You can't win an argument on the internet, but you when put up good solid content based on your expertise you can reach the people who want to learn. I think this video bettered the discussion as a whole.
Thanks Scott. This video and your earlier one based on this Final Report strike me as the gold standard analysis on what pilots should do to fly safely in these challenging situations.
Excellent as always. I think JB raised the instantaneous steam driven DA change as a "could this be possible" question rather than a postulate. Glad that you have found evidence of that question being considered and answered. Thanks!
I'm not sure I like the negative comments about this approach being non-compliant with TERPS standards. Below I cite some explanations & warnings I found in the AIM. My impression is the approach designer is concerned with ending the IFR approach at a safe point from which to hand-over responsibility to the pilot to handle the visual segment. This approach does that. But it's also clear that this visual segment is uniquely challenging. I think there's 98' margin of error, reduced to 61' by the effect of air-temp on the altimeter between being on-path and hitting the stack. That's a small box to fly thru (so fly above it). Your technique would need to be near perfect (above path error ok, but never below). If I know I will need flaps and some speed to get my nose down for a good view of the hazards between me and the runway, then if conditions (suspected/known icing) and SOPs say I can't use flaps on this approach, then I've lost assurance of being able to see the visual segment hazards...and I need to give up on it that day. DG's comments on his original video in May 2022 were good, about it being challenging to keep on-path w/o a VGSI to help in marginal conditions. He blamed the FAA for taking the VASI away, saying it could've helped her keep clear of the stack. However A VASI is not a precise VGSI, like a 4-box PAPI or an aircraft carrier's meatball. That's part of the reason the FAA withdrew it. If you think having one is critical (as Dan did) to judge your final descent path, given marginal conditions, /knowing/ what hazards lie below you...then conditions are too poor to fly this visual segment. Thus, by Dan's on logic on that point, she should've diverted. VDA, VDP, VGSI, "Visual Segment - Obstacles": Review of the AIM. The FAA preserved pilots' freedom to continue using this approach and this airport. This I like. The responsibility to learn about and weigh the risks of the visual segment is left to pilots. Freedom carries risk. Regulating safety requires giving up some freedom. It's a tradeoff. So, how to decide if a given IAP is risky? The AIM offers some clues in describing the standards and the items you may or may not see on your approach plate: Visual Descent Point (VDP): AIM 5-4-5h and following are instructive. 5-4-5m (7) (b) says a VDP is provided on most RNAV approaches. Not here though. Why? 5-4-5h says why (obstacle threat), and warns in (3) that descent from MDA between VDP and MAP may be *impossible.* 5-4-5i gives further explanations and warnings. No VDP is a clue the obstacles are special hazards in the visual segment, and in any case says, "There is no implicit obstacle protection from the MDA/DA to the touchdown point." This /should/ quiet the commenters here and on Dan's and Juan's channels decrying this approach for violating TERPS. 5-4-5i (1) says, "Unlighted obstacle penetrations may result in prohibiting night instrument operations to the runway. A chart note will be published in the pilot briefing strip “Procedure NA at Night.” That *was* and *is* the case with this approach as well. This fact alerts us to the presence of obstacles that aren't easy to see, for whatever reason. Visual Descent Angle (VDA) and why no note, "Visual Segment - Obstacles" here?: 5-4-5k continues to talk about the factors in publishing a VDA or not. In this case, there is a published VDA and it's set to 3.75 degrees to safely clear the obstacles between MDA and touchdown, hence why there is *no warning*, "Visual Segment - Obstacles", noted on the plate. 5-4-5k (1)'s last sentence reads: "Pilots that follow the previously published descent angle, provided by the RNAV system, below the MDA on procedures with this note may encounter obstacles in the visual segment. Pilots must visually avoid any obstacles below the MDA." This is a clue, since that note doesn't exist, flying the "advisory" glidepath from your RNAV system is intended to be safe. Don't dip below it; you might use it as an aid to keep clear of obstacles during the visual segment. Since your focus should be outside during this time, IIRC the NTSB report says here the Garmin avionics intermittently beep the stall horn if you go below that path as a cue. Any "advisory" glidepath guidance provided by your RNAV equipment on an approach annotated with, "Visual Segment - Obstacles", then, appears *likely/certain* to be dangerous to refer to *below* the MDA. IIRC from prior reading elsewhere, in the FAA coded digital data for IAPs, such approaches have mostly had their VDA angles re-coded to "000" as a clue to avionics not to offer advisory glidepath info at least below MDA.
Always the best representation of what happened without fanfare. Thank you sir😊 I don't think it was ever mentioned. Both steam stacks were there when I was shooting approaches to that runway Forty five years ago. I think she went into the steam cloud and was hoping she was gonna come out of the steam cloud and be able to continue. That low you're just can't gamble like that. Bless The girl's heart. R I p😢
It's a shame that's for sure. I have thousands of hours and my gut tells me that she just kept telling herself, "Just a little lower and I'll pop out".
Great update! For all those just dropping in the comments that "she went below MDA" and calling that the cause is obviously incorrect. Witness statements are only good to an extent here, too. She may have had different visibility above the steam cloud than witnesses had of her from the ground when they finally saw her below it. She may have only been in the actual steam cloud a second or two, and by the time a decision could be made to go missed, could be right back out of it. The slower than normal approach, and possible imminent stall, may have the most to do with this. Great analysis here. Whether it was the slow airspeed or decaying performance due to the steam cloud (or both) for some reason, behind the power curve is no place to be. In the end, most of the time there is margin for these kinds of errors. That's why these obstacles are not supposed to encroach into the approach path like that. If we all flew perfect approaches every time we could tighten up all the current TERPS requirements. Unfortunately, in this case the stacks removed the margin of error and I think that's where the legal problems arise for the city and the potato plant. Would the light have mattered if it were the proper one? We don't know. Would the proper markings and paint have made a difference? We don't know. Maybe, but maybe not. Unfortunately, for the potato plant, that negligence is probably going to cost them.
@johnaclark1 I agree with every word you wrote except the last sentence. I have no sympathy for the potato company or city: -Unfortunately, f- For the potato plant (and city), that negligence -is probably going to- should cost them.
@@Paul1958R I don't have any sympathy for them either but It's still unfortunate for the potato plant. There's another guy on here who is all about how the potato plant is the life blood of the town and do I want them to go under? Really? Like, who cares? I understand small town, big businesses like that. I used to work for one but when you screw up, you're going to pay the consequences.
When man and machine are involved in my opinion there has to be a margin for error. I dont think there is anyone that hits their marks 100% correctly every time. The next pilot that hits that stack is going to be a highly experienced pilot with tons of hours I guarantee you. None of us including the investigators where inside the cockpit, inside her brain, experienced what she was feeling none of that. This could have happened to any pilot.
Absolutely and that is why instrument approaches have substantial protected airspace around the perfect approach path. Yes, we all should fly every approach with the needles centered and be no more than 1’ off of the localizer and glide path. However, that simply isn’t possible and is why we have significant tolerances protected around the perfect path. And that is why the FAA should have zero tolerance for obstructions that penetrate these buffers around the approach path.
One of the things we need to understand here is that the pilot regularly flew in and out of that airfield and was well aware of the stacks having avoided them many times. Something happened on the accident flight that was different and maybe the runway condition made her alter the normal approach speed as she was trying to land with the less than ideal stopping conditions. It obviously didn't work out and is why things like the obstructions shouldn't be there taking away the margin of error. I'd imagine that the lawsuit is going to be expensive for the airport operators and potato company as much sympathy will be shown for the pilot.
I don’t think there is any question that pilot error was the primary cause of this crash. Similarly, pilot error was the primary cause of the two 737MAX crashes also. However, Boeing sure took a lot of heat for the MCAS issue. Similarly, this potato plant company should take a lot for heat for their stack issues. If we only look at the pilot error factor in airplane crashes, we will lose a lot of opportunities to eliminate a lot of future accidents. I believe it is imperative to take the Dan Gryder approach and look at the entire ecosystem of each crash and look for ALL opportunities to improve flight safety, not just the narrow-minded focus on the pilot that most RUclipsrs seem to take.
There are plenty of folks that focus on the 'big' picture. What I'm concerned with is focusing on the tools that will keep individual pilots alive. I can't tilt at all the windmills out there, but I can focus on the important lessons to be learned at the individual level. There are two issues involved in any accident. In the USAF there is a Safety investigation... that is what I do, and after that there is an Accident Investigation that looks at rooting out fault. I don't mix the two.
I agree with Scott. Ever since it became clearer what her actual flightpath was very late in the approach, it seemed that if zero stacks existed, she was on a trajectory to hit the building. And there's another building closer to the river edge to hit if not GSP's. She might be alive, but I think she was at that point near-doomed to hit /something/ and crash.
Anything to point the finger away from the pilot. There was responsibility on both ends of this accident. That's the point of this video. For anyone over the age of six, the world shouldn't be a question of either-or.
Scott, many thanks for pressing on with your analysis. It seems that some people have nothing better to do than respond to something on the internet they clearly do not understand. Your channel is the best we pilots have for hangar talk these days and I know I personally benefit from your presentations. Illegitimi Non Carborundum!
I never bought the density altitude postulate from the steam cloud. You are correct, the steam gets to atmospheric temperature rapidly. BUT it is a mass of microscopic water droplets just like real cloud or fog, so could have exacerbated the icing issue, causing a loss of lift on top of the efforts of the pilot to slow down so she could stop on the contaminated runway. Unfortunately, you are correct, as soon as she lost visual with the runway in the steam cloud, a go around should have been executed. And/or if the stall warning blared, go around. From the detailed analysis in the docket, from which you pulled some graphs, she let it get too slow and too low on the second approach and the stack was not visible until 3 seconds before impact. Tragic mistakes by this young pilot, although I do hold EPA, FAA and the company erecting the stacks as contributing factors. EPA forced higher stack heights on the company, who lied to FAA after they said the stacks were a hazard to navigation. And the instrument approach should have been deleted or inactivated at the same time the VASI was disabled when FAA pulled support for the airport, etc, etc. This pilot erred in her second approach and those errors were fatal, but the incident stack and the 6 stacks in front of it, which are the same height and closer to the runway, are clearly extremely close to the desired visual approach path and a mere 50-100 feet of deviation means death - is unacceptable on the parts of the EPA, FAA and the company.
Good report Scott. I watched all three other investigation reports to which you refer. I prefer yours because I think it highlights the logical pragmatic keys. As someone with extensive high performance Cessna experience, no flaps approaches raise the deck angle and bleeds airspeed aggressively and a bit uncomfortably. I agree with you that the steam likely had more to do with turbulence than loss of lift, it definitely tosses you around a bit but doesn't cause a material loss of lift. I'm pretty sure the steam had little to no impact on her altitude loss aside from perhaps the distraction. I believe she was trying to solve her variables/problems intelligently but her solutions (or those dictated by SOP) likely produced many other collateral risks. Your examination of the braking distance likely factored in to her decision criteria which seems particularly relevant. But for me, given we don't often perform no flap approaches, especially in poor conditions, it's logical that this produced dynamics (be it feel or visual) that caused her to drift below MDA, keeping in mind everything changes with no flaps, be it deck angle, power, speed, sound, etc. My question is was there any evidence of icing on the flying surfaces, because if not, I might've used at least 10 degrees of flaps from the FAF -- the reason being is the visual benefit and speed stability/management outweigh my concern over momentary ice accretion in the short final phase (especially given that big wing/leading edge). In this regard the SOP is particularly relevant. Regardless, it's clear that she was just trying to perform the task at hand to her best capability and while she may have made many of the right choices, the execution just wasn't adequate and a go around was required. RIP.
RE: Ice. From the NTSB Final Report --- "An examination of the wreckage conducted within hours of the accident revealed no indications of structural ice on the wreckage. The flap actuator exhibited 6.6 inches of exposed threads, consistent with flaps fully retracted. The airplane had an S-1 Icing Supplement to the Pilot’s Operating Handbook that was applicable to ... the accident airplane. The airplane’s two approaches to runway 20, conducted in temperatures below 5° C in light snow, met this definition of “icing conditions”... The limitations in the Icing Supplement included a minimum airspeed of 95 knots indicated airspeed (KIAS) flaps up, and 85 KIAS at flaps 10°-20°, and maximum 20° flap setting for landing." Also, "The last ... (ADS-B) equipment plot recorded the airplane about a mile past this [stepdown] fix, or about 0.6 nautical miles (nm) from the displaced threshold, on the glide path, and at an estimated *85 knots* calibrated airspeed (KCAS), which was slower than the airplane’s 95-knot minimum speed for flaps up in icing conditions. The Low Airspeed Awareness System (LAA) is designed to warn the pilot when airspeed falls below 97.5 knots while operating in icing conditions, then the BELOW ICING MIN SPD annunciator will flash and the stall horn will sound until the speed is increased above 97.5 knots."
