Fatal Cirrus accident last night in Vegas

[kerry]

I read this report from aviation safety that a Nellis controller vectored a Cirrus toward a mountain north of the North Las Vegas Airport at night time.  Horrible to hear.

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/230926

[GLJA]

Yikes. Sad to hear. 

[MooneyMitch]

Tragic ! 

[EricJ]

Man, that's tragic all around.   Reminds me a bit of the LAX landing disaster, where the controller took it very hard, but it led to a number of reforms in how LAX traffic is handled.   I hope some good comes out of this.

 

[Gagarin]

Wasn't this Cirrus equipped with terrain/obstacle warning? My GNS 530W has alerted me several times of nearby towers and terrain, even without been set for Terrain Mode.  A very handy life saving feature specially at night.

Edited November 27, 2019 by Gagarin

[Bob_Belville]

11 minutes ago, Gagarin said:

Wasn't this Cirrus equipped with terrain/obstacle warning? My GNS 530W has alerted me several times of nearby towers and terrain. A very handy lifesaving feature specially at night.

The Cirrus was a 2001 model... wonder what the original radios would have been if not upgraded? 

[DXB]

Ugh what a tragedy. He presumably was assigned 6500 on a vector while vfr.  The crash site is at 6600ft. That 6900 peak is still just inside the Vegas Bravo. What happened from the pilot side might be inferred even with the very limited info.  It will be interesting to learn about the contributing factors on the ATC side. 

[Gagarin]

25 minutes ago, Bob_Belville said:

The Cirrus was a 2001 model... wonder what the original radios would have been if not upgraded? 

Most portable GPS show terrain.

[thinwing]

Exactly..my old 530w now Avidyne would be shouting “terrain terrain terrain!!”very sad and the Nellis controller has a load on his conscience 

[Jerry 5TJ]

Perhaps a take-away is:  Don't fly VFR at night in the mountains.  And watch the terrain page, even IFR.

[Bob_Belville]

1 minute ago, Gagarin said:

Most portable GPS show terrain.

In 2001 the standard avionics in a SR22 was dual 430s. If the pilot had a moving map with terrain I don't suppose he'd have flown into a dark mountain. 

[Hank]

Just now, Jerry 5TJ said:

Perhaps a take-away is:  Don't fly VFR at night in the mountains.  And watch the terrain page, even IFR.

I got my license in WV. Not flying VFR after dark would have been very limiting. You just have to know where you are and what a good altitude is. When I did my Student XCs, day and night, the trainer had no GPS. 

[aviatoreb]

Flying night VFR near terrain really creeps me out - and mostly I avoid night flying entirely.  Last time I did a lot of it was during my required hours during my commercial license -

as a rule, during might VFR I always fly the approach plate for starters.  In this case it was a departure accident, but the point is that there are ways that hills can be hidden even when you have full view, so know your plates and know your charts.

Edited November 27, 2019 by aviatoreb

[Jerry 5TJ]

Just now, Hank said:

I got my license in WV. Not flying VFR after dark would have been very limiting. You just have to know where you are and what a good altitude is. When I did my Student XCs, day and night, the trainer had no GPS. 

Well, may I suggest go fly at night out of Reno or Las Vegas or Albuquerque. 

[aviatoreb]

4 minutes ago, Jerry 5TJ said:

Well, may I suggest go fly at night out of Reno or Las Vegas or Albuquerque. 

No doubt....

The last night landing I made was probably 3 years ago, in a Catskills airport - name escapes me at the moment - a long skinny value that doesn't look like much if you are at 5, or 10,000 ft, but terrain is quite the thing if you are in approach to landing mode.  It gives me (gave me) a lot more confidence that I wouldn't run into something I wasn't missing by simply flying the approach plate.  Even in severe clear - night VFR.

BTW - I am not saying this in anyway to disparage the pilot of this unfortunate flight.  Just a suggestion for all the rest of us of procedures that I think are a good idea.

Edited November 27, 2019 by aviatoreb

[Hank]

2 minutes ago, Jerry 5TJ said:

Well, may I suggest go fly at night out of Reno or Las Vegas or Albuquerque. 

They're a mighty long way from Alabama. I have no trouble with the Appalachians, even near Mt. Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi.

Gotta know where you are, and what a safe altitude is.

It's quite dark leaving CLT Bravo headed north over E. KY coalfields, going home to Furthest WV.

