PC 12 Down off of NC Coast

robin ardoin said:
They were on Flight Following, correct?? VMC, correct? Seems like they forgot to fly the a/c while screwing with the navigator (without the proficiency in operating the said navigator that should have been obtained long before contemplating flight). In VMC, look out the frickin windows and fly the plane. Reading the VCR transcript made my blood boil.
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nope, IMC.
 
I believe they discussed using flight following, never asked for it.

Edited to add, I have flown in that air space, and requested radar vectors, and had excellent service.

I have been a passenger with an Airforce General, twice, and he did not identify our plane as military connected, and he also had top level service.

If the navigation instruments on board are a problem, call in the outside experts. When you have your game up to speed, thank them and return to your own navigation.
 
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eman1200 said:
nope, IMC.
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"RDO-1 Cherry Point approach Pilatus seven nine november xraywe’re off— with you off of uh Hyde County at thirty-fivehundred feet. we'll level at thirty-five uhh enroute to uhh we'reenroute to whisky ninety-five and then LAVTE and then to MR-H. just like flight following if able."

So, VMC into IMC? Obviously done on a previous flight, if only momentarily, according to prior flight transcripts.
 
robin ardoin said:
"RDO-1 Cherry Point approach Pilatus seven nine november xraywe’re off— with you off of uh Hyde County at thirty-fivehundred feet. we'll level at thirty-five uhh enroute to uhh we'reenroute to whisky ninety-five and then LAVTE and then to MR-H. just like flight following if able."

So, VMC into IMC? Obviously done on a previous flight, if only momentarily, according to prior flight transcripts.
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I thought somewhere they said 900' ceilings. maybe not IMC the whole way, but I haven't had time to go thru the details yet.
 
eman1200 said:
I thought somewhere they said 900' ceilings. maybe not IMC the whole way, but I haven't had time to go thru the details yet.
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I just re-read the prelim. Started off FF/VMC then requested clearance for the RNAV, hence IFR clearance (pop up)at that point. I missed that nuance and the possibility of them entering IMC. The navigate/aviate failure is more understandable if they entered IMC and both were futzing around with the nav gear instead of division of duties.
 
Seems to me like none of the internet response teams fully stated the depth of what those transcripts (and the video) elucidated.

"The last time Weather Imagery was viewed was in 2020."
 
There is a lot to learn from the CVR transcript, if you can stomach reading it. If not, here are a few takeaways:

1. No matter who you are and what you are flying, set honest personal minimums based on your proficiency in the equipment and in the weather. This pilot should not have, on that day, flown that plane in any weather and should not have flown any plane in that weather.
2. File IFR. If you can't be absolutely certain of a VFR flight without scud running, then either you can and should go IFR or you can and should stay on the ground.
3. Don't lie to ATC. "Confirm you are direct CIGOR" is a cue for you to say "negative, can you give us a vector while we get caught up with the plane?"
4. If you're near or in a stall, recover to stable flight first before you try doing anything else. Jam the power lever forward, mash the HDG and ALT buttons, and turn the heading bug to the number ATC tells you. Then find your glasses and focus on the instruments, FMS, iPad, and anything else you need to get set up for the approach. You can turn that heading bug all day long and read the approach plates in between turns.
 
robin ardoin said:
… and both were futzing around with the nav gear instead of division of duties.
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There was no two person flight crew. One commercial, nom-CFI pilot and his 20-hr student pilot son in the right seat. Based on the CVR, the dude was an accident waiting to happen.
 
PaulS said:
Got to the point where they were trying to enter cigor, unsure why they didn't load their flight plan on the ground to begin with they were already flustered by the time they needed to enter the approach. They were in a hurry I guess. Sometimes you fall behind. All I could think while reading was a simple request from the pilot, " approach, we're having an issue with our gps, we'd like some delay vectors for 5 minutes or so until we get it straightened out." They probably would have figured it out. I'll read the rest later, but things can snowball unless you take definitive steps to stop it.
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One could request vectors all the way to the destination, or at least to severe clear conditions, if need be (nav system failure, or failure to program nav system). I read the transcript, and I can't unread it. An unprepared pilot (totally, utterly), not in a physical condition to fly, trying to "instruct" when he himself didn't quite seem to know the system.
 
