GeeBee

To follow up on 47U's point. Talking to the F/O about a year later, he said as they rolled out, the DME, locked on then and they knew they messed up. As to the protest that this was a "professional crew" being judged to professional standards the FAA's own Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge in chapter 2, "Aeronautical Decision Making" speaks directly an on point to the subject. "Examining National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reports and other accident research can help a pilot learn to assess risk more effectively. For example, the accident rate during night visual flight rules (VFR) decreases by nearly 50 percent once a pilot obtains 100 hours and continues to decrease until the 1,000 hour level. The data suggest that for the first 500 hours, pilots flying VFR at night might want to establish higher personal limitations than are required by the regulations and, if applicable, apply instrument flying skills in this environment." As to landing at the wrong airport, say you are going into an uncontrolled field IFR and Center clears you for the visual, cancel on the ground. You land at the wrong airport, you just deviated from the clearance. Consequences. Or VFR you mistake an uncontrolled field for another uncontrolled field. You announce your intentions on CTAF but for the intended field. Your position announcements cause a commuter flight to go around. Guess what? Captain has to write up the go around. That gets the attention of the FAA POI who reads all those the next day (and every day) and guess what follows? 709 ride for you.....at night.

I will also quote from the Court of Appeals decision: A gross disregard for safety occurs when a person engages in conduct that show a disregard for foreseeable consequences. Administrator v. Understein, NTSB Order EA-1644 (1981). Ferguson should have known that his conduct could result in harm to the safety of his passengers. The ALJ commented that Ferguson's failure to use navigational aids was "unjustified." Sound judgment should have dictated a verification of the airport. Nothing about being a professional. Further "We hold that the NTSB did not abuse its discretion in drawing the conclusion that Ferguson should have known that he was landing at the wrong airport. Because Ferguson's conduct had clearly foreseeable consequences, it demonstrated a gross disregard for safety and created an actual danger to life and property. Thus, the conduct was reckless within the meaning of § 91.9." Gross means without regard for status. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/678/821/329801/

No. Partially correct but not complete. He was also charged with violation of 91.9 "While the NTSB agreed that Ferguson's actions were not deliberate, his appeal was rejected when the court decided his actions were reckless and in violation of a key FAR (§ 91.5) that required a pilot to familiarize himself or herself with all available flight information, and a company policy (Western Airlines Flight Operation Manual, P 5.3.3.C) that required him to use a radio navigational instrument to identify the airport before landing. Ferguson claimed he "saw the runway and assumed it was the right airport". Failure to use radio nav aids was considered "careless and reckless". If the requirement were inconsequential, it would have been so stated. Instead it added to the charge of "careless and reckless" (he was also charged with violation of 91.9) so obviously the NTSB considered it a consequential and decisive policy. I might also add this view was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals.

Note that it was a Part 91 regulation that sank his appeal.

Okay, let me try this a more genteel way and distill it down. Is it good aeronautical decision making to approach an unfamiliar airport at night, with 10s of thousands of dollars of avionics on board and not use them? Some say yes, I say no. I think a consultation of the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge chapter 2 might reveal the answer.

Yes, engine heat on a high by pass fan only solves lip and in some rare cases spinner anti-ice. What keeps ice off the fan blades is RPM. Which is why when you turn on engine heat in the air, engines usually go to a higher idle speed along with meeting bleed demands. Engine manufacturers specify ground run up procedures, usually every 15 or 30 minutes to 50 or 60% depending on the engine make and model to clear the blades. If you do not do this, when you apply power for takeoff both engines will FOD out, usually not at the same time which makes directional control "exciting". In SLC I've had freezing fog ice the blades even before engine start, which creates a whole new procedure that has to be carried out by the mechanics. After you get the engines cleared, then you can start and taxi over to the de-ice stand. The above applies to high by pass engines. Engines like the JT-8D you have to worry about the bullet getting heat since the EPR probe is located there and you become Air Florida.

And insurance rates keep going up and everyone wonders why.

Yes! Absolutely and I can tell you as a writer of 135 manuals that it will be rejected by the FSDO if the manual does not contain a requirement to use all available nav aids for identifying and approaching an airport.

I fly my Mooney using the best practices available. No, I don't have a co-pilot so that is not available. I do have a good avionics suite, and that is available so I use it. Cockpit Resource Management. Use all your tools available. This is the one I am most familiar with as I knew Captain Ferguson personally. He was a good guy, a careful pilot, more experienced than most here. He had flown Casper to Sheridan a dozen times in the last 3 months..... but he put a 737 down on 3000 feet and could have injured passengers. http://www.buffalobulletin.com/profiles/article_92509fc6-ec92-11ea-b494-57f772013f35.html I would note this paragraph: Even today, accidental landings happen. Between 1990 and 2014, the Associated Press of Records found there had been 150 such incidents. But this mistake wasn’t like the others. This one got people from all corners of America talking about Buffalo, Wyoming.