All situations, all aircraft and all pilots are not the same, but the requirements for safe flight don't change much.

[gsxrpilot]

I recently landed back at my home field, BJC in Denver. I'd lost the alternator and was on battery power. It was well after dark and we were coming in from the west. With a dark cockpit and invisible mountains close by, we had two iPads up. One with a VFR Sectional and one with SV on the screen. With that we had plenty of information  of the terrain around us and made sure we were well clear. I never thought we were ever in any danger and we weren't.

This has got to be the definition of a senseless tragedy. There are so many ways it could have been avoided.

[bonal]

Our little Garmin 296 gives terrain avoiding warning this is very sad and really should never have happened just too many ways to know where you are.

[cbarry]

This tragedy makes me wonder why we as pilots most often just do as we’re told when we’re “in the system” and fail to verify the trustworthiness of those “controlling” the airspace.  This is not to disparage controllers whatsoever,  but rather to simply reinforce that we are the PIC and the ones responsible for the safety of the flight.   Possibly there should  be another phraseology that is put into practice just like “unable” and “wilco.”  Something like “wilnoco”—will not comply when instructions fail to prove to be worthy of following.

[kerry]

I like cbarry's response "unable"" .  Better stated unable because I'm night VFR and I can't see terrain.   I'm VFR and I don't fly at night.  I've been on this route many times with Nellis Approach to KVGT.  I've never been near this mountain range unless coming from the North.  It gives me quite a perspective to keep my VFR flying from dusk to dawn.

[chrisk]

Sad to hear.   I do fly at night, and sometimes near mountains.  I've landed at Colorado Springs many times at night.  I'd feel comfortable landing in Durango Colorado or Santa Fe.  All of those have plenty of flat space near the airports, and I know where the mountains are.  On the other hand, I will not go into Pagosa Springs Co. at night, as it has rising terrain on the north side of the airport.   That said, in class B, how many of us would have deviated from the controllers instructions?  I wonder if the pilot was watching the map turn yellow, then red,  then the crash.... all the time wonder when to deviate.

[flyer338]

I am not sure how big a factor this was, but knowing when to refuse a clearance or especially a modification to a clearance is potentially life saving. 

I used to file IFR from Fortuna (KFOT) to various Bay Area airports.. Approach control often wanted to drop me low and send me over the ocean beyond gliding distance to land. I learned to refuse the change because I was not willing to risk a water landing in very cold water. I never expected to have, or had, an engine failure in my C, but I never flew out over water at an altitude that did not allow for glide back to the beach if the fan stopped.

[JohnB]

This is horribly tragic. Points out though controllers expect that we will maintain our own terrain clearance in VFR conditions, and this controller probably forgot that it was nighttime, and the terrain is invisible, and he/she was trying to keep the airplane out of Bravo airspace arrivals. In flying out of there, I know the space between the top of the terrain and the bottom of the busy Bravo is pretty narrow, where the controllers like to keep GA pilots in, even if you're IFR.  Looks like if he had been vectored a few degrees left, this wouldn't have happened, but that path looks like that's near an arrival path in to LAS. Needless to say it can happen,  I have as I'm sure many of you like me have had controllers give you a vector that points you to a terrain feature, then they might forget about you, where I usually call back and request a climb for upcoming terrain which gets their attention. This also points out that at night, you need to be at or above the MEA for that entire sector, or at least the MOCA for the section before being comfortable with accepting vectors that a controller might give you.

[ilovecornfields]

As others have also mentioned, when I fly at night I go IFR or follow known airways and approaches. I recently left HWD IFR and was getting vectors toward the mountains. I saw the terrain change from yellow to red (which I ALWAYS display) and told the controller “in 10 miles it doesn’t look like we’ll have terrain clearance. Would you like me to climb or turn?” He came back with some comment about how I was currently above the MVA (even though I clearly wouldn’t have been on that current heading and altitude in 10 miles) and gave me a climb. I’m sure it sounded good for the tapes.

I still think that 99.5% of the time ATC is great. For that other 0.5% of the time you need to act like the PIC like your life depends on it.

Edited November 28, 2019 by ilovecornfields

[skykrawler]

It's my policy to not rely on ATC to protect my life.  Watch this video and tell me what the priority was for controller.  Lemme get that atis...

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ma0JzO43Ig