We sure can learn from this accident

[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?