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Piper Arrow G-BVDH down on the Simplon Pass in Switzerland

VFR-UK, We are very fortunate here in Euro GA,
We all take flying very seriously in the correct sense, and light-heartedly when appropriate.
After a while you will see we are largely self moderating by respect.
There is a vast array of knowledge and experience and we can all learn from the input (if indeed, we are open minded to absorb all points of view, incase something has value).

I Passed thrrough the day before, in poorer conditions, and read this thread with very keen eyes.
I have learned that many on here have different levels of consideration for making such a trip.

I have learned from that already.

We can only learn by speaking frankly about what we know.
You are correct that assumptions and finger pointing are poor behaviour and unsavoury but I would defend all posts here as being in good taste.
I hope you are not discouraged from being involved.
RIP JG.

United Kingdom

Amazing analysis by Qalupalik above.

I wonder if the pilot could have turned around, once it became apparent he would not outclimb the terrain? It looks like he could have turned to the right.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

RobertL18C wrote:

Which side of a canyon to fly down (a valley is wide enough for light GA to make this less critical), has more factors to consider than just traffic.

On the assumption you are not flying in a high wind with mountain rotors situation which will swat down even a PC-6, flying on the shady side counterintuitively may be more logical.

There is better visibility outside the glare and if you need to turn around you are turning towards rising air on the sunny side, which is safer. Turning from sunny side to shade means you are potentially turning towards downsrafts, and in the glare of the sunny side you may not be seeing what you are turning towards.

I believe the AIPM in Italy briefs this aspect quite thoroughly and also this is what would be practiced in North America.

This might be a bit off-topic, but I was taught the exact opposite. Your rationale seems correct when you are in a situation to do an emergency 180° turn. However- why put yourself in a situation where you are potentially flying in downdrafts in the first place?!? That does not make sense to me.

Do you have any reference supporting your statement? I could not find any. E.g. here: https://www.mountainflying.com/Pages/mountain-flying/flying_canyons.html

EDNG, EDST, EDMT, Germany

Thanks, @Qualupalik, but this is getting weirder all the time. According to your analysis, they were already above the pass elevation and past it at the crash site. No need to turn around….

I second the notion that this forum is very tame and not picking on others that cannot defend themselves anymore. I personally learn a lot from reading here and welcome the diverse input of others. It grants me to be very careful when embarking on similar trips and mentally prepare for much more scenarios than what I could come up with by myself.

My main lesson here is that I’ll continue to go over instead of through the alps when I want to get somewhere A-B in a „tourer“.

always learning
LO__, Austria

LeSving wrote:

It is rather obvious that some people are putting more into these “routes” than what is the intention. I’m just trying to figure out what they are, and what they are not. Are they routes (in the VFR flying sense of the word), or not. For instance. From what I gather in this thread, they are NOT. They are simply weather forecast, and has little to do with VFR routes (like those VFR routes on maps of TMA/CTRs).

In Austria and Switzerland the main weather and flying topic is the Alps and crossings. The way most people fly, they follow the pass routes they know from driving and geography. Each of the passes has a certain elevation and topography, which makes some more suitable than others.

The intention of the GAFOR route forecast is to predict ceiling and visibility along those routes. As one of the people who used to actually issue GAFORS, I can tell you that it is one of very few aviation forecasts which are done totally by hand, meaning a well educated and trained meteorologist will watch professionally provided webcams, models and use his huge experience in the area to determine how ceiling and visibility will play out along that route and relative to the refernce altitude.

People do not “put more into the routes” than the fact that they are a known quantity in as so far as they are very popular crossing points as they allow better visual clues than other valleys (mostly roads, buildings, lakes e.t.c, landmarks well known to anyone ever having crossed the alps by car) and they are very well known to the meteorologists who provide the forecast.

So no, they are not legal VFR routes you HAVE to follow but most people do anyway because they are the ones best documented. You know the minimum crossing altitude, you have a pretty precise weather forecast for it and they are visually easier to identify than others.

I would say for Swiss VFR pilots (likewise Austria) GAFOR will be a huge factor in their on the day decision making.

Yes, we could do better by providing e.g. cloud tops or, as the Austrians do, the reason why a route is set for a condition, but for most people in particularly the alpine crossings the GAFOR will be the one decision maker whether to go or not.

Yet, that day, the GAFOR was Open for that route and it was massive CAVOK. So it is quite likely that our friend chose the route along the GAFOR route but the actual GAFOR that day was no factor in the crash.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Qalupalik wrote:

The wreckage is located in or close to a dry gully lying along the gradient of steepest ascent and orientated in the direction of approach. By comparing site photographs (link) with a model based on the Swiss digital terrain model swissAlti3D the position can be estimated to within about an arc-second as N461434 E0080229 (see comparison at link) whose elevation is 2 247 m (7 373 ft). See position on national Swiss map (link).

I do buy the position you calculated and have to say great job.

But that position indeed opens a lot more questions than answers. It is on the LEFT side of the pass in flying direction, it is much higher than the pass and it is not where I’d have expected them to be at all.

This position again brings up the question of what they were following to end up there. Certainly not the pass road (Visually) which would have been invisible to the LH pilot from that position, they were cutting a corner they did not need to cut and could at least have turned right into the lower grounds over the pass. It does look to me as if that plane was flying a very strange trajectory at that point.

I find this the more so puzzling as there were 2 PPLs on board.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Peter wrote:

I wonder if the pilot could have turned around, once it became apparent he would not outclimb the terrain? It looks like he could have turned to the right.

It depends on its speed

LSGS, Switzerland

Mooney_Driver wrote:

I find this the more so puzzling as there were 2 PPLs on board.

Light bulbs, policemen, electricians blah blah. Plenty of highly over qualified instructors with cockpits full of highly over trained pilots regularly crash aeroplanes for no good reason. There are times that two heads are not better than one. In fact scenarios can develop where more confusion can be delivered by another input, so not sure I am with you on the two PPL bit.

There is an elephant in the room however when things get so puzzling as to not make any sense.

Fly safe. I want this thing to land l...
EGPF Glasgow

Definitely @Mooney_Driver! Thx for the analysis @Qalupalik!

Two pilots and they crashed on the lh side of the pass higher than the pass itself…really weird!

Antonio
LESB, Spain
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