I stated it at post 56, that made two of us…….pedantic I appreciate, but need to be accurate. One other major point that also seems to be missed by everyone -
He could not have had a glide scope capture, because he was now where near it when he crashed. So, If you set up an ILS, on whatever combination of kit you are using, then why would be you be descending on the glideslope if you don’t have one? Puzzling….
Appologies BB
I wonder about confirmation bias, made worse by an “easy plane” into a “familiar airport” and everything going really well, until it doesn’t.
Wouldn’t explain your point about the ILS though
Andrew
Yes, all the rest adds up, but the ILS is the problem. the terrain sits at app 1000, agl. He crashed on the downslope at 500, whilst it would appear, set up for final. He was actually on a long left base, for an intercept.That is the bit that I feel the report glosses over. Problem is, he knew the area well, and the trap of higher ground. Maintaining level 2200 (from memory), would, have him on a left base for intercept. Its odd.
I don’t find the accident that odd at all. The pilot must have had a high workload, single pilot IMC with no autopilot. No quiet hands-off moment to take the time to thoroughly brief the approach and prepare in general.
Then let’s say that the ancient DME wasn’t working or some other minor problem that upped the workload further. Selected direct-to the NDB without thinking it through properly, and that is all it took.
If I was repeating that flight I would prefer a serviceable autopilot over a GPS approach, a terrain warning system, the NDB moved to the airfield, or any other solutions that have been mentioned. It simply gives you more spare brain capacity, which is the primary thing you need to avoid human error.
Why upgrade an aircraft to a 530W but not fix the autopilot?
The problem with these accidents is we will never know why the pilot did what he did. All we can do is look at the situation and try to take away things that we can consider.
I reiterate
- load an approach if it is in your database
- if it uses a DME, use DME
- if no GS be careful before swapping to the LOC. Know where you are.
Afsag wrote:
why do we persist in talking about the approach aids, when this crash, as stated by the only poster on this whole thread who knew that plane, and the pilot, said it was more a human factors issue, than an approach aid one?
Huh? I think everyone agrees that this is a human factors issue. What we’re discussing is how that particular issue could have been mitigated by different approach aids.
I’m about to start my instrument training, so reading this (and other IFR threads) with great interest.
However, I have a funny feeling that all the – interesting! – stuff that’s being discussed here is pretty irrelevant to this accident. As the poster who’s definitely most familiar with the situation (Velar) alludes to, I suspect this is a human factors accident. The mindset of ‘oh, I’ve flown in there a hundred times, piece of cake’ can be – and often is – a killer in aviation.
There’s another thing that hasn’t been mentioned here yet – there were two pilots in the cockpit, one rated (probably, see the report), the other one not. How do we know who was at the controls? Why was the second guy even there? Doesn’t sound like much of a fun flight to do a short positioning hop in IMC.
Why upgrade an aircraft to a 530W but not fix the autopilot?
That’s an excellent point, highly relevant to the UK “maintenance” scene where incompetence is rife, often with the tacit agreement of the owner. I have been at several PPL schools which were experts on this “process”, sometimes with outrageously dangerous stuff (written up here in the past) being left in place.
A lot of avionics have INOP stickers on them – a symptom of the capital-poor GA scene.
Autopilots are the worst – a symptom of there being approximately zero UK shops which know anything about them. There is just one firm which is any good, and only because of one guy there, but he’s not around much nowadays so it’s back to the usual chimps. And one firm which used to do a lot of repairs (IAE) stopped when the only guy who knew anything about it retired.
I keep my TB20 100% functional but it does take an above-average application of effort and accumulation of contacts (mostly in the USA) if you want to avoid getting ripped off.
Yes I know there is a big German shop which lends out spare avionics free of charge 
but obvious economics dictate the shop will be doing it only for a few highly regarded clients, one of whom posts here a lot and the other used to.
One also needs to keep a bit of stuff on the shelf. I often don’t exchange boxes when I buy overhauled (or new) stuff. Often the exchange value is derisory so I keep the spare myself. I have quite a pile now 
There’s another thing that hasn’t been mentioned here yet – there were two pilots in the cockpit, one rated (probably, see the report), the other one not. How do we know who was at the controls? Why was the second guy even there? Doesn’t sound like much of a fun flight to do a short positioning hop in IMC.
In the private G scenario, the RHS usually does nothing useful and sometimes is a hindrance.
Peter wrote:
In the private G scenario, the RHS usually does nothing useful and sometimes is a hindrance.
Agree, but that’s not what I’m getting at. How about the ‘why don’t you have a go?’ scenario? There are plenty of accidents where that was a factor….
It must be a possibility (no CVR, etc).
However, if I let somebody else fly the plane, I watch them really carefully. In IMC, you can be at Vne in seconds if you “lose it”. (I also monitor the moving map for a CAS bust )
But if this was the DME v. GPS error which the report suggests, probably neither of them saw it coming.
