As a pilot whose kept himself, family, friends, people on the ground alive
for 25 years of active flying, I try hard not to do stupid things as well.
And, so far, so good.
But this accident takes stupid to another level AND I am immune to
doing something like this. I'm not immune to doing other stupid things,
but this one takes the cake. He flew regularly for work (chiropractor),
so he should have been instrument current if owned a plane (which I do)
and I was expecting to be using it for work. I read in another article that
he was flying to work that morning. But it doesn't seem like he was
instrument current - if so, he should have filed IFR. But to go VFR into
a hard IFR airport and NOT shoot a perfectly fine RNAV (LPV) approach to
that very runway that he was supposed to land on is something that I
would never do.
Also, to try to stay alive, I work regularly on my instrument skills - just
shot a practice low approach (RNAV - LNAV + V) into KFIN today - the
weather was VFR, but it's good practice. I think that the 6/6/6 rule is
way too lenient if you want to be proficient on instruments in high-
performance aircraft.
