PA28 down near Gainesville, FL

[ateamer]

Young man who died alone in plane crash near Gainesville dreamed of becoming commercial pilot

The pilot who died alone in a small plane crash earlier this week near Gainesville – after pleading for help in bad weather from an air traffic controller…

www.wuft.org

The pilot who died alone in a small plane crashearlier this week near Gainesville – after pleading for help in bad weather from an air traffic controller over his radio and expressing his love for his parents – dreamed of becoming a commercial pilot, his family says.

Valentine received his pilot’s license in May 2021, according to FAA records..


Newish pilot in a new airplane (for the pilot)

How are we training our pilots these days? ADM skills completely lacking. Weather was certainly not appropriate for a VFR flight, MVFR at best

Like no pilots with a few decades’ experience ever made their final flight by doing VFR into IMC.

 

[3393RP]

Far too many of these CFIsare not doing a good job with ADM
Even worse, they aren’t warning the student about potential dngerous situations and how to avoid and how to save themselves.

Recently offered to a student about carb icing, but it also applies to quite a few situations that will be encountered along the way:

Many things about flying an airplane are intuitive. There are others that aren't obvious at all, and those will occur at the worst possible time. Study, listen, learn, limit risk, and gain experience.

 

[Flying Keys]

Like no pilots with a few decades’ experience ever made their final flight by doing VFR into IMC.

While this story isn’t anything new, and certainly not limited to a singular demographic, I’m struck by the sheer amount of cautionary information available compared to years past, both inside the cockpit and out. It used to be we’d have to wait for next month’s Flying to hear about an accident that may have happened years ago; now we’re seeing them play out virtually in real-time, with nearly instant analysis, in three dimensions. Not to mention every one of those old stories is also still available, also having been analyzed seven ways to Sunday.

Yet the same old poor ADM stories continue to play out anew: VFR into IMC, running out of fuel, spatial D, icing, flying into thunderstorms, exceeding performance limitations. Despite it slowly declining for years, for all the info at our fingertips, we’re not putting enough of a dent into the accident rate for things that seemingly should be no-brainers.

 

[ateamer]

I’m still dismayed by the attitudes from some very experienced pilots. Things like:

“There was still fog on the ground, so I cicrcled the airport until I could see some runway and descended right down to it.”

“They were reporting 500 overcast, so I went ahead and took off, but it was more like 300. I just went ahead and flew the pattern at 200 and landed.”

Both of those were VFR flights to have a meal. Absolutely no actual need to fly.

“Sure we can cut through the corner of a cloud or squeeze through a 200 yard wide hole. There isn’t any traffic on the screen.”

“We’ll stay out of the red stuff. Besides, ATC won’t let you fly into really bad precip - they have radar and give you vectors around it.”

All of the above from multi-thousand hour pilots in their 70s - all private pilots. WRT to the last quote, I had talked with him several times about the delay on ADS-B/XM radar, how the picture is composed, why it takes time, and how quickly thunderstorms change. His response every time? “Well, their equipment has gotten a lot better and the the delays aren’t like they used to be.”

“No - I’m not going to go IFR in my RV. I’m working on being an old pilot, not a bold one.”

“I know my plane has two engines, is FIKI certified, I have a great panel, and all of that, but I don’t fly IMC in a piston-powered plane, definitely not solo. Especially in the southeast in summer.”

Above quotes from legacy airline international captains.

 

[hindsight2020]

While this story isn’t anything new, and certainly not limited to a singular demographic, I’m struck by the sheer amount of cautionary information available compared to years past, both inside the cockpit and out. It used to be we’d have to wait for next month’s Flying to hear about an accident that may have happened years ago; now we’re seeing them play out virtually in real-time, with nearly instant analysis, in three dimensions. Not to mention every one of those old stories is also still available, also having been analyzed seven ways to Sunday.

Yet the same old poor ADM stories continue to play out anew: VFR into IMC, running out of fuel, spatial D, icing, flying into thunderstorms, exceeding performance limitations. Despite it slowly declining for years, for all the info at our fingertips, we’re not putting enough of a dent into the accident rate for things that seemingly should be no-brainers.

