Weekend Jet Accidents in the USA

Boris Badenov said:
Aspen is a freaking menace. In any rational world, that's a VFR-only airport. The margins are just too thin in any real weather. I'll never have to go there again, and that's not soon enough.
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Amen brother. Aspen, Heber City, and Truckee are three places I’m so glad I’ll never have to see again. I shot the LOC to mins at Aspen once and still feel like I got away with something.
 
Aspen is fine if you’re proficient at it and have good company training. I felt very safe and comfortable doing it at SkyWest for all seasons, and preferred that flying over the other stuff we did. Considering the frequency of operations we did in all kinds of weather, I think they have it dialed in pretty well.

I can’t imagine just showing up there without any of that though, particularly the lack of proficiency.
 
Aspen was a VFR-only airport at my last shop. I don't think it was official, but no captain I knew would continue an approach past the FAF if they didn't have the airport in sight.
 
GypsyPilot said:
Aspen is fine if you’re proficient at it and have good company training. I felt very safe and comfortable doing it at SkyWest for all seasons, and preferred that flying over the other stuff we did. Considering the frequency of operations we did in all kinds of weather, I think they have it dialed in pretty well.

I can’t imagine just showing up there without any of that though, particularly the lack of proficiency.
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And that's one of the issues. They are sending these crews there that don't have much if any Aspen experience. Making poor decisions while the clients are in the back or the company is breathing down on them saying GO GO GO... And this isn't a new thing, its been happening forever.

I remember the first time I ever went into ASE I had 1400 TT, in the right seat of a Citation. I was the PM watching our CP do the approach (to mins, if not below) I had zero FORMAL training in aspen. The CP at the time made bad decisions and I was too green to understand. Its a miracle more people don't end up in the news...
 
Roger Roger said:
If I can go my whole career without touching Aspen or Teterboro I’ll consider myself a success
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Your Southeast experience would make getting in and out of KASE no problem. KTEB just sucks, what with its altitude and speed restrictions, handoffs every 60 seconds, and volume of traffic. That said, having a good SIC can reduce the stress level when arriving or departing either airport.
 
ASE isn’t some impossible destination to get into, certainly not like some of the remote missile-warning radar stations located in mountainous areas of Alaska like Romanzof or Eaarksen. However, ASE does at a minimum require some degree of preplanning and pre-study of what it is exactly that one will be dealing with when they get there, whether arriving in VMC or IMC. It’s not a good idea to just take a cursory glance at an approach plate while initiating enroute descent and do some half assed approach brief when never having been into there before,
 
Fixtur said:
Aspen was a VFR-only airport at my last shop. I don't think it was official, but no captain I knew would continue an approach past the FAF if they didn't have the airport in sight.
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This (along with configuring early and being on speed prior to reaching the IF) is the unwritten rule to ASE. We all know how steep the approach is and that it's really challenging to be stabilized at all at any past the final approach fix.

And on to BLM. I have flown into there atleast once a quarter the last 3 years. There's no tower. The runway is skinny and unimproved. It's certainly long enough. But it is a sloped runwar and has had several overruns from corporate jets over the years. One end of the runway sits on a plateau.
 
KLB said:
This (along with configuring early and being on speed prior to reaching the IF) is the unwritten rule to ASE. We all know how steep the approach is and that it's really challenging to be stabilized at all at any past the final approach fix.

And on to BLM. I have flown into there atleast once a quarter the last 3 years. There's no tower. The runway is skinny and unimproved. It's certainly long enough. But it is a sloped runwar and has had several overruns from corporate jets over the years. One end of the runway sits on a plateau.
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There was also a charting error there a few years ago that contributed to a low speed taxiway excursion and night.
 
I'm in there (BLM) once a week in the summer season. There is a definite slope, and nothing has been repaved since the HW Bush administration, but it's not a challenging airport. Other than the tomfoolery that usually happens at untowered fields on nice days.
 
GypsyPilot said:
Aspen is fine if you’re proficient at it and have good company training. I felt very safe and comfortable doing it at SkyWest for all seasons, and preferred that flying over the other stuff we did. Considering the frequency of operations we did in all kinds of weather, I think they have it dialed in pretty well.

