You Make the Call

[TonyC]

Situation #3


Lesson learned, or not????

Not. Needs a heart to heart with an Inspector.





.

 

[flyifrvfr]

My response to these situations is simple. First, the homebuilt doing the flyby just performed aerobatics below 1,500 feet without a waiver, and did aerobatics in controlled airspace. He gets reported. Second, the Merlin flying VFR in VMC is responsible for maintaining VFR and seperation. By saying that he is in and out tells me he is in violation of the FAR that says you must have an IFR clearence in controlled airspace when the weather is less than VMC, not verbatum.

Lastly, if you as a pilot stop and think about what the NTSB report would say about your decision making, it would help prevent you from making bad decisions. Flight into known icing which was reported and weather conducive (sic?) is bad. Flying an aircraft into know icing without the equipment to operate in such is considered wreckless because you are operating the aircraft contrary to its type certificate.

 

[Vector4fun]

Boy, you guys are a bunch of hard liners!


Two of those incidents are fairly recent, one is a bit dated. In all three cases, there was a Supervisor on duty. In one case, the controller issued a fairly harsh tounge lashing on freq. In another, the Supe did some respectful chastising on the phone later, and in the third, well, nothing yet, but the day is coming......

Thanks for playing, and be very, very careful out there, because all three pilots are still flying, and more like them. Fortunately, they are still a small minority of the pilot population. The majority of you guys and gals are a pleasure to work with.


I'll leave you with a Darwin Award finalist from 1990. The saddest part was one of the passengers was a small boy who wasn't aware he was risking his life.

I knew his Dad. (Not one of the occupants)

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=FTW88FA160&rpt=fi

 

[Jedi_Cheese]

#1: See how the pilot responds when they call you. I would be tempted to let them off the hook but if they ask for it, give the violation to them.

#2: Violation. They were advised that there was traffic there, and they went into the clouds VFR.

#3: Have the guy call you, and have a nice little chat. Then let him off the hook, maybe he learned something.

 

[JediNein]

For the Comanche, did he get a number to call? I try to enforce the idea that declaring an emergency is a really good idea but the goal is to prevent the emergency in the first place. Also, I've known of those that made similar mistakes in their past, just being dumba$$e$. Basically they scared themselves silly and had plenty of time to review their life as it passed before their eyes. The FAA response, ATC through FSDO, has generally been 'go and sin no more.' You know his tail number, if he does it again, if he's not dead, in steps the FSDO. Possibly a call to the rental place? "Just want to make sure he's okay."

Something similar happened to a friend. IMC + Bad weather, low ice level, night approaching, and a VFR only pilot in a rental asked for departure clearance out of the "C". The departure controller gave him the VFR clearance, and a latest doom and gloom PIREP. The guy taxied, did the runup, and called for takeoff.

The controller turned to the sup (my friend and also owner of the airplane) and asked what to do. The sup responded "you clear him for takeoff" knowing full well that he would most likely not see his airplane or that pilot alive again.

The guy took off, declared an emergency and got vectors to a nearby airport 6 minutes later. An hour later he departed again, emergency, vectors, made it 20 miles that time. He repeated it again a few more times, about 30 minutes between emergencies.

Somehow the guy made it to his destination. The controllers only documented the flight assists, warned the next facility he was coming, and left the guy to the sup.

In the conversation later, the guy told his story. His son and pregnant daughter-in-law had just been in a near-fatal motorcycle accident up north, he was trying to get there before his son died. He knew driving was too slow and he wasn't thinking clearly. He did make it in time, his son regained consciousness for a short period of time, and died the next morning. I don't know what the final FAA response was other than he never rented from the sup's place again.

----

In the case of the Merlin, "Are you requesting an IFR flight plan?" I know I've stopped students from saying stupid things on the radio before, even in Merlin-class aircraft. In the phone call afterwards, "were you aware you were on a VFR clearance?" I've also known sectors to not pass flight plans along, pilots to screw up, and controllers to accidentally hit VFR instead of IFR for codes.