It's called risk homeostasis; it's not that complicated. No amount of harping or providing fatality statistics on the topic by me (a sgoti to them) nor the FAA (appeal to authority fallacy) will curb recreational IMC morts, for instance. sapiens are gonna sapiens.

 

[Llewtrah381]

I know some amount of hood time is part of a PPL but that’s totally different than actual IMC and especially unanticipated actual IMC.

Given the number of VFR-into-IMC fatalities, it would seem Ike an excellent requirement for a license is some actual IMC time. And it would be “easy”: go up on a day with a high layer (say, 3000+ AGL) on an instrument flight plan and actually, intentionally get into the clouds and practice turns, climbs, descents, etc. “Worst case”, aside from having a (CFII) instructor to help with problems, there’s a few thousand feet in which to recover.

Yes, it requires a CFII and yes, it requires an IFR-equipped plane but the training would be invaluable and easy to do. Of course, there will still be fools who think they can then scud run to their hearts content but they’ll always be around.

Even if not a requirement, I’d highly encourage any student pilots to consider getting this experience.

 

[sarangan]

Wait…I thought many posters on here bragged about navigating ifr as a new pilot from years gone by with nothing more than a VOR and a map. Does this mean they weren’t genuine?

The pilot was not instrument rated. A competent instrument rated pilot could have flown it without crashing if the instruments on the photo were even partially functional. In an emergency, you can get yourself to safety without any charts. ATC is there to help, but the pilot needs to know what to ask for. The lack of a glass panel, ADSB and moving map does not mean the flight is doomed.

 

[Bill]

“No problem being 250# over gross, just use one notch of flaps on takeoff” - said idiot flying a PA-28. He not only survived, but did it regularly.

 

[Stan Bergey]

I’m still dismayed by the attitudes from some very experienced pilots. Things like:

“There was still fog on the ground, so I cicrcled the airport until I could see some runway and descended right down to it.”

“They were reporting 500 overcast, so I went ahead and took off, but it was more like 300. I just went ahead and flew the pattern at 200 and landed.”

Both of those were VFR flights to have a meal. Absolutely no actual need to fly.

“Sure we can cut through the corner of a cloud or squeeze through a 200 yard wide hole. There isn’t any traffic on the screen.”

“We’ll stay out of the red stuff. Besides, ATC won’t let you fly into really bad precip - they have radar and give you vectors around it.”

All of the above from multi-thousand hour pilots in their 70s - all private pilots. WRT to the last quote, I had talked with him several times about the delay on ADS-B/XM radar, how the picture is composed, why it takes time, and how quickly thunderstorms change. His response every time? “Well, their equipment has gotten a lot better and the the delays aren’t like they used to be.”

“No - I’m not going to go IFR in my RV. I’m working on being an old pilot, not a bold one.”

“I know my plane has two engines, is FIKI certified, I have a great panel, and all of that, but I don’t fly IMC in a piston-powered plane, definitely not solo. Especially in the southeast in summer.”

Above quotes from legacy airline international captains

I think this has more to do with it than we want to admit. We do well to think about how many of these student/low time PPL pilots sit around at fly-ins and in local hangars quietly listening to the stories being told by pilots older & "wiser" than they are, absorbing a mindset that at some point will either contribute to them getting in over their head, or equipping them with a frame of reference to make decisions that keeps them away from a situation like this.

 

[hindsight2020]

I don't discount the fact mentorship is an important aspect of keeping the uninitiated alive (children being the ultimate example), but when it comes to legal adults, you either have the required level of impulse control, or you don't. Many people don't, whether by genetics, environment/raising, life stage or otherwise. Some people die for it. This one ultimately was a fatality of impulse control imo.

 

[TrueCourse]

So, he didn’t just scud run and then get into IMC, he almost took off from ISM when it was reporting IFR. Tower told him if he waited a few minutes it would be VFR. He had to be aware of his attitude towards weather and VFR requirements. Makes me curious if his long cross country to FL days earlier included some IMC flying.

