Snoopy wrote:
This, I fear, will have negative consequences for european GA. Advertising for passengers using BS like “instrumentation for all weather” etc.. and then flying VFR over the alps :(
I am afraid I agree. This is something which will get to the attention of regulators and it will quite possibly have implications that can not yet be determined.
Advertizing flying against money publicly and to an unspecified group of people imho is certainly not the intention behind the fact that we, as opposed to FAA pilots, are allowed to share costs. More cases like this and the question about legality of such groups will most definitly be discussed.
As for weather, the alps were definitely not VFR that day, not in that area, not in most others. The only way to cross the alps that day was high level and IFR.
UdoR wrote:
No I don’t think that this requires a stronger regulation. There will always be an idiot who couldn’t care less about existing regulations. This won’t change when changing the rules.
I agree that stronger regulation won’t do much… but in this case, I fear the call for much stronger regulation regarding flying group and advertizing e.t.c. will be quite loud. And the question is, is that a bad thing? Accidents like this are the worst kind of what GA can stomach in the light of heavy regulation we already have. And these days unfortunately it is very often so that a single accident may trigger regulation which, as the german saying goes “empties the bath with the kid”. I recall several of such accidents which had similar implications.
I agree more regulation is not required because the regulation is already there.
This pilot IMO overstepped what is legal and what is not. So what further regulation could be added to discourage a pilot such as this. It seems from the wording that part of the offer was to give each of the passengers the opportunity to take control (steer/drive) the aircraft yet as far as I can see he was not an FI.
Before you all jump on me, I am aware that many of us give a chance for our friends our wives or our kids to get a feel of the controls but IMO this is different. You know them, they know you and in that respect I think the 2 are very different.
Over the last few weeks the weather around parts of the Alps has been both very changeable. So much so that forecasts have been a lot less than their normal accuracy. Around this time in the Avignon area a PPL with some (not much) VSV and IFR training had inadvertantly entered IMC.
The REX he wrote yesterday, showed what turned what seemed like an I’ve got this covered into an need for help.
The last point of the flight doesn’t really lead to an icing scenario to me, more on a disorientation following an autopilot disconnection, and potentially a in flight structural failure. I didn’t see a picture of the crash site, but wouldn’t be surprised is one wing is far from the hull.
The ground speed shows a lot of variation in the last minutes, while the altitude keeps stable, this (along with constant track) indicates that autopilot is doing his job, but it was probably very turbulent. The last points (pa disconnect?) show a lot altitude changes with a lot of vertical speed.
the crash site itself is not that high (1500 to 2000m?) although last alitude reported at around 9000ft…
Is this a weather overlay showing dissipation / rain and if so, in the moment of the flight?
Yes.
Emir wrote:
Is this a weather overlay showing precipitation / rain and if so, in the moment of the flight?Yes.
Now that looks interesting. Because earlier in the flight he deviated from the route and there’s actually precipitation and in the end the track stops right “in the next cloud”. Might be totally uncorrelated, but could also indicate that he had really bad luck this time.
Somebody pulled the wing(s) off a Commander right at the LTMA airspace boundary.
It was speculated that this was on realising he was about to bust CAS (this was well before the current UK CAA “bust them all” policy) but of course the AAIB report (IIRC; I really ought to read it again before posting) speculated that a passenger pulled on the yoke when adjusting their seat!
I just found the English translation of the Facebook post that the pilot made. OMG. Blatantly offering a flight for a fixed airfare. Advertising “good weather”. “All weather avionics”. Everyone on board will have the chance to “steer the plane”. And they all paid with their lives, and worse, some really terrifying minutes before the crash.
Does anyone know who the pilot was and how much experience he/she had?
In the US AOPA would write a big article and alert the whole community to the many and egregious errors in this flight, and remind everyone what the rules around cost sharing are.
As we don’t have a pan-national AOPA here, his thread needs to be shared with the other active pilot forums if that is allowable.
I knew the pilot as I sold the plane to him.
Last contact was on Thursday about updating the traffic system
the big questions, were we may never see the answers is, why the pilot departed knowing what we know so far….?
Was the pilot over estimating his own (VFR) skills?
Was he fearful, but overwhelmed by the social pressure on facebook and his reputation/ego was at stake?
Did he fall into the complacency trap of, all will be well once we are in the air…?
Was it ignorance and underestimating the wind forces/icing you may encounter over the mountains?
Lack of meteo knowledge?
I can do this, as the aircraft has “all weather capability” as he posted…?
The answers were all rooted in the brain or psychological soup of the Pilot …unfortunately he cant answer anymore and took 3 pax with him.
We all ask ourselves risk assessment questions when we take on a flight with our dear ones, flying is riskier than driving to the grocery store and we know that…..
The pax in this case were trusting the Pilot (knowing him or not) on his all weather capable aircraft according to himself….
Maybe AI will help shortly to assist pre-flight ADM and raise a red flag as a support tool, irrespective of your knowledge, experience level…..
Another topic maybe. Will AI support a better ADM for the GA pilot?
Buckerfan wrote:
OMG. Blatantly offering a flight for a fixed airfare. Advertising “good weather”. “All weather avionics”. Everyone on board will have the chance to “steer the plane”.
Yup. This post will probably be a premiere to find it’s way into the report one day. Any lawyer having to go after this guy’s estate will have a field day.
Buckerfan wrote:
As we don’t have a pan-national AOPA here, his thread needs to be shared with the other active pilot forums if that is allowable.
It’s pretty much over all the fora with similar comments.
Vref wrote:
We all ask ourselves risk assessment questions
We do. The question is what if any risk assessment has been done here?
Vref wrote:
Maybe AI will help shortly to assist pre-flight ADM and raise a red flag as a support tool,
What in particular, a tool for pax weather to panic or not? That would go down nicely with airlines…
AI should not replace what normal intelligence should know.
