Mooney + IMC in cruise: some ugly numbers, and one accident I can’t shake

[StevenK55]

I lost a close friend in a GA accident near Fort Lauderdale in bad weather, and ever since then I’ve been poking through Mooney accident data on my own time. The stuff I’m seeing around IMC and cruise is hard to just ignore.

Since 2008, in the numbers I’ve pulled, there are 398 Mooney accidents and 114 of those were fatal — call it roughly 29%. That’s higher than what you usually hear for GA in general, which kind of matches the reputation: fast, slick airplane, not as forgiving as a 172 if you screw something up.

The weather split is where it really gets uncomfortable:

- VMC: 331 accidents, 70 fatal → about 21% fatal  
- IMC: 29 accidents, 22 fatal → around 76% fatal  

So if a Mooney bends metal in IMC, in this dataset it’s roughly three‑and‑a‑half times more likely to kill you than in good weather. And if you zoom in just on IMC in cruise since 2008, I’m seeing 11 accidents. All 11 fatal. Zero survivors.

That’s spread across the whole family — C, D, E, J, K, M, R — and pilots from “a few hundred hours” up into the thousands. Some with an instrument ticket, some without. The cruise‑IMC outcome doesn’t seem to care who’s in the left seat.

One accident I can’t get out of my head was on October 25, 2010. M20J  going from Jackson Hole to South Dakota. Dad was flying with his three sons.

On paper, he doesn’t look like a maniac. Instrument rated. About 940 total hours, 138 in that J. He got two weather briefings that morning; both were talking about mountain obscuration, turbulence, icing. He’d actually scrubbed the flight the day before because of weather, and he even had an airline ticket home that morning that got canceled for non‑weather reasons. So he ends up back at the Mooney.

He files IFR. ATC tweaks his route and sends him off‑airway through terrain where the minimum altitude is up around 16,100 feet, but they clear him at 14,000. Nobody says “hey, that doesn’t look right.” The plane is basically loaded to the eyeballs, normally aspirated, no ice gear, no turbo to help it up high.

Roughly half an hour after takeoff he keys up and says he’s getting light chop and just a trace of rime at 14,000. Then they lose him on radar for a bit because that radar site was down. When he pops back up, the controller basically says, “minimum IFR altitude here is 16,000, are you climbing?” and he says he’ll try.

Two minutes later he comes back and says he might not be able to make 16,000. Two minutes after that: “severe mountain wave, descending rapidly out of 13,700.” That’s the last anyone hears from him.

They didn’t actually find the wreck for about a week, sitting around 11,000 feet on a slope up in the Wind River Range.
What makes this one so unsettling, at least to me, is that it doesn’t read like one giant “what was he thinking?” moment. It’s a whole stack of thin margins lining up the wrong way:

- NA M20J, at max gross, already working near its comfortable ceiling.  
- Icing in the forecast and he’s in a non‑known‑ice airplane.  
- Cleared below the published minimum altitude for that chunk of terrain.  
- Radar coverage gone at exactly the wrong time, so no electronic “hey, you’re low” safety net.  
- Mountain wave stronger than what the airplane can out‑climb.  
- Stall speed and best climb speed living pretty close together in that configuration, so once the wave shoves the airplane down, there’s not much airspeed “room” between flying and not.

The NTSB actually pushed out a few safety recommendations off this one, including changes around Jackson Hole departures and tweaks to how the radar/altitude‑warning side works.

Given that the stats I’m looking at basically say “Mooney + cruise + IMC” in this time window has been 100% fatal, I’m really curious how that lines up with how you all actually think about flying these airplanes in “real” weather. 

For those of you who fly Mooneys IFR a lot, especially in the mountains: does this match your gut feel about the risk in IMC? And do you have a personal line — turbo vs NA, ceiling, ice protection, whatever — where you just say, “nope, I’m not filing IFR into that”?

The NTSB report is WPR11FA032 if anyone wants to read the full thing.

 
 

[N201MKTurbo]

When I first started flying IFR, I was based out of Denver flying a NA M20F. I was flying almost every day doing service calls for the computer company. I would fly over the rocks at least once a week if not more. I was flying about 500 hours a year back then. I was very familiar with the terrain and the weather. I would not fly IFR over the divide or cross it at night. 

There are routes from one side to the other that I would fly IFR and at night. They were not direct by any means. 

If I filed a 14000 ft route and they changed it to a 16000 ft route, I would not have accepted it.

