He said he was waiting to see trees the whole time. He had flown there many times during the day so he new the terrain and he knew he had to clear a big hill where the "M" is before he could descend into the valley. needless to say he is lucky to be alive. It's funny because on the recording you here the ATC guy in the back ground asking about his next flight plan and the other controller was like "he just dead sticked that thing from 13 miles out, he aint' goin anywhere" You'll have to here it. He'll fly over that spot with a student and say, "see that spot. I don't like that spot." I think thats why we don't do a lot of actual instrument at our school. He also does not let private pilots fly at night w/o an instrument rating in the school's planes. I don't blame him though. A student at Rocky (the 141 flight school in Billings) crashed at night on a cross country. He was scooting around some weather and his terrain alert went off. all he can remember is pulling up and waking up three hours later. The kid was really lucky. It was winter and all he was wearing was a tee shirt and shorts with no survival gear. a couple of days in the hospital but he is alright now. He ended up making shelter in the tail of the plane. The guy from our local FBO in Bozeman had to go over there to excavate the crash (i did not know you had to be rated for that, but there is a rating for everything) only to find it in a pile on the side of the road. Some one lost their job i'll bet. You're not supposed to touch a thing unless some one is in danger with out the proper training. After that happened all the planes our school rents had survival kit's put in the plane. So i guess the moral of the story is bring a jacket even if it's warm out and don't fly at night unless you really know what you are doing. I remember bitching at the owner about not be able to fly at night back when i did not have an instrument rating. He made a point to tell me, after the rocky student crashed, that that's why we aren't aloud to fly at night. any way i'll quit rambling but i can only imagine what would of happened if that kid did not have terrain installed.