Mooney hitting power lines in TN

[Hank]

3 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

Let's say there are two people on a jump plane.  One is the pilot flying with no parachute.  The other is a parachutist on board with a chute.  The plane suffers the loss of a wing at 8,000 ft. due to undetected internal structural deterioration.  The parachutist immediately jumps out of the plane but makes no attempt to use his main or backup parachute and perishes upon impact. The pilot goes down with the plane and perishes upon impact. 

Who should be judged more harshly?... the parachutist who died simply because he had equipment but chose not to use or the pilot that dies because he did not have a parachute (said equipment)?

It seems to me that the person with equipment that they did not use should be treated more harshly.  How is this different from your posed question of logic?

Since when is the Straw Man Fallacy a valid premise for persuasion?

Any accident resulting in a fatality will be thoroughly investigated; if the fatality was preventable, punishment will be greater. 

Other than the (improbable) (odd) case of an airliner at a really small airfield needing to evacuate passengers with emergency slides, has any bodily injury ever resulted from landing at thenwrong field? I excepted emergency slides because they are thicker than our Mooney wings are from the ground.

[markgrue]

While I encourage and myself use what systems I have on board whenever I can, I primarily look outside whenever making approaches.  As an example I was almost run down by a Cirrus pilot who was so busy playing with his electronic toys that he did not even see me.  He passed so close over me I could see the exhaust streaks on the bottom of the aircraft.  He was not even reporting on ctaf.  Long story short in visual conditions pilots need to look outside.  In fact the FAA has recognized that pilots are not looking outside as much as they should and they have had several seminars on this subject.

 

Mark

[markgrue]

I just got this from the FAA on a webinar.

You have asked us to notify you when a webinar is scheduled that meets your criteria. The following webinar may be of interest to you: "Pattern Operations at Pilot Controlled Airports" Topic: Safe Traffic Pattern Operations at Non-Towered Airports. On Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 18:30 Central Standard Time (16:30 PST, 17:30 MST, 19:30 EST, 14:30 HST, 15:30 AKST, 17:30 Arizona, 00:30 GMT) Select Number: GL13103126 Description: This webinar consists of a combination of presentation and discussion.  The subject webinar focuses on safe operations at non-towered airports, particularly those with high traffic density and a mix of aircraft performance profiles. FAA recommendations and regulations are presented and attendees are invited to offer observations on the meaning and implementation of those regulations adn recommendations. To view further details and registration information for this webinar, click here. The sponsor for this seminar is: FAASTeam The following credit(s) are available for the WINGS/AMT Programs: Basic Knowledge 3 - 1 Credit Advanced Knowledge 1 - 1 Credit Click here to view the WINGS help page

 

 

Mark

[GeeBee]

12 hours ago, Hank said:

Since when is the Straw Man Fallacy a valid premise for persuasion?

Any accident resulting in a fatality will be thoroughly investigated; if the fatality was preventable, punishment will be greater. 

Other than the (improbable) (odd) case of an airliner at a really small airfield needing to evacuate passengers with emergency slides, has any bodily injury ever resulted from landing at thenwrong field? I excepted emergency slides because they are thicker than our Mooney wings are from the ground.

Here is a study of that question (de Voogt does a lot of aviation analysis)

"In the studied period there were 54 incidents and 11 accidents. There were 15 pilots who tried to avoid a landing, which in 5 cases led to an accident. All other pilots made a full-stop landing at the wrong airport. Damage to the aircraft was significantly more likely during night flights and in flights with a student or pilot with a private pilot license. Corrective measures during the landing procedure, such as a go-around or a touch-and-go landing, accounted for 42% of the accidents. Eighty percent of the cases were reported in the first 12 yr of the studied period and 20% in the last 12 yr."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17310882/

 

 

[Ibra]

Even when “flying IFR” with all the nav aids available there are few caveats for night flying, first, worth checking IFR plates for any night IFR flying restrictions or prominent obstacles, second, some airports prohibit IFR flying for visual approach at night, circle-to-land at night, and may even restrict IFR flying in straight-in visual segment to day only, I think the FAA marks those ones with “NA at night” in their plates

The “1:20 slope” that start 200ft before threshold and go 3deg is not necessarily protected and may cut through 3ft, 10ft obstacles or even more, the pilot must see those obstacles visually even when flying within the protected “IFR glide slope or heights” above DH/MDH, this could be problematic if one continue to fly IFR on visual segment bellow DH/MDH using runway & visual clues rather than going back to instruments to maintain his GS bellow DH/MDH

This is highly relevant at night because of undershoot risk from black hole effect which can happen even when “flying IFR”, in any case, outside “LVO and auto-lands” operations in B747, anything bellow 200ft agl is “visual flying” no matter what one likes to call it on their flight plans or in their mind, still aiming for PAPI if available or going steep with TDZ further in the runway should get one easily off the hooks (pun intended )

 

Edited February 12, 2021 by Ibra

[bradp]

On 2/9/2021 at 6:21 PM, Mooney in Oz said:

If instrument rated and flying into a city or country airport at night whether VMC or not, one should make use of the available RNAV or LPV runway approach. Guaranteed obstacle, including power line clearance.

@Mooney in Oz rake a look at that old thread I referenced.  VNAV (LNAV+V) advisory specifically does not guarantee terrain or obstruction clearance in non coincident glide path scenarios. 

