We sure can learn from this accident

[WabiSabi]

My experience with these systems is limited to using them on a daily basis for many years as a professional ATP pilot.

....like my many years of going to an "ATM machine"

 

[avbug]

EGPWS, TAWS, TCAS, moving maps, GPS, FMS...these are not exactly new technology reserved for a fractional percentage of the professional pilots out there...most of us use them on a constant basis. Nothing new there.

Interesting you picked the Jackson Hole C-130 loss...as it's not gadgetry that would have saved them, but adherence to any one of a dozen basic proceedures...starting with the cockpit crew using the same charts. Or following proceedures. A classic human failure. The crew didn't avail themselves of what they did have available...no reason to expect that they'd have had more success with more available to them. Bottom line is that they screwed up from the word go. They didn't even ensure they were using the same charts for reference.

I think I make an accurate prediction when I say I'll never fly the "dreamliner." I don't have any desire to, either.

I don't believe in odds. If youre playing the chance game and playing odds, you need to get out of avaition before you kill someone. This isn't a guessing game. It's a profession. A professional will have a basic skill level notwithstanding toys, non-essentials, or gadgetry in the cockpit. I have never stated that this equipment should not be used, but the pilot who fails basic airmanship cannot be saved by this equipment. Such lapses and human failures will eventually win, as we see time and time again.

If you find this equipment necessary, then your basic skills have already eroded, and you fit this category. Ignore this failure at your own peril.

 

[satpak77]

C-130 at Jackson Hole, back to basics.

Jackson Hole involved a Dyess AFB crew from Abilene, which is Texas flat-land. Crew failed to fly the published DP, and hit a mountain.

Period, end of story.

 

[mtrv]

I don't believe in odds. If youre playing the chance game and playing odds, you need to get out of avaition before you kill someone.

The chance of mechanical failure will always have a percentage of odds. And with human failure it's always a chance of odds.

The statistics prove this fact over and over, and can't be denied. To claim that you don't believe in odds, and won't use technology to put odds in your, or your passengers favor is nonsense.

A synthetic 3D topography display in IMC conditions is like the ability to look down the barrel of that pistol, and actually see that one bullet in place. If you still want to pull the trigger, then it's up to you. But the odds have drastically changed.

But of course, I would never play Russian Roulette. I'd always know that I could see the bullet ahead of time. That's just my mentality.

And then I read the next reply. "They hit a mountain, end of story". Well that's nonsense too! This whole disccusion is getting much to lame for my taste.

 

[satpak77]

This whole disccusion is getting much to lame for my taste.

good, maybe that post will be your last one on this thread.

of course, if you just can't stay away...

 

[missionarypilot]

I don't believe in odds. If youre playing the chance game and playing odds, you need to get out of avaition before you kill someone. This isn't a guessing game.
"Odds" probably isn't the best term. Risk management is a better term, and we all have to manage our risk. Even the airlines, who probably manage their risk better than any other in this industry, can never completely eliminate it. Technology, CRM, 2 person crews, redundancy, training, experience, et al are all things that can lower risk, but it will NEVER be completely eliminated, although the airlines sure seemed to these past few years (until recently of course).

 

[FN FAL]

How is the dispatcher accountable? The pilot(s) departed under known conditions...

Actually, the conditions weren't known...the cockpit voice recorder picked out that they only listened to "remarks" section of the ATIS, not the "weather" section.

Erlanger is correct; we all can learn from this accident report.

You are correct; responsibility of the flight crew v. controller responsibility...maintain VFR is no contract. Terrain and traffic separation are the flight crew's responsibility during this portion of a flight.

In addition, this is heinous disregard for a captain's au-thor-i-tie:

The CVR recording revealed that the copilot yawned five times within 6 minutes during the departure discussion.

 

[avbug]

To claim that you don't believe in odds, and won't use technology to put odds in your, or your passengers favor is nonsense.

I have never claimed that I do not use the technology available to me. I dont' rely on it to the exclusion of those good old fashioned "old school" basic airmanship ways, however. Anyone who does is either dead, soon to be, or an idiot (soon to be dead). That's playing odds. I don't do that.

