Ever seen what a quartering tailwind that strong can do to your descent profile? I'm betting she hadn't. We typically don't require that of private pilot applicants.
Fatality Crash KHOU looks like a Cirrus
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Ever seen what a quartering tailwind that strong can do to your descent profile? I'm betting she hadn't. We typically don't require that of private pilot applicants.
MadseasoN
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My GUESS, because that's what we're all doing here, is that she was used to a more narrow runway [visual illusion] making her think she was low. KHOU will want you at 1600' which is probably a higher TPA than she was used to and they had her approaching fast. Not to mention the quartering tailwind with gusts That combined with sharing the space with 737's and tower changing her clearance was probably overwhelming. I'm sure that's all been said at least 3 times already.
Get off your high horses and quit judging her, guys.
Get off your high horses and quit judging her, guys.
Rotero
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I am trying to understand how things work around in a busy Bravo terminal. Could someone here explain to me why at this point the controller did not offer turn right 90 degress to right base 04, instead of "turn left heading 30 degress"?
She would have had 7G10 head wind instead of 6G7 tailwind, and much or less the same crosswind....
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BellyUpFish
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That's a good question. I don't know why they didn't just wrap her back around to 04, when they had time to sequence her for 35. I'd have to go back and listen to the recording, wasn't there a King Air on 04 at some point that they sequenced her to 35 behind? Could have given her 04 then..
MAKG1
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Umm, no.
There is a BIG difference from a 1000 AGL pattern to a 1500 AGL pattern, especially if you try to "keep it tight." The extra minute of descent has to come from somewhere.
If you've never done it before, it will definitely screw with you the first time. And you will end up 500 feet high, perhaps even more.
airheadpenguin
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If you end up 500' too high on a runway with a PAPI/VASI you need a 709 ride. Not saying you won't go around or land long but you should be able to judge your glide slope especially with a visual reference
unsafervguy
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BS it is not judging, its realizing that an aircraft crashed and people died because the pilot was outside of their experience and skill envelope. bottom line is that three people are dead, there are kids that have no family which is extremely sad, and it was due to her inability to control the aircraft. period. i am tired of people that are trying to find blame in something or someone else. this is not to bash her, but for people to see the result of going outside of your ability window and hopefully save someones else from do the same thing. the cross wind was not outside the limits of the aircraft, the pattern asked to be flow was not outside the envelop of the aircraft. it was apparently outside of her abilities. pilots need to be frank about crashes. I have had many friends die in plane crashes and I will be the first to say wen they screwed up. If I auger one in doing something beyond my abilities, I WANT everyone on this board to discuss it and say he screwed up. that is how we learn from accidents and hopefully save lives down the road.
bob
BellyUpFish
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I stand corrected, thanks for pointing that out. I was thinking about KHOU's elevation incorrectly. 1,600'MSL puts her at a ~1,500'AGL pattern, I was thinking standard 1,000'AGL pattern.
Very good point, you're right, a difference of 500'AGL in the pattern does look different, she was ~500' high for her normal sight picture. That same 500' would contribute to her having an issue timing the descent, but it should/would also make her feel high, which shouldn't cause her to stay high, I wouldn't think. Who knows.
My apologies.
Matthew
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I think you're right. But I think having a controller give you what you thought was a clear instruction, then say "I don't know what you're doing" (or whatever the exact words were), could have added to her stress levels and contributed to her doubting or second guessing herself and that loss of confidence is a distraction you don't need in busy airspace.
Kritchlow
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I guess it's just word semantics at this point....
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Doggtyred
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True... and we've had a week or more to go over every aspect of that encounter ad-finitum. She had one go, real time over about 10 mins..
It's more the connotation in this case.
BellyUpFish
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Backtothesand
Maybe, but I'd call it lack of experience, not incompetence.
Doesn't a lack of experience make one incompetent in the area the experience is lacking?
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Kritchlow
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Yup... Exactly according to my above definition!!Doesn't a lack of experience make one incompetent in the area the experience is lacking?
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Doesn't a lack of experience make one incompetent in the area the experience is lacking?
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It's that connotation thing, again.
BellyUpFish
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Since we are firmly into the semantics portion of the discussion and without attempting to speak ill of the deceased, given the discussion....
Is it entirely plausible that incompetence is the correct word, as long as we use it correctly?
Which begs the question, based on what we know of the accident and barring any unknown structural/mechanical failure, where would her inexperience/incompetence lie? In her ability to fly the aircraft or her ability to negotiate the environment in which she operated the aircraft?
It appears, and it's just that - the appearance - that she just spun it in (again, barring the mech/structural failures) after being overwhelmed by the environment she was operating in, so where does the incompetence/inexperience lie?
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Since we are firmly into the semantics portion of the discussion and without attempting to speak ill of the deceased, given the discussion....
Is it entirely plausible that incompetence is the correct word, as long as we use it correctly?
