Three Near CFITs In Two Months

[GeeBee]

20 minutes ago, neilpilot said:

Why did the SWA flight into Tampa divert to FLL?  I would have expected it to climb and, if necessary, request another entry for the TPA approach. 

Apparently adverse weather including wind shear.

[Pinecone]

The vast majority of my flying was in airplanes without AP, or a simple wing leveler, so I did not use them.

My Mooney came with a KAP-150 with altitude pre-select, so started using it more.  But other than an occasional practice approach, I hand flew approaches.

Now that I have a GFC-500, I am doing everything on AP for a while to get used to the new systems, but will go back to flying most practice approaches by hand, just in case.

[A64Pilot]

I think as automation and modern “glass” gets better and better there is a tendency to over rely on them, and to not question that maybe it’s doing something you didn’t  want it too.

Yes I understand these events were most likely human factors failures and the automation was doing exactly what it was told, the human mis-programmed it, but I think pilots are more and more becoming systems managers and less and less pilots and becoming more and more reliant on automation and more accept its infallibility.

They are much less likely to back up the systems and monitor MDA etc. I bet there is more chatter in the cockpit on approach and not the level of seriousness there was back when approaches were hand flown.

Yes I know automation is safer etc., just think we should have an inherent mis trust of it, the same as I do when someone else is flying, no different.

I used to do a LOT of cave diving, of course I used a deco computer for deco stops etc. It was a Shearwater Predator, probably the best there was. The attached photo is from the beginning of its manual, I remember it evertime for instance I let Elon drive our Tesla, sure it’s been perfect so far, but I’m sure one day it will try to pull out in front of a train or something, so I use it, but don’t really trust it.

 

[MikeOH]

That has to be the best consumer warning I have ever seen!  It should be on EVERY piece of equipment that can kill you.  No way it was written by a lawyer; it has way to much common sense and admission that the product is knowingly flawed.  I.e., it is an HONEST warning.

[Larry]

1500 hours.  How many of those 1500 hours are in a plane with an autopilot?  Many "trainers" today have a G1000 and thus an autopilot.  How much time in the 121 sim is spent hand flying?  We start a lot of pilots in advanced trainers, now we expect them to develop hand flying skills, particularly IFR.

 

[N201MKTurbo]

Call me old fashioned, but I always think you are not allowed to use the autopilot until you can fly all the procedures well without it, otherwise you have no backup if the autopilot fails, which they do.