I'm no mathmatician. I do know that every time you fly, you'll either land safely, or you won't. Odds fifty fifty, if you believe in odds. Save yourself the time. Half-way there, flip a coin. If it comes up against your favor, pull the power to idle, hold a rudder full over, and wait. You know the odds on that, right?

Playing odds in the cockpit? Adjectives such as insane, stupid, nutzyroxo...are quite inadequate. Criminal gets a lot closer.

A synthetic 3D topography display in IMC conditions is like the ability to look down the barrel of that pistol, and actually see that one bullet in place. If you still want to pull the trigger, then it's up to you. But the odds have drastically changed.

But of course, I would never play Russian Roulette. I'd always know that I could see the bullet ahead of time. That's just my mentality.

Who cares if you see the bullet? Not getting hit with the bullet is the important part. Not looking down the barrel is a good start. One who does that has already exceeded all semblence of good sense. One who looks down that barrel is either suicidal, or merely a bloody idiot.

If you feel that flying IMC is the same as playing Russian roulette, then perhaps you need to stay clear of clouds for a while. It's not looking good for you. If you're down in the terrain, "looking down the barrel," playing the sick game or whatever it is to which you allude, adding gadgetry to stupidity only makes it high tech stupidity, does it not? (it does)

And then I read the next reply. "They hit a mountain, end of story". Well that's nonsense too! This whole disccusion is getting much to lame for my taste.

You introduced the event, but the summation that they hit the mountain pretty much covers it. They acted stupidly, briefed poorly, used incompatible and incorrect charts, failed to fly proceedures, made up their own, and died. But I digress...it was your example to support your point. Just how much technology is necessary to save a pilot from herself (in the KJAC case) when even the most basic policies and proceedures are not used? And hasn't she and her crew suffered enough, already? (Certainly can't get any more dead...)

As that summation was "much to [sic] lame" for you, then by all means address the specifics and we'll contemplate them in order to better come to the understanding of how to blame others for our own stupidty, and the wisdom in exchanging common sense, airmanship, and judgement for "non-essential toys" and gadgetry. In addressing that issue, be sure to put more words in my mouth as I'm running short tonight. Perhaps a little more about my lack of experience in these systems, or perhaps my abject refusal to use them in favor of "old school" technology. Or playing the odds. Your ball.

Actually, the conditions weren't known...the cockpit voice recorder picked out that they only listened to "remarks" section of the ATIS, not the "weather" section.

The crew flew into the airport in those conditions, could look up into the sky and see it obscured, and certainly encountered those conditions during their VFR departure. Reported conditions were several hundred feet lower at the base than the crew was seen to be. Regardless of known conditions, the crew knew about the departure proceedure, and should have followed it. At least discussed it. Done something. Anything. The conditions were known...we don't know if the crew called any numbers to get information or looked it up such as with a cell phone or PDA...but the conditions were known. If the crew failed to know the conditions when that information was so readily available, then chalk it up to one more failure.

Or perhaps we can find a way to blame that on ATC too...Erlanger?

Risk management is a better term, and we all have to manage our risk.

I don't believe in risk management. I hate the term. The very term suggests accepting risk, and accepting risk is never appropriate. Hate it. Despise it. Fear it. Respect it. But don't live with it. A potential exists as a hazard until that hazard is put in play, and then it becomes risk. Risk is, because pilots make it so. To create a working hazard, to make a threat a true potential in real time and then to discuss managing it, belies the very effort of handling the risk; to create it, one has undermined the entire purpose of managing it. Much like baking river rocks in a hot oven then trying to juggle them to keep from getting burned.

Risk elimination means seeking out ways to avoid hazards becoming risks, and when hazards to become risks, eliminating them by either finding ways to mitagate the risk and take the element of risk away from the situation, or make it go away completely. People shooting at destination A is a hazard. Taking off with the intent of flying to destination A is a risk. Chaning destination to B where no shooting exists makes the risk go away; the risk has been eliminated. So does arriving before or after the shooting. So does neutralizing destination A before arrival. And so does perhaps a dozen other possibilities.

