Another one down.

This was said over on Beechtalk. "Most likely scud running, you an see how he dropped down and continued to drop down. Forecast for an hour before and an hour after showed VNY and BUR as "clear" however SMO and CMA were LIFR. If he would have stayed north of the mountains sounds like an easy diversion to VNY (certainley wasnt getting in to CMA). I should say, latest I heard was private pilot with no instrument rating (not confirmed)"
 
schmookeeg said:
in a world where an ipad and a subscription worth 20 gallons of avgas gives terrain warnings, this is just senseless.
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If the altimeter and compass isn't enough to stay out of the rocks, I doubt the ipad will do much good.
 
Sad to hear -- probably another entirely preventable death.

sarangan said:
If the altimeter and compass isn't enough to stay out of the rocks, I doubt the ipad will do much good.
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I respectfully disagree there... The ForeFlight display on the iPad will show you the synthetic vision with a picture of the terrain ahead and give you an alert, that's situational awareness that will literally pop out at you and scream "danger!". It'd be hard to ignore such a warning. The compass and altimeter can't provide such an alert. You just have to be proficient enough to use it in conjunction with your maps in order to stay out of trouble. Unfortunately there are countless examples of CFIT where navigating like that did not work out.

schmookeeg said:
in a world where an ipad and a subscription worth 20 gallons of avgas gives terrain warnings, this is just senseless.
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Amen to that. I think I pay 199$ a year for the mid-tier FF package with synthetic vision/back-up AI/etc, and it's by far the easiest check for me to write every year. Like you said, it's about 25 gallons of avgas and it can save your life. Money well spent.
 
Another accident where the rescue crews can’t find the site due to heavy fog. Big clue. So sad when a couple of hours one way or another often is clear skies.
 
Rented this plane many times. It was well equipped with a G1000 package easily able to get back into CMA with the conditions that existed. This, however, depends on whether the pilots is qualified and proficient which, according to a friend in the know, wasn't instrument rated.
 
dreyna14 said:
Rented this plane many times. It was well equipped with a G1000 package easily able to get back into CMA with the conditions that existed. This, however, depends on whether the pilots is qualified and proficient which, according to a friend in the know, wasn't instrument rated.
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@dreyna14 did it have a good autopilot?
 
Wait, what G1000 system doesn't have an autopilot?? even the early ones had KAP140s
 
schmookeeg said:
Wait, what G1000 system doesn't have an autopilot?? even the early ones had KAP140s
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Lots. Based on the tail number, this is probably a former UND trainer, and IIRC, they don’t buy them with the autopilot package.
 
Flying Keys said:
Lots. Based on the tail number, this is probably a former UND trainer, and IIRC, they don’t buy them with the autopilot package.
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This was a former UND plane and it did not have an autopilot that's I've ever seen since I've flown that tail number.
 
I think it had an autopilot, but the autopilot was INOP. The airplane did not have synthetic vision, AFAIK. Still, the VFR chart will tell you all you need to know about that little slice of the world.

Either way, the flight path and the ATC audio suggest to me that he was 1) trying to avoid talking to ATC in some of the busiest airspace in the world, and was avoiding Burbank's Class C for the same reason and 2) was scud running to do so. Obviously, he got the weather at CMA and made the prudent decision to divert to VNY, but was scud running and trying to avoid the BUR airspace - two things that don't go well together if you know the terrain. I know SCT's MVA over that part of the Santa Monica Mountains is 2100-2200', so 1300' is definitely way too low. VNY's airport elevation is 802', so being in mountains near the airport will definitely put you very low to terrain at 1300', which is where the ADS-B data ends.

He actually took off from an underlying TRSA, which means ATC couldn't reject FF for workload purposes, even if they normally wanted to do so. Totally preventable.
 
