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Another Alpine crash - near LOWZ, SR22 D-EPRB

@BeechBaby in the G1000 when you fly over the MApt the SUSP soft key ‘illuminates’. If you don’t press it the HSI remains in approach mode with indicator on final approach track. Once you press SUSP the GPS will sequence to the missed approach and the HSI will auto slew to the new track. In this case 089. It will also show on the MFD the crossing altitude before turning to NANIT, 7,500 feet. When passing altitude 7,500 feet the HSI will auto slew to NANIT.

Here is a screenshot from a G1000

Last Edited by RobertL18C at 05 Jan 18:08
Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

German accident report here

local copy

I don’t know if there is an English version.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

I don’t know if there is an English version.

I don’t think there is one.

It’s a pretty chilling read.

Some key points:

LOWZ info informed pilot via phone wx is not good enough for landing.

LOWI App informed pilot on frequency that wx @LOWZ is OVC and not good enough for landing. Pilot stated he has numerous alternates and got handed off to LOWZ.

LOWZ info informed pilot on frequency that wx @LOWZ is OVC and not good enough for landing.

Pilot requested to land to the east. Info advised tailwind and snow/slush on runway. Pilot then passed airfield south and very low, but in cloud. On turning north terrain impact occured.

Several whitenesses heard the plane pass and impact, but none could see it as it was in cloud.

It was discovered the pilot had a brain tumor. It is assumed he did not know about it. It is not known if this was a factor.

always learning
LO__, Austria

The report is quite excellently written imho. That is what TSB reports should be all about.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Well written report indeed.

Might be coincidence, but from an experience point of view with 650hrs the pilot has been exactly in the danger area that has been discussed quite often where perceived confidence can be higher than actual experience. This can also be seen by a significant number of approaches in marginal weather the pilot has done before (including one in Zell at OVC002).

This prior approach in LOWZ might actually be one of the key root causes for the accident.
Before reading the report I have not been aware of the fact that the METAR station in LOWZ changed location end of 2019 (from city center to the airport). As the accident report showed quite transparently, an OVC002 at the prior location did not automatically imply that you could not land. Actually the webcam pic in the report shows, that at that OVC002 day the weather at the airfield was about fine.
OVC004 at the day of the accident compared to this looks even better – therefore if you don’t know that the station was relocated it is quite natural to give it a try with the experience that even OVC002 can be just fine for landing.

I’m not sure how (and if at all) changes of METAR locations are communicated – having been at LOWZ also only about once a year for the last years, I did not know about that fact and I would have been as surprised as the unfortunate accident pilot by that change. I’m wondering why there hasn’t been a safety recommendation that changes in locations of METAR (or other weather stations) that have substantial impact on how to read the data need to be communicated more actively to the pilot community.

Germany

Indeed knowing where the METAR station sits is very relevant, but the variability on those snapshot METAR is astonishing, it went from OVC023 to OVC014 to OVC004 in one hour on barely 4kts winds, even 10min or 20min snapshots on airfield station may not give a good picture at the time of the approach… then he was too low in cruise bellow MDA for very long …

Last Edited by Ibra at 27 Jan 08:18
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

This guy didn’t just push the minima a bit (flying a 500ft DH down to 400ft) but flew the approach so far below minima that the only thing which would have got him out of there was synthetic vision.

These accidents, done by intelligent people, are puzzling. There is no Plan B and it works so long as Plan A works out, and if it doesn’t, you die.

Does anyone know the education/technical background of the pilot, and the aircraft equipment?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The pilot had a very capable aircraft with deicing. He used Golze ADL in-flight weather. The ATO that trained him for the IR said that he was an above average pilot, with very good theoretical knowledge and very good understanding of his aircraft and also with a conservative interpretation of weather forecasts. He had taken CSIP transition training and recurrent Cirrus training in a full-motion simulator.

He had been given several warnings about the weather situation before and during the flight . He had claimed in a phone call with LOWZ staff that he had both a plan B and C.

Still the accident occurred…

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 27 Jan 09:24
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

It was a 2010 SR22T.
My guess is he tried to find the runway with his synthetic vision.

LFOU, France

Presumably the reason for the crash is that he flew too far down in IMC to have any options left and then flew the wrong trajectory which took him into terrain.

I know that sounds banal but minima, together with missed approach procedures, are there for a reason.

If you are going to fly in IMC deep into terrain – so deep that only an F16 on afterburner could go around on the runway heading – you need SV and you need to hope that GPS reception will never be lost (or have inertial navigation).

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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