Point is, see a risk, address a risk. Don't manage it, fix it. This isn't an absolute, one time effort. It's a state of mind, like looking for traffic in flight. One doesn't merely glance outside once and be done with it. One assumes that there forever exists traffic one doesn't see, and then looks for it as though one's life depends upon it...because of course, it does. Likewise, risk elimination exists as a basic component of one's character in every moment of every flight. Most of us do it without thinking about it. Yet whine to high heaven when someone suggests it's truly possible. Of course it's possible. You've spent your life engaging in risk elimination, and if you stop for a moment and backtrack the miriad millions of decisions you've made over the years, you know had you not made these decisions or been exceptionally lucky, you'd have been dead a long time ago.

Some say semantics; tomato, potato (potatoe for D. Quayle), management, elimination. I disagree. Find risk and eliminate it. Don't accept it, don't manage it, don't coddle it. Make it go away. Make the bad man stop. Make it be quiet. Open a door and let it out. Go the other way. By far the biggest hazard inflight is the pilot. For most of us, eliminating the pilot isn't practicable, but eliminating the stupid pilot tricks of which we are all at times guilty, certainly is possible. This is the whole essence of risk elimination, and yessiree, it most certainly is possible.

 

[Squanto]

One of the best things I learned from USAF

I had an instructor in the AF that would always tell me that, "They haven't crashed a Control Tower yet".......this was one of the best tips that I got in regards to dealing with ATC. This way of thinking has saved my bacon a few times. Once in Northern Norway when a contoller tried to vector me into rising terrain (IMC at night). We landed and I ran up to the tower to see who in the h#%# was up there. The guy said that he was sorry and immediately asked, "Do you have any whiskey on board".........in God we trust, everything else, verify..

 

[missionarypilot]

This is the whole essence of risk elimination, and yessiree, it most certainly is possible.

Wow I want to fly the plane you're flying. You've eliminated the risk of an engine (or both engines for that matter) failure? You've eliminated the risk of a complete hydraulic failure? I'm sure Captain Haynes and the others on board UAL 232 would have loved to be flying on your plane as well.
Of course we want to eliminate the known risks, which is what you seem to point out. Any good pilot will do that. But there is still the unknown risk; while unlikely, there is still a risk. Like hitting another plane over the Amazon jungle. The latest TCAS certainly reduced the risk of this happening, but it obviously did not eliminate it.
That's why we carry insurance. Because of the unknown. Not because we go blasting off into the air just hoping nothing will go wrong. Because we know no matter how much we can eliminate known problems and known hazards, we will NEVER eliminate ALL hazards and ALL problems. There is still the element of the unknown. And you know what? You won't either Avbug.

 

[mtrv]

This is the whole essence of risk elimination, and yessiree, it most certainly is possible.

Wow I want to fly the plane you're flying. You've eliminated the risk of an engine (or both engines for that matter) failure?

I do believe Avbug had an engine failure a month or so ago. But the odds were in his favor, as to a suitable landing location.

 

[StaticWick]

ATC, Technology, CRM, just fly the airplane

I have experienced flying the KLN90B, FMS UNS1K, Garmin 400 & 500's and now the Avidyne EX500 in our King Air. The KLN90b was a good GPS to use when it came out because compared to what there was it was good. I have seen the KLN90b not cycle through to the next waypoint causing a few moments of sweating during an approach. Yes, our KLN90b was certified for approaches. I personally felt the UNS1K was a pile of crap becuase there was no visual representation.

When they say a picture is worth a thousand words (moving maps) take away the picture what do you have? I still shoot an ILS, VOR aproaches the way I was taught years ago before I saw the KLN90b. Set it up in both NAV 's and identify it by morse. An instructor busted my chops once for not setting the second nav unit up to an appoarch when I had already accomplished the act with NAV#1. He said I wasn't using ALL the available equipment in the airplane to act as a check an balance. I use the GPS's for pictorial respresentation of where I am at in the approach.

My boss also a instrument pilot, owns the Mooney Ovation II with two G1000 in the cockpit...he has a very hard time adjusting to flying the 6 standard gauges in our king air and flies all over the sky to prove my point. I feel very bad for him becuase I do not know how he'll safely do it through the clouds to land if he lost both individually powered G1000's and flew on his 3 back-up gauges.

Avbug don't close your mind to new technologies but at the same time everyone don't totally rely on them either. When I do an IPC, I treat my SEL/IFR student the same way they do to me at Simuflight & FlightSafety. I take all that fancy stuff away and see how they handle it. I'll probably be unemployed the day I pull the CB on the PFD in my bosses plane but it's they only he will tell how serious it is to rely soley on technology to get there safely.