 

[DesertNomad]

I know some amount of hood time is part of a PPL but that’s totally different than actual IMC and especially unanticipated actual IMC.

Given the number of VFR-into-IMC fatalities, it would seem Ike an excellent requirement for a license is some actual IMC time. And it would be “easy”: go up on a day with a high layer (say, 3000+ AGL) on an instrument flight plan and actually, intentionally get into the clouds and practice turns, climbs, descents, etc. “Worst case”, aside from having a (CFII) instructor to help with problems, there’s a few thousand feet in which to recover.

Yes, it requires a CFII and yes, it requires an IFR-equipped plane but the training would be invaluable and easy to do. Of course, there will still be fools who think they can then scud run to their hearts content but they’ll always be around.

Even if not a requirement, I’d highly encourage any student pilots to consider getting this experience.

I live in Nevada and we almost never have flyable IMC. I take my students to costal California to find it.

 

[Gilbert Buettner]

Yes, it requires a CFII and yes, it requires an IFR-equipped plane but the training would be invaluable and easy to do.

I don't believe it would require a CFII, unless the training was for an instrument rating.

 

[Flyer Scott]

There was something else not reported. A close friend of mine was flying AAL3676 in the area while this was happening and heard the dialogue between the pilot and ATC on 121.5. The pilot advised his AI was inop. It was unclear if it was that way when he took off or had failed in flight. The last transmission heard was “I think I’m upside down…”

It is so tragic and sad to see the lack of ADM leading to senseless tragedies.

 

[Flyer Scott]

My son was flying in the pattern at KUCY this week. Opposite the pattern is an aerobatics box where N42XM was being flown by one of the planes three new owners and a seasoned aerobatics instructor. My son was on the radio with N42XM while in the pattern. My son had landed and was debriefing his flight when they heard a thud. Running outside they found the spotters were standing stunned saying the plane had gone down.

My son and other team members from KUCY all raced to the area where they thought the plane went down. My son was the first to arrive at the scene of the plane. It had ripped through a few solar panels and landed flat as if doing a belly flop.

The plane was a state of the art, like new, 58 hour old, aerobatics plane being flown by two experienced, accomplished pilots. All indications at this time are ADM was the cause of this avoidable tragedy leading to two unnecessarily lost lives.

Too tragic and too close to home. I wish there was an ADM test that could determine ADM competency.

 

[benyflyguy]

Young man who died alone in plane crash near Gainesville dreamed of becoming commercial pilot

The pilot who died alone in a small plane crash earlier this week near Gainesville – after pleading for help in bad weather from an air traffic controller…

www.wuft.org

The pilot who died alone in a small plane crashearlier this week near Gainesville – after pleading for help in bad weather from an air traffic controller over his radio and expressing his love for his parents – dreamed of becoming a commercial pilot, his family says.

Valentine received his pilot’s license in May 2021, according to FAA records..


Newish pilot in a new airplane (for the pilot)

How are we training our pilots these days? ADM skills completely lacking. Weather was certainly not appropriate for a VFR flight, MVFR at best

That’s the part I don’t get. I am a pilot for fun not for career. But my friends are pilots but for fun and doe careers. We talk about flying all the time, safety all the time. The career guys I know that’s all they talk about. We all talk about this kind of crap every time it happens. How can he be flying toward a cloud and saying to himself this is going to work out. How could he not know better. That’s what is frustrating to me.

 

[hindsight2020]

That’s the part I don’t get. I am a pilot for fun not for career. But my friends are pilots but for fun and doe careers. We talk about flying all the time, safety all the time. The career guys I know that’s all they talk about. We all talk about this kind of crap every time it happens. How can he be flying toward a cloud and saying to himself this is going to work out. How could he not know better. That’s what is frustrating to me.

Plenty of reasons, being 21 not an insignificant part of it. Sure, it's not a guarantor, but my point is that this isn't that unfathomable. I did risky ish when I was young and childless, I just got lucky and didn't die. In the aggregate, humans are mediocre as a collective. That's not a dig, that's population distribution fact. It's just that pilots fancy themselves as above average, but that's a perception error.