If you fly for the airlines, you are REQUIRED to use all available aids for landing even in day VMC visual approach. It is why pilots who land at the wrong airport get into so much trouble, because they violated the Ops manual by not cueing up the approach aids. Most people who have professional experience do the same out of habit and good operating practice.

Having been based in SLC for 6 years and flying into and out of it a lot the amount of moisture picked up by a system from the NW is huge as it passes over the lake. (after all where would Park City be without it) It is rare not to pick up ice into SLC during winter storm systems. Even the fog is highly moisture laden. The line had 6 P&W 2037s destroyed in one morning with freezing fog and the pilots not keeping up on their ground run ups to clear the fans.

The Bonanza "feels roomier" because the cabin height is greater. It is the reason why builders went to 9' ceilings in new homes, while actually making the average room size smaller. Ditto for mini- SUV's over sedans.

What level of icing was forecasted? Whoops, never mind, I see it now, Heavy. Does not seem like a good flight decision based upon the forecast.

You won't catch me going through a SLD forecast area!

Again, you have to check the data base. In this case in TN, the glide path is 3.5 deg but unless you check the data base in the Garmin unit, you don't know if they have the correct glide path set. Further if there is no glide path angle published, and there is an obstacle, you get a guaranteed 3 degree slope, which may or may not clear the obstacle. Not all airports are Part 139 conformal. From your citation: "With visual approach guidance, pilots can manage the descent to landing in visual flight conditions. Vertical guidance is provided based on a published glide path angle or a three-degree glideslope from the threshold of the runway. "

I would like to hear from the pilot. I recognize severe is aircraft dependent. I would like to know if the aircraft was TKS equipped. If not, if it was true severe icing I would think we would be reading about the crash. If it was TKS equipped I would like to know where it was building to categorize it as "severe". "Severe: the rate of accumulation is such that ice protection systems fail to remove the accumulation of ice. Or, the ice is so bad it is on surfaces where you don’t normally see icing like aft of the protected surfaces (ie. past the de-ice boots or all over the spinner). Immediately exit from the conditions............severe icing is aircraft dependent, as are other categories of icing intensity. Severe icing may occur at any accumulation rate

Liquid cooling an aircraft engine is not that big of a deal. It is in fact almost 100 year old technology. We had huge engines liquid cooled, Merlins, Griffins, etc. flying on everything from P-51s to Lancasters. The Rutan Voyager was liquid cooled. for crying out loud. Further we have liquid cooled engines now. How do you think all those diesel powered Diamonds fly? Let me tell you, cooling a diesel is a whole magnitude harder than a gas engines (Which is why my F-250 has a 9 gallon radiator). The "what about cooling" is a problem already solved.....a long time ago. I can tell you this, with liquid cooling far less cylinder replacements, especially cracked cylinders and much better fuel specifics. Nor is the idea of "unlimited" cooling in marine engines true. Most marine engines are closed cooling now days (including mine). They are limited by the size of the heat exchanger. The advantage the aircraft liquid cooled engine over a marine is the exhaust headers and turbo chargers do not have to be liquid cooled. So the requirements of heat transfer are actually much less as all you have to do is cool the block and heads.

Actually we do it every day in marine use. I have two 454 (7.3L) MPI GM blocks (300hp) that run all the time for hours at 3800-4000 rpm which means they are at 75 to 80% power. They do so dependably. Over 800 hours so far with no issues. I know of the same engine on a tow boat that has over 2500 hours on it and obviously is run very hard in commercial use.

Yep, when I ran 135 operations, I had an operational rule that unless you had three take-offs and landings in the last 30 days at a given field and you were landing at night, if it had an instrument approach, you had to fly the approach. I also had a list of "special airports" where you always had to fly the approach at night. Too many things can go bump in the night. It is an operational restriction I place on myself now.

The Garmin generated glide path would put you low on this runway.

Abnormally high glide path. That is a clue that the power lines are a problem.

I will be interested in seeing that and how you attach it.

Beaver Ruin Road, I always have trouble saying that without breaking into laughter! By the way anyone ever see a baby groundhog? I've had two in my yard. They grunt and growl like the Tasmanian devil in Looney Tunes.

I encountered two groundhogs today on the road on the way to the airport. I guarantee you they did not see their shadows or the car than ran over them!

If you Google the phrase "FAA Burn Test" you can come up with about 100 places. Not hard to get a burn certification. That said, there is a lot of material out there that is pre-certified. You really don't have to look hard.