As far as the discussion goes about PIC, if you log it in your log book PIC then you are PIC. The controller may think he is in charge but he is not. I have had tell the controler more than once "no" for a vector when he/she insisted that I fly and that was were I did not want to go for safety reasons.
...ie. thunderstorms, rocks etc.

I think the lear crew in the accident wanted to get home and blasted away first without thinking. If the crew/aircraft was the only things out there then they should of climbed instead of maintaining altitude to keep the controller happy. I'd rather handle a pissed off controller for deviating from thier instructions to save my life, than the fate of the lear crew.

Speaking of losing an engine, I have. In a King Air a100, about 3 minutes after take-off. Seconds before I saw the engine gauges and everything was normal until she cratored. I flew the airplane. I declared an emergency, told ATC I am going back and turned that way and the controller was in another spiritual plane. He wanted to know why I deviated from assigned altitude and heading. After a short terse explaination he then wanted to start a discussion about traffic here and there. Here I am dealing with a sick airplane that is full of passengers and fuel and he wants me to look out for Southwest. I was totally dumbfounded. But she did fly and I can land better with one engine working than two good ones.

Now, I don't know how I was suppose to manage the risk before the engine failure occured. But after it occured I just flew the airplane and I wasn't fidling with the GPS.

 

[avbug]

Of course we want to eliminate the known risks, which is what you seem to point out. Any good pilot will do that. But there is still the unknown risk; while unlikely, there is still a risk.

One cannot manage that which one does not know, hence the effort at risk elimination. Being constantly vigilent and asking one's self what one does not yet know, and forever endeavoring to discover it, is the heart of risk elimination.

I do believe Avbug had an engine failure a month or so ago. But the odds were in his favor, as to a suitable landing location.

I've posted enough on that incident that you can do a little searching for the details, if you like. However, the run-in was using the water principle; never go a different direction than the water will flow. It went downhill, so did I, leaving me a good exit should anythign go wrong. Never enter a run you can't exit if the load doesn't drop; eliminate that risk, too. The bottom of the run enabled landing sites which I had surveyed repeatedly throughout the day, as this was my fifth trip to that fire. Eliminate another risk. Be very proficient at putting that airplane down and know it well; eliminate another risk. Live in the environment, and have considerable experience with that same scenario over many years...eliminate another risk.

I wore nomex. I carried tools for egress. I had aerial supervision following me to the site where I stopped, and when the aircraft came to a rest an L3 was hovering a few feet in front of me with a full bambi bucket, and some fifteen emergency vehicles and numerous personnel were headed my direction. I was prepared to execute the landing mentally, and considered the event every moment I was aloft, every day. I planned my routes to and from the fire with this in mind, planned every moment I was over the fire with this in mind. This is basic airmanship. Not odds. It's risk elimination. Accepting surprise is accepting risk, and this is bad. Don't do it.

No odds. I expected that the aircraft was going to end up inverted, and I expected a fire. I was prepared for that, dressed for that. I would prefer that not happen, and we faired much better, being able to return to fighting fire in that same airplane a month later.

Risk elimination is a mentality. It's a process. It's the act of constantly looking for potential problems and either stopping them before they start, or making them safe by providing yourself choices. Never put yourself into a position where you have bargained away all your choices. That is risk elimination. Risk elimination is personal, it involves changing the way you think, the way you act. It involves an extensive commitment. This is possible; you can be active in risk elimination rather than accepting risk...but it's not painless, and it requires work. It requires faith...faith being a verb, that verb meaning that one dedicates one's self to the desired outcome rather than waiting for it to come to you.

Accepting risk is a matter of laziness. Why lift a finger when you can simply accept what's out there and make a wave at managnig it? Manage the risk by dodging the smallest cars in the road and waiting for the biggest gaps in traffic. Accept that you could just as easily have slipped on a bar of soap in the shower this morning...everything has risk, so just watch the cars, then run like hell. No need to engage in risk elimination, which might involve crossing at the crosswalk, looking both ways before you cross, and keeping your eye on traffic even when it appears to be holding short of the white painted lines, just for you. That would be too much effort. Even if you might live longer. Right?