One always gets loads of crashes on the first nice weekend after a long bleak winter during which large sectors of GA totally stop flying.
Croatia is easy flying. Nothing dangerous about it.
This aircraft was in our hangar. It’s remarkable that PH-YMC flew from The Netherlands to Croatia, via Austria with a max altitude of 3600ft. Flying that low gives no room for error.
I was flying today to Lošinj and it was beautiful day except anything below FL110 was pretty challenging for clouds avoiding. Trying to get to seaside lower would end up in flying through the clouds and flying below the clouds would end up in CFIT (which most likely happened yesterday). On the way back there was a gap between mountain peaks and cloud bases but with limited clearance and strong bora. As usual the best tactics was flying above the clouds.
Peter wrote:
I reckon the most interesting information will not be in the accident report… like D-ESPJ.
While in quoted case ambiguous altitude marking on the chart could be the cause of accident leading to CFIT, I believe in yesterday’s case the cause was VFR to IMC followed by loss of control and subsequent crash or VFR to IMC followed by CFIT. Unfortunately the aircraft was almost totally consumed by post crash fire, so I doubt many facts will be revealed.
It is not a “problem” with Croatia
Coming from Germany we tend to underestimate the mountains south of the alps. But both sides of the adriatic sea all the way down to Greece there are serious mountains further south. Maybe not as high as the Matterhorn but still plenty to be taken seriously. Also winds and thunderstorms can be strong there. So anything besides flying over the water outside the shore line can be a serious challenge VFR if it is not blue skies.
lenthamen wrote:
flew from The Netherlands to Croatia, via Austria with a max altitude of 3600ft.
You won’t get across Austria flying at 3600ft unless you fly around the Alps to the east (or through a valley route, which is challenging, even for locals).
9A_LDSH wrote:
Some kind of safety briefing about flying in Croatia seaside and mountain area must be introduced ASAP.
Here we go again. Someone has an accident & suddenly we have people demanding things change. Here’s a hint: why not wait until you know what the reason for the accident is before demanding changes?
lenthamen wrote:
It’s remarkable that PH-YMC flew from The Netherlands to Croatia, via Austria with a max altitude of 3600ft.
Do you have a track for this? The FR track is very incomplete, but shows altitudes even lower than that.
But this would be a pretty remarkable fact anyhow and the big question is why? Weather? Or the lack of experience flying higher than that? Is it still a problem that flying over 3000 ft or so is not part of the training in the NL?
Steve6443 wrote:
Someone has an accident & suddenly we have people demanding things change.
Not less than (4) four major in less than full year!
Plus serious number of not documented and not reported in category of near miss.
What to say about people doing line up of 3 giro on runway obstructing the military secondary
medical flight (inbound&outbound, 15 min time frame) or taking off in UL with 20+ kt of bora tail wind, or …