The only dog I have in the fight is the regulatory side. When people start trying to legislate away access based on collective punishment, that's when my fangs come out.

 

[Albany Tom]

Yeah, when I was <=21 I made a lot of decisions where luck was the only thing that saved me. Experience and wisdom come with time, and with surviving poor decisions. Adding rules isn't going to fix maturity/decision making skills.

But talking about it, being honest about it, I think can reduce the risk for some people.

Re the AI being broken, probably everybody is aware but it's possible to "dump" a mechanical gyro and leave it inop for a while during some aggressive maneuvers. I rode in the back seat for an instrument instruction flight where the CFII, in clear weather, put a 182 in an accelerated stall while the student was under the hood, and it kicked the artificial horizon more or less upside down. Then he asked the student, rhetorically, "now what are you going to do?" It was a little rough, but his point was that getting behind the aircraft while in IMC may not be recoverable for the average IFR pilot, or just about any VFR pilot.

 

[Flying Keys]

Plenty of reasons, being 21 not an insignificant part of it. Sure, it's not a guarantor, but my point is that this isn't that unfathomable. I did risky ish when I was young and childless, I just got lucky and didn't die. In the aggregate, humans are mediocre as a collective. That's not a dig, that's population distribution fact. It's just that pilots fancy themselves as above average, but that's a perception error.

The only dog I have in the fight is the regulatory side. When people start trying to legislate away access based on collective punishment, that's when my fangs come out.

The same sword that giveth all this safety perspective via yt and other social media, taketh away through public (mis)perception of the same. We want to avoid the resulting legislation, we have to stop crashing planes in dumb ways.

 

[douglas393]

Having dealt with far too many recently created CFIs, they don’t understand about potential medical cerification issues and can’t explain the process and potential problems. Welcome to legal weed, which is becoming more legal.

Far too many of these CFIsare not doing a good job with ADM
Even worse, they aren’t warning the student about potential dngerous situations and how to avoid and how to save themselves.

I trained just over 10 years ago and am an older pilot, but I remember a significant portion of training involving making go and no-go decisions. Not only was it part of the practical training but it was heavily covered in all of the didactic training as well. ADM has been hugely emphasized as part of the training since then and from what I have seen there has been a change to emphasis on "real world situational training" from the "regurgitation training" I went through. It seems to me the new way of training should be making new pilots more careful and less likely to perform "stupid pilot tricks." But then I like to think of myself being overly careful as I would rather die a boring death of old age (preferable in the triple digits) then an exciting death with an epitaph of "he died doing what he loved."

 

[Hang 4]

There was something else not reported. A close friend of mine was flying AAL3676 in the area while this was happening and heard the dialogue between the pilot and ATC on 121.5. The pilot advised his AI was inop. It was unclear if it was that way when he took off or had failed in flight. The last transmission heard was “I think I’m upside down…”

Upside down or spatial disorientation? I suspect the latter given the track prior to the crash.

 

[Chip Sylverne]

My son was flying in the pattern at KUCY this week. Opposite the pattern is an aerobatics box where N42XM was being flown by one of the planes three new owners and a seasoned aerobatics instructor. My son was on the radio with N42XM while in the pattern. My son had landed and was debriefing his flight when they heard a thud. Running outside they found the spotters were standing stunned saying the plane had gone down.

My son and other team members from KUCY all raced to the area where they thought the plane went down. My son was the first to arrive at the scene of the plane. It had ripped through a few solar panels and landed flat as if doing a belly flop.

The plane was a state of the art, like new, 58 hour old, aerobatics plane being flown by two experienced, accomplished pilots. All indications at this time are ADM was the cause of this avoidable tragedy leading to two unnecessarily lost lives.

Too tragic and too close to home. I wish there was an ADM test that could determine ADM competency.

Our good Doc Bruce has always maintained; " you can't teach judgement."