[bradp]

On 2/9/2021 at 6:21 PM, Mooney in Oz said:

If instrument rated and flying into a city or country airport at night whether VMC or not, one should make use of the available RNAV or LPV runway approach. Guaranteed obstacle, including power line clearance.

@Mooney in Oz take a look at that old thread I referenced.  VNAV (LNAV+V) advisory specifically does not guarantee terrain or obstruction clearance in non coincident glide path scenarios. 

[mike_elliott]

On 2/8/2021 at 12:27 PM, V1VRV2 said:

Airline pilots have a much better track record of getting it right vs. GA pilots. Just saying there might be something to be learned there. Past history of performance is NOT indicative of future performance. Trying to eliminate as many variables as possible makes for a safer flight. Carry on doing it your way... it seems to work until it doesn’t.

great point, David. We should all strive for professionalism in our flight ops and habits. The airlines have developed ops based on a lot of valuable data that we can put at our disposal with the proper training. I really enjoy flying with the pros when I am called to and look forward to when we can fly together. I try to share these valuable nuggets with everyone I fly with and with the rest of the Mooney Pros, Inc. instructor team

[kortopates]

3 hours ago, bradp said:

@Mooney in Oz take a look at that old thread I referenced.  VNAV (LNAV+V) advisory specifically does not guarantee terrain or obstruction clearance in non coincident glide path scenarios. 

I am late to this party but wanted to make a couple comments.

Important distinction to the above quoted material: they do guarantee the required obstacle clearance (ROC) down to the MDA, just not below MDA and the danger comes in not from following the approach guidance, incuding +V, to MDA/MDH, but continuing to follow vertical guidance below MDA. The Primary OCS (Obstacle Clearance Surface) on an LNAV approach provide 250' of obstacle protection. Once we get to the MDA its critical we not descent further till we are on the VGSI - period!

In regards to earlier comments about +V: Following +V has always been preferred over the dive and drive method. But lets back up for a second to discuss where +V came from since Garmin didn't invent it - despite what the pilot community may think. A Continuous Descent from the FAF (CDFA) has been the recommendation for decades and is the basic concept that defines the Stabilized Approach. The FAA formalized the concept after too many accidents from the unstabilized descents. Such as missing a level off, drifting below MDA, dragging it in too early and too low like the our subject mishap pilot apparently did here, and attempting to land to late. The FAA defined the CDFA concept that led to +V in AC120-108 back in 2011 https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_120-108.pdf. The AC discusses that any non-precision approach that provides a descent angle can and should be flown at a constant stabilized descent as close as possible to the required or charted descent angle ( within limits depending on aircraft category e.g., 3.77 degrees for A,B,C or 3.5 D). All that Garmin did was automate CDFA in the form of +V when the angle isn't too steep. If it is, we won't see +V.

But much of the pilot community doesn't really appreciate how important it is not to descent below the MDA when flying a NPA missed approach with +V. Most professionals are taught the concept of a DDA via their OpSpec's, or Derived Decision Altitude (DDA) which is simply to add a buffer of about 10% of your descent rate to start your level off approaching DA. So if coming down at 500FPM, we simply begin to level off at 50' above MDA - an element of professionalism we all can do easily to prevent drifiting below MDA.

Its been stated above, that the GTN visual approach for RWY 36 to KGBF would not give you adequate protection - wrong! If that was true, then the VASI to RWY 36 also doesn't give you adequate protection.  But the GTN visual approach actually gives you greater protection than the papi - an additional 19'. Both use a 3.5 degree slope but the RNAV and Visual approaches use a 19' higher TCH. Garmin does not just use 3 degrees everywhere - providing its an IFR airport, they use what is charted and will not provide one if its too steep.  

Lastly a couple words on the Visual Segment. It was stated at the very begining, I believe by Mitch, that the pilot had to be below the visual glide slope. Its really that simple, this was very avoidable by simply not getting below the visual glide slope or at least correcting that  right away. Don't be one of those pilots that gets in the red and just stays in the red and never correcting - this event will be a good reminder to us all about the need to correct as soon as we find ourselves in the red; especially at dark with unlit obstacles.

There is another strong hint above obstacles here from reviewing the RNAV approach plate into RWY 36. Notice that the LNAV  has a VDP. Of course this is much better than an approach without a VDP because it says its clear of obstacles from the VDP to the threshold. But the VDP lacks the Grey Stipple - meaning the VDP only provides a 20:1 clear slope which is on par with a 3 degree slope, but absolutely no buffer below that as this pilot discovered! When the VDP also accompanies a the Grey Stipple, then we have a much better protection of 34:1 slope - see below for details. 

I've pasted a couple slides from my Advanced IFR class that covers the VDP and grey stipple as well as the obstacle protection limits afforded with a VASI/PAPI

 

 

[Mooney in Oz]

10 hours ago, bradp said:

@Mooney in Oz take a look at that old thread I referenced.  VNAV (LNAV+V) advisory specifically does not guarantee terrain or obstruction clearance in non coincident glide path scenarios. 

You are absolutely correct Brad and I should’ve elaborated when I mentioned LNAV. I intentionally did not add the +V for that reason and just assumed that everyone is aware of those limitations.