TCABM said:
There was no two person flight crew. One commercial, nom-CFI pilot and his 20-hr student pilot son in the right seat. Based on the CVR, the dude was an accident waiting to happen.
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Oh, I understand that. But, Dad should have flown the plane and let the son figure out programming the approach. Failing that, the PIC (Dad) should have relayed his issue to the controller and focused on flying headings and altitudes.
 
iamtheari said:
There is a lot to learn from the CVR transcript, if you can stomach reading it. If not, here are a few takeaways:

1. No matter who you are and what you are flying, set honest personal minimums based on your proficiency in the equipment and in the weather. This pilot should not have, on that day, flown that plane in any weather and should not have flown any plane in that weather.
2. File IFR. If you can't be absolutely certain of a VFR flight without scud running, then either you can and should go IFR or you can and should stay on the ground.
3. Don't lie to ATC. "Confirm you are direct CIGOR" is a cue for you to say "negative, can you give us a vector while we get caught up with the plane?"
4. If you're near or in a stall, recover to stable flight first before you try doing anything else. Jam the power lever forward, mash the HDG and ALT buttons, and turn the heading bug to the number ATC tells you. Then find your glasses and focus on the instruments, FMS, iPad, and anything else you need to get set up for the approach. You can turn that heading bug all day long and read the approach plates in between turns.
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Great take home messages! The part that really baffles me is the insane amount of time and inability to enter 2 waypoints (W95 and LAVTE) between the airports. Like trying to figure out a new FMS for the first time.
 
My biggest takeaway is that most of the programming of the FMS that they were fumbling through should have been done before takeoff, or even engine start. That FMS not only handles navigation, it also does your weight, speed, and fuel calculations and even controls your pressurization. So not having a valid flight plan and computations done, trying to do this in the air when you are are behind, under stress, and unfamiliar is a tall task. Even with as much time as I have in those airplanes, I’ll admit to the occasional “why won’t it let me do that”. The Honeywell avionics are great, but they are not as intuitive as Garmin.

Sadly, five minutes of prep on the ground would have prevented turning a milk run into a tragedy.
 
It’s hard to grasp how someone with that much experience could be so far behind and inept from the start of the engine??
Having a 20 hour student in the right seat is more of a distraction. Actually sounded like he was relying on him to handle some of the workload of complex avionics!!
I Couldn’t seem to find a report about pilot currency, time and type in so long. His inability to perform basic tasks that he is done probably hundreds of times begs a question of some type of incapacitation.
I watched the video from NTSB without actual voices. Not sure I can bear to listen to the voice version.
 
There probably won't be a voice version. Only a couple times those have been released. Transcripts yes, copies of actual recordings no.
 
benyflyguy said:
It’s hard to grasp how someone with that much experience could be so far behind and inept from the start of the engine??
Having a 20 hour student in the right seat is more of a distraction. Actually sounded like he was relying on him to handle some of the workload of complex avionics!!
I Couldn’t seem to find a report about pilot currency, time and type in so long. His inability to perform basic tasks that he is done probably hundreds of times begs a question of some type of incapacitation.
I watched the video from NTSB without actual voices. Not sure I can bear to listen to the voice version.
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Relating to incapacitation, second flight prior to the incident also recorded on the data recorder, the pilot states he is in lots of pain.
 

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There’s a whole lot on the FDR indicating the pilot should have self grounded for a while. There’s also enough to give me the feeling the pilot was not proficient with the FMS and autopilot.
 
The guy comes across as completely senile. Doesn't sound like he should have been driving a car, let alone flying a turborprop.
 
TCABM said:
There was no two person flight crew. One commercial, nom-CFI pilot and his 20-hr student pilot son in the right seat. Based on the CVR, the dude was an accident waiting to happen.
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The hardest part for me, reading the transcript, was that it felt like the son was thinking his father was losing his grip on the flight but not knowing when or how to step in. Their 49-year age gap probably made it even more difficult than those of us who are closer to half that when we need to have a difficult conversation with our parents.
 
I hope to god they don't release a voice version. Nobody needs to hear that.
What a cluster from startup to impact. Horrible.
 
TCABM said:
There’s also enough to give me the feeling the pilot was not proficient with the FMS and autopilot.
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And since it sounds like he tried to make the flight VFR, and only went IFR when he absolutely had to, I’d guess he knew it.
 
Anyone familiar with these care to speculate how they seemingly got into a stall while on AP? It sounded like he was having trouble getting the nose back down.

I’m assuming it would have an alarm for excessive trim movement but I didn’t see that noted in the transcript.
 