 

[Ed Haywood]

I can think of at least 5 instances in my teens and early 20's where I should have died from stupidity. Only dumb luck saved me.

I am a lifetime VFR pilot. My aircraft cannot legally be made IFR, so I spend a lot of time on XC trips agonizing over go/no-go decisions. Numerous times I have gotten stuck halfway through a trip and wound up sitting in a hotel for several days waiting for better weather.

 

[sarangan]

I’m still dismayed by the attitudes from some very experienced pilots. Things like:

“There was still fog on the ground, so I cicrcled the airport until I could see some runway and descended right down to it.”

“They were reporting 500 overcast, so I went ahead and took off, but it was more like 300. I just went ahead and flew the pattern at 200 and landed.”

Both of those were VFR flights to have a meal. Absolutely no actual need to fly.

“Sure we can cut through the corner of a cloud or squeeze through a 200 yard wide hole. There isn’t any traffic on the screen.”

“We’ll stay out of the red stuff. Besides, ATC won’t let you fly into really bad precip - they have radar and give you vectors around it.”

All of the above from multi-thousand hour pilots in their 70s - all private pilots. WRT to the last quote, I had talked with him several times about the delay on ADS-B/XM radar, how the picture is composed, why it takes time, and how quickly thunderstorms change. His response every time? “Well, their equipment has gotten a lot better and the the delays aren’t like they used to be.”

“No - I’m not going to go IFR in my RV. I’m working on being an old pilot, not a bold one.”

“I know my plane has two engines, is FIKI certified, I have a great panel, and all of that, but I don’t fly IMC in a piston-powered plane, definitely not solo. Especially in the southeast in summer.”

Above quotes from legacy airline international captains.

Many professional pilots, CFIs and students are alive today because of strict rules enforced by their employers and flight schools, not necessarily because the pilots made safe judgement calls. When these pilots transition to part 91 in their own airplanes with fewer rules, that is when their weaknesses begin to show. Age could be a factor in developing maturity, but I have seen 20 year old pilots exercise better judgement than retired airline captains. I like the quote Fly8ma made on one of his youtube videos - "Aviation demands humility" , "Aviation will uncover your weaknesses".

 

[david.h]

As they say, "Wisdom is a brutal teacher. First comes the test. . Then the lesson.".

 

[Hengelo]

It's a gut wrenching story; they all are. Young men with terrible risk management skills, or middle aged men leaving families behind wondering what they needed to prove.

The culture of safety is at odds with the culture of personal freedom - so I suspect we'll continue to have a huge divide between Part 91 fatalities and the tightly run commercial operations.

Damn shame though.

 

[Half Fast]

The culture of safety is at odds with the culture of personal freedom

Interesting thought.

If true, it certainly doesn’t have to be true. So how can we remove that conflict, or at least the perception if that’s all it is?

 

[Bacho]

For my part, I found flying behind the Foggles pretty easy. I remember coming up with the first impression that IMC flying wouldn’t be tough.

Luckily, I reflected on that thought pretty quickly, that really scared me. Maybe this pilot had similar thoughts?

 

[Hengelo]

Interesting thought.

If true, it certainly doesn’t have to be true. So how can we remove that conflict, or at least the perception if that’s all it is?

I’m not sure you can. Safety culture is… er… a culture. It’s peer pressure, and an expectation of behaviour as much as it is rules.

“Freedoms” as imagined in the USA are about the solitary person’s ability to write their own rules, live on their own “edge” and look to no one else as a compass.

This dichotomy seems to be at the root of GA in the USA: Amazing, and sometimes Byzantine federal regulations, as well as “I don’t want adsb in my kit plane” and “common frequencies are for mooing” or whatever other juvenile nonese is in vogue.

 

[Albany Tom]

There's no conflict. There's no confusion. There's no dichotomy. There's no peer pressure. There's no indication I've seen that this pilot was showing off, was acting in an anti-authoritarian manner, was trying to prove anything. It's really simple, very clear. There's also no indication that I've ever read the US pilots, commercial, private, or military, fly with lower standards or at higher risk than pilots from any other nation.

