JasonC wrote:
Tobi, some accidents just speak for themselves and while we will never know exactly why the pilot tried this, it is clear it was a fundamentally bad decision.
Obviously, but does that mean that it is of no interest how the pilot arrived at that decision? I don’t think so.
I completely agree. But this is either your personal or arbitrary groups risk assessment. Hence other people have other views.
Well not really. I don’t consider the maintenance of a journey log as having any contribution to safety whereas the approach ban (let alone no IFR homemade approaches to VFR fields) clearly does. Unfortunately a relaxed aporoach to these sort of rules is why GA has a very poor safety record and reputation vs CAT.
I think every pilot deviates from some rules at some point. However, do i deviate and try to conduct an approach at a VFR field in Germany that i would not be legal to attempt at Heathrow with an ILS? No.
In aviation there are some rules that breaking will have no or very limited impact on safety. But some rules really are absolutes.
I completely agree. But this is either your personal or arbitrary groups risk assessment. Hence other people have other views. And the more local we get, the more disturbing these views are. The problem is, that there is no global risk assessment based on facts available, because the law sets up a rule and logically nobody talks openly about breaking the rule. So people become more confident in breaking the rules. So for this case here: There is no statistic about the risk of DIY approaches to VFR airfields, because nobody counts the succesful attempts. So if some guy landed in Trier in fog weather before, he might have the view that it worked in 100% of the cases.
Tobi, some accidents just speak for themselves and while we will never know exactly why the pilot tried this, it is clear it was a fundamentally bad decision.
Definetely. My personal hope is that I keep enough respect of flying to not becoming to bold. Because there are no old bold pilots. ;-)
I think every pilot deviates from some rules at some point. However, do i deviate and try to conduct an approach at a VFR field in Germany that i would not be legal to attempt at Heathrow with an ILS? No.
In aviation there are some rules that breaking will have no or very limited impact on safety. But some rules really are absolutes.
Tobi, some accidents just speak for themselves and while we will never know exactly why the pilot tried this, it is clear it was a fundamentally bad decision.
JasonC wrote:
It is a VFR field. There is no “procedure” other than getting visual in accordance with VFR rules.
Absolutely true, this is why the word procedure was put in quotes by me. But this is the legal point of view and therefore one simple question: Do you always stick to all rules that have been set up in every domain of life, or do you sometimes deviate? And if you deviate, how does your risk assessment work?
TobiBS wrote:
My point is, that we still don’t know, what information led to the decision. Or what the general idea behind the “procedure” was. I completely agree with you, that if you know there is 100m fog on a VFR only field, an approach is not what one should try.
There is no relevant information other than the weather at the field at the time. If you don’t get the current weather then you are stupid even more so if you have been previously advised there is fog.
It is a VFR field. There is no “procedure” other than getting visual in accordance with VFR rules.
what_next wrote:
I would say that’s technically almost impossible. They had been at FL140 and above until shortly before their final apprach. There is no good enough reception of mobile networks from a jet at those levels to download pictures.
JasonC wrote:
Landing a jet at a VFR field in fog based on a webcam download? Are you serious?
It seems you completely misunderstood the idea behind my post. Again, I am not arguing for the crew, neither the PIC, nor the copilot. The webcam picture was one thinking experiment of what can bring people to believe something. My point is, that we still don’t know, what information led to the decision. Or what the general idea behind the “procedure” was. I completely agree with you, that if you know there is 100m fog on a VFR only field, an approach is not what one should try.
But again, as there was no radio contact to Trier, neither a question to ATC about the weather, the only fact we have from the report is that the PIC called Trier before departure and received the information that a landing will not be possible due to fog. So how did the decision making (if there was some) happen? This is the interesting point in my view.
It could be like what_next says, that, correct me if I am citing you wrong, the PIC commenced the approach and he ignored the weather at all. If that was the case, do you think he followed a procedure like on a non-precision approach? With a self set minimum? E.g. 500ft AGL, because this felt good in VMC? Or do you think the cowboyness led him to the belief he could fly a CATIII approach, because he can?
what_next wrote:
and that superhero skygod in the left hand seat wanted to show the other guys how good a “true professional” can handle a difficult approach. All on his own.
But why did even the PIC tell his wife that they will probably divert to Hahn before the flight? Was it maybe because they always tried to approach Trier, at least once with some kind of DIY approach before a diversion? It would be interesting in my oppinion to see radar data of the other diversions. Maybe it was standard procedure (not only for this PIC) to do it like that.
JasonC wrote:
And the whole discussion about VNAV calculation is irrelevant. It was a suicidal approach attempt.
Exactly. At 100m visibility and over 100kt, you will have about a second to align your aircraft with the centreline (if you are even close to it) and flare. Few pilots could do that, the last of them died last week… (and I guess he would not have been able once past age 70 or so).
NB: Idiots like him and the guy who crashed this week in Saarbrücken are the cause of the “cowboy” reputation that corporate (and private) pilots generally have with the public and the airlines.
TobiBS wrote:
A worst case scenario could be an inflight download of a webcam picture which was fed from a cache or not current.
Landing a jet at a VFR field in fog based on a webcam download? Are you serious?
And the whole discussion about VNAV calculation is irrelevant. It was a suicidal approach attempt.
