Houston G3 crash info

[Texasskicker]

From Aviation International News



It Appears GIII Crew Had VOR, Not ILS Tuned
[font=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Cockpit voice recorder transcripts indicate that the pilots of the Gulfstream III that crashed in IMC on November 22 after being cleared for the Runway 4 ILS approach at Houston Hobby Airport (HOU) had the VOR frequency tuned instead of the ILS for most of the approach. The Part 135 flight was positioning to HOU to pick up former President George H. W. Bush. According to the CVR, about two minutes before the airplane hit a tower the pilot said, “I can’t get [unintelligible] approach mode on this thing.” The copilot responded, “I can’t get an approach mode on mine either.” After lowering the landing gear the copilot said, “What the [expletive] wrong with this?” The pilot responded, “I don’t know.” The copilot asked, “What do we have set wrong?” followed by, “We’re high on the glideslope now.” After an altitude alerter sounds, the pilot said, “[Unintelligible] just gonna have to do it this way.” The copilot replied, “Guess so. Yeah, you’re on glideslope now.” With less than a minute to go before the aircraft hit the tower, the crew discuss continuing the descent down to the 244-foot msl DH. After another altitude alerter sound, the pilot said, “Oh my, what’d you do to me? Whoa [expletive], what happened? Did you change my frequency?” The copilot replied, “We had the, the VOR freq, the VOR frequency was on.” The crew did not break off the approach. “We’re all squared away now,” noted the copilot, presumably aircraft after resetting the frequencies. “Yeah, but I, I don’t know if I can get back on it, in time,” the pilot said. “Yeah, you will. You’re squared away now,” the copilot repeated. Then at the same time the tower is calling the aircraft, the copilot said, “up, up, up, up, up, up, up.” The last words on the CVR are that of the tower completing its call: “Check your altitude. Altitude indicates four hundred feet.” Less than a second later and still more than three miles from the runway, the aircraft clipped a 125-foot tower, crashed and burned, killing the two pilots and a flight attendant.
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[font=Times New Roman, Times, serif]************************[/font]

[font=Times New Roman, Times, serif]These cowboys were pros. HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN?[/font]

[font=Times New Roman, Times, serif]What glideslope indication would you get if you had the VOR tuned, besides a red X or NO glideslope?[/font]

[font=Times New Roman, Times, serif]God rest their souls.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Tx.
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[TimsKeeper]

We all make mistakes....some are just bigger than others.

A lot of shoulda's could have been done but they didn't.

Best wishes and condolences to the families involved.

 

[Piper877]

From Aviation International News



[font=Times New Roman, Times, serif][/font]

[font=Times New Roman, Times, serif]These cowboys were pros. HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN?[/font]

[font=Times New Roman, Times, serif]What glideslope indication would you get if you had the VOR tuned, besides a red X or NO glideslope?[/font]

[font=Times New Roman, Times, serif]God rest their souls.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Tx.
[/font]

Who knows what kind of indications they were getting. Probably the needle was all over the place.

Condolences to everyone.

 

[ultrarunner]

all squared away, huh?

 

[Capt1124]

I had to go around once in Austin after I couldn't get onto the localizer after I was already on the glideslope.

Turns out I had the localizer for the parallel runway tuned- oops....

It's very easy to get rushed and miss stuff or blow stuff off. Maybe they were runnng just a little behind schedule, or didn't want to explain the fuel burn of a go around. It *can* happen to you.

Carefully brief the approach, use standard callouts, and go around or at least level off if it doesn't look right.

 

[soarby007]

The followed the Fast/slow AOA flag. That's what I heard from the FAA.

 

[GravityHater]

I have been studying the cvr transcript as well, only as a means of improving my decision making and safety techniques.
Here is the entire thing:
http://www.aero-news.net/news/commb...4cfe4af-944b-4351-8d1f-ac0813987c25&Dynamic=1

I would like to hear an intelligent recounting of each step, and discuss when and where the accident chain could have been broken.
Doing so is painful to some, but might well save the butts of others.
I know I have a lot to learn here.

 

[Daveman]

Tune and identify.

 

[flyinlow67]

Tune and identify

Amen. Isn't it weird how the little things always seem to come back to haunt you.
RIP guys.

 

[GravityHater]

Tune and identify (and then not be switching the dam frequencies back and forth) is good. Obviously would have helped.

What about this: "If the needles aren't alive and stable (no pegging or jerking) by the faf, we at least do not descend.(calling atc or going missed might be better depending on the environment)"? The faf can be decided upon by x-ing radial, dme or OM usually.

No one has ever given me good instruction on this part... you are on your last vector and maintaining intercept altitude.... Do you just rely upon atc to tell you you blew through the loc or you are aligned but not on g/s? That can't be right.