The only indication we have here is a probable lapse in judgement.

 

[Piperonca]

You have to have established good judgment first, before you can have a lapse in it. Only a pedantic point not a criticism.

 

[Mikey52]

Sounds like JFK jr all over again.

 

[Lon Stratton]

I can think of at least 5 instances in my teens and early 20's where I should have died from stupidity. Only dumb luck saved me.

I am a lifetime VFR pilot. My aircraft cannot legally be made IFR, so I spend a lot of time on XC trips agonizing over go/no-go decisions. Numerous times I have gotten stuck halfway through a trip and wound up sitting in a hotel for several days waiting for better weather.

And because of that you're here to tell us about it....

 

[robin ardoin]

We had that same weather in south La. all of last week. OVC at 300-800 lifting to 1500-2500 later in the day. However, the MVFR reports from various AWOS/ASOS were interspersed with IFR/LIFR reports. Plenty of opportunity to go VMC to IMC on a VFR flight. He did not know what he did not know.

 

[Ed Haywood]

We had that same weather in south La. all of last week. OVC at 300-800 lifting to 1500-2500 later in the day. However, the MVFR reports from various AWOS/ASOS were interspersed with IFR/LIFR reports. Plenty of opportunity to go VMC to IMC on a VFR flight. He did not know what he did not know.

I was at my airfield in central FL that day, about an hour south of the crash site, and maybe 30 minutes east of his departure AF. I am frankly amazed he managed to get as far as he did. I clearly recall walking on the ramp with my friend and remarking what a crappy day it was.

 

[Ed Haywood]

And because of that you're here to tell us about it....

Agreed, but as is well documented, various pressures to fly can easily overwhelm better judgment. Young men are not inherently stupid or reckless, but on average they are less mature. Maturity should in theory better prepare us to resist those pressures. I can picture this young man getting excited about his newly purchased airplane, to the point where that excitement skewed his normally sound ADM.

Heck, I'm 59, and I'm feeling the same thing about my newly restored airplane. Hoped to test fly it Saturday, but little issues keep bumping it. Is taking all the self discipline I can muster to avoid rationalizing away those little things and getting everything perfect. Unfortunately, as we all know, Aviation is unforgiving of small lapses in judgement.

IMO young guys like that need a mentor who can help talk them through the decision process. Many times when you try to explain something to someone, the gaps in your logic stand out. Something as simple as wandering down to the FBO and discussing the weather with the old guys drinking coffee can help clarify your logic. There is a reason they are old guys, and also probably a reason they are drinking coffee.

If there is nobody hanging around a normally busy airport, or nobody in the pattern, that is a big red flag.

 

[Flying Keys]

We had that same weather in south La. all of last week. OVC at 300-800 lifting to 1500-2500 later in the day. However, the MVFR reports from various AWOS/ASOS were interspersed with IFR/LIFR reports. Plenty of opportunity to go VMC to IMC on a VFR flight. He did not know what he did not know.

I’ll be curious to see what the NTSB finds regarding his preflight weather briefing and/or what kind of aids he had in the cockpit. If METAR observations were all he used to make a go decision, versus the myriad other forecast tools, then it goes back to at least one root cause of poor preflight preparation. This versus simply blundering into unforecast/unplanned thick, or blatantly disregarding it with a hearty “YOLO.” But not knowing is just as unacceptable as the others.

Case in point: at 16z (two hours prior to departure, so a reasonable briefing time), the entirety of Florida except the panhandle and Miami were under an IFR Airmet. The TAF for Gainesville at 15z was 0411G20 P6SM VCSH OVC012, then from 18z 05014G24 P6SM -SHRA SCT012 BKN022 OVC050, with TEMPO 4SM SHRA BKN012 OVC030 from 18z to 22 (which happened). The cloud depiction forecast on AWC showed varying bases from 016 to 023 on the latter half of his route at the time he would have flown.