G'day Scott, Yay Team ! "Snap/Click !" I, too, had to upload an addit. to a freshly posted Video this week...(!). For about 6 years every time a pair of Work Gloves "died" it was a dead Left-hand unit, and I'd been puzzled into making a movie telling of my bewilderment as to how I'd killed 5 Left Gloves in a row. 3 hours after uploading, While picking up Split Firewood, the "Penny dropped"...; and I Had to eat my Humble pie... Which I duly did. As did you. I dunno if Dan the (Wannabe) Man has yet hatched an explanation for his diametrically opposing statements regarding the Purloined Chimney Lamp. He stole it, or He stole it not....? Vital Evidence, or A lump of junk, that Mattered not...? And, in the end, what led to that crash was apparently not the Steam, and not the Lamp... Regardless of Dan doing Public-Relations Handstands around a Light-Fitting, while attempting to draw attention to himself. What killed that Pilot was the exact Normalisation of Deviance Which you have been highlighting for years (decades probably, but I haven't known of you that long.). The Pilot was prepared to fly a Suicidally stupid Approach because she was a Dangerous DEVIANT who considered herself to be quite "Normal"... Because - within her own little social Kettle of interactions with her actual Peers (ie, "all" the other people who habitually fly Single-Pilot Night & IFR Cargo Frights into Airports which have been encroached on by outspreading Suburbia, and become all built up and around, and surrounded by Industrial Smokestacks, Wires, Poles, Buildings & Fences ....). To them, apparently, it has become Perfectly "Normal" to stagger and grope about the cloudy Sky, Nose high, Feeling gently for the Threshold as the Smokestacks go by... Otherwise, some other Hours-hungry Time-builder will be invited to take the next Load - and the duly cautious student practitioner of prudently professionally good Airmanship ("AirPersonShip" ?) will be left flipping Burgers in YuckDonalds for a living.... And, thus, the Cost-cutting Profit-squeezing Schedule-worshipping Busyness Community who CHOOSES to encourage exactly such Cowboy attitudes to operational Flight Safety - because most of the time they do indeed "Get away with it..." (!). And when they don't - then (that's when) the Compulsory Hull Insurance & Public Risk Insurance..., WILL Cover whatever Financial Damage is caused..., While fighting over the consequences in Court, and everything will be eventually blamed on the ubiquitous "Pilot Error"... And, not only but also..., if the Aeroplanes don't get to crash, occasionally, then ALL of the money spent in paying "Premiums"...; would have Bin-Wasted....! (Hmmmnnn ?). And, then, when Those two Co-Dependantly dysfunctional Nesting-sets of Normalised Deviants (Three, if ye count the Insurance Company...?) are already daily dancing on the very hairy edge of spontaneous Sudden Death... That's when a completely different and independant set of Deviants - in this case devoted to processing Potatos has, Apparently, Normalised the process of taking a "Near enough Is Good Enough...: (For Government Work...!)" Attitude to observing the Actual Height of their little (Phallic ?) Extensions onto their Chimneys' Penetration Of the bottom Of the Protected Airspace, within the Runway's designated, mapped, defined and Officially authorised Approach "Funnel"...; Because, apparently, the Professional Potato Processors all take the same attitude to their Industry's Insurance Premiums, as do the Schedulers over at "Dodgy-Brothers FlyByNight Cargo-Fright & Air-Freight Services - Dead On Time, Occasionally....(!)". In the best book of Godtheories, it tells therein that, "The only true 'Sin' or 'Satan', is Selfishness..." (!). And..., hereinat I see a mob of selfish Wannabe Airline Pilots- all competing for Work to build hours in their Logbooks. I see a selfish bunch of Administrators and Busyness-people who all want to make money, to "get ahead", doing SOMETHING for a Profit (pretty much anything will do - as long as it PAYS...). I see a bunch of selfish Freight Customers who all want their Packages delivered rigorously on-schedule and ideally almost for free... I see a bunch of selfish Potato Processors who all care very much about how to make their Factory run more smoothly ; and they have apparently fantasised about how their little Chimneys would suck & vent much more better(er) if only they were longer - And then they maybe wondered, "Who's ever goanna get worked up and cranky over a trifling dozen feet, or two, or three dozen - even ; of a bit of Pipe poking up slightly too high, Into the FAA's Sky...?" And...., In the final finish, the Potato-Processor's Lawyers will probably quite successfully (Suck Cess Fully ?) Blame the local Town/City Council's Planning Department, For having approved each and every Extension to all of those Illegally-high Chimneys... And all up and down the line, every single self-motivated, self-serving, self-interested, Self-promotiong individual Bit-Player, and Participant within the whole and entire Sad sorry sordid grimy greedy grasping SELFISHLY Normally Deviant little Plot and Play and tragic Drama thus enacted upon the great Stage of Life..., If asked ; Would honestly attest to their having been seriously trying, the whole the time, To "Do The Right Thing..., As they see things, from their personal perspectives, as informed and illuminated by the light of their own experience and training and belief-system. (Which is why Einstein stated that life is ALL Relative, and Observer-Oriented...? {!} ). While making money, And Getting ahead.... One finds it difficult to avoid the grimly macabre conclusion Scott, that The System IS WORKING...precisely & EXACTLY AS IT HAS BEEN ALLOWED TO EVOLVE So to function.... Did the Fate of the Free World REALLY depend on that Lady landing her Freight, right there, just(ifiably ?) then...? What was she actually carting around, for whom, anyway ? Perhaps..., it might help to sort this stuff out if an old WW-2 vintage "Home Front" Wall Poster was resurrected, printed up and displayed beside every Portal leading from "Groundside" to "Airside", in the fencing alongside every Runway on the Planet... "Is this Journey REALLY Necessary...?" Perhaps maybe, possibly, (Pissabubblie even)..., if that was the last thing which Everyone saw, as they approached their Flying Machine of choice ; then more Flyers might start to ACTUALLY Think about what they are doing - before they blunder blindly into breaking Aeroplanes, hurting or killing themselves, and any passengers on board, frightening and perhaps injuring or killing other people entirely...; all because they had been Self-righteously & sanctimoniously Pleasing Them SELF, in what they were doing, And why they were doing it.... All the best Godtheories Are noted to inexorably Punish the wilfully Selfish...; In the long run. So say the Statisticians. Apparently. I gave up trying to "Get away with..." such Selfish stupid bullshit, Decades ago....; Trying to take off Downwind in an Ultralight Motorglider in 1992 - was probably a major step in my own Learning-Curve (?). Some people (and I was one) will persistently regard each and every Near Miss as being "Evidence" of their own "Exceptionality", regarding Pesky Safety Rules.... Normalisation of Deviance + Delusions of Grandeur Sure can be a heady mix... Right up until the Fencepost comes into the Cockpit, smacks into the Rudderbar, and breaks one's Ankle... A Chimney through the Right Wing though, while groping for the Threshold - must have been a very nasty bloody Wake-up Call...! R.I.P. And..., is anybody running a Sweepstakes Pool - on how long before Dan The (Wannabe) Man gets himself (savagely) pulled into line, by Officialdom ? Such might probably prove to become a profitable Investment ? (lol). Such is life, Have a good one... Stay safe. ;-p Ciao !
Now I'm just that much more confused by the "controversy." Yes, it's bad that the stacks were where they were (I've worked on modifications to structures around, let's call it "a major airport" and we took the FAA's limitations as gospel.) But fundamentally, the pilot got too low on that approach. What's useful to me to be more safe? Things are squirrely low down (steam/fog is obscuring the view? stall horn!?!?) full power and go around. Also, the nose can obscure important stuff just below you. From my limited experience so far, landing at only straightforward airports, that simulation view was an important "Ah ha!" for me. Further out for me as I'm not about to fly in conditions like this pilot was expected to manage, those likely decisions and tradeoffs to address the concern about icing (flaps up) versus setting up to land on a short, snowy runway combined make for the risky situation of lower airspeed low to the ground than was a good idea - something to avoid even when there aren't obstacles right on the centerline!
All this is well and good, and I respect your calm down-to-earth discussions. However, there is NO WAY in heaven or hades that that is an acceptable approach with those smokestacks and what probably are POOR lights on them. Nobody on earth can convince me otherwise. I do listen to you though I agree they dodged at LEAST one of the major issues. Yes, yes, yes, she should have gone around. Under those COMMON conditions EVERYBODY should. That means that approach is more or less dangerous and UNUSABLE probably what, 40 percent of the time?. Where am I wrong here Scott? 'cause I WILL listen to YOU (not the peanut gallery tho).
I think your conclusion was probably as close as anyone is going to get. There were a lot of extenuating factors that caused this accident, but regardless whether she was a little off the glide angle, she should have not paid with her life! It was a trap waiting to happen and Gem Potatoes knew it was questionable, and so did the FAA. They are as equally responsible for setting the trap as Gem Potatoes, mostly because of their reluctance to do their actual job. If there was any way to right the wrongs in this fiasco it would be to fire the entire bureaucracy of FAA and NTSB and start over! Gem Potatoes still has to go to bed at night, and I doubt they sleep well, if they have a conscience!
Yup. This is pretty clear cut from an ADM perspective. Folks like to find, for lack of a better term, excuses for the pilot in an accident. I like to figure out what I need to do or avoid doing so that I don't end up in the same position. The 737 MAX Ethiopia accident, for example... The abnormal didn't doom the airplane. The crew failed to disable cockpit automation (Any runaway pitch, for WHATEVER reason, calls for disconnecting the pitch trim. It shouldn't be a big deal. It's the same in a Cessna 172SP trainer that rolls off the line today.). They also failed to retard the throttle when the windshield was full of planet earth instead of blue sky. In this case, it was CRM that failed... In short, we are ultimately responsible for flight safety.
I have Meta AI on my phone (Whatsapp) and I'll ask it to list airports of a similar nature. Perhaps other viewers with access to other large language models could do the same. If AI becomes really useful and informed decisions can be made about high risk activities and situations there are going to be powerful people who are going to be naysayed in real time. Watch out for the fireworks when the computer says "no"!. ps Meta AI provided eight others in the US with 'smokestack approaches' and a 'please note' that the list might not be exhaustive.
Scott: You and Juan Brown both make excellent points and analyses of this incident. I am no pilot, but I continue to be bothered by the fact that, after the 2nd FAA study was released [that made a determination that a Hazard to Air Navigation did exist by the presents of the steam stacks], IIRC, more than 5 years had elapsed between the release of that study - mandating orange & red painting and obstruction lighting of ALL of the stacks - and date of the accident. As of the accident date, only 1 stack had obstruction lighting installed, no stacks were painted. While painting & lighting in full accordance may have had no bearing on this accident [She had exceeded the MDA minimums] why was no subsequent enforcement action taken by the FAA when the plant owners failed to comply with the study's directives? Why was there no "timely" follow up by the FAA to ensure compliance? Yes, the parties will litigate this situation out in court, but how many other non compliant HAN sites are out there? As a pilot, I would be concerned. HAN non-compliance could prove extremely relevant in a separate, future accident elsewhere. I am interested in your thoughts. Thank you for hearing me out.
@@larryevans2806 Not so fast on that one friend. And I am a pilot. Let the other guys give their opinion. We should be happy that a "civvi" is even interested. Might just be for the interesting legal aspect. No reason to "I can tell you aren't a pilot." So what. I bet you my plane is bigger than yours. Parochial, you left an astute analysis for us. Appreciate it. My sense...the Potatoes are going to lose this one. They didn't listen to instructions and are are going to be turned into fries.
Sounds to me the stack should have not been there in the first place. Also, the "steam cloud" probably obscurred the stack, which should have been included in the FAA study of the placement of the damned thing in the first place ! The FAA is responsible here... no doubt about it, considering all the dubious "facts" in the totality of the case...
The pilot still busted procedure. There is nothing dubious about that. It's a fact, regardless of any other agendas out there. The stack shouldn't have been there. The pilot shouldn't have been there either. That's the point. To point all the fingers at one cause of a tragedy while ignoring the others is simply not honest. Scott is giving an honest appraisal here.
As far as I can figure the FAA did all they could within their jurisdiction. There were lengthy meets between the two city councils (one on each side of the river) in which the FAA gave clear guidance as to what is needed. They for sure brought the horse to the river but it refused to drink. That's going to make the check even bigger.
@@charlesfaure1189 Unfortunately, He's comparing apples to oranges here,,, defending the undefindable as Zorro would say... If the stack weren't there, there would be no there, there. Quite simple...
@@apfelsnutz Good lord. He is by no means 'defending the undefendable' here. He is--and read carefully--not saying the position of the factory/stacks in relation to the runway was not a factor in the accident. It obviously was. He's not defending the obviously dangerous obstacle that shouldn't be there (or the runway shouldn't be.) He is asserting that it isn't either-or. He doesn't see the world like a seven-year old. If she hadn't busted procedure, the fact that the stack was there would have been irrelevant. Pilots can't move obstacles! Pilots have to avoid them! That's what minimum altitude/glide slope regulations are there for. Sheesh.
I am surprised that the stack discharge temperature and moisture content isn't given. It is from some process in the plant and is probably fairly consistent. The NTSB statement that it matters within 200 feet, but not over that is weird, as it would be a gradient, mattering progressively less as it cools and mixes. I'm guessing, but a discharge temp of 100 F sure would not even seem very hot, but would cause a noticeable performance decrease in anything I've flown. It's an abrupt change from winter conditions, to a hot humid summer day. Not very welcome if you have already made the mistake of getting both slow and low near an obstacle. Not to mention the momentary instrument conditions it caused...if she were counting on visual cues from outside and was a little slow in perceiving any performance loss and increasing descent rate... Little things are adding up- just use of flaps may have enabled her to see it with the reduced required pitch. But, yes, without being too low, no crash.
I just don't see why the FAA didn't design an offset final in the first place. A direct straight-in final course just doesn't make sense here. All you need is a mis-calibrated altimeter or a an error in reporting the altimeter setting, and this could have been dangerous for any pilot in low IFR conditions.
NO! Why would the FAA have to do that? Leave the MDA only when you have the runway continuously insight. The Caravan pilot should not have been operating below the MDA in the weather conditions present at the time. Imagine if we had to remove every danger on every non precision approach. 86' agl, 0.4 nm from the runway is on the pilot in this case, not the approach.
@@Cmoredebris Is there any other approach angle where the glideslope is less than 100ft above an obstacle? From what I've read, FAA is not ok with this and those stacks have been heightened without the FAA approval. Edit: I've turned "other approach" into "other approach angle"
@@BlueSkyUp_EU You are missing the point. You are protected at or above the MDA only. There is no instrument approach below the MDA. You are on your own. You are supposed to be visual and have the runway in sight operating below the MDA.
@@Cmoredebris Are you sure you're not the one missing the point? The final NTSB report says: "The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Aeronautical Information Manual advises pilots to avoid overflight of exhaust stacks" - wdyt is that? Is it because it's safe or unsafe?
I have trouble accepting the idea that the temperature of the vapor cloud was not significantly above the ambient. I still feel that the plane simply lost lift because of this and fell into the stack, A bad situation that should not have been allowed to exist. That being said, we all have 20/20 hindsight.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Hotter gases expand and cooler gases contract. *This creates a difference in the density* - the cooler gas is more dense and the warmer gas is less dense. Wouldn't this be directly related to aerodynamics and to an aircraft performance?
@@BlueSkyUp_EU The cloud is formed because the hot moist steam COOLS. Not to mention that turbine aircraft perform better when there is more moisture in the air. Pilot was close to a stall, flaps up, but cloud would not have degraded lift to the point that the aircraft descended suddenly at a high rate
@@Cmoredebris Have you ever taken a steam bath? Was it cold? There is a reason for which the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Aeronautical Information Manual advises pilots to avoid overflight of exhaust stacks.