----

For the buzz job fellah, again a similar situation encountered in the past, the pull-ups were going through the tower's airspace. The tower response was to involve the Safety Program Manager (SPM) at the local FSDO. He came out to the EAA crowd, cowboys and all, and gave an excellent presentation during one of their meetings. The good guys were so identified and got some great instruction and door prizes (a handheld GPS was given out). One of the cowboys told the SPM off. That's fine, don't violate the airspace and we'll leave you alone. Violate the airspace and we'll be back wearing the black hats.

The buzz-jobs continued. Two weeks later an Inspector, wearing a black baseball cap with FAA lettering, was standing on the roof of the restaurant with a clipboard and binoculars. He flew in to that airport in his Harmon Rocket and did a 'buzz-job' with self-announcing on the unicom, even saying hi to the gal monitoring unicom.

The buzz-jobs stopped violating the airspace with one exception. That exception is now fighting certificate action.

Fly SAFE!
Jedi Nein

 

[JRSLim]

Boy, you guys are a bunch of hard liners!




I'll leave you with a Darwin Award finalist from 1990. The saddest part was one of the passengers was a small boy who wasn't aware he was risking his life.

I knew his Dad. (Not one of the occupants)

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=FTW88FA160&rpt=fi

NTSB reports are often sobering, this one is heart wrenching. If there's an afterlife, I want a baseball bat and an hour alone with this POS.

Thanks for the 'quiz' Vector, and I'm in line with the other answers. For the skinny hot rod guy, that deserves more than just talking to. The marginal guy may need a little guidance and the icing guy needs a brain transplant.

 

[A Squared]

For the skinny hot rod guy, that deserves more than just talking to. The marginal guy may need a little guidance .

Interesting, I would have rated relative seriousness of these two offenses the other way.

The guy in doing the low pass, yeah there's a big Obnoxious factor, but really he's mostly endangering himself with his antics. The other guy, by entering IFR conditions when he knew he was close to IFR traffic endangered the folks in the other airplane, who were minding thier own business and following the rules. From my perspective, that makes the second much worse than the first.

 

[Lrjtcaptain]

vector4fun, we may work together at this "facilty" becasue well, this is a day to day thing for me. Brain donars left and right.

I run that stuff everday and usually just approave the low approach but don't approve anything else. If i expect them to be an idiot just issue as much traffic pertains to the situation and hope they don't run into eachother.

the way i look at this incident is this.....VFR aircraft are technically on their own airborne...i apply runway seperation only. If he wants to be an idiot and hot rod, fine. Ill call traffic for all parties concerned and see what happens. always have a back up plan and of course fill out a pilot deviation if the pilot does aero and im not in a good mood or if he flies in a wreckless hazardes manner.

I usually tend to run just about as much as possible work load permiting.

My favorite is the CL65 las week that crossed out OM at 285kts GS. I asked him to say indicated, he said 270kts, I asked him if he thought operating that aircraft that speed in the terminal area was a safe operation, he said yes at the same time i had to send a C210 around that was in front cause I didn't want the CL65 over flying him if i had to send the CL missed cause he was over taking the 210 who was flying a 130kt final which is fast for a 210. Pilots do stupid stuff but so do we. Ill run anything as long as "I" am legal and it isn't a saftey hazard.

 

[Lrjtcaptain]

situation 2

the merlin is an idiot first off.

the cloud requirments for class c pretty much guarantee that if everyone is flying legal speeds then they have enough reaction to prevent a collision with an IFR in and out of the soup.

However, if the merlin addmits he's in and out and VFR then well....its a blatent violation of cloud clearence rules. Not saying write him up becasue I know its pretty much useless cause the FSDO never really does anything about it.

I would issue radar vectors the the merlin which is what it sounds like you did. Thats all you can do other then tell him on freq that he is an idiot. Another option of course is stop his descent.

MK