UdoR wrote:
However I stick to the opinion that there is close to no excuse whatsoever to bring three souls to such a threat.That involves some poor decision making prior to whatever happened.
No col should be overflown so low to the terrain (and/or without excess energy!) that you have no way out. To either glide above or turn around in case of, e.g., an engine stoppage. Amen.
Agreed. This is one of the fundamentals taught in any mountain flying course. Sure happy they survived.
Video here:
Box yourself in with poor decision making, get lucky and receive lots of praise for doing a great job. Awesome.
Pig wrote:
Box yourself in with poor decision making, get lucky and receive lots of praise for doing a great job…
Thankfully I started flying in the very flat part of central Texas so I could do many stupid things and learn there. I’m pretty sure I would not have survived had I started flying anywhere near the Alps. Until I got some mountain flying training, I had no idea of the number of things I didn’t know, and that could kill me. It’s actually impressive that so many people do it successfully without this training.
Even if you fly valleys & ridges at the right crossing heights, you won’t (should not) cross a col on engine failure…also, I would be more worried if she managed to glide beyond the hut and landed downhill with lot of excess energy after crossing that col, that would have been more interesting in terms of Newton laws
You can’t fly mountains at “safe glide altitudes” in pistons, you will have to land in some ridge or valley when the donkey stops, this is not a Duo Discus, this is a PA28, I gather one has to fly at FL450 above the Dolomites to glide safely toward the plains in dead stick PA28…
Well, the praise is temporary inly, and takes places only in media, social media and forums.
The blame will come shortly, from their CAA, insurers, courts and rescue services….Not so sure it will do her aspired airline career any good.
What if it was a mountain wave?
Downdrafts, Mountain wave, a little icing and a flight on calculated risk. Yes, sometimes the calculated risk hits you, that’s why it is called such and I’d say well done that landing. Seems the FAA training wasn’t bad at all and this girl was maybe as cold as the outside.
FAA PPL training is pretty thorough, IME (done the PPL and CPL/IR).
The decisionmaking beforehand may not have been the best but lots of people fly in the Alps low-level (called “mountain flying”) because
The much safer way is of course to go right over the top at 14k+ but most can’t or won’t.
The Alps are only 30 minutes away from my homebase, it’s the usual destination fro a winter short flight and in more than 1 K hours flying time i think i never reached 14K feet .
The much safer way is to think at what you are doing .
