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SR22 down in the Alps (Austria) D-EUFO

Peter wrote:

Assuming reasonable pilot skills, and VMC, it would have to be an awfully narrow valley to not turn an SR22 around.

People fly into buildings (Manhattan) or mountain sides sometimes. Clear vmc day and a fast airplane in mountain valleys hitting a ridge – I’ll take this accident as a strong reminder to not mess with the alps, as beautiful, fun and thrilling it might be to see the harsh terrain whizz by at good speed – I’ll keep a healthy distance from above.

If the sd cards in the garmin have survived the fire it will hopefully shine some light on this crash.

always learning
LO__, Austria

This picture shows the mountain refuge Meilerhütte and what appears to be the crash site (dark spot upper center): https://tirol.orf.at/stories/3005054/

PS: you have to click through the images, it’s number 5 of 6

Last Edited by 172driver at 20 Jul 21:13

Thanks Snoopy, that is the pic I was talking about but I could not remember where I found it.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

I wonder if they were doing low level sightseeing?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

There should be some eyewitnesses as it’s so close to the Meilerhütte.

There is really nothing wrong with flying low and close to terrain in the alps, as long as you have been properly trained and you know what you’re doing. That includes knowing when not to go.

But mountain flying can be learned. It’s just something you shouldn’t improvise if you haven’t learned it.

I write this because some may misinterpret some of the statements here as it being generally irresponsible to fly in such a place in a plane.

One of the errors is to fly down the middle of a valley which reduces the ability to turn around. So, yes, being able to fly relatively close to a valley wall, and knowing which side to chose, are part of the toolkit.

Winds curling over a ridge may be a factor, hence being conservative when flying VMC on launching on days with strong winds.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

This is something we have on our PPL book (how to fly into valley, wrt the wind and passes, …) , and unfortunately we have here (southern alps) stories of young mountains rated pilots who took the wring valley and didn’t make it. Mountain flying is a huge thing and should never be underestimated.

LFMD, France
Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Cobalt wrote:

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…

From my (limited) experience of flying in valleys, TAWS always gets inhibited, because it keeps alerting all the time. It’s useful to prevent inadvertent terrain collision en route, but if one’s intention is to fly in high terrain, it’s not really useful.

LPFR, Poland
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