FPK1 said:
Of course, but we all know an advantage is let it fly the plane when you can't... Then use it to climb, turn, etc.
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The advantage the autopilot would have given him here would be fessing up to his problem and getting an emergency approach into CMA, which would easily get him through the layer. That said, it would not have saved him in this situation where he was trying to scudrun in the Santa Monica Mountains and apparently around Burbank's airspace, while talking to no one until he called up VNY tower. The tower guy even said something to him about not calling BUR.
 
N1120A said:
I think it had an autopilot, but the autopilot was INOP. The airplane did not have synthetic vision, AFAIK. Still, the VFR chart will tell you all you need to know about that little slice of the world.
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N575ND did not have an autopilot. Either way, it won't keep you from smashing into a hillside while scud running.
 
dreyna14 said:
N575ND did not have an autopilot. Either way, it won't keep you from smashing into a hillside while scud running.
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don't see any evidence so far that they were scud running though

there were low ceilings at SMO/CMA but seems like the tops were quite low and possibly lower than the hill he hit. to me it would seem they just descended into the blackness of the hill
 
readytocopy995 said:
don't see any evidence so far that they were scud running though

there were low ceilings at SMO/CMA but seems like the tops were quite low and possibly lower than the hill he hit. to me it would seem they just descended into the blackness of the hill
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The tops the next day were around 2400, which is pretty normal. Those hills aren't particularly dark in that area, and the whole valley was lit up. He appeared to have flown South around the BUR Class C, which would have taken him directly toward the layer.
 
N1120A said:
I think it had an autopilot, but the autopilot was INOP. The airplane did not have synthetic vision, AFAIK. Still, the VFR chart will tell you all you need to know about that little slice of the world.

Either way, the flight path and the ATC audio suggest to me that he was 1) trying to avoid talking to ATC in some of the busiest airspace in the world, and was avoiding Burbank's Class C for the same reason and 2) was scud running to do so. Obviously, he got the weather at CMA and made the prudent decision to divert to VNY, but was scud running and trying to avoid the BUR airspace - two things that don't go well together if you know the terrain. I know SCT's MVA over that part of the Santa Monica Mountains is 2100-2200', so 1300' is definitely way too low. VNY's airport elevation is 802', so being in mountains near the airport will definitely put you very low to terrain at 1300', which is where the ADS-B data ends.

He actually took off from an underlying TRSA, which means ATC couldn't reject FF for workload purposes, even if they normally wanted to do so. Totally preventable.
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I flew the 172 around this area a month ago. We were going from vny towards smo and instructed to stay at 1800 until we got close to those hills where I climbed to 3500. At 1800 5 miles out I was starting to feel uneasy. 1300 is way too low. Poor choices were made here I think.
 
N1120A said:
The tops the next day were around 2400, which is pretty normal. Those hills aren't particularly dark in that area, and the whole valley was lit up. He appeared to have flown South around the BUR Class C, which would have taken him directly toward the layer.
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yeah i'm saying what if there was a layer over the south side of the hill and clear in the valley. those hills popping through the layer are very dark. i can just see an illusion causing a CFIT

when you consider that this flight had the PIC making radio calls until shortly before impact and a gentle descent, makes me think that he thought he cleared the hill and was just focused on descending to VNY too early
 
ahmad said:
I flew the 172 around this area a month ago. We were going from vny towards smo and instructed to stay at 1800 until we got close to those hills where I climbed to 3500. At 1800 5 miles out I was starting to feel uneasy. 1300 is way too low. Poor choices were made here I think.
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SCT's MVA in that area is like 2100 or something, so 1300 was definitely a problem.

readytocopy995 said:
yeah i'm saying what if there was a layer over the south side of the hill and clear in the valley. those hills popping through the layer are very dark. i can just see an illusion causing a CFIT

when you consider that this flight had the PIC making radio calls until shortly before impact and a gentle descent, makes me think that he thought he cleared the hill and was just focused on descending to VNY too early
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His descent wasn't particularly gentle toward the end. I still don't get why he was so fixated on avoiding BUR's airspace. The airplane has radios and a transponder - use them.
 
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