1 hour ago @FlyWirescottperdue Scott, I know you are being reasonable here and you are attempting to accomplish the same thing we all are. I regret very much that all of this happened. I am seeing a young pilot lost and a civil war regarding it among some very very good pilots/instructors who are involved in its aftermath. I routinely try to catch all their videos, I trust them, their concept of safety is amazing and I certainly hate that this has occurred. I have always found pilots have a unique, reasonable temperament, especially the old ones. That said - if I could go back prior to Brittney’s final flight and change one thing, I would have been in the Burley city hall and potato processing plant offices with a request to ask the Boise FAA office to do one more inspection and review of this particular approach before publishing. I feel UPS might agree with me. Yes, I could have warned Brittney but what about the next pilot and the next pilot? This approach should have never been approved or published. Frankly, I could not care less about random steam bursts. My thought process halts on a dime at the end of your statement that the posted approach was a death trap. Change that and I will call it good. //ji John in Oregon
There are two main issues in this accident. I always focus on the pilot actions. The other issue is fault. It seems the majority of GA pilots lump these two things together and let that dictate their view of the accident. I follow the USAF model I am familiar with--- the Safety Investigation looks at what happened, what the pilot did and how to fix it so it doesn't happen again. Fault is determined in the Accident Investigation. I typically, do not deal with that at all, I don't see how anything I would say would impact the bureaucracies. My interest is the lessons we can learn to keep future pilots safe. I agree with your comments, but I don't join the scrum of pointing fingers. The FAA allowed this approach to become a deathtrap and that should be fixed.
Scott, Thanks so much for clarifying the “DA” question. Your final analysis of this certainly makes sense to me. Also, thank you for your special calling to analyze these terrible mistakes made by pilots in an effort to make flying safer for all of us! It’s so unfortunate that we learn in some cases by an unfortunate loss of lives that forever change families! Blessings
One summer, I got to fly several patterns at a crop duster's personal strip. The first couple of landings, I noticed an unanticipated sink rate right as I crossed the end of the runway. I was so close to touchdown that it was easy to compensate for that and land with no issues. Each time around, I got better at anticipating it. Afterward, I was able to put it all together: hot, steamy late summer day, corn field at full height - lots of heat coming off that corn. Not a factor on final until I was maybe 50 feet or less from the top of the corn and then "DA" kicked in. Very good lesson! But, 2 takeaways: not a factor until I was very close to it, and loss of lift after passing over, not before. I agree, seems like it wasn't probably a factor in this tragic accident. Even the best pilots make mistakes.
The one thought I have about the missed approach is this, the MAP on a LNAV approach is typically the Runway Threshhold. So if she did lose altitude after dropping the nose after a stall warning, isn't it entirely conceivable that she chose to go missed but did what we're all taught as far as leveling off and waiting to fly the missed until you reach the MAP? If she was in visual contact to the runway and went below the MDA before encountering the steam cloud, wouldn't the proceedure again be the same? Level off and fly to the MAP. Either of those scenarios seems to be a proper missed approach procedure that would lead her into the stack.
I didn't know about the contaminated surface landing distance aspect. For decisionmaking, it seems like knowing the runway is snowcovered = divert. She learned this on her successful 1st approach. So, electing to try the 2nd and expecting she might need some beta reverse to get stopped = a "cowboy" decision. If I read those graphs right in the video, she flew on-speed for having flaps selected, but she didn't have any out. I wonder if she forgot: either to put the flaps out a bit, or if she never intended to use them, to fly the higher airspeed.
Also this approach calls for the pilot to use a non-standard glide angle of 3.7 degrees vs the standard 3.0 degrees to compensate for the stacks. This situation is an accident waiting to happen and it’s surprising that it didn’t happen sooner.
Scott, thanks for the update on the C208 accident. Like always good job with your continued analyses. I would like to add two things: I hope I don't sound like a Monday quarterback. One, the flaps up icing procedure is for prolonged flight "in icing conditions". If I was not actually picking up ice on the airframe, I would have abandoned the procedure and set my approach flap setting (deck angle) sometime after the FAF and within two minutes from touchdown. Two, most importantly, I always calculated a VDP if one was not published and it became my defacto MAP. A VDP will always provide a safe clear of all obstacles 3 degree glide path to the runway from the MDA. Maintaining MDA +100'/-0' to the VDP will always keep you out of trouble. Thanks for listening.
Extremely thorough analysis, sincerely appreciated. It amazes me how frightening and stressful the flying must be for these young people, building time to qualify for an opportunity to fly large aircraft for the major airlines. Their missions often involve flying situations in order service smaller communities that pilots flying for the majors no longer experience. The majors operate out of larger facilities in aircraft that have all the equipment and performance needed to handle all weather, and because of their mission profile and distances travelled make fewer approaches, instrument or visual, per day I guess it’s called “ paying your dues” and most thankfully are fortunate enough to survive
Mr. Scott Perdue, I appreciate you explaining your prior analysis of this incident, but I am confused about one thing. Was your purpose to "acknowledge a some areas you could have done a better job with, in addition to admitting you missed a few points"? . . or, was your purpose in this video to praise fellow RUclips channeler Mr.Juan Browne?
My purpose was to fill in the gap I missed in the first go. I read the report I mentioned and used part of it in the first video, but I missed the stall warning part. I made a mistake and wanted to fix it. Plus I wanted to talk about the steam cloud/DA rabbit hole.
Too low and too slow is a very bad combination. And as you said, she should have started the missed when hearing the stall warner that low. Multiple poor judgment items.
The big question is why she did not repeat her first approach which was safely performed, had she done so she would be alive today and reverse thrust may have helped her stop within the runway environment.
§ 91.175 Takeoff and landing under IFR. (a) Instrument approaches to civil airports. Unless otherwise authorized by the FAA, when it is necessary to use an instrument approach to a civil airport, each person operating an aircraft must use a standard instrument approach procedure prescribed in part 97 of this chapter for that airport. This paragraph does not apply to United States military aircraft. (b) Authorized DA/DH or MDA. For the purpose of this section, when the approach procedure being used provides for and requires the use of a DA/DH or MDA, the authorized DA/DH or MDA is the highest of the following: (1) The DA/DH or MDA prescribed by the approach procedure. (2) The DA/DH or MDA prescribed for the pilot in command. (3) The DA/DH or MDA appropriate for the aircraft equipment available and used during the approach. (c) Operation below DA/DH or MDA. Except as provided in § 91.176 of this chapter, where a DA/DH or MDA is applicable, no pilot may operate an aircraft, except a military aircraft of the United States, below the authorized MDA or continue an approach below the authorized DA/DH unless- (1) The aircraft is continuously in a position from which a descent to a landing on the intended runway can be made at a normal rate of descent using normal maneuvers, and for operations conducted under part 121 or part 135 unless that descent rate will allow touchdown to occur within the touchdown zone of the runway of intended landing; (2) The flight visibility is not less than the visibility prescribed in the standard instrument approach being used; and (3) Except for a Category II or Category III approach where any necessary visual reference requirements are specified by the Administrator, at least one of the following visual references for the intended runway is distinctly visible and identifiable to the pilot: (i) The approach light system, except that the pilot may not descend below 100 feet above the touchdown zone elevation using the approach lights as a reference unless the red terminating bars or the red side row bars are also distinctly visible and identifiable. (ii) The threshold. (iii) The threshold markings. (iv) The threshold lights. (v) The runway end identifier lights. (vi) The visual glideslope indicator. (vii) The touchdown zone or touchdown zone markings. (viii) The touchdown zone lights. (ix) The runway or runway markings. (x) The runway lights.
Excellent level headed analysis, end of the day it’s called MDA for a reason, terribly unfortunate in a very tricky situation. Not a pilot but shouldn’t all the risk factors in a non-normal descent make you more likely to be ready for a go-around, not less?
I don't know, I'm not buying this take at all. Sure, the approach wasn't good, but that's why we have TERPS. Every pilot gets certain margins within which a mistake doesn't kill you. How perfect should that approach have been exactly? If our answer to every fatal is to fly a perfect approach we won't get too far. In my eyes the blame lies squarely at the feet of whoever allowed that approach to continue to exist once it was known that there are objects penetrating its surfaces. I'm sorry but you can't have multiple obstructions that high directly on the centerline that close to the runway. Remove the approach and then we'll talk. My understanding is that approach still exists today. If another pilot makes a similar mistake and dies in the same way - will Scott make another video arriving at the same conclusion? What about another pilot? And another pilot? How many people must die for us to get interested in why there's a smoke stack on the centerline? Apparently, one is not enough. Let's wait and see.
@@FlyWirescottperdue sure, but the much bigger one is the smoke stack. As long as you're making videos talking about the pilot's mistake and not the smoke stack, NTSB will continue to name the pilot's actions as the cause and the approach chart will remain up. It's still up, Scott.
@@alk672 The cause of the accident is that the pilot flew into the stack. The potato plant, the airport, the town, the FAA and the pilot knew about the stack, its charted. The potato plant is the life blood of the town. Conclusion: The cause of the accident is that the pilot flew into the stack.
@@AlbertHess-xy7ky The report also said that FAA's conditions for providing a safe approach for pilots haven't been met on the day of the flight. So the pilot crashed while flying an instrument approach that is recognized by FAA as being unsafe... Make of this what you want, but it is there, in the report.
@@BlueSkyUp_EU When did the FAA recognize the approach was unsafe? The FAA published this approach. All should have known about the tower. The pilot hit it.
Scott, your analysis is correct from the perspective of pilot actions on a non-precision approach, and that fact cannot be argued! The concern I believe is how in the world was this non-precision approach TERP’d and how was the approach published without displaying the obstacles on the approach plate? Also, if the FAA knew about the stacks and with drew FAA certification for the approach, why wasn’t the approach NOTAM’d as being for VFR training only. Seems to me when municipalities decide to have approach procedures that do not meet FAA requirements then the FAA should have the authority to do something about it. Perhaps this pilot made a critical mistake in bad weather with a steam obscuration that makes seeing a snow covered runway extremely difficult. But knowing in advance there are obstacles and/or that the approach was approved for VFR training only certainly may have caused the pilot to make a different decision on flying that approach.
that is a separate issue and should be addressed... but in my opinion it has only a small part to play in the accident analysis. The lesson to be learned applies to ANY approach for ANY pilot.
I think at the end of the day, if the stacks were not on the final glide slope, would this accident have occurred. She had just shortly before done a low pass OVER the runway. Those stacks should never have been allowed to be built. I state again, the FAA should be required to do soundings of that plant's stack output. AOPA's software is a at best a model, and the assumptions on it's construction does not make it a relevant model for this case. The FAA needs to to do the soundings to collect actual data. I don't think they or the NTSB are up to doing the detailed analysis.
Phillip, if the exact profile had been flown and the stack was not there.... she had 56 feet to recover from the self-induced dive before hitting the roof. In my opinion it is unlikely that any pilot could have corrected an 1100 FPM descent in that amount of space.
Scott; you, Dan, and Juan are all great resources in educating the aviation community and saving lives. let's hope you guys work together going forward. Hoover, help them out. God bless all of you.
They'll hug it out. Dan HAS A VALID POINT regardless of what are perceived by others to be his unorthodox methods. I will give him credit for SHOWING UP AT THE SCENE even when this gets him in trouble. What is his reasoning? TO. SAVE. LIVES. Nothing more, nothing less. And in the process puts himself in occasional legal jeopardy yet ODDLY in a friendly relationship with the surviving families. The other two need to at least acknowledge this approach.. love it hate it or otherwise.
Alot of valid good points, thank you for a response to the issues concerning this accident. That airport should not have imc procedures to land, the potato plant is too close to the runway for those type of procedures. They is no margin for error.
I agree. They removed all margin of error on this approach. We can all Monday morning quarterback Brittney all we want, and call out her errors, but in the end none of us fly perfect approaches. We work to be as accurate as possible but that's why TERPS has margin of error built in. I think that will prove costly for the potato processing plant and possibly the city, as well.
Thanks, Scott. Yes, she possibly should have gone missed at some point. The hard part is determining exactly when on the approach. She certainly was legal to go below the MDA. She had visual and should have had the runway in sight before the steam. Your point about turbulence, though... you might be on to something. She was within 200' of the stack. Could the updraft/downdraft have started the vertical path upset? This was a bad procedure. She was at least somewhat familiar with the approach and the airport because she had just flown that approach a few minutes before. I think I would have flown a visual pattern after the inspection pass.
Great analysis Scott. When I mentioned the density altitude idea, I didn't realize that the pilot may have let her airspeed decay into an incipient stall. That certainly explains the altitude loss (I had my own experience with that on final on a VFR day), and your call that such a situation calls for an immediate missed approach especially in marginal weather on an IFR approach is spot on. Trying to stretch the envelope enough just to "get in" whether it be fuel, marginal weather, trying to sneak through a mountain pass on hot day, etc, has taken a lot of people from us. That urge to stretch the situation should set off alarm bells for all of us that it's time to reevaluate the situation, and seriously consider a more conservative approach that just might keep us alive.
@skyboy1956 Listen to the video again. She was doing a no-flaps icing approach at 95 (I assume knots) kias on the first go, and slower on the second, to minimize required braking on a contaminated, short runway. The slower airspeed necessarily requires a nose-up attitude, which also implies a higher angle of attack. Scott's analysis says she SHOULD have executed a missed approach, not that she was. She was pushing the envelope, trying to get into the field by placing her aircraft dangerously close to a stall. That's in the ASDB data. She probably pulled back on the yoke either when surprised by the sudden appearance of the stack... a natural reaction, and one that would finish entering the stall, or the stall warning horn went off.
@@vernmeyerotto255 all speculation. Unless somebody was in the plane with her, we don't know if she chose to leave flaps up or forgot. 95 kts with flaps up is too slow for an approach in icing. The flaps should have been at 20 unless it was severe icing in which case she shouldn't have been there at all. She had been on the line for less than 2 months. While technically off "high mins" she should have continued to observe higher mins. This was a demanding environment that far exceeded her limited abilities. Should be evident with the less than precise flying.
@skyboy1956 Her use of no flaps would have been in accordance with flight manual procedures. So you're suggesting that no accident reconstruction be performed unless there's a surviving eyewitness?
