Lear down TEB

weilke said:
Reminds me of the Wellstone crash. Weak captain paired with green SIC and the plane has to fly itself.
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Both crew members were greenhorns, in all reality.
 
Ryanb said:
Both crew members were greenhorns, in all reality.
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6000hr greenhorns are real !

As I read it the 'captain' had some Lear experience from 10 Years back but very little time since getting back into a jet.

The other question is how the FAA can supervise operators with bases on the other end of the country and if they lack inspectors with relevant experience.
 
mryan75 said:
Here's something just thought of: the 1,500-hour rule is supposed to save lives. How many lives do you think it's going to wind up costing? More than it saves?
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What are you talking about?
 
Ryanb said:
Sure are, TT doesn’t mean a thing.
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Not true. TT by itself doesn’t make a good pilot, but there’s a lot that you learn between hour 1 and hour 2800 if you’re paying attention. The insurance companies agree with this based on statistics.

I’m assuming that the learning continues, I can only speak to 2800 from personal experience. ;)
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Not true. TT by itself doesn’t make a good pilot, but there’s a lot that you learn between hour 1 and hour 2800 if you’re paying attention. The insurance companies agree with this based on statistics.

I’m assuming that the learning continues, I can only speak to 2800 from personal experience. ;)
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It’s probably more accurate to say TT alone is not indicative of ability.

But don’t tell Congress....
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Not true. TT by itself doesn’t make a good pilot, but there’s a lot that you learn between hour 1 and hour 2800 if you’re paying attention. The insurance companies agree with this based on statistics.

I’m assuming that the learning continues, I can only speak to 2800 from personal experience. ;)
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Fearless Tower said:
It’s probably more accurate to say TT alone is not indicative of ability.

But don’t tell Congress....
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This is what I meant. It’s all about the quality of the hours, rather than the quantity.
 
hindsight2020 said:
What are you talking about?
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If the 135 outfits are left fighting over scraps because of the demand created by the 1,500 hour rule, perhaps the rule is making some people safer but a lot of other people less safe. Unless shady 135's have always had halfwit pilots.
 
I’m jumping in here very late, but my first jet was a Lear35A with very little multi time. Difference was I had a very experienced Lear captain in the left seat. I tell you what, early on I was WAY behind the airplane. But Bill, who’s a pretty hang loose guy otherwise, got very serious when he got in those Lears. He knew how quick you could get bit. His approach to training me was “I’m training you to be captain. Nothing less.” Over time it worked, and I did get a LR-JET PIC type rating. Starting off low time is not necessarily a disqualifier. The difference I read in this CVR tape is that these guys weren’t serious, weren’t prepared, did not have the attitude you need when flying a jet and didn’t deserve the responsibility that had been given them. Sad.
 
Lance F said:
I’m jumping in here very late, but my first jet was a Lear35A with very little multi time. Difference was I had a very experienced Lear captain in the left seat. I tell you what, early on I was WAY behind the airplane. But Bill, who’s a pretty hang loose guy otherwise, got very serious when he got in those Lears. He knew how quick you could get bit. His approach to training me was “I’m training you to be captain. Nothing less.” Over time it worked, and I did get a LR-JET PIC type rating. Starting off low time is not necessarily a disqualifier. The difference I read in this CVR tape is that these guys weren’t serious, weren’t prepared, did not have the attitude you need when flying a jet and didn’t deserve the responsibility that had been given them. Sad.
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Hi Lance!

Well put. What I always wonder on these is where it really went wrong. For the SIC, I doubt he’d flown with enough Captains yet to know the difference between any of the common personality types and professionalism levels.

But the PIC was over 50, not a spring chicken, and somewhere long ago missed out on that instructor or other Captains who taught like your first Lear Captain, or gave up on doing it all professionally somewhere along the line.

When and why does the complacency start and settle in to stay? I’ve always been fascinated by the question. This type of accident is repetitive and we see one every few years somewhere.

Now I do understand that means very few flights result in such an accident, considering how much the entire fleet flies, but still... it repeats. Usually when something repeats there’s a way to break the cycle. But this one never breaks.