I've never read anything close to this. Almost could not believe the lack of familiarity with the AP, FMS and the fact that they tried to get flight VFR when conditions were not that great.
Also, why not enter the flight plan on the ground? Awful decision to take off into marginal weather, fumble with the FMS and AP while trying to flying the plane, avoid a restricted area... so many mistakes... :(
 
I was on a flight with a commercial pilot in a SR 22 who appeared to be as confused as the people on the voice recorder about entering an instrument flight into their FMS.

The FMS tried to send us places he didn’t want to go and couldn’t find one of the way points.

After fussing with data entry for a long time the pilot hand flew the aircraft VFR.
 
Hunter Parks, one of the passengers, was the owner of the airplane. His girlfriend was with him along with the four boys. ‘Teen’ Rawls (Dad) was in the left seat and his son, a ppl student, in the right seat. Teen had flown for Hunter and was familiar with the aircraft. The son had flown with Dad on this aircraft before too.

In the docket is info about Teen’s medical history, one of the items states he contacted Covid weeks before the flight. This explains the coughing on the recordings. I have to think the meds he was on had him not thinking clearly as he knew this aircraft. Struggling to program the FMS, something he had done many times before, should not have been hard. I can see the son struggling to program it as he was not all that experienced with it.

Teen lived close to the PGV airport and was very knowledgeable of flying in eastern NC. This includes all the military operations, MOA’s, restricted areas, etc. That is why I have to think due to the number of decisions made before and during this flight he was struggling physically. We know he was experiencing back pains as that is on the transcript.
 
MauleSkinner said:
And since it sounds like he tried to make the flight VFR, and only went IFR when he absolutely had to, I’d guess he knew it.
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Did he absolutely have to go IFR, or could he have turned around and stayed VFR?

I’ve had a similar question for guys who do stuff like fly at 500 AGL (or lower) below a low overcast or go through ground fog just to get to breakfast. Or rely on ADS-B radar to get through Florida thunderstorms in IMC when the cloud bases are 2500-4000 (with absolutely flat sea-level terrain for hundreds of miles). Their response? “It’s too hot and bumpy below the clouds. If you don’t go higher, you’re never going to get anywhere. Besides, ATC has radar and they always keep you out of the red parts.”
 
Bacho said:
Anyone familiar with these care to speculate how they seemingly got into a stall while on AP? It sounded like he was having trouble getting the nose back down.

I’m assuming it would have an alarm for excessive trim movement but I didn’t see that noted in the transcript.
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According to the FDR, they initiated a descent at (approximately) 13:56:30 (LCL) in VS mode and leveled off one minute later at 13:57:30, in ALT hold mode. During the descent, the speed initially increased from about 145, peaking at almost 170 from 13:56:50 to 13:57:30.

The torque, likely due to the pilot noticing the speed increase, was reduced twice, from 15psi to 10psi at 13:56:50, then to 6psi at 13:57:50, where it remained until the first indication of stall.

Meanwhile, the airspeed slowly bled off and the pitch increased as the autopilot tried to maintain level altitude at the low torque setting. When the airspeed finally got down to about 95kts CAS at 13:59:10, the pitch attitude was about 12°. The stick shaker briefly activated at that time and autopilot had an abnormal disconnect (automatically clicked off). The rest is disturbingly similar to so many other stall “recoveries” we’ve seen where the pilot doesn’t know what the automation did or was doing, in conjunction with their actions.

Note that the times and figures are approximate due to the resolution of the FDR graph.
 
GLMS_NC said:
In the docket is info about Teen’s medical history, one of the items states he contacted Covid weeks before the flight. This explains the coughing on the recordings. I have to think the meds he was on had him not thinking clearly as he knew this aircraft. Struggling to program the FMS, something he had done many times before, should not have been hard. I can see the son struggling to program it as he was not all that experienced with it.

Teen lived close to the PGV airport and was very knowledgeable of flying in eastern NC. This includes all the military operations, MOA’s, restricted areas, etc. That is why I have to think due to the number of decisions made before and during this flight he was struggling physically. We know he was experiencing back pains as that is on the transcript.
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Unfortunately, the more we learn about this flight, the more damning it gets. That gotta get home feeling clearly overpowered a no fly VFR situation. And certainly not in the right frame of mind to fly in IMC. The confusion between CIGOR and CIBAG for the 08 and 26 RNAVs …. with the runway switch was the start of the serious trouble.
 
Hard part to read. “He pulled back throttle”……. But he never pushed it back in! When the son called out to his dad is heart breaking. As a pilot I am glad we can read these things disappointed in the amount of cursing did not realize # was for that until about half way through. This was/is sad.
 
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