Scott, your conclusion is pilot error. You understand this means that the approach was deemed safe and acceptable by the FAA. I do not believe this and I don’t believe the agl of the stack was accurately charted. I am a pilot since 1970, of course this means nothing but I did spend most of my adult life in I.T. for city and state government. I have seen and even participated in the poor decision making and subsequent cover ups these folks make routinely. I feel this young pilot trusted her plates and stated procedures without the seasoned distrust and judgement of older pilots. This is NOT pilot error! Frankly stated - I don’t think the FAA gives a damn about sectionals accuracy and safety of general or commercial aviation. I feel she and her family were robbed of her life by allowing approaches like this one to exist. I would not fly this - I don’t think you would either yet she had to do it weekly, in rain,ice,fog,dark and without hesitation. City, state or feds - one or more of them screwed up and cost a family a daughter. If it is ever proven otherwise, I will be the first apology. //ji
Rubin, this os not an either/ or situation. There were major problems with the approach, it was a trap. But the pilot made critical mistakes. By no means this is a condemnation of her. This is a recognition that ANY of us, as pilots, could find ourselves in the same situation. The only real way to honor her is to learn from her mistakes, not sweep them under the rug.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Scott, I know you are being reasonable here and you are attempting to accomplish the same thing we all are. I regret very much that all of this happened. I am seeing a young pilot lost and a civil war regarding it among some very very good pilots/instructors who are involved in its aftermath. I routinely try to catch all their videos, I trust them, their concept of safety is amazing and I certainly hate that this has occurred. I have always found pilots have a unique, reasonable temperament, especially the old ones. That said - if I could go back prior to Brittney’s final flight and change one thing, I would have been in the Burley city hall and potato processing plant offices with a request to ask the Boise FAA office to do one more inspection and review of this particular approach before publishing. I feel UPS might agree with me. Yes, I could have warned Brittney but what about the next pilot and the next pilot? This approach should have never been approved or published. Frankly, I could not care less about random steam bursts. My thought process halts on a dime at the end of your statement that the posted approach was a death trap. Change that and I will call it good. //ji John in Oregon
Lots of blaming in the comments and lots of should haves. I know what you’re trying to do and say Scott but honestly you really have no idea what happened and blaming the pilot on this awful tragedy is unwarranted. I’m done with all these accident videos.
Personally, I like that Dan Gryder looks for things that other people tend to overlook, and is skeptical of the authorities, rather than falling in line.. I'm sure that multiple things happened to cause this accident, not just one factor. It's tragic, and anything done to bring awareness to any part of it is good. The FAA definitely has a problem with corruption and incompetence, so it's not too far off to be skeptical of their findings.
Excellent update. Certainly the stacks being anywhere near the end of a runway is something that should never have been tolerated. Pilots make mistakes, but this one should not have been automatically fatal. Nevertheless, here the pilot made a mistake, or rather, more than one. Businesses will learn nothing from this, because business is about money and not about lost lives (the cigarette and alcohol industries exist.) Local governments will learn nothing, because the truth is they are largely controlled by business interests (forget the politics, it's a simple and obvious truth.) And most pilots will learn nothing, because like the rest of us, the natural attitude is "it can't happen to me." But if by this video you save even one life, it's more than worth it. I hope that one (or more) sees it. Godspeed.
Just a thought, but having a stack can't be the only way of venting steam. In this day and age I'm sure there is an engineering solution like an enclosed cooling tower like thing at ground level which might even recover their water.
I have a question: If the simulations found the stack light to be aligned with the runway, wouldn't be possible that as long as she saw that stack light she believed she still had the runway in sight? That would explain why no go arund has been initiated.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Thanks for your reply! Imo, it doesn't matter what any of us believe as long as no tests are being conducted. I wonder...Have the simulations concluded that the light wasn't visible? Did anyone flew that approach while the light on, in similar weather conditions, and determined that the light is indeed not visible while descending on the glideslope? A life has been lost and is not prudent to assume what the pilot saw or did not see while flying her last approach. Some evidence, be it circumstantial, is required in order to support any theory.
@@BlueSkyUp_EU The guy responsible for making sure the light worked testified that he had to check it early in the morning, while still dark, because it couldn't be seen during the day time.
Maybe a local BYI pilot can tell me why runway 24 is not used more especially in low visibility conditions. There are a whole lot less obstacles and is more inline with the prevailing wind.
The young lady was simply trying too hard to land at the airport and ended up letting her plane get too low. If she had flown the approach correctly or gone missed approach, she wouldn't have hit the stack. She just let the circumstances get the best of her. All the if's, and's, and but's won't bring her back. All we can do is try to keep it from happening again.
Listening to your comments I went and fetched the docket...and began pawing through it. This is one of the most poorly written incident final analyses I have ever read. There is no way whatsoever that staying above MDA would have saved her bacon in all variations of this situation. The only repeatable known safe viable solution was to go to an alternate upon finding the runway fouled in icing conditions. From an engineer's perspective, I'll explain... (1) To land safely on the fouled runway she needs to go slower so she has adequate stopping distance (without uncontrolled skidding). (2) Going slower in icing conditions is itself more risky as the condition of the airframe may change rapidly. There are ways to mitigate this, however... (2a) Going slower when the plane is configured for icing conditions triggers the Low Airspeed Awareness (LAA) annunciator and indicators-EVEN WHEN THE AIRPLANE IS CONFIGURED CORRECTLY FOR THE CHOSEN AIRSPEED. The LAA is documented as being HARD SET at 97.5 KIAS. (2b) More disturbingly, the LAA USES THE STALL WARNING ANNUNCIATOR for a second purpose. While a closely related purpose, something as important as the stall warning annunciator should never do double-duty as the response to it is an expected reflexive memory item. (2c) Given that pilots are then also told to silence and / or ignore the LAA in certain configurations they are being set up for failure...as they are effectively being told to ignore the stall warning. (2d) She would therefore have not had any reliable warning as she slowed if she had indeed not engaged the flaps (causing her to drive AOA too high). (3) When she actually did cause the airplane to descend at an excess rate, and leave the glide path, it very well could have been while she was attempting to execute a missed approach according to the book guidance (provided in the docket). The configuration changes needed to do so would likely have re-triggered the LAA, OBSCURING ANY STALL WARNING-introducing additional confusion and even panic even when not in a stall. (4) Alas, we'll never know what sequence her final actions occurred in as Part 135 STILL does not require an onboard flight data recorder (something all new automobiles are effectively required to have at this point). Therefore we cannot know if she truly had not been attempting to use the flaps at all or if she had retracted them early in a panic caused by the LAA blaring in her ear during an attempted missed approach procedure. (5) As an added insult, instead of moving the displaced threshold further away from the obstructions (and therefore effectively raising the glideslope above them) the VASI was removed (as it would be unreliable due to being hard to see through the obstructions). I understand they wouldn't want to make the usable length of the runway any shorter than was already forced by airspace obstructions, but given there's no meaningful replacement it was yet another hole punched through the cheese. Major design errors cause deaths and these are clearly some of them, linked with a procedure, from the manufacturer, that by design normalized deviance, further increasing the likelihood of an incident. Yet, no mention of this horrific set of design choices was made in the final report's findings. That's malpractice so far as I'm concerned as this is a set of design decisions as bad as allowing a patient to be hit with excessive X-Rays just because somebody mindlessly punched the "OK" button. Coupled with the regulatory failures this incident detailed a truly toxic brew. This is why I conclude that pinning the early departure from MDA on the pilot as a primary cause of the incident is wrong headed. It might not have saved her anyway.
It's good you went through the Docket. One important correction, I never said the Approach design was fine. In fact I have said it is a Trap. I see any Accident Investigation as two separate issues. I've said this before, too bad you missed it. My background is the USAF method of accident investigation. The first one, completed in 30 days, is the Safety Investigation which focuses on pilot actions, Probable Causes and recommendations. Finding the unvarnished truth about what happened and how we might avoid it in the future. The second one, called the Accident Investigation, starts right after that and focuses on Fault. I don't focus on Fault. I am more interested in Pilot Actions and Lessons Learned because the NTSB never addresses this, much less anyone else. There is not enough time, nor do I have the resources to cover all the bases. From my perspective what affects us, individually as pilots, is what I need to address. And you are quite correct in observing the NTSB does not address the systemic problems that create safety traps like this approach. This pilot made mistakes that put her in this position. It doesn't matter who she is, I think that it is possible that any pilot in the same situation could make the same decisions, with the same result. Her mistake doesn't make her a bad pilot, or a bad person, or any different from you and I. I think what is important is to learn the lessons she has to teach, it is the only way to truly honor her. It's to bad she didn't have a discussion covering this topic in her background, or a mentor who clued her in. Maybe she wouldn't have made those mistakes. The faults with the approach do not absolve her from her mistakes. Nor does detailing the actions that led directly to the collision with the tower absolve the folks who designed and published the approach. It's not an either/ or situation.
Thanks for the update. Bottom line.. if the pulsing steam stack surprise wasn't there, in your world, would the accident have actually happened ... the drop in indicated air speed entering the heated steam blob would be noticeable as negative on the steady state descent at a given power and pitch setting ( as you alluded to re: density altitude, and the resluting drop in altitude) ... It wouldn't have time to cool having just been discharged.
If the stack wasn’t there, but if everything else happened as it did. Then she had about 56’ to recover from the 1100 FPM descent before hitting the roof.
@@FlyWirescottperdue 56 feet is nothing. It's theoretically enough but you have to have test pilot skills with ample warning of the event to get that kind of max performance. Those stacks reduced the margin of error to virtually nothing.
So, she pulled off the intentional "look see" on the first pass (I've done that many times in many years of Ice piloting in the Arctic, some no flap stuff in icing, etc), at a higher Vref, no flaps.. and then on the go around, knowing some snow or whatever on the short runway, with a different mindset the second time, and slowed to the frothline speed, knowing it was going to be visual at MDA, a sight picture in her head... a bit over confident maybe, then surprise "poof!! " the steam shot in the face. As you say, shouda coulda not done that... There but for the grace of god and the toss of a coin could have been me on occasion. In the High Arctic stuff, I took off with full tanks many times, over gross because the odds of dying from that were far better than running out of gas on trips with no alternate within gross range and dying a slow frozen death after putting it down on the tundra.... weather information was useless most of the time.
..one further observation, that I'm sure most here know, is that single pilot IFR is much tougher than it looks. Most of my time was done that way. Transition from the gauges for landing, dumping the autopilot near MDA/DH when you can see where you are headed visually (if you aren't hand flying already) takes a few seconds. If you get a sudden post loss of visibility as you are heading downhill hand flying into a surprise bag of steam popping up suddenly, it will definite take a few seconds to get head down and locked back on to the gauge scan. When you only have say 100 feet to get sorted Head back Down fast is no small feat, and it's a lonesome feeling in that cockpit. Add the steeper 3.7 degree downhill momentum, and there you go. I'm guessing that the windshield would go white /foggy if it was below freezing hitting that saturated steam with a cold airplane. Surprise Transition back to head down is not instant, especially when you aren't expecting it. That's why many single IFR types do the "look see" pass and go around in the first place.
Thanks for your follow up. I've got some important things going on today so will have to give this more attn. later. Agree how could all these stacks have been built on final approach to begin with? Decision makers in that town must have been inhaling potato gas for too long -
If its water vapour why don't they condense it and recover some of its heat then everyone happy, stacks are a lazy option. As far as I see, any visible vapour has different density to surrounding air.
Stopping should not have been a problem because the Caravan has a fully reversible propeller. I currently fly a Pilatus and have many thousands of hours flying with the PT6 engine equipped airplanes and they stop rapidly using full reverse.
Thanks Scott for a thorough update and very wise words. Great video thankyou! PS. There was mention somewhere that a bystander heard a power increase just before the collision. If this is true, I am guessing Brittany had begun to realise her predicament of excessive descent rate and low altitude from flying too slow on the approach.
100% agree with you, Scott, as a former C208 driver with hundreds of hours SPIFR flying similar runs. Steam cloud, orange paint, stack, light, approach safety area penetrations, etc, etc. - NONE of that would have been an issue at all UNLESS one flies well below glidepath from a reasonable visual descent from MDA!
There is a reason that margin of error is built in to instrument approaches and TERPS requirements. Nobody here flies a perfect approach. If you say you do, you're lying to yourself and everyone else. Everyone gets "a little high" or "a little low" on final. You even get a little slow or a little fast. All flying is a series of corrections...the smaller the better. TERPS requirements are designed in to allow for a reasonable margin of error. The stacks encroached and removed that margin of error. Was she too low? Of course, that's pretty obvious. Something happened for her to get too low so quickly...within just a few seconds. We can only speculate on what. It will be pretty easy to convince a jury she would have successfully landed without incident had those stacks, improperly lighted and improperly marked, not been there. Had the potato plant marked and lit them properly it may not have prevented this but they could have saved themselves a lot of money in what I expect to be an expensive legal battle. My guess is that to properly light and mark them would admit they shouldn't be there in the first place.
@@johnaclark1 Ducking out of the overcast well beneath the glide path is not "something happening to you." It is a mistake, and in this case she seems to have made it. Can we be sure? No. Maybe Dr. Evil hit her with a ray gun. Maybe God just decided to call her home. Maybe a thousand things. But the lesson for pilots is abundantly clear: Don't bust procedures.
DPE gave me good advice on my instrument checkride. I was dead on the MDA on an approach, his comment, nothing wrong with being a dot or two high. Don’t be low.
Don't you mean OK to be a couple of feet high at the MDA? There is no GS on a non precision approach. Garmin does offer an advisory GS function, but it is not to be used as primary guidance. Operating below an MDA is visual only.
I am not sure we can say that a missed approach hadn’t been initiated. The attitude of the airplane in the image shortly before impact suggests to me that a missed approach may have been as likely as was a last minute evasive maneuver. No way we will ever know, but I don’t think it appropriate to assume that a missed approach wasn’t being made when loss of contact occurred due to the steam.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Not an opinion, but a fact. We have no way to know what that pilot did in the seconds before impact without a voice and data recorder, neither of which is on this airplane. We don’t know if she simply flew into the stack, if she saw the stack and tried to evade it or if she recognized she was below the MDA and initiated a missed approach too late. Suggesting we know is an opinion. Saying we don’t know is the fact.