Your Captain’s phrase is similar to most instructors... we are teaching someone to be PIC, nothing less. Yeah, they may be headed for an SIC role for a while to gain experience, but their goal should be PIC levels of attention, care, knowledge, etc.

That’s one of the reasons I personally find that SIC-0 role their ops manual called the SIC on that flight — a bit suspect — Captain slumps over incapacitated in that cockpit, SIC had better be able to bring the flight to a safe conclusion.

Label the kid SIC-0 and he’s going to live up to the company’s expectations of him, in an awful lot of cases. Label the kid “PIC in training” and watch the behavior difference. I don’t like it. It’s a bad thing. Looks great on paper, but ignores human nature.

I guess without the distraction of the PIC constantly cussing and a little adrenaline, maybe the SIC would have stepped up his game a bit, but neither pilot really seemed like they wanted to be PIC of the aircraft that day.

Once you’re just barely following ATC instructions and not planning where you’re going next, you’re moving from PIC to passenger, and the airplane is still going somewhere...

I’m feeling awkward speaking ill of the dead here a bit, but we’re analyzing trying to see how to avoid this kind of thing in our own flying, and I just can’t see being quite as passive about that flight overall as that transcript seems to portray.

Your old Captain labeled you “Captain in training” and you went after it. It’s just normal to try when someone says that.
 
Fearless Tower said:
As a rule of thumb, you can’t do circling approaches in IMC.
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Is it a rule of thumb, or a hard fast rule, if you lose sight of the field you go missed? Hate to pick nits, but in the process of studying this stuff for the IR written.
 
PaulS said:
Is it a rule of thumb, or a hard fast rule, if you lose sight of the field you go missed? Hate to pick nits, but in the process of studying this stuff for the IR written.
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In the spirit of all the POA Socratics, what are you going to use to get to the airport if you’ve gone IMC after you’ve started to circle?
 
PaulS said:
Is it a rule of thumb, or a hard fast rule, if you lose sight of the field you go missed? Hate to pick nits, but in the process of studying this stuff for the IR written.
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Yup. Time to go. CTL is not to be messed with.

You’ll get to see it with your CFII. You’re usually much lower than your usual pattern altitude, can’t climb at all (“put your toggles back on, you went back up into the cloud”) and can’t descend until you have the runway made (that’s a checkride bust, too)...

CTL is a rock and a hard place when done at simulated or real minimums. You keep that runway in sight and double check that you’re configured to land and once you are on a reasonable final, then descend and land normally.

If you get a chance, have your CFII show you one at night. Then imagine you kinda half-assed “broke out” at minimums and there’s a ragged layer of overcast with little crap hanging down threatening to force you back on to the instruments at any time during the CTL.

It’ll drive home why CTLs are high risk. Especially if you can do it at a rural airport on a moonless night.

The temptation to stay in TOO close to the runway is strong as well as the forced need then to be doing high angle of bank turns below 1000’ AGL... etc etc etc. You have to think ahead and see if the circular path or pattern you’ve chosen is wise, maintain airspeed, and maintain altitude dead on until you have the runway made.

All that said, that’s NOT what these pilots were experiencing. They were VMC and ATC was really just using the whole CTL thing to fly an offset angle to the runway in use for the wind to keep multiple airport’s traffic out of each other’s way there.
 
Cooter said:
In the spirit of all the POA Socratics, what are you going to use to get to the airport if you’ve gone IMC after you’ve started to circle?
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My charm and good looks? Actually, my understanding is that you continue to turn for the runway until you can get on the missed approach course, then fly the missed approach. According to my Sporty's video, it can happen, you see the airport, you begin the circle, then you lose the airport, either deteriorating weather or a cloud bank over or near the airport. This is all new to me though, trying to noodle it through.
 
denverpilot said:
Yup. Time to go. CTL is not to be messed with.