I wouldn’t have made that flight. The mountain waves are bad enough VFR. If you get stuck in one and cannot see where you are going, you are screwed. 

[Mooney in Oz]

This accident reads to me as a case of Human Factors. 'Get there-itis' with weather and performance odds stacked against the pilot.

Our little GA aeroplanes, particularly the non-aspirated variety, are not transport category, designed to fly in those described conditions.

An instrument rating is not a 'be-all and end-all' to fly whenever we want. There are times when you just do not go.

This was one of those times.

[IvanP]

The tragic accident described above appears to be a classic example of mismatch between mission parameters and aircraft capabilities. That flight could have been possible in FIKI Acclaim or Bravo, but not in a normally aspirated J at max gross without ice protection. As great as Mooneys are, they cannot cheat physics. 

[Utah20Gflyer]

As someone who flys in the Mountain west and whose last cross country flight for work was to Jackson Hole there is no way I would have tried that flight.   Winter flying in the mountains in IMC requires a turbo and de ice capability (my opinion).    As noted climb rates at 14k or 16k are inadequate in a normally aspirated Mooney.  
 

On my last trip there were strong west winds and on my southwest VFR departure I maxed out at 11k for a time while I was on the downwind side of the mountains.   I was essentially at VY but just holding altitude.  In VMC this was OK because I could do a quick 180 and descend back into the valley if my climb rate went negative.  
 

In IMC your options are much more limited and you don’t get to do things like circling under a cumulus cloud or on the upwind side of a ridge to quickly gain altitude. You don’t get to choose the angle at which you cross a ridge, ie all the things you learn to do when flying around the big rocks.  In IMC your course is mostly determined by procedure and your safety is underwritten by the excess capability of your aircraft.  
 

Amongst mountain airports Jackson hole is one that deserves real pause when considering flying into during weather.  It’s an airport higher than average tucked into a tight valley between some high mountains.  It’s not Salt lake city or Boise.  

[N201MKTurbo]

16 minutes ago, Utah20Gflyer said:

As someone who flys in the Mountain west and whose last cross country flight for work was to Jackson Hole there is no way I would have tried that flight.   Winter flying in the mountains in IMC requires a turbo and de ice capability (my opinion).    As noted climb rates at 14k or 16k are inadequate in a normally aspirated Mooney.  
 

On my last trip there were strong west winds and on my southwest VFR departure I maxed out at 11k for a time while I was on the downwind side of the mountains.   I was essentially at VY but just holding altitude.  In VMC this was OK because I could do a quick 180 and descend back into the valley if my climb rate went negative.  
 

In IMC your options are much more limited and you don’t get to do things like circling under a cumulus cloud or on the upwind side of a ridge to quickly gain altitude. You don’t get to choose the angle at which you cross a ridge, ie all the things you learn to do when flying around the big rocks.  In IMC your course is mostly determined by procedure and your safety is underwritten by the excess capability of your aircraft.  
 

Amongst mountain airports Jackson hole is one that deserves real pause when considering flying into during weather.  It’s an airport higher than average tucked into a tight valley between some high mountains.  It’s not Salt lake city or Boise.  

 I have flown to Jackson Hole from Denver in a Hawk XP, Cutlass RG and Mooney M20F. It wasn’t that bad getting there, but I think it is rougher from the west.

[kortopates]

3 hours ago, StevenK55 said:

What makes this one so unsettling, at least to me, is that it doesn’t read like one giant “what was he thinking?” moment.

I remember this accident well, it was extremely unsettling to me because I thought strongly the pilots arrogance and self importance killed his two young sons all because he couldn't possibly allow himself not be back in the Office the next day.

This was a brand new instrument pilot and a relatively new J owner. In fact as this trip came up, which was a wedding in Jackson Hole, he decided he really wanted to fly his J out there. He did have the good sense to realize as VFR only pilot he should get instrument rated to make such a trip. So he hired a company that specializes in 10 day instrument ratings where they send an instructor with desk simulator to work with you at your location. He completed the course. He told his instructor he was doing doing this for his Jackson Hole wedding trip coming in a week in or two. The Instructor tried to talk him out of saying he needed to build up lots of IFR experience before he was be ready to fly IFR in the mountains. The Pilot interpreted that as he would do as much actual IFR flying between getting his ticket and the upcoming trip. 