By the time he departed at 18z, the IFR Airmet had been reduced to the southern portion of the route. But the cloud forecast depiction had not improved, the TAF remained the same, and radar clearly showed the bands of precipitation that persisted in the GNV area, right up to the time he flew into them.

Based on the forecast information available at the time it was a very sketchy VFR go decision, regardless of the outcome, and no matter what there’s not really an excuse for not knowing.

 

[Flying Keys]

Agreed, but as is well documented, various pressures to fly can easily overwhelm better judgment. Young men are not inherently stupid or reckless, but on average they are less mature. Maturity should in theory better prepare us to resist those pressures. I can picture this young man getting excited about his newly purchased airplane, to the point where that excitement skewed his normally sound ADM.

Heck, I'm 59, and I'm feeling the same thing about my newly restored airplane. Hoped to test fly it Saturday, but little issues keep bumping it. Is taking all the self discipline I can muster to avoid rationalizing away those little things and getting everything perfect. Unfortunately, as we all know, Aviation is unforgiving of small lapses in judgement.

IMO young guys like that need a mentor who can help talk them through the decision process. Many times when you try to explain something to someone, the gaps in your logic stand out. Something as simple as wandering down to the FBO and discussing the weather with the old guys drinking coffee can help clarify your logic. There is a reason they are old guys, and also probably a reason they are drinking coffee.

If there is nobody hanging around a normally busy airport, that is a red flag.

Very good point. We all tend to get in our perception bubbles, and the less experience and maturity we have, the smaller the bubbles are. That said, there is supposedly a ADM baseline provided by the ACS.

I really want to know what the external pressures were on this one. Why did he push so hard to go?

 

[Ed Haywood]

I’ll be curious to see what the NTSB finds regarding his preflight weather briefing and/or what kind of aids he had in the cockpit. If METAR observations were all he used to make a go decision, versus the myriad other forecast tools, then it goes back to at least one root cause of poor preflight preparation. This versus simply blundering into unforecast/unplanned thick, or blatantly disregarding it with a hearty “YOLO.” But not knowing is just as unacceptable as the others.

Case in point: at 16z (two hours prior to departure, so a reasonable briefing time), the entirety of Florida except the panhandle and Miami were under an IFR Airmet. The TAF for Gainesville at 15z was 0411G20 P6SM VCSH OVC012, then from 18z 05014G24 P6SM -SHRA SCT012 BKN022 OVC050, with TEMPO 4SM SHRA BKN012 OVC030 from 18z to 22 (which happened). The cloud depiction forecast on AWC showed varying bases from 016 to 023 on the latter half of his route at the time he would have flown.

By the time he departed at 18z, the IFR Airmet had been reduced to the southern portion of the route. But the cloud forecast depiction had not improved, the TAF remained the same, and radar clearly showed the bands of precipitation that persisted in the GNV area, right up to the time he flew into them.

Based on the forecast information available at the time it was a very sketchy VFR go decision, regardless of the outcome, and no matter what there’s not really an excuse for not knowing.

I know I'll get pilloried for saying this out loud, but if he had scud run "properly", he would have survived. Florida is pool table flat and mostly rural. The highest elevation in Florida, Sugarloaf mountain, is 312' MSL. Any tower over a few hundred feet is mapped on GPS, and all the major apps have obstacle warnings. Rather than holding altitude and entering IMC, he should have stayed below the clouds and run the slalom at 500 AGL until he found somewhere to land. I have done just that IN FORMATION with a Navy F-18 pilot flying a Pitts S-2E on my wing. TBH it was a relatively minor event. We accidentally landed at an EAA pancake breakfast and had a good meal!

We teach the 180 turn as the correct response to IMC entry. But I wonder if a safer course for a VFR pilot in a marginally equipped aircraft would be to cut power and hands off glide til you break out. Declare an emergency and get observations from ATC on nearby ceilings to determine if you will have enough room. In conditions like last week, there is no guarrantee that the VMC behind you will still be VMC when you get there.

 

[Ed Haywood]

I really want to know what the external pressures were on this one. Why did he push so hard to go?

My best guess would be new-plane-itis. It is a thing.