Houston G3 CVR Transcript Part I

[Singlecoil]

Thanks 2000flyer, I'm in total agreement with your assessment.
I am still puzzled why they continued with the vis at 1/4.
I may have missed it in the transcript.???

I think this was a part 91 reposition flight, no?

 

[Daveman]

It still doesn't make it safe But that's just me.

Edit: I thought I read it was a charter trip.

Edit II.
Singlecoil, why ya always tryin ta bust my balls?
You were correct. 91.

 

[urflyingme?!]

Just shows man, those guys had major experience. Scary.....

 

[Singlecoil]

Nope. It was 135. It still doesn't make it safe if it was a 91 leg. But that's just me.

Edit: I thought I read it was a charter trip.

Singlecoil, why ya always tryin ta bust my balls?

I was actually asking if this was a repo leg. In the transcript, he says there are no pax in the back. I think from the news reports at the time of the accident, this plane was landing to pick up Bush Sr. If they weren't carrying any revenue, 91 landing mins apply, but the flight time would count toward 135 totals for the day since the 91 leg was at the beginning.

I'm not second guessing anything about this flight, though I think there is plenty for all of us to learn from on this one.

 

[jimpilot]

Out of respect I will make no comments about this crew. I will learn from what happened and hope that someday no one has to read a transcript of me.

 

[Big Duke Six]

It sounds like a repo leg. Being the last one to second-guess the pilots, I don't think it would have mattered to them whether they had someone on board or not. They openly talk about all the times they've flown approaches where the controller had issued a "special" just so they personnally could shoot the approach. They were going to land in this case too, one way or another, as long as someone said they could. That's the way we all operate.
Their past successes made them feel invulnerable. We've all been there, and most of us still are. The captain was so sure he would never die that even when the FO switched freq's on him and they had no idea where they really were, he called for landing flaps just five seconds before they hit the tower because his decision height was coming up, and hey, we're gonna land. We always land. Better get ready, we're almost there...

There is a lot to learn here - the most significant lesson I see is that naturally, none of us think "it" will happen to us. We feel so sure that there is simply no way that a mistake made in the cockpit could result in this sort of accident. Oh, we can always fix it or get out of it, right? In the final moments, things happen so fast that the time to avoid the inevitable has already passed.

This chain of events started years before this accident. We are all suscepible to it, it's human nature. Our experiences tell us to overcome our instincts and fly the plane. After you make it a few times it's natural to believe you will succeed, and that is why it is so hard to see this coming. We can all benefit from re-setting the little guy in our gut that yells at us when something is not right.

 

[kevdog]

GIII's don't require an ID on the navs? Especially when weather is below mins? Didn't realize that.

 

[ms6073]

GIII's don't require an ID on the navs? Especially when weather is below mins? Didn't realize that.

Link to an image of a 1984 vintage GIII cockpit: http://www.aircraftdealer.com/dealers/b/businessjetcenter/453/big_cockpit_1.jpg

The non-flying pilot apparently selected the nav aides and then the transcript appears to indicate that either one (possibly both) of the pilots did a read back to verify the data before it was committed. Shortly before that, the non-flying pilot had set them up so that both left and right RMI was getting Nav data from the HUB VOR (117.1). It also appears that the primary nav data source for the flying pilots ND (EHSI) was also set to HUB and the course for the CDI was set with the intention of intercepting the LOC for the ILS (039 degrees).

What confuses me was the disconnect between both of the pilots as at that point none of the data seemed to agree with their mental picture of the approach? With the HUB VOR apparently tuned in two NAV data sources, there had to be some conflicting data concerning the glidepath guidance (or lack thereof - red X's/nav flags on the EHSI)? Equally confusing is the fact that the crew continued their descent towards DH even though at this point the DME surely must have been indicating at least 3+ NM from the airport? Hopefully this does not read as an accusation but it seems to me that there was a good bit of time in which the flying pilots comments seemed to indicate that he was starting to rationalize/identify the discontinuity in the data he was flying but the non-flying pilot's comments seemed to overide those concners.


Michael

 

[b82rez]

Does 135 have stabilized approach criteria like 121. 1000 feet in IFR??? Or is it normal to put in landing flaps so close to landing (crashing)?

 

[Snoopy58]

Michael,

Loss of situational awareness is a really bad deal, partly because you can be pretty far gone by the time you realize that things aren't right. The fact that there were cues present to tell them that they weren't where they thought they were (i.e. dme was too far off, tower giving them a low altitude alert, 117.1 instead of 109.9 tuned in both navaids, whatever FMS information they had available, strong ident for H-U-B instead of I-H-O-U {whatever that ils ident is, don't know off the top of my head}, etc etc etc) just means that the accident could have been averted if the cues had been reconized. Most accidents could be averted, if the error chain had been broken at some point, and this thread is correctly identifying places that it could have been broken. Sadly, neither of these guys was able to do that.

(edit: as far as the GS goes, someone above suggested that the crew may have interpreted a fast/slow flag as a GS indication... I haven't flown a Gulfstream but it seems plausible. They apparently were unfamiliar with the presentation, wanted a GS, found something that looked right, and went with it instead of confirming.)

What can we learn? That no matter how experienced you are, you still CAN make terrible mistakes. That the basics like tune-identify-monitor matter every time that you're in IMC, even when everything else is laid back & relaxed. That using all available tools to confirm your position isn't just for the "tough" situations but for every flight. That there's no substitute for being proficient in the aircraft you're flying today... and if you're a little "off your game" for whatever reason (tired, unfamiliar layout, been off for a while), then it's doubly important to pay attention to everything you have to make sure it's all working like you think it is.

And, if things don't feel right, stop pressing on at full speed in spite of it, but instead slow down and get reoriented so that you KNOW your actual position is where you need to be, instead of hoping for the best.

Remember, nobody is "so good" that it can't happen to you.