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Courchevel LFLJ PA46 F-GUYZ crash - slight injuries only

Thanks for amending your post.

No. My point is that pilots should not do something which is completely stupid. That depends on the combination of the airport, the plane, and the pilot. Being overweight and inexperienced on an altiport is not moderately risky. My post was expressly written as conditional on the report being true.

EGTF, LFTF

There is a difference between trying out of our confort zone and attempting a stupid thing. This looks to be a stupid thing.
I would be really pleased to try and land in Courchevel on a DR400 with a mountain FI, but trying it with a such a plane (that I’m not used to fly), is really out of wisdom range.
I would say it’s closer to darwin award, and very surprising that such a professional expriment turns to be an adventure so badly prepared. We may not have all information, but I don’t see what’s the experiment in landing a PA46 in Courchevel, even at MTOW. It’s already been done, i’m sure, but it may have been with proficient pilots( there may be the experiment).

Last Edited by greg_mp at 21 Jul 09:09
LFMD, France

Jacko,

there is a good reason why Courchevel like others need a site qualification which the PIC did not have completed along with flying an airplane in which he had hardly any experience at all so if the conversion training had been completed is also questionable.

The fact alone that he went to Courchevel without completed site qualification makes this flight illegal.

That he took passengers knowing that he was not qualified shows a mindset which is not a good one for a pilot.

The fact that he had questionable qualification on the PA46 makes it worse. The Malibu derivates are not the easiest plane to fly under normal circumstances and I would say even with other types, before you fly to a place like this, you should be comfortable with the airplane which usually happens in this class after maybe 50 or 100 hours on type.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2019/august/02/rps-no-go-around

Relevant as it discusses a one way strip with a no go around decision point.

Good take aways on emergency equipment in the outback, and relevant currency for some operations.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

there is a good reason why Courchevel like others need a site qualification

No, it needs a mountain rating or a site qualification. The latter can be acquired in less than an hour. The former usually takes a week or two of training. The reason why Courchevel is open to pilots with so little training is that it is easy – perhaps the easiest of the French altiports.

In this discussion we have some very experienced PA46 pilots who have no mountain rating saying, on the basis of some unverified blog or news report, that a pilot who ran gently off the top of the LFLJ platform was stupid. Perhaps they are right. On the other hand we have a pilot who does have a mountain rating (but who has never had the slightest desire to set foot in a low-wing Piper airplane) who says “lets wait for the official report before we throw stones in our glass house”. Plenty of pilots who are by no means stupid have, on occasion, run out of runway on landing at airports which are even easier than LFLJ.

Glenswinton, SW Scotland, United Kingdom
Belgium

Very sad to see the state it’s in. I hope it flies again.

On the website you can see the docs, including the journey log. The last pilot (which is on the accident flight) appears only once before, the previous day, for 0.4h, for a flight marked as “instruction”. Obviously he could have had additional training on another PA46, but it correlates with the press report on his lack of experience on type.

I cannot make sense of the fuel uplift column, sometimes it’s in litres and sometimes in USG it seems.

The accident flight is marked as “private”, which it shouldn’t if the pax paid? In the comments section it says “RAS” which stands for “rien à signaler”, nothing to report.

Jacko, I had missed your post on August 4th. I have never, ever said the pilot is stupid. I’m saying that if the specialised press reports (this is the equivalent of Flyer, not the Daily Mail) are correct, he did something stupid. More importantly, that something is not running off the runway, but being overweight and inexperienced in type at a field he was not qualified for.

EGTF, LFTF

denopa wrote:

The accident flight is marked as “private”, which it shouldn’t if the pax paid? In the comments section it says “RAS” which stands for “rien à signaler”, nothing to report.

That’s hilarious, but well in line with habits.

ELLX

PA46 experience: 2*TnG on 1600m runway and first 25min flight, the next day to Courcheval loaded above MTOW, if it was a TR then one need 3 takeoffs & landings before taking pax !

The report is here:

https://www.bea.aero/fileadmin/user_upload/BEA2019-0041.pdf

BEA2019_0041_pdf

Last Edited by Ibra at 17 Jul 13:46
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Ibra wrote:

PA46 experience: 2*TnG on 1600m runway and first 25min flight, the next day to Courcheval loaded above MTOW, if it was a TR then one need 3 takeoffs & landings before taking pax !

What can you say…?

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden
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