You’ll get to see it with your CFII. You’re usually much lower than your usual pattern altitude, can’t climb at all (“put your toggles back on, you went back up into the cloud”) and can’t descend until you have the runway made (that’s a checkride bust, too)...

CTL is a rock and a hard place when done at simulated or real minimums. You keep that runway in sight and double check that you’re configured to land and once you are on a reasonable final, then descend and land normally.

If you get a chance, have your CFII show you one at night. Then imagine you kinda half-assed “broke out” at minimums and there’s a ragged layer of overcast with little crap hanging down threatening to force you back on to the instruments at any time during the CTL.

It’ll drive home why CTLs are high risk. Especially if you can do it at a rural airport on a moonless night.

The temptation to stay in TOO close to the runway is strong as well as the forced need then to be doing high angle of bank turns below 1000’ AGL... etc etc etc. You have to think ahead and see if the circular path or pattern you’ve chosen is wise, maintain airspeed, and maintain altitude dead on until you have the runway made.

All that said, that’s NOT what these pilots were experiencing. They were VMC and ATC was really just using the whole CTL thing to fly an offset angle to the runway in use for the wind to keep multiple airport’s traffic out of each other’s way there.
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Thanks Nate, I'm close to ready for the written, but still sorting through some stuff. Haven't started with a CFII yet, that should come soon.
 
PaulS said:
Thanks Nate, I'm close to ready for the written, but still sorting through some stuff. Haven't started with a CFII yet, that should come soon.
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I hear ya. I had similar “overthinking” types of questions at that point also, and then you go try to fly it, and it becomes obvious. You’re just too low and trapped between a cloud base (simulated or real) trying to circle an airport, maybe even in precip or poor vis, and maneuver the airplane in a position to land safely. It’ll get your attention the first time you do a couple.

They’re almost ready to start going the way of the DoDo bird with all the GPS approaches now. Used to be that an airport could only afford one localizer transmitter or whatever navaids they had set up for the prevailing bad weather winds, and the CTL was just added for those few days when the wind was blowing the wrong way, occasionally.

Nowadays, there’s usually a GPS approach to both ends of that same runway. Especially the small rural airports. Truly a boon for safety for those places. The world has gotten better in this regard.
 
denverpilot said:
Yup. Time to go. CTL is not to be messed with.
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Especially in a plane that isn't excessively maneuverable. It's one thing to haul around a tight pattern in a 172 or my Navion at 60 knots. Quite a different thing in a plane that's going four times that speed. The CTL mins only guarantees obstructions out of the area around the runways, it doesn't verify your plane is going to be maneuverable enough to do it,

I'm still trying to figure out if these guys would have descended to 200' at DANDY had ATC not corrected them.
 
flyingron said:
Especially in a plane that isn't excessively maneuverable. It's one thing to haul around a tight pattern in a 172 or my Navion at 60 knots. Quite a different thing in a plane that's going four times that speed. The CTL mins only guarantees obstructions out of the area around the runways, it doesn't verify your plane is going to be maneuverable enough to do it,

I'm still trying to figure out if these guys would have descended to 200' at DANDY had ATC not corrected them.
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It was daytime and they were in VMC. Surely someone was looking out the window occasionally. Right? maybe.
 
noobJohn said:
It was daytime and they were in VMC. Surely someone was looking out the window occasionally. Right? maybe.
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Yeah, but how low would it have taken them before they realized something was up. There's a lot of obstacles that stick up 400' in that area.
 
noobJohn said:
It was daytime and they were in VMC. Surely someone was looking out the window occasionally. Right? maybe.
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They were looking out the windows, but because they started the flight with zero SA, they were correlating anything they were seeing with where they were. Example, the FO lining up on EWR.
 
Cooter said:
In the spirit of all the POA Socratics, what are you going to use to get to the airport if you’ve gone IMC after you’ve started to circle?
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As a proud instrument student, you go missed if you're circling and enter IMC.
 