I can’t imagine just showing up there without any of that though, particularly the lack of proficiency.
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Fixtur said:
Aspen was a VFR-only airport at my last shop. I don't think it was official, but no captain I knew would continue an approach past the FAF if they didn't have the airport in sight.
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Crockrocket94 said:
And that's one of the issues. They are sending these crews there that don't have much if any Aspen experience. Making poor decisions while the clients are in the back or the company is breathing down on them saying GO GO GO... And this isn't a new thing, its been happening forever.

I remember the first time I ever went into ASE I had 1400 TT, in the right seat of a Citation. I was the PM watching our CP do the approach (to mins, if not below) I had zero FORMAL training in aspen. The CP at the time made bad decisions and I was too green to understand. Its a miracle more people don't end up in the news...
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At my shop we had set company minimums quite a bit higher than the approach mins, almost up to VFR. PIC's had to have done prior trips into KASE before going there as captain. Definitely no green-on-green. Sim training at KASE every year. (At one point I was considering "airport in sight crossing Redtable" as minimums.) (Later, after I had backed out of the D.O. position, the standards group relaxed the company ceiling/vis minimums somewhat, a decision I wasn't crazy about, but I think they might have tightened up the"prior experience" requirements(?).)

We had company minimums and limitations at quite a few (a dozen?) airports. And they were clearly communicated to customers when booking flights, so the pressure was removed (at least partially) from the crews. Pilot management stressed to the crews that we expected them to follow company minimums/limitations and praised them when they made those hard decisions. Trying to establish a strong safety culture is huge.
 
Managing (customer) expectations is huge here. If the charter dept. is good, communicates clearly and makes alternate plans ahead of time it becomes a no-brainer to divert to Rifle or Eagle and have the car waiting there. So Mr. Big has to spend an extra 45 minutes in the back of an Escalade. Still beats driving from San Diego.

Fix
 
There's also video out there of an ASE snowplow attempting to pull the Falcon out of the embankment. It did not go well! Let's just say an expensive issue just got a lot more expensive!
 
I’ve been to Aspen multiple times over the past several years. I don’t fly this one any differently other than rate of descent….be configured, on speed at FAF just like any other inst approach.

I do think they need to get the fire department a dual purpose fire-fighting heavy-lift crane! (do they make these @MikeD?)
Waiting for a crane closes that airport for days!! REALLY sucks if you’re trying to get out!
 
Fixtur said:
Managing (customer) expectations is huge here. If the charter dept. is good, communicates clearly and makes alternate plans ahead of time it becomes a no-brainer to divert to Rifle or Eagle and have the car waiting there. So Mr. Big has to spend an extra 45 minutes in the back of an Escalade. Still beats driving from San Diego.

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I usually notified clients over an hour out of my plans to divert. It pretty much came down to the ceilings being high enough where we would have field in sight by Red Table by the time of arrival. I elected to divert to RIL if it were lower than that. This gives the clients' ground transportation enough time to drive over and be there by the time we landed.

I really didn't leave it up for debate with the management companies honestly. I'd send them a message letting them know of my intentions. Some would haggle, but I didn't change my mind once it was made up. I've even had it where a company would contact ATC and tell them they wanted me to go to ASE, but I would not change it once we got ground transportation rolling towards RIL. These are the type of pressures corporate pilots have to deal with.
 
dustoff17 said:
I’ve been to Aspen multiple times over the past several years. I don’t fly this one any differently other than rate of descent….be configured, on speed at FAF just like any other inst approach.

I do think they need to get the fire department a dual purpose fire-fighting heavy-lift crane! (do they make these @MikeD?)
Waiting for a crane closes that airport for days!! REALLY sucks if you’re trying to get out!
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They do make crash recovery cranes, even specifically for that such as “Tilley” on aircraft carriers. Some of the larger airport ARFF departments have their own crash recovery cranes, such as Orange County Fire at KSNA. Other larger ARFF depts have their own air-stair trucks in their depts, complete with emergency lights etc.
 
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