I am guessing at the top of its performance range the glide capability is getting on for 100 miles so the aircraft would be capable of making landfall.
Single engine commercial ops are essentially outlawed in Europe, but not in the States. Clearly there is a marginally increased risk profile which some will judge acceptable, others not. When it comes to public transport and seeking to achieve a 100% safety record there is probably no “right” answer. Engine out over land at night is never going to be enjoyable. I have flown many 1,000s of hours in SEPs and not had an engine failure (thank God), one rough running thats all. My examiner mate with tens of thousand of hours about the same, but never a failure. In fact the only complete failure I have had was in a twin.
Of course we could go around and around this one, and there is no right answer, I was just interested in the thoughts of others.
As I said, I mostly fly with two engines now, and so I wouldnt do this sea crossing in a single, but that is my choice, I know in terms of risk, it is irrational that in a lifetime of flying I should expect even one failure, more especially for the percentages of hours over the sea. Psycologically, it is just I am not keen to have it happen!
The flight was illegal. But it might still have ended well, if it would have been carried out in daylight as originally planned. The pilot made preparations to fly in early afternoon, but Sala apparently didn’t make it in time, he sent a message about having a lot to do that afternoon. He still was due next day in Cardiff for training, so get-there-itis stepped in and things went bad. In a normal world the Pilot would have been IR certified and holding a CPL, and he would have cliembed into a higher FL and class A airspace immediately.
But with the delay, and the VFR pilot, and the night…. all possible holes of the Swiss cheese aligning in a perfect line.
EuroFlyer wrote:
But with the delay, and the VFR pilot, and the night…. all possible holes of the Swiss cheese aligning in a perfect line.
And how many times does this play out. It would appear that 2018 was a pretty hard year for GA fatalities. This is anecdotal, future reports will highlight it I am sure, but very few incidents appear to have anything to do with the aeroplane mechanics, and all to do with pilot error, choice, and decision making. Time and again. I am sure that all involved in this tragedy never actually set out to be illegal, never set out to flaunt FAA regs, or EASA regs for that matter. It was again decision making, under a bit of pressure, and a celebrity?? thrown into the mix for good measure.
What could possibly go wrong?
BeechBaby wrote:
This is anecdotal, future reports will highlight it I am sure, but very few incidents appear to have anything to do with the aeroplane mechanics, and all to do with pilot error, choice, and decision making. Time and again.
Unfortunately that is always the case. Pilots always want a mechanical explanation as that is easier to accept. But human error is usually the case. Always has been.
I still don’t get the loss of control (as in JFK Jr, in that RBS “banker” in the Channel, and many others) in a plane which must be equipped with an autopilot.
So what could the human factors be? Not knowing how to use it, or be willing to do a night (=IMC) flight in the plane. The pilot would have known about the issue (also if it was duff) from the immediately preceeding flight.
So yes almost everything is ultimately a human factor, but mechanical/avionics issues can contribute. And an inop autopilot is a massive pilot workload increase.
Why do you think the autopilot was INOP?
Loads of pilots in a plane they don’t own, do not know how to use one. Sometimes even if they own the plane they cant use it.
Hard to see how it passed an annual without one.
Indeed; it might have been working and Ibbotson didn’t know how to use it. That would be even more excruciatingly dumb than departing with an inop AP. Not on a VFR / nice day paradropping flight, but definitely on this one.
It is totally easy to get an Annual with a broken AP. 99% of mechanics have no idea what an autopilot even looks like…
Depending on how familiar you are with the plane, night can make things more difficult in the cockpit. Dimming all buttons and screens to the right luminosity is sometimes harder than you would expect. Also if you aren‘t expecting to fly at night, you may not bring your torchlight. I wear one on the head at night ready to switch on, after an unpleasant experience where everything went dark at once due to an electrical issue where the landing light drained more current than the alternator could provide.
Such a messy flight that may end up in a stronger constraints on GA although it’s wasn’t supposed to be a GA.
Panel Lights (bulbs) on older aircraft frequently don’t all work and short of throwing a blanket over the cockpit checking ‘all working’ during daytime engineering is not easy.
And for various reason seem a lot less than 100%
Plus nobody seems bothered in any case.
Is it a ‘sign-off’ issue if a whole pile of bulbs have burnt out ? – I don’t think so.
Sure I’ve never seen a panel ‘plaquarded’ – “Some Instrument Lights U/S”.
Not cleared for ‘Night Flights’.
Of cause there is the ‘old torch’, but you need a third hand to hold it !!!
I also always had a ‘head light’ type thing – does everybody !?