PaulS said:
Thanks Nate, I'm close to ready for the written, but still sorting through some stuff. Haven't started with a CFII yet, that should come soon.
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The King IFR Regulations Refresher is a lot of bang for your aviation buck and covers a ton of these types of questions. The videos are ten minutes or so and easy to listen to while out walking, at lunch, etc.
 
mryan75 said:
As a proud instrument student, you go missed if you're circling and enter IMC.
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Yep, the initial post on circling training was kind of awkwardly worded so it was easy to misconstrue.

In any event, you lose sight of the airport for ANY reason during a circle, you go missed. You start your climb and turn toward the airport (you should have a damned good idea where that is if you were circling to begin with) and then start the published (or otherwise issued) missed approach procedure.
 
flyingron said:
In any event, you lose sight of the airport for ANY reason during a circle, you go missed.
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...unless the inability to see an identifiable part of the airport results only from normal bank of the aircraft during the circling approach.
 
MauleSkinner said:
...unless the inability to see an identifiable part of the airport results only from normal bank of the aircraft during the circling approach.
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That just means you need more windows . . .
::sarcasm alert::

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk
 
Fearless Tower said:
As a rule of thumb, you can’t do circling approaches in IMC.
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It should go noted that IMC doesn't necessarily mean you can't circle. Not being able to see the field means you can no longer circle. In the sim you can circle at <VFR vis to get the VFR circle restriction removed. I know what you're implying and I wouldnt circle in less than optimal conditions but to be technical it should be clarified. IMC =/= you can't see the field.
Edit. Fixed the less than, greator than error.
 
Last edited:
That's why I said "for any reason." It can be VMC and if you lose sight (other than because of the wing banking) you have to miss. If you can keep an eye on the field in IMC you can certainly continue the approach. It wouldn't make any sense otherwise to have circling mins less than VFR mins.
 
NJP_MAN said:
It should go noted that IMC doesn't necessarily mean you can't circle. Not being able to see the field means you can no longer circle. In the sim you can circle at >VFR vis to get the VFR circle restriction removed. I know what you're implying and I wouldnt circle in less than optimal conditions but to be technical it should be clarified. IMC =/= you can't see the field.
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Technically in the sim it's got to be Less than VFR vis in the sim. If somebody did otherwise for you, they shouldn't have.

(Unless, of course, we don't understand < & > the same way.)
 
MauleSkinner said:
Technically in the sim it's got to be Less than VFR vis in the sim. If somebody did otherwise for you, they shouldn't have.

(Unless, of course, we don't understand < & > the same way.)
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You are correct. I put the alligator mouth the wrong direction.
 
denverpilot said:
Hi Lance!

Well put. What I always wonder on these is where it really went wrong. For the SIC, I doubt he’d flown with enough Captains yet to know the difference between any of the common personality types and professionalism levels.

But the PIC was over 50, not a spring chicken, and somewhere long ago missed out on that instructor or other Captains who taught like your first Lear Captain, or gave up on doing it all professionally somewhere along the line.

When and why does the complacency start and settle in to stay? I’ve always been fascinated by the question. This type of accident is repetitive and we see one every few years somewhere.

Now I do understand that means very few flights result in such an accident, considering how much the entire fleet flies, but still... it repeats. Usually when something repeats there’s a way to break the cycle. But this one never breaks.

Your Captain’s phrase is similar to most instructors... we are teaching someone to be PIC, nothing less. Yeah, they may be headed for an SIC role for a while to gain experience, but their goal should be PIC levels of attention, care, knowledge, etc.

That’s one of the reasons I personally find that SIC-0 role their ops manual called the SIC on that flight — a bit suspect — Captain slumps over incapacitated in that cockpit, SIC had better be able to bring the flight to a safe conclusion.

Label the kid SIC-0 and he’s going to live up to the company’s expectations of him, in an awful lot of cases. Label the kid “PIC in training” and watch the behavior difference. I don’t like it. It’s a bad thing. Looks great on paper, but ignores human nature.

I guess without the distraction of the PIC constantly cussing and a little adrenaline, maybe the SIC would have stepped up his game a bit, but neither pilot really seemed like they wanted to be PIC of the aircraft that day.