Which begs the question, based on what we know of the accident and barring any unknown structural/mechanical failure, where would her inexperience/incompetence lie? In her ability to fly the aircraft or her ability to negotiate the environment in which she operated the aircraft?
It appears, and it's just that - the appearance - that she just spun it in (again, barring the mech/structural failures) after being overwhelmed by the environment she was operating in, so where does the incompetence/inexperience lie?
Good question. She was definitely put through a lot in a fairly short amount of time, including gusty tailwind approaches, go-arounds, etc. The final downwind left turn with the "keep it tight" instruction from the tower seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back.
By the dictionary definition all my students are incompetent pilots. But I know they just lack training and experience, which is why they came to me.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Competency isn't binary unless you pick a detail and state it for that detail or specific circumstance. One can be competent to fly an airplane overall, but not competent enough to handle what she had thrown at her.
It's just a sucky set of circumstances.
I mean hell, we've seen an airplane pro jet crew let one member of her crew hold a side stick controller full aft for over three minutes in a full stall after 55+ seconds of stall warning and power levels set at a setting completely unreasonable for maintaining level flight, and we all just have to scratch our heads and wonder why, in the end.
"Additional emphasis will be given in training to manual control of the aircraft..."
No particular measure of overall flying skill would say that cockpit had "incompetent" pilots overall, but for the challenge they were handed that day, they were incompetent in those specific circumstances.
All sorts of small circumstances could have been different and given a very different outcome for many accidents.
Here's hoping the circumstances always go our way... The statistics say we stand a pretty good chance of them doing so, with the current training methodology, but when they don't, more than 75% of the time it was the pilot who failed.
We (all) are, the weakest link in 3/4 of accident chains. It's not exactly a secret.
It's just a sucky set of circumstances.
I mean hell, we've seen an airplane pro jet crew let one member of her crew hold a side stick controller full aft for over three minutes in a full stall after 55+ seconds of stall warning and power levels set at a setting completely unreasonable for maintaining level flight, and we all just have to scratch our heads and wonder why, in the end.
"Additional emphasis will be given in training to manual control of the aircraft..."
No particular measure of overall flying skill would say that cockpit had "incompetent" pilots overall, but for the challenge they were handed that day, they were incompetent in those specific circumstances.
All sorts of small circumstances could have been different and given a very different outcome for many accidents.
Here's hoping the circumstances always go our way... The statistics say we stand a pretty good chance of them doing so, with the current training methodology, but when they don't, more than 75% of the time it was the pilot who failed.
We (all) are, the weakest link in 3/4 of accident chains. It's not exactly a secret.
Kritchlow
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But Jonesy.... Let's forget the labeling and strict definitions for a moment.
In all honesty, aviation, like every other profession, good judgement rules the day. I don't care what the FAR's or aim says, none of those things can put you in every possibly scenario. I don't know if there's a section for judgement in the new acs (?), but if not there should be. It's the single most important ingredient in a good pilot.
BellyUpFish
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Kritchlow
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Who let them hold a control full aft? I'm not doubting, but just can't put my finger on it. The only side stick crew airplane I know is the Bus, but that's obviously not what you're talking about.
jspilot
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Yes this is exactly what I was thinking. After the King air landed ATC should have sequenced her in for runway 4. Also, it should have dawned on her that the reason she could not land the plane on 35 is she had probably essentially a tail wind and was trying to descend at both a faster ground speed and with less elevator authority than normal.
What's tough here is that so many times during this sequence something could have changed and this would not have happened. After the video above, I'm a little more critical of ATC because, while trying to help her out, they were giving her pressure to keep the pattern tight and clearly this contributed to the crash. It just continues to be really sad.
MadseasoN
Line Up and Wait
TLDR
You post is contradictory. You can't learn about an accident without blaming someone because human error is the cause of EVERY aviation accident. I think we've established that she didn't handle the situation appropriately. No need to continue judging her experience level which we have no knowledge of.
Many people are using this as an opportunity to stroke their own egos, IE - to let everyone know how great of a pilot they are, and that they are more experienced than the dead pilot. Shame on them.
The learning part:
Often humans aren't aware of what it is they don't know, if she was in over her head she may not have realized it. If y'all go back and read the article I posted about heuristics in aviation then you'll understand.
You folks should also read up on the Dunning-Kruger effect. It's rampant in this thread.
exncsurfer
Pattern Altitude
I don't know why, maybe trying to squeeze her between the 04 traffic, but in that picture you posted, they had given her instructions to land on 35 and expected her to fly a downwind for 35, looks like she was flying a downwind for 4, so they gave her the 'left 30 degrees' instruction in attempt to square up her downwind for 35, and that was confused for fly heading of 030, then it sounded to me like a different controller got on and asked if she wanted 04 but at that point her tail was towards rw 04 as she was making a circle to heading 030, 'who's on first' continued.... whether or not its relevant to the crash, who knows, but it sure was confusing
exncsurfer
Pattern Altitude
I don't think we can realize anything at this point, we can speculate and guess and discuss scenarios, which is helpful. For all we know the elevator fell off because a cotter pin broke.