@@LTVoyager Actually, LT we do know a lot of the things you claim we don't, or have no way of knowing. The video shows the airplane did fly into the stack. It was not maneuvering or climbing. There is no evidence of going missed, power was on, but not at high rpm. She had to know she was below the MDA... she was on profile for the descent on the VDA, until the last few seconds. To say anything else says she was a bad pilot and I don't think that was the case at all. I'm sorry and understand you want it to be another way. There are huge problems with the approach and obstacles. But none of that absolves the pilot of her mistakes. I see that you don't like it. I would suggest that understanding her mistakes is a legacy that can save lives. It is my contention that virtually any of us could find ourselves in the same situation. We honor her by learning from her mistakes. My own father died in an airplane accident, that could have been prevented, that doesn't mean I think he was a bad person, or an inferior pilot. He made a bad choice and I have learned from it. This is not an either or situation.
IMO, the aircraft probably would've then impacted the next "Group of Six Stacks" that were only "about 200 ft southwest" and just BARELY off the aircraft's flight path from the impacted stack (as seen in the photo at 4:00 in Mr. Perdue's video). The same question could be analyzed if ALL the stacks were removed. The roof of the Gem Plant is about 33 ft. AGL (approximated from Figure 2 "Copy of engineering drawing of the Agglomerate stack" in NTSB Docket Item #41). The aircraft's altitude at impact with the stack was 86 ft AGL --- or about 54 ft above the Gem Plant roof.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Making a lot of excuses for the moneyed but zero for the poor Girl just starting out. I am sure you were perfect but been in this game far to long to think anyone is.
I was making flippant, oblique reference to the whole "steam" issue. As you point out, Law is Law. IMHO, if YOU say something about this sort of business, it's gospel. At the end of the day, a girl died, for what? Money? It wasn't Life Flight. I may have dropped the mitts too soon in an effort to poke at these clowns who stir the pot, just to do it. You spend all this time and energy to help everyone, and instead of just listening, they poke at you????? It's maddening, and frankly, it's ignorant and rude. Grrrrrrrrr... You know your business and "they" should STFU. That's all.
Thank you Scott. Great breakdown. The image you showed at 3:38 is the best one I've seen so far. It's taken at a position and altitude that really captures the relationship of the position and height of the smokestacks, relative to the runway. My sense is that both you and the other RUclipsr are making valid points, but most accidents have contributing factors of varying degrees and I agree that the BIGGEST error and contributing factor (and also the biggest takeaway in order to avoid making the same mistake) was made when the pilot busted minimum altitude. Your hunch that that was done intentionally to avoid runway overrun sounds like it's right on the money. As you also pointed out, I would add violating DMMS as the other major contributor, but that in all likelihood was also about not running off the runway. From the perspective of adhering to AQP training, in order to avoid making bad decisions in an emergency or borderline emergency situation; it would seem that no training had been done that anticipated a scenario such as this. I'm a huge fan of AQP and I doubt that any pilot who ISN'T is practicing and planning for all the emergency situations that they should. Thanks again Scott. Excellent work.
@@skyboy1956 There is no FORMAL or OFFICIAL version of AQP for GA, but there's absolutely zero to stop a pilot from creating their own AQP training and practice standards for emergency situations. For example, what is my response if I lose power upon takeoff and I'm less than 'X' feet AGL, and how will I train for that? At what minimum altitude will I train? is my proficiency such that I should only practice with a CFI on board? If you don't practice for surprises, you WILL be surprised. I can't even think of a reason NOT to set personal training standards for the most frequent emergencies that kill pilots. I would certainly recommend creating ones own AQP program with a CFI that is versed with the AQP concept, is in favor of it, and can advise on which emergencies are just too dangerous to practice anywhere but a flight sim.
You have one of the best channels on RUclips. When you talk I listen.
Appreciate that!
Agree
Thanks for the REAL discussion, some just don't like, I always appreciate your candor!
You can't win an argument on the internet, but you when put up good solid content based on your expertise you can reach the people who want to learn.
I think this video bettered the discussion as a whole.
Thanks!
Agreed
Excellent analysis. Spot on. Thank you.
Thanks Scott. This video and your earlier one based on this Final Report strike me as the gold standard analysis on what pilots should do to fly safely in these challenging situations.
Do you think the hot steam could affect the altimeter setting? You can say Dan Gryder, no penalty for using his name
No, I don't.
Excellent as always. I think JB raised the instantaneous steam driven DA change as a "could this be possible" question rather than a postulate. Glad that you have found evidence of that question being considered and answered. Thanks!
I'm not sure I like the negative comments about this approach being non-compliant with TERPS standards. Below I cite some explanations & warnings I found in the AIM. My impression is the approach designer is concerned with ending the IFR approach at a safe point from which to hand-over responsibility to the pilot to handle the visual segment. This approach does that.
But it's also clear that this visual segment is uniquely challenging. I think there's 98' margin of error, reduced to 61' by the effect of air-temp on the altimeter between being on-path and hitting the stack. That's a small box to fly thru (so fly above it). Your technique would need to be near perfect (above path error ok, but never below). If I know I will need flaps and some speed to get my nose down for a good view of the hazards between me and the runway, then if conditions (suspected/known icing) and SOPs say I can't use flaps on this approach, then I've lost assurance of being able to see the visual segment hazards...and I need to give up on it that day.
DG's comments on his original video in May 2022 were good, about it being challenging to keep on-path w/o a VGSI to help in marginal conditions. He blamed the FAA for taking the VASI away, saying it could've helped her keep clear of the stack. However A VASI is not a precise VGSI, like a 4-box PAPI or an aircraft carrier's meatball. That's part of the reason the FAA withdrew it. If you think having one is critical (as Dan did) to judge your final descent path, given marginal conditions, /knowing/ what hazards lie below you...then conditions are too poor to fly this visual segment. Thus, by Dan's on logic on that point, she should've diverted.
VDA, VDP, VGSI, "Visual Segment - Obstacles": Review of the AIM.
The FAA preserved pilots' freedom to continue using this approach and this airport. This I like. The responsibility to learn about and weigh the risks of the visual segment is left to pilots. Freedom carries risk. Regulating safety requires giving up some freedom. It's a tradeoff. So, how to decide if a given IAP is risky? The AIM offers some clues in describing the standards and the items you may or may not see on your approach plate:
Visual Descent Point (VDP):
AIM 5-4-5h and following are instructive. 5-4-5m (7) (b) says a VDP is provided on most RNAV approaches. Not here though. Why? 5-4-5h says why (obstacle threat), and warns in (3) that descent from MDA between VDP and MAP may be *impossible.* 5-4-5i gives further explanations and warnings. No VDP is a clue the obstacles are special hazards in the visual segment, and in any case says, "There is no implicit obstacle protection from the MDA/DA to the touchdown point." This /should/ quiet the commenters here and on Dan's and Juan's channels decrying this approach for violating TERPS.
5-4-5i (1) says, "Unlighted obstacle penetrations may result in prohibiting night instrument operations to the runway. A chart note will be published in the pilot briefing strip “Procedure NA at Night.” That *was* and *is* the case with this approach as well. This fact alerts us to the presence of obstacles that aren't easy to see, for whatever reason.
Visual Descent Angle (VDA) and why no note, "Visual Segment - Obstacles" here?:
5-4-5k continues to talk about the factors in publishing a VDA or not. In this case, there is a published VDA and it's set to 3.75 degrees to safely clear the obstacles between MDA and touchdown, hence why there is *no warning*, "Visual Segment - Obstacles", noted on the plate. 5-4-5k (1)'s last sentence reads: "Pilots that follow the previously published descent angle, provided by the RNAV system, below the MDA on procedures with this note may encounter obstacles in the visual segment. Pilots must visually avoid any obstacles below the MDA." This is a clue, since that note doesn't exist, flying the "advisory" glidepath from your RNAV system is intended to be safe. Don't dip below it; you might use it as an aid to keep clear of obstacles during the visual segment. Since your focus should be outside during this time, IIRC the NTSB report says here the Garmin avionics intermittently beep the stall horn if you go below that path as a cue.
Any "advisory" glidepath guidance provided by your RNAV equipment on an approach annotated with, "Visual Segment - Obstacles", then, appears *likely/certain* to be dangerous to refer to *below* the MDA. IIRC from prior reading elsewhere, in the FAA coded digital data for IAPs, such approaches have mostly had their VDA angles re-coded to "000" as a clue to avionics not to offer advisory glidepath info at least below MDA.
Great, detailed comment!
When you are PIC, it’s YOUR responsibility to stay alive. That’s why so many GA and professional pilots are dying. This was a case of pilot error.
Always the best representation of what happened without fanfare. Thank you sir😊 I don't think it was ever mentioned. Both steam stacks were there when I was shooting approaches to that runway Forty five years ago. I think she went into the steam cloud and was hoping she was gonna come out of the steam cloud and be able to continue. That low you're just can't gamble like that. Bless The girl's heart. R I p😢
It's a shame that's for sure. I have thousands of hours and my gut tells me that she just kept telling herself, "Just a little lower and I'll pop out".
Thanks, Scott. A lot of pieces to the puzzle here, and for those of us following along, appreciate the addendum. The story makes better sense now.
Great update! For all those just dropping in the comments that "she went below MDA" and calling that the cause is obviously incorrect. Witness statements are only good to an extent here, too. She may have had different visibility above the steam cloud than witnesses had of her from the ground when they finally saw her below it. She may have only been in the actual steam cloud a second or two, and by the time a decision could be made to go missed, could be right back out of it. The slower than normal approach, and possible imminent stall, may have the most to do with this. Great analysis here. Whether it was the slow airspeed or decaying performance due to the steam cloud (or both) for some reason, behind the power curve is no place to be.
In the end, most of the time there is margin for these kinds of errors. That's why these obstacles are not supposed to encroach into the approach path like that. If we all flew perfect approaches every time we could tighten up all the current TERPS requirements. Unfortunately, in this case the stacks removed the margin of error and I think that's where the legal problems arise for the city and the potato plant. Would the light have mattered if it were the proper one? We don't know. Would the proper markings and paint have made a difference? We don't know. Maybe, but maybe not. Unfortunately, for the potato plant, that negligence is probably going to cost them.
Great points John!
@johnaclark1 I agree with every word you wrote except the last sentence. I have no sympathy for the potato company or city: -Unfortunately, f- For the potato plant (and city), that negligence -is probably going to- should cost them.
@@Paul1958R I don't have any sympathy for them either but It's still unfortunate for the potato plant. There's another guy on here who is all about how the potato plant is the life blood of the town and do I want them to go under? Really? Like, who cares? I understand small town, big businesses like that. I used to work for one but when you screw up, you're going to pay the consequences.
When man and machine are involved in my opinion there has to be a margin for error. I dont think there is anyone that hits their marks 100% correctly every time. The next pilot that hits that stack is going to be a highly experienced pilot with tons of hours I guarantee you. None of us including the investigators where inside the cockpit, inside her brain, experienced what she was feeling none of that. This could have happened to any pilot.
Dark, I absolutely agree! And that is why I had to do this review!
This is absolutely correct. Unless they move the airport, or decommission the approach there will be another accident here.
Absolutely and that is why instrument approaches have substantial protected airspace around the perfect approach path. Yes, we all should fly every approach with the needles centered and be no more than 1’ off of the localizer and glide path. However, that simply isn’t possible and is why we have significant tolerances protected around the perfect path. And that is why the FAA should have zero tolerance for obstructions that penetrate these buffers around the approach path.
a known hazard like this should be briefed for every pilot planning to go there.
One of the things we need to understand here is that the pilot regularly flew in and out of that airfield and was well aware of the stacks having avoided them many times. Something happened on the accident flight that was different and maybe the runway condition made her alter the normal approach speed as she was trying to land with the less than ideal stopping conditions. It obviously didn't work out and is why things like the obstructions shouldn't be there taking away the margin of error. I'd imagine that the lawsuit is going to be expensive for the airport operators and potato company as much sympathy will be shown for the pilot.
who would be giving this briefing?
Outstanding correction and clarification to your original presentation on the subject. Thank you.
I don’t think there is any question that pilot error was the primary cause of this crash. Similarly, pilot error was the primary cause of the two 737MAX crashes also. However, Boeing sure took a lot of heat for the MCAS issue. Similarly, this potato plant company should take a lot for heat for their stack issues.
If we only look at the pilot error factor in airplane crashes, we will lose a lot of opportunities to eliminate a lot of future accidents. I believe it is imperative to take the Dan Gryder approach and look at the entire ecosystem of each crash and look for ALL opportunities to improve flight safety, not just the narrow-minded focus on the pilot that most RUclipsrs seem to take.
There are plenty of folks that focus on the 'big' picture. What I'm concerned with is focusing on the tools that will keep individual pilots alive. I can't tilt at all the windmills out there, but I can focus on the important lessons to be learned at the individual level.
There are two issues involved in any accident. In the USAF there is a Safety investigation... that is what I do, and after that there is an Accident Investigation that looks at rooting out fault. I don't mix the two.
Thanks for the follow up
Great content 👍
If the stacks were not there, would she be alive today?
Actually, that's in doubt. She had 50' to recover from the 1100 FPM descent before hitting the roof.
I agree with Scott. Ever since it became clearer what her actual flightpath was very late in the approach, it seemed that if zero stacks existed, she was on a trajectory to hit the building. And there's another building closer to the river edge to hit if not GSP's. She might be alive, but I think she was at that point near-doomed to hit /something/ and crash.
Just as alive as if she would have abandoned the approach as required.
Anything to point the finger away from the pilot. There was responsibility on both ends of this accident. That's the point of this video. For anyone over the age of six, the world shouldn't be a question of either-or.
Scott, many thanks for pressing on with your analysis. It seems that some people have nothing better to do than respond to something on the internet they clearly do not understand. Your channel is the best we pilots have for hangar talk these days and I know I personally benefit from your presentations. Illegitimi Non Carborundum!
It’s very common to see pilots in the simulator brake visual, look out and duck under their glide path.
While flying, try to fly in the middle of the air. Stay away from the edges of the air where bumpy sharp things are likely to be.
Good advice!
