Plane down. New Smyrna, FL

Inverted said:
Ok cool. Can we look at the the fatality difference from Asian carrier accidents over the last year, verses the world in the last 5 years? Lemme guess that fatalities on Asian carriers is more.
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One missing (obviously crashed somewhere) but we don't know what happened to it. Could have been intentional or could have been a oxygen/pressurization issue and end up like Payne Stewart's Learjet. One was shoot down by militants at the Ukraine border. And one recent A320 crashed into Java Sea, still under investigation. The world hasn't fared much better, and 2014 was actually the worst year since 2005 for aviation fatalities.

Inverted, what you are saying also applies very well to Gulfstream Academy. In fact every regional accident in the last 10 years has had at least one pilot formerly from Gulfstream academy. Gulfstream was a revenue source and just pumped out pilots, they didn't care an individual shouldn't be driving a car let alone a regional airliner.
 
Not that I am doubting you, but where did you get the info about Gulfstream guys in those accidents? What are all the accidents (i.e. can you show a list of them for my curiousity)?

Accident-wise, I know of Colgan in Buffalo, the Pinnacle FL410 flight, the Comair off the end of the runway in Kentucky, PSA I think with the rejected take-off running into the EMAS, what else? If this is true about ALL the incidents, it's very interesting.
 
Beefy McGee said:
Accident-wise, I know of Colgan in Buffalo, the Pinnacle FL410 flight, the Comair off the end of the runway in Kentucky, PSA I think with the rejected take-off running into the EMAS, what else? If this is true about ALL the incidents, it's very interesting.
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Lets compare and contrast all of those accidents against AirAsia, and both Malaysian crashes to see who killed more people....
 
We see pilots all the time with 200 plus hours out of 250tt logged in an LSA who think they can just hop in a Bonanza and go fly down to the barebones mins without breaking a sweat.
We do a checkout with them and in almost every case, either they bitch, complain and compare the checkout to a checkride and we never see em again. Or they simply say "When can we go up and get some more practice cause I had no idea what I was doing?"
I have about the same level of respect for 150 time building as I do that green goo on the sidewalk that almost but not quite had to be scraped off my shoe. Maybe I am a schmuck but if all you have is 150 time, it doesn't count as far as I am concerned. If you have decent Citation time and your only ASEL time is a Cessna 152 then yea, we can get along fine. There is a huge difference.
 
Beefy McGee said:
Not that I am doubting you, but where did you get the info about Gulfstream guys in those accidents? What are all the accidents (i.e. can you show a list of them for my curiousity)?

Accident-wise, I know of Colgan in Buffalo, the Pinnacle FL410 flight, the Comair off the end of the runway in Kentucky, PSA I think with the rejected take-off running into the EMAS, what else? If this is true about ALL the incidents, it's very interesting.
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I don't know about incidents, but yes to accidents and you mentioned them correctly.

Inverted said:
Lets compare and contrast all of those accidents against AirAsia, and both Malaysian crashes to see who killed more people....
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Fatalities will always be more on bigger jets. The last US major airline crash in the USA was AA 587 that killed 265 people. Since then we've had numerous regional crashes, Air Midwest, Pinnacle 3701, Chalks Ocean, RegionsAir, Comair 5191, Colgan 3407. Might have forgotten a few... But the point is all these regional fatalities still total less than 265 which is what was lost on just one AA crash.

You can't really draw a conclusion on fatalities alone.

As for the 3 accidents you mentioned, the shoot down was just SOL that could have happened to anyone - including the Air India and Singapore 777s very close to the vicinity. Or even the Delta 767 from AMS to Mumbai. MH370 disappearance is a real mystery which may or may not be intentional/sabotage. We just don't know. The last one is an A320 that has just been recovered and it remains to be seen what happened. I don't think you can then collectively write off this entire region for aviation. Also, keep in mind that before 2014, Malaysia Airlines was amongst the safest in terms of safety record since they came around the '50s. They had one full fatality crash in '77 that was a result of a hijack and the other was 34 dead out of 53 when a go/around was botched in bad weather. Not including 2014, that's just 2 fatal crashes in their 67 year history.
 
I think it's pretty easy to rack up 400 hours of fair weather flying, I'm almost there. The learning experiences from bad weather need to be reminded every so often. If you have long gaps between flying its not rust, something has dropped off that needs reattaching.

Decision making and knowing keep the wings level and climb in such a situation (keeping calm) is not easy to teach, and execute when flying solo. That judgment is hard to pass on particularly across cultural boundaries.

I'd love to think all 400 hour commercial pilots fly the same - a PPL who flies regularly, I would trust, a CFI who has spent a season in the same place will know the lie of the land. someone who turns up after a long spell away - you're asking a lot of skills that were attained a while back.

