It was a CFIT and had nothing to do with Cirrus.. From what’s repieted he was cleared for a safe route and diverted and got into the wrong place too low. Ridge rotors might have sealed his fate, similar to the JU52 accident last summer. RIP
Agreed. Looks very much like a turn down the wrong valley, which turned out to be a dead end at the altitude flown.
Given that was presumably EGPWS equipped G1000 with moving map and synthetic vision, I ask myself the same question I asked about the Malibu in Goose Bay:
What can lead to a crew of 2 pilots CFIT with that level of equipment? And what could we do better to avoid this? I’d rather learn from this so it doesn’t happen to me…
My take from CFIT if I want to do it, I will go for a Cub in a sunny day at least it has the performance and speed to land and zero distraction or just fly high above all of it whatever the upper weather/airspace
The level of challenge is similar avoiding to weather and airspace, you hit something due to distraction or aircraft performance…
There is a certain fallacy doing the rounds that automation and abundant information = safety. It only enhances safety if the human engagement is totally in sync and fully understands the capability and information being given.
Mental overload.
We see it in airline ops, with two and three crew. Aviate, navigate, communicate whether you are full G1000, or a microlight with a watch. The argument and discussion has been done to death on other forums and threads, but the general principals and fundamentals have held together since the Wright Brothers. Put humans into a gee whizz, all bells and whistles aeroplane with more avionics capability than most commercial airliners then the human perceives I am totally safe. Wrong. Turn up a valley with mountain ridges, looking into the cockpit following your magenta or whatever is only going to lead you into difficulty. Whether that happened here is a mute point. I would rather come to grief in control and knowing that I messed up, than push a wrong button that sent me to an early death.
There could be several reasons e.g.
Take AF447. Two pilots, graduates of the world’s #1 elite aviation academy, thousands of hours, totally confused by a cacophony of sounds and beeps, not knowing much about aircraft systems, etc.
You would be amazed how many people fly with advanced systems which they don’t know are not working. This is much helped by a general shortage of avionics shops which know the more advanced stuff. As usual, the “best” stories cannot be posted.
Peter,
there are pics on the net of the cockpit of this plane showing the SV on the PFD. So it was installed and I don’t think anyone would turn it off.
For me, a CFIT in VMC conditions they were in is totally incomprehensible SV, EGPWS and what not nonwithstanding. MK1 windscreen should do the trick more than adequately.
I almost discard that variant, there must have been a loss of control involved for it to make any sense. Nobody flies into a rock just like that.
Ridge Rotors however is a good theory. I am not quite sure if that is what brought the JU down but it is well possible too, but there I think there were other contributing factors yet to be revealed. A Cirrus however which might get into one of these and then try to turn away steeply may well loose control and crash as this one did.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Ridge Rotors however is a good theory.
Most totally underestimate the dangers of mountain/terrain flying. Couple of years ago two very experienced microlighters left the main convoy to look closer at a mountain top. They missed the BBQ.
It was a strange accident with people asking how could that have happened? Simple, an Easterly wind, at a particular speed and gust factor.They never climbed and flew straight into the mountain. In a Cirrus for example, speedy aircraft, all happening quite quickly, get caught in a draft, very plausible, however, why did they get themselves into that position in the first place is the key? Of course if this is what happened.
Taking the turn into the wrong valley can doom you – no mountain rotors etc required, and plenty pilots did make that mistake using their eyeballs only.
it can be very difficult to assess in mountainous terrain whether you’re high enough or not to cross a particular ridge.
The Beech i.e., in cruise has a slight pitch down attitude and during my first mountain tours I always thought I’d crash into the next ridge if I wouldn’t climb immediately. The opposite can happen if you’re in pitch up attitude. Distance, height, elongated view, picture of the horizon etc can fool you. It might well be that this particular pilot thought he was safe until short before impact
Inexperience pilots are also likely to fly far from terrain (eg middle of valley) while you should fly as close as practically possible to one Sid Eton give you max space for turning back. Day 1 lesson of mountain flying