On the trip, since he didn't have enough seats for the full family, his current wife went out a head via airlines (perhaps with one of the 3 kids). Going out was uneventful in VMC conditions. But he knew the weather forecast for return weekend was for a system with snow and wind passing through. His wife flew back with one one of the kids the day before. I forget now, but I think he delayed his departure a day for better weather on Sunday with his 2 sons - which didn't happen. One of the crazy things in my opinion is that the new instrument pilot never considered winds in the mountains a hazard. He was entirely focused on icing as the threat. He actually rationalized to his non-pilot wife in a call the evening before he departed that even though there were AIRMETs for Icing that they didn't constitute "Known Icing" without PIREPs; which would allow him to fly home in the J.

Apparently the snow showers got his attention the day of departure and he had the good sense to book a commuter flight out of Jackson with his 2 sons and made arrangement to leave the Mooney in a hangar till he could come back for it. All would have turned out fine and world wouldn't have learned any of this had the commuter flight taken off. But the flight was cancelled due to a last minute equipment issue after he had boarded. So our pilot, who can't possibly allow not making back to work the next day figures he can fix this. His Mooney doesn't have any issues with it and he call the FBO to ask them to bring the plane out for departure very soon.

Now the pilot is rushed into filing an IFR flight plan to go home. He had one from coming out which had him going north to victor airways (as best as I recall) that he filed but got a completely different routing to the south. The southerly departure actually would have gotten him out of the high terrain soonest, but here is where is lack of experience became fatal - he accepted a direct vector with a climb to 16K which we knew was unreachable. We could blame the controller but the controller was just trying to helpful. Its up to us as PIC to know if we can accept a clearance. But our pilot has essentially delegated his responsibility to the controller. Keep in mind his J had a MX-20, which is a large moving map that would have prominently shown his course going right by the highest terrain next to Gannet Peak.  

Why I am so critical of the pilot is that he had made the correct decision not to fly the J and take the commuter home but when the commuter cancelled, his pompous attitude could not accept getting home a day late, so he killed not only himself but his 2 young kids. If you look at his ADS-B track you'll see he barely cleared the terrain going right by Gannet Peak, the highest peak in the Wind river range at just under 14K; only to succumb to stalling out in a down draft that easily over powered the NA J's climb capability in the turbulent downdraft.

There were lawsuits following the accident between his current wife, and his x-wife and mother of the kids. 

This was not the usual IMC fatal accident but a testament to how poor anyone's ADM can get with a severe case of get-home-its coupled with arrogance.

Most fatal IMC accidents share a brutal common denominator: the pilot wasn’t legally current, and certainly wasn’t proficient enough to be in the clouds. Instrument skills decay fast—far faster than most pilots want to admit—and when we stop flying IFR regularly, we’re often the last ones to recognize how rusty we’ve become.

Pilots tend to be high achievers, and that mindset can turn toxic in the cockpit. The urge to “complete the mission” is powerful, especially once we’re airborne, but it’s also one of the most dangerous forms of hazardous attitude we face. Good Aeronautical Decision Making means rejecting that mindset outright. The goal is not to salvage the original plan. The goal is to keep yourself and the people who trust you alive.

Success isn’t measured by arriving at the intended destination. Success is measured by making the safest possible decision—even if that means diverting, turning around, or landing somewhere you never planned to be. The accident rate would drop dramatically if more pilots embraced that simple truth: the only mission that matters is getting everyone on the ground safely.

Edited April 6 by kortopates

[cliffy]

After 60 years of flying I have seen the same scenario played out over and over. I have lost friends playing with weather-

MORE THAN ONE!

I decided I've done all the 200/ 1/2 or even CAT III approaches I ever want to do. 

Doing 6 approaches every 6 months does not make one competent or SAFE PERIOD! And I've been doing this along time. 

How many out there think nothing of driving off into IMC with one generator and one battery ESPECIALLY-

A BATTERY THAT HAS NEVER HAD A CAPACITY CHECK?

I've done  IMC  in my Mooney  I've done IMC in my Cessna 140 with venturi driven gyros but

as I grow older my tolerance for risk has taken a steep nose dive. 

I'm day VFR SE now and enjoy the sometimes layover for weather that this "restriction" provides

NO ONE ASKED ANYTHING ABOUT OXYGEN IN THE ACCIDENT UNDER CONSIDERATION ABOVE 

What part did that play in the proceedings? Let alone poor judgement !

This is a particular issue with me after 3 RDs in jets and a US Air Force chamber ride 

In a military study of Hypoxia incidents the majority were FL20,000 and below and 63% were equipment failure AND

25% were noticed by someone other than the flight crew!  Got your attention now?