If most of the 400 hours is dual, making her own decision making was not something she got to do a lot of (I know plenty of CFIs try to make their students as independent as possible, but it isn't always easy cross cultures to make that stick)

Alex.
 
Although with a different outcome, this reminds me of a newly minted foreign (non-asian) pilot at one school that decided they needed to build some time. Forecast was 1000ft overcast and freezing rain. Pilot walked in and the front desk gave him keys. Went out, and suddenly started calling for help saying he couldnt see the airport and he was losing airspeed. The non-fiki plane had iced up in the rain. Luckily a much more experienced pilot was able to talk him down. Once on the ground the experience did not even shake the guy. He was like..eh, ok cool. See you tomorrow. It caused some major changes at that school.

While I fly IFR nearly everywhere, my approaches to minimums (and holds) have been lacking since my IR ticket over 2 years ago. While I have flown with a CFII down to minimums (with no assistance), I am not confident solo and avoid putting myself in those situations, especially in an aircraft that I do not have much actual experience in. My solution is to fly more actual until I am comfortable and then lower my personal minimums in the new(er) aircraft. While maybe a bit too cautious, I really do not want to have my family/gf going through a similar instance as this unfortunate one.
 
I think too many people are putting too much emphasis on the number of hours vs experience. There's so many pilot mills down there that push people through without any experience, just because they have to make room for the next student. I did about 2 months worth of flying at a pilot mill down in FL before I bailed for my home airport again because I quickly realized they don't care about you, or your progression. I realized that the guy teaching me was just a guy who decided to sign up for the program I was in a year earlier than me. He had no real world experience. He had 500+hrs of flying students around Florida in VFR weather. So as far as this most recent crash, so what that she had 400hrs?

USMCmech said it best a page ago,
USMCmech said:
a student who has likely never flown IMC by themselves is not an instrument pilot regardless if they are rated or not.
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We put too much value on ratings, when in actuality they mean nothing if you don't use them to gain experience. When I was a CFI I flew with plenty of older guys who had been PPL ASEL-IA since the 80s, yet they couldn't even track a VOR needle. I'm sure most of you current and former CFIs on here have very similar stories. Sure, their logbooks had 2000+hrs and mine only had 400, but I sure as heck knew I could shoot an approach, or fly an airway WAY better than they ever could.
 
JEP said:
"...checking the weather..."
"....that would never happen to me...."

You would never make a mistake...But hey, keep on keeping on....
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I never said I'm immune from making mistakes. Believe me, I've made my share. You said "This could have happened to anybody". My attitude is, ABSOLUTELY NOT.

This was very preventable, and looking back on even when I was a student pilot, there's no freaking way I would have launched in those conditions. I would have been stunned if even one of my student pilots had made any of those decisions, they all knew better.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
I don't know about incidents, but yes to accidents and you mentioned them correctly.



Fatalities will always be more on bigger jets. The last US major airline crash in the USA was AA 587 that killed 265 people. Since then we've had numerous regional crashes, Air Midwest, Pinnacle 3701, Chalks Ocean, RegionsAir, Comair 5191, Colgan 3407. Might have forgotten a few... But the point is all these regional fatalities still total less than 265 which is what was lost on just one AA crash.

You can't really draw a conclusion on fatalities alone.

As for the 3 accidents you mentioned, the shoot down was just SOL that could have happened to anyone - including the Air India and Singapore 777s very close to the vicinity. Or even the Delta 767 from AMS to Mumbai. MH370 disappearance is a real mystery which may or may not be intentional/sabotage. We just don't know. The last one is an A320 that has just been recovered and it remains to be seen what happened. I don't think you can then collectively write off this entire region for aviation. Also, keep in mind that before 2014, Malaysia Airlines was amongst the safest in terms of safety record since they came around the '50s. They had one full fatality crash in '77 that was a result of a hijack and the other was 34 dead out of 53 when a go/around was botched in bad weather. Not including 2014, that's just 2 fatal crashes in their 67 year history.
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Have to take exception with this one. You can't include this in your list....it's a "one off" situation.


JEP said:
"...checking the weather..."
"....that would never happen to me...."

You would never make a mistake...But hey, keep on keeping on....
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Play nice!!
 
Ouch, that's tough to listen to. And, for those of you saying this can't happen to an 400-500 hour pilot, you're mistaken. I have seen this happen to a 1300 IFR pilot. It doesn't take much for someone that is not fully confident in their ability to lose their bearings in a time critical situation.
 
Erik10 said:
Ouch, that's tough to listen to. And, for those of you saying this can't happen to an 400-500 hour pilot, you're mistaken. I have seen this happen to a 1300 IFR pilot. It doesn't take much for someone that is not fully confident in their ability to lose their bearings in a time critical situation.
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I think we all agree it can happen to a 500 hour pilot. Heck, it even happened to some guys in a 737 a few years ago out in Asia I think it was (Flash airlines I think?).