I never bought the density altitude postulate from the steam cloud. You are correct, the steam gets to atmospheric temperature rapidly. BUT it is a mass of microscopic water droplets just like real cloud or fog, so could have exacerbated the icing issue, causing a loss of lift on top of the efforts of the pilot to slow down so she could stop on the contaminated runway. Unfortunately, you are correct, as soon as she lost visual with the runway in the steam cloud, a go around should have been executed. And/or if the stall warning blared, go around. From the detailed analysis in the docket, from which you pulled some graphs, she let it get too slow and too low on the second approach and the stack was not visible until 3 seconds before impact. Tragic mistakes by this young pilot, although I do hold EPA, FAA and the company erecting the stacks as contributing factors. EPA forced higher stack heights on the company, who lied to FAA after they said the stacks were a hazard to navigation. And the instrument approach should have been deleted or inactivated at the same time the VASI was disabled when FAA pulled support for the airport, etc, etc. This pilot erred in her second approach and those errors were fatal, but the incident stack and the 6 stacks in front of it, which are the same height and closer to the runway, are clearly extremely close to the desired visual approach path and a mere 50-100 feet of deviation means death - is unacceptable on the parts of the EPA, FAA and the company.
Absolutely right. But for me I'm only interested in what the pilot did and what lessons we can learn from them.
Good report Scott. I watched all three other investigation reports to which you refer. I prefer yours because I think it highlights the logical pragmatic keys. As someone with extensive high performance Cessna experience, no flaps approaches raise the deck angle and bleeds airspeed aggressively and a bit uncomfortably. I agree with you that the steam likely had more to do with turbulence than loss of lift, it definitely tosses you around a bit but doesn't cause a material loss of lift. I'm pretty sure the steam had little to no impact on her altitude loss aside from perhaps the distraction. I believe she was trying to solve her variables/problems intelligently but her solutions (or those dictated by SOP) likely produced many other collateral risks. Your examination of the braking distance likely factored in to her decision criteria which seems particularly relevant. But for me, given we don't often perform no flap approaches, especially in poor conditions, it's logical that this produced dynamics (be it feel or visual) that caused her to drift below MDA, keeping in mind everything changes with no flaps, be it deck angle, power, speed, sound, etc. My question is was there any evidence of icing on the flying surfaces, because if not, I might've used at least 10 degrees of flaps from the FAF -- the reason being is the visual benefit and speed stability/management outweigh my concern over momentary ice accretion in the short final phase (especially given that big wing/leading edge). In this regard the SOP is particularly relevant. Regardless, it's clear that she was just trying to perform the task at hand to her best capability and while she may have made many of the right choices, the execution just wasn't adequate and a go around was required. RIP.
Well said, Saltlick.
RE: Ice. From the NTSB Final Report --- "An examination of the wreckage conducted within hours of the accident revealed no indications of structural ice on the wreckage. The flap actuator exhibited 6.6 inches of exposed threads, consistent with flaps fully retracted. The airplane had an S-1 Icing Supplement to the Pilot’s Operating Handbook that was applicable to ... the accident airplane. The airplane’s two approaches to runway 20, conducted in temperatures below 5° C in light snow, met this definition of “icing conditions”... The limitations in the Icing Supplement included a minimum airspeed of 95 knots indicated airspeed (KIAS) flaps up, and 85 KIAS at flaps 10°-20°, and maximum 20° flap setting for landing." Also, "The last ... (ADS-B) equipment plot recorded the airplane about a mile past this [stepdown] fix, or about 0.6 nautical miles (nm) from the displaced threshold, on the glide path, and at an estimated *85 knots* calibrated airspeed (KCAS), which was slower than the airplane’s 95-knot minimum speed for flaps up in icing conditions. The Low Airspeed Awareness System (LAA) is designed to warn the pilot when airspeed falls below 97.5 knots while operating in icing conditions, then the BELOW ICING MIN SPD annunciator will flash and the stall horn will sound until the speed is increased above 97.5 knots."
@@Raiders33 Helpful. Thanks.
G'day Scott,
Yay Team !
"Snap/Click !"
I, too, had to upload an addit. to a freshly posted Video this week...(!).
For about 6 years every time a pair of Work Gloves "died" it was a dead Left-hand unit, and I'd been puzzled into making a movie telling of my bewilderment as to how I'd killed 5 Left Gloves in a row.
3 hours after uploading, While picking up Split Firewood, the "Penny dropped"...; and I
Had to eat my
Humble pie...
Which I duly did.
As did you.
I dunno if Dan the (Wannabe) Man has yet hatched an explanation for his diametrically opposing statements regarding the
Purloined Chimney Lamp.
He stole it, or
He stole it not....?
Vital Evidence, or
A lump of junk, that
Mattered not...?
And, in the end, what led to that crash was apparently not the Steam, and not the Lamp...
Regardless of Dan doing Public-Relations Handstands around a Light-Fitting, while attempting to draw attention to himself.
What killed that Pilot was the exact
Normalisation of Deviance
Which you have been highlighting for years (decades probably, but I haven't known of you that long.).
The Pilot was prepared to fly a
Suicidally stupid Approach because she was a
Dangerous DEVIANT who considered herself to be quite
"Normal"...
Because - within her own little social
Kettle of interactions with her actual Peers (ie, "all" the other people who habitually fly Single-Pilot Night & IFR Cargo Frights into Airports which have been encroached on by outspreading Suburbia, and become all built up and around, and surrounded by Industrial Smokestacks, Wires, Poles, Buildings & Fences ....).
To them, apparently, it has become
Perfectly
"Normal" to stagger and grope about the cloudy Sky,
Nose high,
Feeling gently for the Threshold as the
Smokestacks go by...
Otherwise, some other
Hours-hungry Time-builder will be invited to take the next
Load - and the duly cautious student practitioner of prudently professionally good
Airmanship ("AirPersonShip" ?) will be left flipping Burgers in
YuckDonalds for a living....
And, thus, the Cost-cutting Profit-squeezing Schedule-worshipping
Busyness Community who
CHOOSES to encourage exactly such
Cowboy attitudes to operational Flight Safety - because most of the time they do indeed
"Get away with it..." (!).
And when they don't - then (that's when) the
Compulsory
Hull Insurance &
Public Risk
Insurance..., WILL
Cover whatever Financial Damage is caused...,
While fighting over the consequences in Court, and everything will be eventually blamed on the ubiquitous
"Pilot Error"...
And, not only but also..., if the Aeroplanes don't get to crash, occasionally, then ALL of the money spent in paying "Premiums"...; would have
Bin-Wasted....! (Hmmmnnn ?).
And, then, when
Those two
Co-Dependantly dysfunctional Nesting-sets of
Normalised Deviants
(Three, if ye count the Insurance Company...?)
are already daily dancing on the very hairy edge of spontaneous
Sudden Death...
That's when a completely different and independant set of Deviants - in this case devoted to processing Potatos has,
Apparently,
Normalised the process of taking a
"Near enough
Is Good Enough...:
(For Government Work...!)"
Attitude to observing the
Actual Height of their little (Phallic ?)
Extensions onto their
Chimneys'
Penetration
Of the bottom
Of the Protected
Airspace, within the
Runway's designated, mapped, defined and
Officially authorised
Approach "Funnel"...;
Because, apparently, the
Professional Potato Processors all take the same attitude to their Industry's
Insurance Premiums, as do the
Schedulers over at
"Dodgy-Brothers FlyByNight Cargo-Fright &
Air-Freight Services - Dead On Time, Occasionally....(!)".
In the best book of Godtheories, it tells therein that,
"The only true 'Sin' or 'Satan', is
Selfishness..." (!).
And..., hereinat I see a mob of selfish Wannabe Airline Pilots- all competing for Work to build hours in their Logbooks.
I see a selfish bunch of Administrators and Busyness-people who all want to make money, to "get ahead", doing SOMETHING for a Profit (pretty much anything will do - as long as it PAYS...).
I see a bunch of selfish Freight Customers who all want their Packages delivered rigorously on-schedule and ideally almost for free...
I see a bunch of selfish Potato Processors who all care very much about how to make their Factory run more smoothly ; and they have apparently fantasised about how their little Chimneys would suck & vent much more better(er) if only they were longer -
And then they maybe wondered,
"Who's ever goanna get worked up and cranky over a trifling dozen feet, or two, or three dozen - even ; of a bit of Pipe poking up slightly too high,
Into the FAA's Sky...?"
And....,
In the final finish, the Potato-Processor's Lawyers will probably quite successfully
(Suck Cess Fully ?)
Blame the local Town/City Council's Planning Department,
For having approved each and every
Extension to all of those
Illegally-high
Chimneys...
And all up and down the line, every single self-motivated, self-serving, self-interested, Self-promotiong individual Bit-Player, and Participant within the whole and entire
Sad sorry sordid grimy greedy grasping SELFISHLY
Normally
Deviant little
Plot and Play and tragic
Drama thus enacted upon the great
Stage of
Life...,
If asked ;
Would honestly attest to their having been seriously trying, the whole the time,
To
"Do The Right Thing...,
As they see things, from their personal perspectives, as informed and illuminated by the light of their own experience and training and belief-system.
(Which is why Einstein stated that life is ALL Relative, and Observer-Oriented...? {!} ).
While making money,
And
Getting ahead....
One finds it difficult to avoid the grimly macabre conclusion Scott, that
The System
IS WORKING...precisely &
EXACTLY AS IT HAS BEEN ALLOWED TO EVOLVE
So to function....
Did the Fate of the Free World
REALLY depend on that Lady landing her Freight, right there, just(ifiably ?) then...?
What was she actually carting around, for whom, anyway ?
Perhaps..., it might help to sort this stuff out if an old WW-2 vintage "Home Front" Wall Poster was resurrected, printed up and displayed beside every Portal leading from "Groundside" to "Airside", in the fencing alongside every Runway on the Planet...
"Is this
Journey
REALLY
Necessary...?"
Perhaps maybe, possibly,
(Pissabubblie even)..., if that was the last thing which
Everyone saw, as they approached their Flying Machine of choice ; then more Flyers might start to ACTUALLY Think about what they are doing - before they blunder blindly into breaking Aeroplanes, hurting or killing themselves, and any passengers on board, frightening and perhaps injuring or killing other people entirely...; all because they had been
Self-righteously & sanctimoniously
Pleasing
Them SELF, in what they were doing,
And why they were doing it....
All the best Godtheories
Are noted to inexorably
Punish the wilfully
Selfish...;
In the long run.
So say the Statisticians.
Apparently.
I gave up trying to
"Get away with..." such
Selfish stupid bullshit,
Decades ago....;
Trying to take off Downwind in an Ultralight Motorglider in 1992 - was probably a major step in my own Learning-Curve (?).
Some people (and I was one) will persistently regard each and every Near Miss as being
"Evidence" of their own
"Exceptionality", regarding
Pesky
Safety Rules....
Normalisation of Deviance
+
Delusions of Grandeur
Sure can be a heady mix...
Right up until the
Fencepost comes into the Cockpit, smacks into the Rudderbar, and breaks one's Ankle...
A Chimney through the Right Wing though, while groping for the
Threshold - must have been a very nasty bloody
Wake-up Call...!
R.I.P.
And..., is anybody running a Sweepstakes Pool - on how long before
Dan The (Wannabe) Man gets himself (savagely) pulled into line, by Officialdom ?
Such might probably prove to become a profitable
Investment ?
(lol).
Such is life,
Have a good one...
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
Now I'm just that much more confused by the "controversy." Yes, it's bad that the stacks were where they were (I've worked on modifications to structures around, let's call it "a major airport" and we took the FAA's limitations as gospel.) But fundamentally, the pilot got too low on that approach. What's useful to me to be more safe? Things are squirrely low down (steam/fog is obscuring the view? stall horn!?!?) full power and go around. Also, the nose can obscure important stuff just below you. From my limited experience so far, landing at only straightforward airports, that simulation view was an important "Ah ha!" for me. Further out for me as I'm not about to fly in conditions like this pilot was expected to manage, those likely decisions and tradeoffs to address the concern about icing (flaps up) versus setting up to land on a short, snowy runway combined make for the risky situation of lower airspeed low to the ground than was a good idea - something to avoid even when there aren't obstacles right on the centerline!
All this is well and good, and I respect your calm down-to-earth discussions. However, there is NO WAY in heaven or hades that that is an acceptable approach with those smokestacks and what probably are POOR lights on them. Nobody on earth can convince me otherwise. I do listen to you though I agree they dodged at LEAST one of the major issues. Yes, yes, yes, she should have gone around. Under those COMMON conditions EVERYBODY should. That means that approach is more or less dangerous and UNUSABLE probably what, 40 percent of the time?. Where am I wrong here Scott? 'cause I WILL listen to YOU (not the peanut gallery tho).
I do think it’s a terrible approach. A travesty. But that is a separate issue.
I think your conclusion was probably as close as anyone is going to get. There were a lot of extenuating factors that caused this accident, but regardless whether she was a little off the glide angle, she should have not paid with her life!
It was a trap waiting to happen and Gem Potatoes knew it was questionable, and so did the FAA. They are as equally responsible for setting the trap as Gem Potatoes, mostly because of their reluctance to do their actual job. If there was any way to right the wrongs in this fiasco it would be to fire the entire bureaucracy of FAA and NTSB and start over! Gem Potatoes still has to go to bed at night, and I doubt they sleep well, if they have a conscience!
She was below mins, lost contact, should have gone around. (That instrument approach should be shut down or the stacks removed, one or the other.)
Yup. This is pretty clear cut from an ADM perspective. Folks like to find, for lack of a better term, excuses for the pilot in an accident. I like to figure out what I need to do or avoid doing so that I don't end up in the same position. The 737 MAX Ethiopia accident, for example... The abnormal didn't doom the airplane. The crew failed to disable cockpit automation (Any runaway pitch, for WHATEVER reason, calls for disconnecting the pitch trim. It shouldn't be a big deal. It's the same in a Cessna 172SP trainer that rolls off the line today.). They also failed to retard the throttle when the windshield was full of planet earth instead of blue sky. In this case, it was CRM that failed... In short, we are ultimately responsible for flight safety.
Ron, you are exactly right! And because the NTSB, the FAA, or all the other alphabet groups don't talk about these things from the pilot perspective!
I have Meta AI on my phone (Whatsapp) and I'll ask it to list airports of a similar nature. Perhaps other viewers with access to other large language models could do the same. If AI becomes really useful and informed decisions can be made about high risk activities and situations there are going to be powerful people who are going to be naysayed in real time. Watch out for the fireworks when the computer says "no"!. ps Meta AI provided eight others in the US with 'smokestack approaches' and a 'please note' that the list might not be exhaustive.
