The plane only moves relative to the airmass that it is flying in
Yes of course (you would be amazed that I had to explain that to an instructor, some years ago 
) but there can be transient effects when turning in wind shear, and anytime there is wind there will be wind shear. So if e.g. you are departing on 36 and the wind is 090/20, and you turn right after takeoff, you will see a temporary extra rate of climb as you climb into the wind shear / headwind, which started at say 10kt on the tarmac, 20kt where measured (10m pole), 40kt at 100ft, etc. And conversely if you turn left you will see a reduced ROC as you climb into the strenghtening tailwind.
Whether this was a factor here I have no idea. It does seem she was flying way too slowly.
Those ATC instructions would have pushed my situational awareness to and beyond the limit…
Yes, all a bit of a mess. The 20/20 ability of hindsight was that she should have just gone away, either to another field, best option, or out of the zone until it calmed down. From the movement numbers people have quoted maybe it does not get quite. 2 points however. Whilst a bit of overload the ATC instructions at all times were clear. The pilots response and read back again clear and concise.
I fly at EGPF, a very busy airport. I always reflected that my orbiting skills were honed at Glasgow. Nailing 1000 in the circular orbit, sometimes ten orbits, then ushered in between commercials to land. Add the wind factor, the requests to keep visual with other traffic, add in some low cloud, and life gets a bit more exciting. Very easy to gradually get into overload, lose SA, and then stress builds. All whilst flying the aeroplane.
It does not say how experienced she was at this airfield, but suspect that eventually the pilot was overcome and overloaded, and lost it. Remember it takes one second, one error at the critical stage, and you lose the aeroplane.
Sad and needless……..
Peter wrote:
there can be transient effects when turning in wind shear, and anytime there is wind there will be wind shear
You are right in that gusts and wind shear are the exception to this, since the airmass itself changes direction. And I agree with your statement that this alone isn’t enough to explain that accident.
chwinter wrote:
It’s not an excuse, but can be definitely a contributing factor to the error chain!
So it seems, I agree. But it’s a bit like saying that weather was a contributing factor to an unintended VFR into IMC accident. We all know that if everyone were flying IFR in twin jets with two pilots, GA would be much safer. We all also know that such a situation would mean the end of private/recreational GA as we know it, so it is no solution to anything. Safety in private/recreational GA is all about the PIC. It’s all about seat of the pants flying skills and airmanship. We all know that too, and almost every single GA accident not caused by engine problems, is caused by lack of one or both of those two.
you’re completely right.
It’s just that there are many problems along the flight and you as PIC have to sort them out as good as possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model
Every layer/slice in the Swiss cheese model should have as little as possible holes. ATC had a big hole in their slice
Of course there were other contributing factors.
Neil wrote:
The fact he could see she was too high on one approach should probably have given ATC a clue that the pilot was a little inexperienced or flustered.
I don’t this that’s quite the case. ATC turned her onto final for that runway after various different possibilities. She only know she was turning to final (without a base leg) at the last moment due to the constantly changing runways. So it was too late for her to lose the height needed.
We’ll never really know what the final straw was. But in my mind she sounded on top of everything, unflustered and calm. But I suspect with all the runway changes, at an unfamiliar airport, that she was working hard. When given the go around and told where to reposition (tightly) I suspect she turned tightly a requested, but perhaps also sought to have a quick glance at he airport diagram to reorient herself.
Combine all this and you have a low level tight turn, where you look down at an airport diagram, look back up (outside) and see that everything is passing by very fast. You don’t realise that this is because of ground speed rather than airspeed, and you do what we’re all thought to do….when things are happening too fast, flow things down. She pulled back on the throttle a little (as per the NTSB report) maybe took another look at the airport chart, looked up and retracted the flaps, and bang…it’s over.
The pilot was relatively in experienced (just over two years since qualified) and I’m sure this was a big flight for her. She wanted to be on the top of her game and not causing hassle at such a busy airport, so I can well see why she might have wanted to take another quick look at the airport diagram when the plan had changed again. To be honest, with all the runway changes at an unfamiliar airport, I too might have wanted to glance at the chart to make sure I still knew where I was going.
The initial factor to me, is that ATC sent her around from her first approach when they should have sent the following aircraft around. She’d done nothing wrong and was holding her place in the queue behind the 737 on front of her. The fact that someone was catching from behind was their issue.
But in the end only the pilot can be responsible for losing control of the aircraft. ATC has contributed to it, but the pilot is the one ultimately charged with keeping the aircraft flying.
Dangerous overbanking is not just a VFR/VMC thing. Many a time I have had to shout “bank angle”, or even intervene, as an overstretched pilot is trying to establish on the ILS and turning into the dead engine.
Peter wrote:
If I got something like this I would have asked for extended vectoring and left it to ATC to fit me in, but the problem is that VFR traffic can’t do that (generally). When I am returning to Shoreham and I find 6 in the circuit, I will just leave the area and come back 15 mins later.
The thing is if you did this at Houston Hobby you’d not get in until 11.30pm at night. The traffic is constant there – it’s the major domestic airport for a city of > 4 million people with constant airline, bizjet and GA movements. It’s busier than places like Manchester Airport.
Noe wrote:
I imagine ATC was talking airspeed?
No. The speed differential call is standard here, you also get it when coming up on slower traffic ahead, so whatever the actual airspeed was, the controller would definitely have meant 80kts speed difference.
There is some talk about it being the pilot’s responsibility and not the “fault” of ATC.
I suppose this stems form the assumption that having qualified as a pilot you should be good enough.
Surely, we all know that qualifying, is a qualification to start to learn? The reality is a newly qualified pilot will not be as competant as an old hand (on average). I think we all know that, dont we?
Should AT allow for that? Well, as I said earlier, certain assumptions can safely be made. Commercial operators will use pilots trained and recurrency checked to professional standards. AT will, on the whole, be dual pilot. Private jets and twins will probably be operated by well trained pilots, the more so in the States. Light singles on the other hand are a different game. Its where we all start and pilots will range in ability. IMHO AT should know that!
Should AT give priority to faster aircraft and commercial ops. Of course they inevitably do. In reality that can often leave the least prepared pilots to deal with the most convulted sequencing and approach (and this is a good example). The pilot was established on final and in many ways was just as entitled to continue with the closing aircraft behind therefore being the one that should have been instructed to go around.