 

 

[Falcon Man]

FWIW:

I have flown in the mountains in the intermountain west since 1984, in NA and Turbo Mooneys. Experience has led to my following rules:

1) Never fly over mountains in the intermountain west at night in a single engine, not deiced airplane..

2) Never fly over big swaths of lava flows - go around them.

3) Turbocharged only over "guts Country" mountainous terrain during the day and hopscotch airport to airport always staying close to gliding range. Best to just skirt the edge of hostile terrain.

4) Oxygen at all times whenever your pulse oximeter is around 90%.

5) If there is weather in the mountains, there is always a chance for icing.

6) When VFR fly max altitude possible. When IFR fly max altitude up to the critical altitude your airplane is rated for.

7) Aircraft equipped with dual alternators and vacuum pumps.

8) Carry survival gear.

I have had three "land now" experiences (low oil pressure/prop overspeed, complete electrical failure, simultaneous alternator and vacuum pump failure). Two required emergency gear extension. Fortunately I was able in these circumstances to safely land at airports.

 

[Hank]

I am a coward when it comes to IMC, and not too proud to admit it. I postponed a return home and my wife and I each burned a day of PTO on a Monday because southern WV had both icing forecasts and an Emergency PIREP for icing around 7000-8000 msl, near KBKW and that was pretty close to my direct route home to Furthest West WV.

If the ride is rough, I ask to climb or descend. Just recently, I was IFR in VMC and bases were lowering around me. I hit a small puffy outlier and the hard bump woke up my sleeping wife. A few minutes later, with some gentle weaving to stay clear, I asked to descend below the still lowering thin layer because it was rougher than I wanted to deal with more than three hours into my trip.

The best way to deal with in-flight icing is with a hot beverage on the ground. My personal minimums are:

• No icing!! Never Never Never!
• No oxygen-level flying without preplanning and onboard O2.
• No night IMC.
• Always ask for deviations (up, down, left or right) if I'm not comfortable with the ride or the view out the window.

Getting my PPL and Instruments while based in and flying all around WV and the surrounding Tri-State area, mountains don't bother me a whole lot. --BUT--

Please don't discount the danger of our "small" Appalachian Mountains. I had mountain wave from hell south of GSP from Mt. Mitchell (the highest point east of the Mississippi), which is well north of KAVL. Lasted about 45 minutes going home from Sun n Fun, VFR; my travel buddy said it was the worst turbulence he'd ever experienced. 

Ya'll fly safe out there!

[Utah20Gflyer]

6 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

 I have flown to Jackson Hole from Denver in a Hawk XP, Cutlass RG and Mooney M20F. It wasn’t that bad getting there, but I think it is rougher from the west.

I would agree any of those planes would be fine during good weather, but I don’t think either of us would fly those planes into or out of Jackson Hole on the day of that accident.  
 

Approaching from the east and north do seem a bit tamer.  Unfortunately for me I’m always coming from the southwest which crosses some rough terrain and has an MEA of 14k.   I could do that in my plane but would never choose to in IMC.  

[exM20K]

@StevenK55 welcome to Mooneyspace. Sorry for the loss of your friend.

Your tabulation of IMC fatality rates compares favorably to the McSpadden report’s tally of 2023 (most recent) mishaps in non-commercial fixed-wing operations at 100% fatal.

The lethality of mishaps you tally in Mooney aircraft is spot on the 2023 numbers for SE/Retract aircraft as well at 29%.

More often than not, it’s the software, not the hardware that is the critical link in the chain.

The report is here.

-dan

 

[cliffy]

If you fly west of Denver day, night, VFR, IFR  or what ALWAYS check

the winds at 12,000  though say 20,000.

If they are over 15 to 20 mph be ready for a rough ride and strong ups and downs

I've hit wave action at 410 in a Lear 24 that we barely could maintain assigned altitude on. 

[hazek]

13 hours ago, StevenK55 said:

What makes this one so unsettling, at least to me, is that it doesn’t read like one giant “what was he thinking?” moment. It’s a whole stack of thin margins lining up the wrong way:

Is this sarcasm? It has to be, right? What could be more reckless than this story? For crying out loud even by just saying yourself "a whole stack of thin margins lining up" you recognize that he should have never made this flight. All of those thin margins were predictable. All of them.

I think you answered your own question about IMC, if only you are willing to be objective.