Once you’re just barely following ATC instructions and not planning where you’re going next, you’re moving from PIC to passenger, and the airplane is still going somewhere...

I’m feeling awkward speaking ill of the dead here a bit, but we’re analyzing trying to see how to avoid this kind of thing in our own flying, and I just can’t see being quite as passive about that flight overall as that transcript seems to portray.

Your old Captain labeled you “Captain in training” and you went after it. It’s just normal to try when someone says that.
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I can actually see the benefit of an SIC-0 in an environment like a 135 flying Lears. While everyone wants to get in and start flying the plane, in a lot of cases when making a big step up the best thing to do is learn from watching someone else who knows what they're doing and start out by understanding the pilot monitoring role (for many this might be their first true crewed operation, which is a learning curve). In many cases, an SIC role in a Lear may represent that pilot's first turbine experience, first jet experience, etc. I would personally want my first few hours (I'd guess 5-10) to be doing the SIC role and understanding that, doing some hand flying for departure/arrival on easier legs (not something like PHL -> TEB) first.

Now, with that said, that means an SIC-0 should be paired with a senior captain with a lot of hours in type like Lance did - someone who will be training that pilot to be a captain. And, that SIC-0 period should be short-lived. If at 50 hours in type you're still not considered ready to move up to SIC-1/2, then that should mean a reevaluation of your skills and determining whether you should still be working at the company and flying the plane. The fact that this SIC was still an SIC-0 at over 250 hours in the Lear, and from the flight clearly belonged there indicates to me that he didn't have what it took to be in that plane.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I can actually see the benefit of an SIC-0 in an environment like a 135 flying Lears. While everyone wants to get in and start flying the plane, in a lot of cases when making a big step up the best thing to do is learn from watching someone else who knows what they're doing and start out by understanding the pilot monitoring role (for many this might be their first true crewed operation, which is a learning curve). In many cases, an SIC role in a Lear may represent that pilot's first turbine experience, first jet experience, etc. I would personally want my first few hours (I'd guess 5-10) to be doing the SIC role and understanding that, doing some hand flying for departure/arrival on easier legs (not something like PHL -> TEB) first.

Now, with that said, that means an SIC-0 should be paired with a senior captain with a lot of hours in type like Lance did - someone who will be training that pilot to be a captain. And, that SIC-0 period should be short-lived. If at 50 hours in type you're still not considered ready to move up to SIC-1/2, then that should mean a reevaluation of your skills and determining whether you should still be working at the company and flying the plane. The fact that this SIC was still an SIC-0 at over 250 hours in the Lear, and from the flight clearly belonged there indicates to me that he didn't have what it took to be in that plane.
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My experience with this type of introduction to jets wasn't good...the company didn't expend much effort getting new SICs up to speed on CRM or callouts, so most of my time was spent teaching that. Since they really didn't have a clue how the airplane operated, they didn't understand what they were supposed to be doing as Pilot Monitoring either. The process was very long, and there was no real improvement in their acting as PM until they got some Pilot Flying time under their belts.

IMO, since this pilot wouldn't even be allowed to fly the airplane on a deadhead leg with a company instructor, he really shouldn't even be in the cockpit.
 
MauleSkinner said:
My experience with this type of introduction to jets wasn't good...the company didn't expend much effort getting new SICs up to speed on CRM or callouts, so most of my time was spent teaching that. Since they really didn't have a clue how the airplane operated, they didn't understand what they were supposed to be doing as Pilot Monitoring either. The process was very long, and there was no real improvement in their acting as PM until they got some Pilot Flying time under their belts.

IMO, since this pilot wouldn't even be allowed to fly the airplane on a deadhead leg with a company instructor, he really shouldn't even be in the cockpit.
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Like I said, I can see the benefit to it, but it requires correct execution.

I would agree that many outfits wouldn't be executing it correctly. But it doesn't make the idea entirely awful.
 
I'm a newly minted hobbyist, so I know zip, nada, nothing about these sorts of operations. Is it common to have a SIC who isn't qualified to fly the plane?
 
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