Cooter
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Your post is nonsensical.
FastEddieB
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Fast Eddie B
Why would she have had less elevator authority than normal?
jspilot
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Maybe not authority( that's probably not the right word.) What I meant is that she would have been approaching must faster over the ground and her tendency to want to make the plane "sink" would increase. Therefore, she may have been pushing hard on the elevator to make the plane descend and getting confused by why the plane was still flying more level than what was expected( what I fear is the transition from pushing hard down on the elevator to pulling hard up on the elevator may have made a stall/spin accident more likely.) She also may not have chopped enough power to make the plane descend fast enough so the combination of coming in faster than expected, pushing forward hard on the elevator and maintaining her normal power settings for landing probably confused her compared to what she was experiencing( still being too high.) All of this could have made her think she had less authority( meaning the elevator was less effective) than what she was used to when approaching into the wind.
FastEddieB
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Thanks. Got it.
I thought I might have caught you in a "Stick and Rudder Moment", thinking the tailwind would make the elevator less effective.
Had she been comfortable chopping the power and slipping like crazy, she should have been able to easily land on runways that long, even if quite high.
I thought I might have caught you in a "Stick and Rudder Moment", thinking the tailwind would make the elevator less effective.
Had she been comfortable chopping the power and slipping like crazy, she should have been able to easily land on runways that long, even if quite high.
jspilot
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You know in all honesty, I did think a tail wind made the elevator have less authority( I thought I remembered reading that someplace) so I'm glad you pointed it out to me. We've all had the experience on downwind when we are pushing forward and the plane seems to be titled forward but not really descending. If you don't cut power it will not descend under these types of gusty conditions. We also know that in the turn from downwind to base, you must kick in a bit more power otherwise all your speed goes away in a heart beat and you can get close to a stall quickly.
FastEddieB
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jspilot
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hmmmm.... well I get what stick and ruder says but, if the planes wings are banked now, stall speed increases. If you turn from a downwind, into a base, you are still being blown by the wind away from your desired track. On downwind you were being pushed but now on base, you are still being pushed but with a slower ground speed--and further away from the runway. I'm really talking about ground speed here and not indicated speed. I know indicated speed is all that maters in reference to a stall but my point is if you keep the same power setting you were using on downwind for base, in strong wind conditions, you will not get the desired ground track and will be forever blown away from the runway. You have to increase power a bit to make sure your track across the ground matches what you want. You can't accomplish a desired ground track simply by banking the wings more in strong gusty winds without adding some power to counter-act the winds. Eventually, without adding in power, you will have no airspeed left if you keep banking into the wind and you will run the risk of loosing both altitude and airspeed and get into the dreaded " low and slow" situation real quick.
FlySince9
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The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which relatively unskilled persons suffer illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than it really is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their own ineptitude and evaluate their own ability accurately. Their research also suggests corollaries: highly skilled individuals may underestimate their relative competence and may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others.[1]
Tarheelpilot
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you don't have to add power. Change your ground track to allow a steeper closer approach to compensate for the wind.
fiveoboy01
Pattern Altitude
The difference isn't that large, and certainly not large enough if the pilot is aware of it and compensates accordingly.
An opinion of what happened isn't necessarily a superiority complex. If you don't like discussion of the accident, feel free not to read it, but no need to label anyone that isn't making the dialogue what you think it should be.
An opinion of what happened isn't necessarily a superiority complex. If you don't like discussion of the accident, feel free not to read it, but no need to label anyone that isn't making the dialogue what you think it should be.
fiveoboy01
Pattern Altitude
Perhaps, but that depends on the present airspeed, weight, angle of bank needed, etc... A steeper turn increases the load factor and you might have to either add power or reduce AOA to prevent a stall.
FastEddieB
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Fast Eddie B
This may seem like a trivial point, but sometimes word choice can help point out where there might be errors in properly visualizing what's going on with a plane in flight.
Both "blown" and "pushed" conjure up an image of a force, like a giant hand, acting upon the plane. That somehow more pressure is being exerted on one side of the plane plane by the wind. Or that a wind "blowing" from the rear can render the elevator less effective, which started us down this rabbit hole.
Better and more accurate to say a given wind causes an airplane in flight to drift, as the airmass in which it is flying is itself moving. No "pushing" or "blowing" involved.
But we're pretty far removed from this thread's topic. I'm going to go ahead and cross-post this post to the thread I linked above - that's probably a better place to continue this discussion.
BellyUpFish
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Backtothesand
Most of his posts are, and if you try and pull a meaning out of them, via legitimate questions, he'll accuse you of trolling and then ignore you. Good luck.
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