Fuji_Abound wrote:
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.
Indeed, that’s what I said above….perhaps Aporoach shouldn’t have slotted her in…but they did….and the Tower should have let her continue the approach and landing…
AnthonyQ wrote:
Indeed, that’s what I said above….perhaps Approach shouldn’t have slotted her in…but they did….and the Tower should have let her continue the approach and landing…
From experience flying in this kind of environment I think that the tower controller was surprised at her slow speed. We don’t have the Approach part of the recording, so we don’t know what APP told her. The TWR controller even at some point asks ‘what did approach tell you?’.
In my mind the first hole in the cheese was her getting too slow on the approach and it all went downhill from there.
172driver wrote:
From experience flying in this kind of environment I think that the tower controller was surprised at her slow speed. We don’t have the Approach part of the recording, so we don’t know what APP told her. The TWR controller even at some point asks ‘what did approach tell you?’.
I doubt you can really say that the speed was “slow” because with an SR20, you are aiming for approx 73 knots over the numbers. If you go by the book, the circuit is:
- 100 knots downwind,
- 90 knots base and
- 75 knots final minus 1 for each 100lbs under MTOW.
To have a realistic 80 knots closing speed, the 737 would have needed to be flying at around 155knots minimum. The questions to me are why the controller didn’t ask for a little more speed from the Cirrus and possibly a little less speed from the 737?
Let’s do the math. 8 miles separation, closing speed is 80 knots means time to close is 6 minutes. Let’s say the aircraft are closer – 6 Miles separation, that would mean 4 and a half minutes distance. Even if the distance is closer, let’s say it’s just 4 miles between the 737 and SR20, then the time to close would be 3 minutes. Let’s imagine the SR20 is about 2 miles out, that means it would have been on the runway after slightly more than 90 seconds, assuming heading in at 75 knots. That still gives a further 90 seconds or more to get the Cirrus off the runway and land the 737. If the pilot had been asked to make best speed, they could have upped their speed to 100 knots until a mile out and slowed, after all, the runway there is long enough. If the 737 had also been told to keep 140knots, then the timings mentioned above would have been double – more than enough time to get the Cirrus on the ground, off the runway and land the 737.
Personally, I have done approaches into an international airport with a 2km+ runway, heading down final at 100knots or so at the controller’s request, slowing to 75 on a short final and had no concerns about getting the landing to stick; at some airports I have flown to (Dubrovnik and Bratislava spring to mind, as did Luxembourg request when I flew there) it seems being asked to “keep fastest forward speed” is routinely heard.
Unfortunately this accident just serves to illustrate what a dangerous hobby we all enjoy….
172driver exactly right, plenty of opportunity to attempt to adjust the speed of both and I suspect the Cirrus pilot would have been fine coming in fast, because, with that length of runway the speed would have pretty quickly decayed with not that much of a deep landing. You can bet the controller was more concerned about not instructing the following to go around.
I have been at enough larger airports to notice that everything stops when there is CAT vs GA involved, I am not suggesting sometimes without justification, but actually it can be a dangerous game to play for the reasons I have set out above.
I would also be surprised the Cirrus was flying a slow approach, I would far rather suspect it was by the book, because that is one of the things during the typical US type training that is drumed home. What might come as a surprise is to be asked to fly faster or slower. I would also not be surprised if the following wasnt flying the approach faster than “book”, making up a bit of time, just speeding things a long, after all they dont seem to have been given a speed restriction.
BTW do we know how many hours the pilot had on type and her general flying experience? (I know I should read the report).
I am also a little surprised about the commentary that the pilot should have excercised more control over the situation. Come on, they are very wise words that we should all be reminded of, BUT air traffic scarry is where we all start and it takes time and confidence before you are prepared to tell them to take a hike – I am just saying – lets be realistic, I am sure we have all been there.
I was asked for “180kts to 4 miles, 150 kts as long as possible and land at the far end of the runway” at a major German airport the other day.
Perfectly doable, but required some energy management!