Good use of that AI!
You flown into a steam cloud in freezing conditions, Scott? What effect would that have on flight in final approach? You sure?
A very dear friend of mine always said "there's no shame in going around." A good lesson for everyone.
Scott: You and Juan Brown both make excellent points and analyses of this incident. I am no pilot, but I continue to be bothered by the fact that, after the 2nd FAA study was released [that made a determination that a Hazard to Air Navigation did exist by the presents of the steam stacks], IIRC, more than 5 years had elapsed between the release of that study - mandating orange & red painting and obstruction lighting of ALL of the stacks - and date of the accident. As of the accident date, only 1 stack had obstruction lighting installed, no stacks were painted. While painting & lighting in full accordance may have had no bearing on this accident [She had exceeded the MDA minimums] why was no subsequent enforcement action taken by the FAA when the plant owners failed to comply with the study's directives? Why was there no "timely" follow up by the FAA to ensure compliance? Yes, the parties will litigate this situation out in court, but how many other non compliant HAN sites are out there? As a pilot, I would be concerned. HAN non-compliance could prove extremely relevant in a separate, future accident elsewhere. I am interested in your thoughts. Thank you for hearing me out.
All excellent questions. What happened with the stacks and the approach is very callous.
I can tell you aren't a pilot. If you were your FAA questions would already be answered. IT"S THE FAA!
@@larryevans2806 Not so fast on that one friend. And I am a pilot. Let the other guys give their opinion. We should be happy that a "civvi" is even interested. Might just be for the interesting legal aspect. No reason to "I can tell you aren't a pilot." So what.
I bet you my plane is bigger than yours. Parochial, you left an astute analysis for us. Appreciate it.
My sense...the Potatoes are going to lose this one. They didn't listen to instructions and are are going to be turned into fries.
@@mlo5083The single light wasn’t even working!!!
@@Codehead3 And you know that how? And you know it would have been a factor, how?
Thanks for your analysis. I learned something today.
Sounds to me the stack should have not been there in the first place. Also, the "steam cloud" probably obscurred the stack, which should have been included in the FAA study of the placement of the damned thing in the first place ! The FAA is responsible here... no doubt about it, considering all the dubious "facts" in the totality of the case...
The pilot still busted procedure. There is nothing dubious about that. It's a fact, regardless of any other agendas out there. The stack shouldn't have been there. The pilot shouldn't have been there either. That's the point. To point all the fingers at one cause of a tragedy while ignoring the others is simply not honest. Scott is giving an honest appraisal here.
As far as I can figure the FAA did all they could within their jurisdiction. There were lengthy meets between the two city councils (one on each side of the river) in which the FAA gave clear guidance as to what is needed. They for sure brought the horse to the river but it refused to drink. That's going to make the check even bigger.
@@charlesfaure1189 Unfortunately, He's comparing apples to oranges here,,, defending the undefindable as Zorro would say... If the stack weren't there, there would be no there, there. Quite simple...
@@apfelsnutz Good lord. He is by no means 'defending the undefendable' here. He is--and read carefully--not saying the position of the factory/stacks in relation to the runway was not a factor in the accident. It obviously was. He's not defending the obviously dangerous obstacle that shouldn't be there (or the runway shouldn't be.) He is asserting that it isn't either-or. He doesn't see the world like a seven-year old. If she hadn't busted procedure, the fact that the stack was there would have been irrelevant. Pilots can't move obstacles! Pilots have to avoid them! That's what minimum altitude/glide slope regulations are there for. Sheesh.
@apfelsnutz FAA wasn't flying the plane. That's the only way they can be responsible
Thanks for explaining
To Low To Slow... Sad none the less. Missed approach should always be the safest and correct action.
I am surprised that the stack discharge temperature and moisture content isn't given. It is from some process in the plant and is probably fairly consistent. The NTSB statement that it matters within 200 feet, but not over that is weird, as it would be a gradient, mattering progressively less as it cools and mixes.
I'm guessing, but a discharge temp of 100 F sure would not even seem very hot, but would cause a noticeable performance decrease in anything I've flown.
It's an abrupt change from winter conditions, to a hot humid summer day.
Not very welcome if you have already made the mistake of getting both slow and low near an obstacle.
Not to mention the momentary instrument conditions it caused...if she were counting on visual cues from outside and was a little slow in perceiving any performance loss and increasing descent rate...
Little things are adding up- just use of flaps may have enabled her to see it with the reduced required pitch.
But, yes, without being too low, no crash.
I just don't see why the FAA didn't design an offset final in the first place. A direct straight-in final course just doesn't make sense here. All you need is a mis-calibrated altimeter or a an error in reporting the altimeter setting, and this could have been dangerous for any pilot in low IFR conditions.
NO! Why would the FAA have to do that? Leave the MDA only when you have the runway continuously insight. The Caravan pilot should not have been operating below the MDA in the weather conditions present at the time. Imagine if we had to remove every danger on every non precision approach. 86' agl, 0.4 nm from the runway is on the pilot in this case, not the approach.
@@Cmoredebris Is there any other approach angle where the glideslope is less than 100ft above an obstacle? From what I've read, FAA is not ok with this and those stacks have been heightened without the FAA approval.
Edit:
I've turned "other approach" into "other approach angle"
@@BlueSkyUp_EU You are missing the point. You are protected at or above the MDA only. There is no instrument approach below the MDA. You are on your own. You are supposed to be visual and have the runway in sight operating below the MDA.
@@Cmoredebris Are you sure you're not the one missing the point? The final NTSB report says:
"The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Aeronautical Information Manual advises pilots to
avoid overflight of exhaust stacks" - wdyt is that? Is it because it's safe or unsafe?
@@BlueSkyUp_EU "approach angle".
I have trouble accepting the idea that the temperature of the vapor cloud was not significantly above the ambient. I still feel that the plane simply lost lift because of this and fell into the stack, A bad situation that should not have been allowed to exist. That being said, we all have 20/20 hindsight.
I suggest you study the physics of gases.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Hotter gases expand and cooler gases contract. *This creates a difference in the density* - the cooler gas is more dense and the warmer gas is less dense.
Wouldn't this be directly related to aerodynamics and to an aircraft performance?
@@BlueSkyUp_EU The cloud is formed because the hot moist steam COOLS. Not to mention that turbine aircraft perform better when there is more moisture in the air. Pilot was close to a stall, flaps up, but cloud would not have degraded lift to the point that the aircraft descended suddenly at a high rate
@@Cmoredebris Have you ever taken a steam bath? Was it cold?
There is a reason for which the
Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Aeronautical Information Manual advises pilots to avoid overflight of exhaust stacks.
Yes, facts can be inconvenient. Trouble accepting facts is a serious impairment we humans tend to have, with tragic results all too often.
1 hour ago
@FlyWirescottperdue Scott, I know you are being reasonable here and you are attempting to accomplish the same thing we all are.
I regret very much that all of this happened. I am seeing a young pilot lost and a civil war regarding it among some very very good pilots/instructors who are involved in its aftermath. I routinely try to catch all their videos, I trust them, their concept of safety is amazing and I certainly hate that this has occurred.
I have always found pilots have a unique, reasonable temperament, especially the old ones.
That said - if I could go back prior to Brittney’s final flight and change one thing, I would have been in the Burley city hall and potato processing plant offices with a request to ask the Boise FAA office to do one more inspection and review of this particular approach before publishing. I feel UPS might agree with me.
Yes, I could have warned Brittney but what about the next pilot and the next pilot? This approach should have never been approved or published.
Frankly, I could not care less about random steam bursts. My thought process halts on a dime at the end of your statement
that the posted approach was a death trap. Change that and I will call it good. //ji John in Oregon
There are two main issues in this accident. I always focus on the pilot actions. The other issue is fault. It seems the majority of GA pilots lump these two things together and let that dictate their view of the accident. I follow the USAF model I am familiar with--- the Safety Investigation looks at what happened, what the pilot did and how to fix it so it doesn't happen again. Fault is determined in the Accident Investigation. I typically, do not deal with that at all, I don't see how anything I would say would impact the bureaucracies. My interest is the lessons we can learn to keep future pilots safe.
I agree with your comments, but I don't join the scrum of pointing fingers. The FAA allowed this approach to become a deathtrap and that should be fixed.
As a non-pilot listener, I learn from your approach to reality, facts, truth, in analyzing your presentation. Thanks.
Scott, Thanks so much for clarifying the “DA” question. Your final analysis of this certainly makes sense to me. Also, thank you for your special calling to analyze these terrible mistakes made by pilots in an effort to make flying safer for all of us! It’s so unfortunate that we learn in some cases by an unfortunate loss of lives that forever change families! Blessings
Thanks Mark!
One summer, I got to fly several patterns at a crop duster's personal strip. The first couple of landings, I noticed an unanticipated sink rate right as I crossed the end of the runway. I was so close to touchdown that it was easy to compensate for that and land with no issues. Each time around, I got better at anticipating it. Afterward, I was able to put it all together: hot, steamy late summer day, corn field at full height - lots of heat coming off that corn. Not a factor on final until I was maybe 50 feet or less from the top of the corn and then "DA" kicked in. Very good lesson! But, 2 takeaways: not a factor until I was very close to it, and loss of lift after passing over, not before. I agree, seems like it wasn't probably a factor in this tragic accident. Even the best pilots make mistakes.
The one thought I have about the missed approach is this, the MAP on a LNAV approach is typically the Runway Threshhold. So if she did lose altitude after dropping the nose after a stall warning, isn't it entirely conceivable that she chose to go missed but did what we're all taught as far as leveling off and waiting to fly the missed until you reach the MAP? If she was in visual contact to the runway and went below the MDA before encountering the steam cloud, wouldn't the proceedure again be the same? Level off and fly to the MAP. Either of those scenarios seems to be a proper missed approach procedure that would lead her into the stack.
I didn't know about the contaminated surface landing distance aspect. For decisionmaking, it seems like knowing the runway is snowcovered = divert. She learned this on her successful 1st approach. So, electing to try the 2nd and expecting she might need some beta reverse to get stopped = a "cowboy" decision. If I read those graphs right in the video, she flew on-speed for having flaps selected, but she didn't have any out. I wonder if she forgot: either to put the flaps out a bit, or if she never intended to use them, to fly the higher airspeed.
Also this approach calls for the pilot to use a non-standard glide angle of 3.7 degrees vs the standard 3.0 degrees to compensate for the stacks. This situation is an accident waiting to happen and it’s surprising that it didn’t happen sooner.
there are ILS approaches with a 3.75 degree glideslope. They are not particularly difficult. In fact, they may be easier.
Scott, thanks for the update on the C208 accident. Like always good job with your continued analyses. I would like to add two things: I hope I don't sound like a Monday quarterback. One, the flaps up icing procedure is for prolonged flight "in icing conditions". If I was not actually picking up ice on the airframe, I would have abandoned the procedure and set my approach flap setting (deck angle) sometime after the FAF and within two minutes from touchdown. Two, most importantly, I always calculated a VDP if one was not published and it became my defacto MAP. A VDP will always provide a safe clear of all obstacles 3 degree glide path to the runway from the MDA. Maintaining MDA +100'/-0' to the VDP will always keep you out of trouble. Thanks for listening.
Patsy, That is an excellent technique!
Face it those towers are in a BAD spot. she may have made it without the towers in the way high or low.
Take away the smokestacks... and she would have 56' to recover from a 1100 FPM descent rate before hitting the roof.
You can always tell a veteran - through and on point without the hysterics. Well Done
Extremely thorough analysis, sincerely appreciated. It amazes me how frightening and stressful the flying must be for these young people, building time to qualify for an opportunity to fly large aircraft for the major airlines. Their missions often involve flying situations in order service smaller communities that pilots flying for the majors no longer experience. The majors operate out of larger facilities in aircraft that have all the equipment and performance needed to handle all weather, and because of their mission profile and distances travelled make fewer approaches, instrument or visual, per day
I guess it’s called “ paying your dues” and most thankfully are fortunate enough to survive
In this case being more frightened might have saved a life.
Mr. Scott Perdue, I appreciate you explaining your prior analysis of this incident, but I am confused about one thing. Was your purpose to "acknowledge a some areas you could have done a better job with, in addition to admitting you missed a few points"? . . or, was your purpose in this video to praise fellow RUclips channeler Mr.Juan Browne?
My purpose was to fill in the gap I missed in the first go. I read the report I mentioned and used part of it in the first video, but I missed the stall warning part. I made a mistake and wanted to fix it. Plus I wanted to talk about the steam cloud/DA rabbit hole.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Thank you for the reply . . .
Too low and too slow is a very bad combination. And as you said, she should have started the missed when hearing the stall warner that low. Multiple poor judgment items.
The big question is why she did not repeat her first approach which was safely performed, had she done so she would be alive today and reverse thrust may have helped her stop within the runway environment.
I agree, with a decision point for a Go Around from the ground.
§ 91.175 Takeoff and landing under IFR.
(a) Instrument approaches to civil airports. Unless otherwise authorized by the FAA, when it is necessary to use an instrument approach to a civil airport, each person operating an aircraft must use a standard instrument approach procedure prescribed in part 97 of this chapter for that airport. This paragraph does not apply to United States military aircraft.
(b) Authorized DA/DH or MDA. For the purpose of this section, when the approach procedure being used provides for and requires the use of a DA/DH or MDA, the authorized DA/DH or MDA is the highest of the following:
(1) The DA/DH or MDA prescribed by the approach procedure.
(2) The DA/DH or MDA prescribed for the pilot in command.
(3) The DA/DH or MDA appropriate for the aircraft equipment available and used during the approach.
(c) Operation below DA/DH or MDA. Except as provided in § 91.176 of this chapter, where a DA/DH or MDA is applicable, no pilot may operate an aircraft, except a military aircraft of the United States, below the authorized MDA or continue an approach below the authorized DA/DH unless-
(1) The aircraft is continuously in a position from which a descent to a landing on the intended runway can be made at a normal rate of descent using normal maneuvers, and for operations conducted under part 121 or part 135 unless that descent rate will allow touchdown to occur within the touchdown zone of the runway of intended landing;
(2) The flight visibility is not less than the visibility prescribed in the standard instrument approach being used; and
(3) Except for a Category II or Category III approach where any necessary visual reference requirements are specified by the Administrator, at least one of the following visual references for the intended runway is distinctly visible and identifiable to the pilot:
(i) The approach light system, except that the pilot may not descend below 100 feet above the touchdown zone elevation using the approach lights as a reference unless the red terminating bars or the red side row bars are also distinctly visible and identifiable.