EDIT: I'm sorry, but actually not sorry to sound so harsh. He killed his 2 sons with his stupidity. Stupidity that he was supposed to have learned in training to know better. And this pisses me off when I see in other pilots. Flying a plane is not like driving a car!!! It's a high stakes activity where mistakes easily cost life and therefore requires a professional attitude to both training and the conduct of operations. He should have known better!

EDIT2: And this is before I read the story by @kortopates, just fking unbelievable.

[StevenK55]

10 hours ago, kortopates said:

So he hired a company that specializes in 10 day instrument ratings where they send an instructor with desk simulator to work with you at your location. He completed the course. He told his instructor he was doing doing this for his Jackson Hole wedding trip coming in a week in or two. The Instructor tried to talk him out of saying he needed to build up lots of IFR experience before he was be ready to fly IFR in the mountains. The Pilot interpreted that as he would do as much actual IFR flying between getting his ticket and the upcoming trip. 

Thank you for this. The detail about the 10‑day instrument rating and the way he probably rationalized AIRMETs versus ‘known icing’ fills in a gap the NTSB report kind of skates past. The part that really gets me is he’d already made the right call — airplane in the hangar, commuter flight booked. One equipment cancellation and all of that went out the window. That’s such a razor‑thin line between going home on an airline and never making it home at all.

[Jerry 5TJ]

17 hours ago, StevenK55 said:

For those of you who fly Mooneys IFR a lot, especially in the mountains: does this match your gut feel about the risk in IMC? And do you have a personal line — turbo vs NA, ceiling, ice protection, whatever — where you just say, “nope, I’m not filing IFR into that”?

Guidelines:

• Night, mountains, IMC—pick any one.  
• IMC above 9,000’ — use oxygen. 
• More than trace of ice forecast — must have FIKI equipment 

A risk assessment tool such as the FRAT iPhone app can help assess the cumulative impact of multiple smaller risks.  

 

[Hank]

24 minutes ago, Jerry 5TJ said:

A risk assessment tool such as the FRAT iPhone app can help assess the cumulative impact of multiple smaller risks.  

I've checked out several of these, and they automatically ruled out many of my vanilla flights when I lived in WV, especially going down the mountains for 90 minutes to visit my parents in AVL, to say nothing of returning home to an uncontrolled field with no instrument approaches. And before I was instrument rated? Living in WV, the "risk assessment tools" seemed to not want me to fly at all.

Mountains, single engine and ending after sunset almost always resulted in "unsafe, don't go," even in benign, sunny weather. All of us don't have twin turbines, Air Transport certificates and full-time dispatchers . . . .

Instead, I'm reasonable and use common sense (a sadly missing element out there, becoming more rare every day now).

[N201MKTurbo]

8 hours ago, Utah20Gflyer said:

I would agree any of those planes would be fine during good weather, but I don’t think either of us would fly those planes into or out of Jackson Hole on the day of that accident.  
 

Approaching from the east and north do seem a bit tamer.  Unfortunately for me I’m always coming from the southwest which crosses some rough terrain and has an MEA of 14k.   I could do that in my plane but would never choose to in IMC.  

A actually crossed the divide between Grandby and Denver IFR once with a 16000 ft MEA. I had a passenger with me and she said she had to pick up her son at daycare. I was in the soup for 15 minutes, but it was smooth out. The M20F made it to 16000 just fine with two aboard.

[N201MKTurbo]

9 hours ago, Utah20Gflyer said:

I would agree any of those planes would be fine during good weather, but I don’t think either of us would fly those planes into or out of Jackson Hole on the day of that accident.  
 

Approaching from the east and north do seem a bit tamer.  Unfortunately for me I’m always coming from the southwest which crosses some rough terrain and has an MEA of 14k.   I could do that in my plane but would never choose to in IMC.  

A actually crossed the divide between Grandby and Denver IFR once with a 16000 ft MEA. I had a passenger with me and she said she had to pick up her son at daycare. I was in the soup for 15 minutes, but it was smooth out. The M20F made it to 16000 just fine with two aboard.

[cliffy]

56 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

The M20F made it to 16000 just fine with two aboard.

With no extra capability to handle down drafts. 

Especially in the summer out west BTDT

Since when do the Appalachians count as "mountains"

Seems "mountains" are west of Denver !   :-)

[N201MKTurbo]

41 minutes ago, cliffy said:

With no extra capability to handle down drafts. 