Well it would be a bit over Vno but at least less than Vne. Might be pushing the 20 a little.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
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?
Good question. But will you ever be so current at flying circuits as you were when you just got your PPL? I would say no, unless you become an instructor, or tow gliders 
I think procedural thinking obviously is important when flying is done as a part of a system where safety, efficiency, IFR, scheduling, passenger comfort etc are important, flying huge and fast jets. What procedures are not good at is flexibility, which light GA (could) excel at. This is evident at non towered airports where the only procedure is “left hand circuits”, for instance at air sports centers. Yet, the traffic density at those places can be enormous, with gliders and skydivers having the right of way, and everybody else just having to “knit” their way in between. Therefore, when the “masters of procedures” (CAT) meet the “masters of flexibility” (light GA, VFR), then light GA simply has to be the flexible one. There is no other imaginable and practical way that this can be arranged.
ATC should definitely not “allow” for inflexible light GA. They should expect light GA to be flexible, certainly not should they expect light GA to be dependent on strict procedures for safe flight, as many here seem to mean. I don’t know how PPL is being instructed these days, but I think I see a tendency of more “procedure based” flying than seat of the pants flexible flying. I’m not sure though. I think maybe the airport they are training is more important than curriculum in this case, but it’s definitely the case that schools tends to wander off to more isolated and less used airports. I think this also will leave more room to train “proper procedures” rather than flexibility, since proper procedures is easy to judge by examiners. Which if true, is very counter productive and dangerous when mixing light GA and CAT.
Then again, not being flexible didn’t seem to be the problem in this case, but maybe she was dependent on procedures to actually fly safe after all? Then I would say, it is not a problem of the ATC, but a big hole in the training cheese
Rwy20 wrote:
What gets some pilots in wind conditions is their desire to fly a turning track with reference to the earth, and when they see that the plane unexpectedly drifts, they will try to counteract that tendency, unfortunately mostly by putting in rudder. On a base-to-final turn, or manoeuvering close to the ground after a go-around, needless to say that it is very dangerous to fly uncoordinated like this.
While you’re obviously correct on the physics, the sensory perception is the issue in the Hobby accident too. The pilot turned in a direction with a tailwind at low speed and low level. All the visual cues, which were close, told her that she was increasing speed. She wasn’t, at least not the all important airspeed.
Was this a CPL on an Air Taxi flight?
For those who haven’t read the report. The pilot went to go around, didnt retract full flap, entered a turn, reduced power, airspeed decreasing. At 58kts in a 26 degree bank, half flap was retracted. The aircraft stalled.
The airplane was equipped with a Garmin G1000 Integrated Flight Deck and a Heads Up Technologies recoverable data module (RDM) data recorder. Flight data recorded by these devices were downloaded by the National Transportation Safety Board’s Vehicle Recorder Division in Washington, DC. Review of the data revealed that, at 1308:19, the airplane began to pitch nose up, while at 63 knots indicated airspeed (KIAS) and 102.8 ft mean sea level (msl). The airplane began climbing at 9-11° nose up, while traveling at 66-74 KIAS with full flaps extended. According to ATC communications, at 1308:21 the pilot reported the go-around and the tower controller begin transmitting a clearance. At 1308:26, the airspeed was 74 KIAS, which was the highest airspeed that the airplane achieved during the climb out, and the airspeed then began to decrease. At 1308:36, the tower controller finished his clearance and began another part of the clearance at 1308:42 and continued transmitting past the last recorded point. At 1308:45, the airplane entered a left turn with the airspeed decreasing through 64 KIAS. At 1308:52, power was reduced from 94% to about 81%, with a corresponding reduction in engine parameters. The flaps were moved from full to half flaps at 1308:56, with the airplane at 13° nose up, 18° of left bank, and 62 KIAS. The flaps were fully retracted (0° flaps) at 1309:02 with the airplane in a 26° left bank and travelling at 58 KIAS. One second later, the airplane was in a 71° left bank, the pitch dropped to 5° nose low, and engine power increased to 90%. No further data were recorded.
