Absolutely
She could have spin it or dived in a turn and that would have been a deadly mistake but she did not and she walked away, likely by not making “more mistakes” : to walk away from that landing you have to be aware of previous mistakes and be able to “cut the loss” by not making more mistakes (I am not sure what mistakes she did but let’s assume she did plenty)
In the other hand, I tend to worry more about pilots who never make mistakes: you find lot of them in every accident report, the dead pilot was known “to be perfect, skilled, cautious blabla…” by everyone around him, then make a very (stupid) mistake
BeechBaby wrote:
No front shoulder harness by the looks of it.
What makes you think that? Looking at 1:15 in the video I’d say there is a shoulder harness visible on pilots side.
And btw, I don’t see the outcome as pure luck, there was a lot of skill involved, imho. For a 22 year old low timer, respect!
Yes, sometimes calculated risk bits you in the back and this is an example for ‘yes, but no serious problem if skilled’.
I refrained from commenting too much on this accident since I honestly think we don’t have enough information. Same goes for the recovery action, or an eventual repair of the airframe…
An old golden quote, seemingly from Frank Borman (the use of bold is not to shout at anybody 
):
A superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations which require the use of his superior skill
“My daughter did that journey several times, she knew it well. She just returned from Florida where she earned her US patent.”
Had she been flying on an EASA Licence, but had recently added an FAA one in her ATPL career plan? Maybe not the novice supposed.
Absolutely agree to what @LeSving posted on the last page.
It’s a combination of luck and skills that turned the fate into a good end of the story. My personal interest is not focused on that, because there’s no way to influence luck or the type of skills that was needed here. I am more interested in what happened before in order to understand whether I’ve missed anything or whether we can learn something from it – or not.
Honestly I never even thought about that one could need mountaineering equipment when flying over the alps. I always had in mind that I’d glide down anywhere in a valley, best an airfield. And I seldomly fly higher than 12kft. So this is a rare opportunity to maybe question flying strategies and improve own level of safety.
The video is in Italian, but rest assured, it doesn‘t cast a good light on her flightplanning and inflight decision making, as well as her general mountain flying skills.
What I always ask myself: why do people do these interviews, so quickly, and apparently without having consulted their lawyer beforehand?
She seems to be enjoying her moment in the spotlight. She claims a downdraft meant she couldn’t climb over the ridge. Flying towards a ridge into wind will likely result in a downdraft unless you are a reasonable two thousand feet height above the ridge. The golden rule is to approach all ridges at a 45 degree angle so you can turn away if it looks like you will not be able to cross it. The other golden rule is not to fly up a canyon unless at a safe altitude or you have sufficient room to turn.
It was cold and well below an Archer service ceiling, perhaps she also failed to lean for best power at the 7,500 foot altitude?
Difficult to maintain currency in mountain flying unless you are based in the mountains. It takes years of local knowledge, especially the micro climate, to be really proficient. The full Italian mountain rating takes a season in Belluno, and the odd hour with a local instructor is not going to lead to full proficiency.
Reading Mountain Flying Bible and applying techniques conservatively at least should be a minimum.
https://www.mountainflying.com/
Am glad all are safe, and hopefully the accident report will highlight meteo conditions and terrain.
boscomantico wrote:
why do people do these interviews, so quickly, and apparently without having consulted their lawyer beforehand?
Good question. The general “rule of thumb” is to never say anything in public, and talk to the police with a lawyer. But I guess in these days with Youtube and real-time video-blogging, the urge and pressure from the media to stay in the spotlight is too strong
In Norway this is very important, because the crash investigation and the police investigation are two separate things with water tight seals between them. The crash investigators have only one goal, to find the cause. The police also has one goal, to investigate if you have done something illegal or neglected something or simply acted with stupidity. Then there are civil courts, which probably is the most difficult to defend yourself against. The police works much faster than the crash investigators, and you can easily be found guilty in court, even though later the crash investigators find that you are not a cause of the accident. If you are found guilty, the next thing is more often than not a civil case.
There were no fatalities in this accident, and that helps a lot of course, but still. Talk to the crash investigators (in full openness, no problems), then get a lawyer to at least postpone any court until after the report from the crash is public. The police cannot use anything you have said in the report against you (they can of course ask you directly about the same things), but you can use the report do defend yourself. You have to be sure you have not done anything stupid of course In Italy things works different I guess?
LeSving wrote:
The general “rule of thumb” is to never say anything in public, and talk to the police with a lawyer.
Ok, so you are one of the old white men as well :-). Generation TikTok acts on different thrusters.