Especially in the summer out west BTDT

Since when do the Appalachians count as "mountains"

Seems "mountains" are west of Denver !   :-)

There was no wind that day.  Granby is a small airport near the kremmling VOR in the Rocky Mountains. The airway crossed a 13500 foot mountain. 

It was 38 years ago, but I think the clearance was “direct Kremmling, climb west of Kremmling until reaching 16000 ft then proceed on the airway to Denver.”

 

[TangoTango]

21 hours ago, StevenK55 said:

Since 2008, in the numbers I’ve pulled, there are 398 Mooney accidents and 114 of those were fatal — call it roughly 29%. That’s higher than what you usually hear for GA in general, which kind of matches the reputation: fast, slick airplane, not as forgiving as a 172 if you screw something up.

I've heard similar arguments from non-flying peers, so I'll attempt to address it:

General Aviation Accident Dashboard: 2012-2021

Enroute accidents are a minority of accidents, but they have a higher proportion of fatal accidents. This source doesn't break down by aircraft type, but if it did I suspect you would see a difference between types that are used for flight training and types that aren't. Since Mooneys aren't usually used for training these days, they almost certainly have a higher proportion of flight hours spent in the enroute phase than types used more for training (like a 172). That would create a higher fatality rate since enroute accidents have lots of causes with worse outcomes - LOC, CFIT, unintended flight into IMC, etc. 

In fact, if you click the enroute phase on the link above, it will break down all enroute accidents by cause. You will notice that the vast majority are powerplant failure and fuel related, and those causes have a relatively low fatality rate. If the claim that Mooneys have a higher fatality rate is true (and I couldn't confirm it), then it would imply the type has less powerplant and fuel accidents, and a greater proportion of accidents caused by outside factors: weather, decision making, and the nut behind the yoke. The Jackson Hole accident has all three, and an outcome to match.

[Rick Junkin]

1 hour ago, cliffy said:

Since when do the Appalachians count as "mountains"

Seems "mountains" are west of Denver !   :-)

Ha! Interestingly enough the Appalachians are significantly older and may have been similar in size to the Rockys way back when, according to some geological history I read when I moved to the Smokys. Millenia of erosion has done a number on them. That not withstanding, @Hank makes some points well worth your consideration when flying over in this neck of the woods. Considerable turbulence is frequent enough that there is a caution block on the VFR sectional charter warning of the potential for severe turbulence around Mt Mitchell. While Mt Mitchell is THE highest peak, there are several 6,000'+ peaks distributed throughout the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains. I fly in that area fairly frequently, but not when the winds are up.

The same rules apply over here as in the Rockys, albeit at lower altitudes. As for winds, if they are approaching 20kts at 6,000', especially perpendicular to the ridges, I won't cross them below 10,000'. If the winds are higher than that, I'll bump that up to 14,000'. If there are AIRMETs for moderate or greater turbulence I'll either go around them to the west (a luxury I have when flying to and from destinations south of GKT) or cancel if going around isn't practical. IYKYK. Right after we moved here I was flying back to Gatlinburg from Florida and was doing an enroute descent into the Knoxville area and the controller advised me a Cirrus had reported severe turbulence at lower altitudes in my vicinity and offered me a level off to avoid it. I leveled off at 8,000' and hit some of the hardest bumps I've ever experienced, even from my flights through and across the Rockys. That was an important "note to self" moment, an admonition to respect the lowly Smoky Mountains when the winds are moderate to high. Now I stay high and request vectors for my descent into GKT after crossing the mountains. Even more fun in VMC after cancelling IFR is to practice an emergency spiral descent over the lake northeast of the field. My wife particularly likes that technique, and it's entertaining to hear her giggle on our way down. But I digress.

Competent ADM is critical. I have a buddy I can call if I feel like I'm about to try something dumb, dangerous, or different and have decided that I've effectively mitigated the risks. He talks me out of it if I've gone too far. I do the same for him. There are times, as @kortopates mentioned, that we are not the best judge of the risks we're assuming. FRAT tools help a lot, especially if you've customized them to your and your airplane's capabilities, and I use one. But that sanity check from a trusted friend or instructor can keep you from pushing too hard.

[Justin Schmidt]

12 hours ago, Hank said:

Please don't discount the danger of our "small" Appalachian Mountains

Had a hell of one landing at Gatlinburg 

[Justin Schmidt]

13 hours ago, Falcon Man said:

) Never fly over big swaths of lava flows - go around them

Is this due to risk of breaking through one?