The puzzling part to me is the entire situation. The disorientation, the decision to launch into those conditions, AND the radio phraseology used. That's what is really strange IMO.
 
In my opinion, this can happen to anyone regardless of total time. Total time does not = good judgement or the ability to get oneself out of any adverse situation.
We are all human and as such are subject to moments of weakness. Sometimes that weakness is in the form of poor judgement and sometimes its in the form of poor performance.
None of us, regardless of total are time are immune to being overwhelmed and there are so many diverse factors involved in becoming overwhelmed that it is impossible to say truthfully that we cannot be overwhelmed.
This pilot sounded to me to be clearly overwhelmed and very confused, not to mention frightened. Strange decisions get made when we are those things, overwhelmed and frightened. Its a dangerous combination and one which in this instance appears to have cost this pilot her life.
"It cannot happen to me" is nothing more than a trap just like almost all of us have been trained to believe. If it cannot happen to you, but just did, then the real question is "What can I do to reduce further, the chances that the same will happen to me."
Many of us pilots, myself included love to puff out our chests and show how "skilled" we are. The truly skilled among us though, are the ones who are consistently able to recognize situations in which our abilities stand a real chance of being exceeded and then elect not to enter into those situations.
I feel sorry for this pilot and for those who knew her. Its an unfortunate accident, but I fear its an all too common one and one which can and should have been prevented.
 
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The radio phraseology does not surprise me considering English as a second language; the decision to launch into poor conditions at night does.
 
GypsyPilot said:
I think we all agree it can happen to a 500 hour pilot. Heck, it even happened to some guys in a 737 a few years ago out in Asia I think it was (Flash airlines I think?).

The puzzling part to me is the entire situation. The disorientation, the decision to launch into those conditions, AND the radio phraseology used. That's what is really strange IMO.
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Another thing that caught my eye is how quick the FBO/School said "...she was not authorized to take use the plane...". I would wonder how she got the plane then. At the busy FBO where I did my training, you had to check out the airplane from dispatch.

Many questions...
 
Mark815 said:
I think too many people are putting too much emphasis on the number of hours vs experience. There's so many pilot mills down there that push people through without any experience, just because they have to make room for the next student. I did about 2 months worth of flying at a pilot mill down in FL before I bailed for my home airport again because I quickly realized they don't care about you, or your progression. I realized that the guy teaching me was just a guy who decided to sign up for the program I was in a year earlier than me. He had no real world experience. He had 500+hrs of flying students around Florida in VFR weather. So as far as this most recent crash, so what that she had 400hrs?

USMCmech said it best a page ago,

We put too much value on ratings, when in actuality they mean nothing if you don't use them to gain experience. When I was a CFI I flew with plenty of older guys who had been PPL ASEL-IA since the 80s, yet they couldn't even track a VOR needle. I'm sure most of you current and former CFIs on here have very similar stories. Sure, their logbooks had 2000+hrs and mine only had 400, but I sure as heck knew I could shoot an approach, or fly an airway WAY better than they ever could.
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Quality not quantity.

I did the time building for about 50 hrs ME in FL a lifetime ago. After I got home, I realized the opportunity I missed. We should have stayed local and knocked out tons of approaches. Going to KEYW was cool, but vfr xc wasn't making me better.
 
Sosee said:
Personally I think DPEs should be prohibited from acting as Examiner for their own customers. If they want to operate a flight school thats one thing, but performing checkrides for their own customers, many of whom will have just spent thousands of dollars with them, just rubs me wrong.
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Therein lies the problem I have with the 142 schools, such a major conflict of interest.

But I digress... Terrible to hear the ATC recording, but hopefully a learning experience to others.
 
Just listened to the audio...christ, so very sad.

I am wondering aloud here....and it's useless at this point....would it have made a difference if someone in ATC happened to speak whatever dialect the pilot did and got on the radio to try and get her centered and oriented?
 
killbilly said:
Just listened to the audio...christ, so very sad.

I am wondering aloud here....and it's useless at this point....would it have made a difference if someone in ATC happened to speak whatever dialect the pilot did and got on the radio to try and get her centered and oriented?
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While I understand your logic on the language thing here, I feel that is also very much a Pandora's box.
Yes it might have saved her life and to that end I say if someone did speak her dialect, let them help.

However, this also could be turned into a "policy" of sorts and a big part of having one language serve as the official aviation language, is not just to enable communication directly between a controller and airplane but to also allow others on frequency to hear and understand everyone's communications.
I detect transmissions not directed at me, but which are about the aircraft I am operating all the time.
"Cirrus 123wtf, traffic 2 O'clock, 2 miles, a Baron at 7500 descending for Van Nuys" when I am in the Baron.

While the controller hasn't yet addressed me in the Baron, I now know to be on the lookout for that Cirrus traffic.
 
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