't blame the weather directly, something else must have happened. (Decended below mins, ran out of gas, etc...)
 
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something else must have happened. ( Decended below mins, ran out of gas, etc...)

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I am not blaming the wx as THE cause, but just stating it was a contributing factor. One question I have is, if the wx was as stated, I wonder why the approach was continued. I am not blaming, ppointing the finger, etc... I question many things in accidents to see what I can learn from them to avoid the same mistakes, whatever they were.
 
If the flight is conducted under part 91 there is nothing wrong or illegal with shooting the approach to take a look. My point is you should be able to shoot any approach down to mins and go miss safely everytime. I don't know what happened here, but I'd say something we can learn from this type of accident it NEVER go below mins. Also, didn't happen here, but never shoot the same approach again. If you had to go missed just go the alt, there are alot of accidents where pilots felt presured during the second approach and crashed.
 
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It says they're from Delaware, hope I didn't know 'em.
frown.gif


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I think the plane (or corporation that owns it) was registered in Delaware for the tax advantages. Plane and crew were from Georgia, I believe.
 
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