(ii) The threshold.
(iii) The threshold markings.
(iv) The threshold lights.
(v) The runway end identifier lights.
(vi) The visual glideslope indicator.
(vii) The touchdown zone or touchdown zone markings.
(viii) The touchdown zone lights.
(ix) The runway or runway markings.
(x) The runway lights.
Excellent level headed analysis, end of the day it’s called MDA for a reason, terribly unfortunate in a very tricky situation. Not a pilot but shouldn’t all the risk factors in a
non-normal descent make you more likely to be ready for a go-around, not less?
I don't know, I'm not buying this take at all. Sure, the approach wasn't good, but that's why we have TERPS. Every pilot gets certain margins within which a mistake doesn't kill you. How perfect should that approach have been exactly? If our answer to every fatal is to fly a perfect approach we won't get too far. In my eyes the blame lies squarely at the feet of whoever allowed that approach to continue to exist once it was known that there are objects penetrating its surfaces. I'm sorry but you can't have multiple obstructions that high directly on the centerline that close to the runway. Remove the approach and then we'll talk. My understanding is that approach still exists today. If another pilot makes a similar mistake and dies in the same way - will Scott make another video arriving at the same conclusion? What about another pilot? And another pilot? How many people must die for us to get interested in why there's a smoke stack on the centerline? Apparently, one is not enough. Let's wait and see.
Two different issues.
@@FlyWirescottperdue sure, but the much bigger one is the smoke stack. As long as you're making videos talking about the pilot's mistake and not the smoke stack, NTSB will continue to name the pilot's actions as the cause and the approach chart will remain up. It's still up, Scott.
@@alk672
The cause of the accident is that the pilot flew into the stack. The potato plant, the airport, the town, the FAA and the pilot knew about the stack, its charted.
The potato plant is the life blood of the town.
Conclusion: The cause of the accident is that the pilot flew into the stack.
@@AlbertHess-xy7ky The report also said that FAA's conditions for providing a safe approach for pilots haven't been met on the day of the flight.
So the pilot crashed while flying an instrument approach that is recognized by FAA as being unsafe...
Make of this what you want, but it is there, in the report.
@@BlueSkyUp_EU When did the FAA recognize the approach was unsafe? The FAA published this approach. All should have known about the tower. The pilot hit it.
Scott, your analysis is correct from the perspective of pilot actions on a non-precision approach, and that fact cannot be argued! The concern I believe is how in the world was this non-precision approach TERP’d and how was the approach published without displaying the obstacles on the approach plate? Also, if the FAA knew about the stacks and with drew FAA certification for the approach, why wasn’t the approach NOTAM’d as being for VFR training only. Seems to me when municipalities decide to have approach procedures that do not meet FAA requirements then the FAA should have the authority to do something about it. Perhaps this pilot made a critical mistake in bad weather with a steam obscuration that makes seeing a snow covered runway extremely difficult. But knowing in advance there are obstacles and/or that the approach was approved for VFR training only certainly may have caused the pilot to make a different decision on flying that approach.
that is a separate issue and should be addressed... but in my opinion it has only a small part to play in the accident analysis. The lesson to be learned applies to ANY approach for ANY pilot.
I think at the end of the day, if the stacks were not on the final glide slope, would this accident have occurred. She had just shortly before done a low pass OVER the runway. Those stacks should never have been allowed to be built. I state again, the FAA should be required to do soundings of that plant's stack output. AOPA's software is a at best a model, and the assumptions on it's construction does not make it a relevant model for this case. The FAA needs to to do the soundings to collect actual data. I don't think they or the NTSB are up to doing the detailed analysis.
Phillip, if the exact profile had been flown and the stack was not there.... she had 56 feet to recover from the self-induced dive before hitting the roof. In my opinion it is unlikely that any pilot could have corrected an 1100 FPM descent in that amount of space.
Scott; you, Dan, and Juan are all great resources in educating the aviation community and saving lives. let's hope you guys work together going forward. Hoover, help them out. God bless all of you.
They'll hug it out. Dan HAS A VALID POINT regardless of what are perceived by others to be his unorthodox methods. I will give him credit for SHOWING UP AT THE SCENE even when this gets him in trouble. What is his reasoning? TO. SAVE. LIVES. Nothing more, nothing less. And in the process puts himself in occasional legal jeopardy yet ODDLY in a friendly relationship with the surviving families. The other two need to at least acknowledge this approach.. love it hate it or otherwise.
@@silasmarner7586 I thiink Dan shows up because he's a grandstander actually more concerned with his fame than lives.
@@silasmarner7586 Dream on. There's a reason the credible guys don't mention him any more.
Alot of valid good points, thank you for a response to the issues concerning this accident. That airport should not have imc procedures to land, the potato plant is too close to the runway for those type of procedures. They is no margin for error.
I agree. They removed all margin of error on this approach. We can all Monday morning quarterback Brittney all we want, and call out her errors, but in the end none of us fly perfect approaches. We work to be as accurate as possible but that's why TERPS has margin of error built in. I think that will prove costly for the potato processing plant and possibly the city, as well.
@@johnaclark1 I think there was about a 90-foot margin. Not much, but not nothing. Getting below the glideslope IFR low alt is a dangerous error.
Both approaches were flown flaps up. . . .nobody has considered the possibility she forgot.
Thanks, Scott. Yes, she possibly should have gone missed at some point. The hard part is determining exactly when on the approach. She certainly was legal to go below the MDA. She had visual and should have had the runway in sight before the steam. Your point about turbulence, though... you might be on to something. She was within 200' of the stack. Could the updraft/downdraft have started the vertical path upset?
This was a bad procedure.
She was at least somewhat familiar with the approach and the airport because she had just flown that approach a few minutes before. I think I would have flown a visual pattern after the inspection pass.
Great analysis Scott. When I mentioned the density altitude idea, I didn't realize that the pilot may have let her airspeed decay into an incipient stall. That certainly explains the altitude loss (I had my own experience with that on final on a VFR day), and your call that such a situation calls for an immediate missed approach especially in marginal weather on an IFR approach is spot on. Trying to stretch the envelope enough just to "get in" whether it be fuel, marginal weather, trying to sneak through a mountain pass on hot day, etc, has taken a lot of people from us. That urge to stretch the situation should set off alarm bells for all of us that it's time to reevaluate the situation, and seriously consider a more conservative approach that just might keep us alive.
Well said, Vern!
The pilot was executing a missed approach. How can the the plane be stalled?
@skyboy1956 Listen to the video again. She was doing a no-flaps icing approach at 95 (I assume knots) kias on the first go, and slower on the second, to minimize required braking on a contaminated, short runway. The slower airspeed necessarily requires a nose-up attitude, which also implies a higher angle of attack. Scott's analysis says she SHOULD have executed a missed approach, not that she was. She was pushing the envelope, trying to get into the field by placing her aircraft dangerously close to a stall. That's in the ASDB data. She probably pulled back on the yoke either when surprised by the sudden appearance of the stack... a natural reaction, and one that would finish entering the stall, or the stall warning horn went off.
@@vernmeyerotto255 all speculation. Unless somebody was in the plane with her, we don't know if she chose to leave flaps up or forgot. 95 kts with flaps up is too slow for an approach in icing. The flaps should have been at 20 unless it was severe icing in which case she shouldn't have been there at all.
She had been on the line for less than 2 months. While technically off "high mins" she should have continued to observe higher mins. This was a demanding environment that far exceeded her limited abilities. Should be evident with the less than precise flying.
@skyboy1956 Her use of no flaps would have been in accordance with flight manual procedures. So you're suggesting that no accident reconstruction be performed unless there's a surviving eyewitness?
Scott, your conclusion is pilot error. You understand this means that the approach was deemed safe and acceptable by the FAA.
I do not believe this and I don’t believe the agl of the stack was accurately charted.
I am a pilot since 1970, of course this means nothing but I did spend most of my adult life in I.T. for city and state government.
I have seen and even participated in the poor decision making and subsequent cover ups these folks make routinely.
I feel this young pilot trusted her plates and stated procedures without the seasoned distrust and judgement of older pilots.
This is NOT pilot error!
Frankly stated - I don’t think the FAA gives a damn about sectionals accuracy and safety of general or commercial aviation.
I feel she and her family were robbed of her life by allowing approaches like this one to exist.
I would not fly this - I don’t think you would either yet she had to do it weekly, in rain,ice,fog,dark and without hesitation.
City, state or feds - one or more of them screwed up and cost a family a daughter.
If it is ever proven otherwise, I will be the first apology. //ji
Rubin, this os not an either/ or situation. There were major problems with the approach, it was a trap. But the pilot made critical mistakes. By no means this is a condemnation of her. This is a recognition that ANY of us, as pilots, could find ourselves in the same situation. The only real way to honor her is to learn from her mistakes, not sweep them under the rug.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Scott, I know you are being reasonable here and you are attempting to accomplish the same thing we all are.
I regret very much that all of this happened. I am seeing a young pilot lost and a civil war regarding it among some very very good pilots/instructors who are involved in its aftermath. I routinely try to catch all their videos, I trust them, their concept of safety is amazing and I certainly hate that this has occurred.
I have always found pilots have a unique, reasonable temperament, especially the old ones.
That said - if I could go back prior to Brittney’s final flight and change one thing, I would have been in the Burley city hall and potato processing plant offices with a request to ask the Boise FAA office to do one more inspection and review of this particular approach before publishing. I feel UPS might agree with me.
Yes, I could have warned Brittney but what about the next pilot and the next pilot? This approach should have never been approved or published.
Frankly, I could not care less about random steam bursts. My thought process halts on a dime at the end of your statement
that the posted approach was a death trap. Change that and I will call it good. //ji John in Oregon
I have flown almost 50 years. Not once have I looked at an IAP chart and thought….”yeah, I don’t trust that information” lol
@@mmayes9466 Me too, and that is standard.. and what is wrong with this approach.
Lots of blaming in the comments and lots of should haves. I know what you’re trying to do and say Scott but honestly you really have no idea what happened and blaming the pilot on this awful tragedy is unwarranted. I’m done with all these accident videos.
It’s always good to hear your perspective without the drama.
Great RUclips channel!
Personally, I like that Dan Gryder looks for things that other people tend to overlook, and is skeptical of the authorities, rather than falling in line.. I'm sure that multiple things happened to cause this accident, not just one factor. It's tragic, and anything done to bring awareness to any part of it is good. The FAA definitely has a problem with corruption and incompetence, so it's not too far off to be skeptical of their findings.
Some youtubers are entertainers with a documented history of irresponsible comments. That they have supporters says a lot about the supporters.
@@charlesfaure1189 can we discuss the actual issues instead of ambiguous name calling? Guess not.
Excellent update. Certainly the stacks being anywhere near the end of a runway is something that should never have been tolerated. Pilots make mistakes, but this one should not have been automatically fatal. Nevertheless, here the pilot made a mistake, or rather, more than one. Businesses will learn nothing from this, because business is about money and not about lost lives (the cigarette and alcohol industries exist.) Local governments will learn nothing, because the truth is they are largely controlled by business interests (forget the politics, it's a simple and obvious truth.) And most pilots will learn nothing, because like the rest of us, the natural attitude is "it can't happen to me." But if by this video you save even one life, it's more than worth it. I hope that one (or more) sees it. Godspeed.
Just a thought, but having a stack can't be the only way of venting steam. In this day and age I'm sure there is an engineering solution like an enclosed cooling tower like thing at ground level which might even recover their water.
Thanks Scott. Keep at it-your insight will always be appreciated.
Great video as usual, Scott. Thank you for the explanation.
I have a question: If the simulations found the stack light to be aligned with the runway, wouldn't be possible that as long as she saw that stack light she believed she still had the runway in sight? That would explain why no go arund has been initiated.
Possible, But I don't accept that the light was visible during the day, even less so in low visibility.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Thanks for your reply! Imo, it doesn't matter what any of us believe as long as no tests are being conducted. I wonder...Have the simulations concluded that the light wasn't visible? Did anyone flew that approach while the light on, in similar weather conditions, and determined that the light is indeed not visible while descending on the glideslope?
A life has been lost and is not prudent to assume what the pilot saw or did not see while flying her last approach. Some evidence, be it circumstantial, is required in order to support any theory.
@@BlueSkyUp_EU The guy responsible for making sure the light worked testified that he had to check it early in the morning, while still dark, because it couldn't be seen during the day time.
I always appreciate your no BS approach. Just the facts.
Thanks Gunny. We love those negative comments as they help us tweak our analysis. And yes, it is all about learning from the experience of others.
Maybe a local BYI pilot can tell me why runway 24 is not used more especially in low visibility conditions. There are a whole lot less obstacles and is more inline with the prevailing wind.
She was trying for 20.
There is a Circling Approach and the RNAV 20... that's it.
Sorry, you are all wrong. It was the Ketchup.
The young lady was simply trying too hard to land at the airport and ended up letting her plane get too low. If she had flown the approach correctly or gone missed approach, she wouldn't have hit the stack. She just let the circumstances get the best of her. All the if's, and's, and but's won't bring her back. All we can do is try to keep it from happening again.
And we do that by learning the hard lessons... each and every one of us. that is the way we honor this pilot.
Listening to your comments I went and fetched the docket...and began pawing through it. This is one of the most poorly written incident final analyses I have ever read. There is no way whatsoever that staying above MDA would have saved her bacon in all variations of this situation. The only repeatable known safe viable solution was to go to an alternate upon finding the runway fouled in icing conditions. From an engineer's perspective, I'll explain...
(1) To land safely on the fouled runway she needs to go slower so she has adequate stopping distance (without uncontrolled skidding).
(2) Going slower in icing conditions is itself more risky as the condition of the airframe may change rapidly. There are ways to mitigate this, however...
(2a) Going slower when the plane is configured for icing conditions triggers the Low Airspeed Awareness (LAA) annunciator and indicators-EVEN WHEN THE AIRPLANE IS CONFIGURED CORRECTLY FOR THE CHOSEN AIRSPEED. The LAA is documented as being HARD SET at 97.5 KIAS.
(2b) More disturbingly, the LAA USES THE STALL WARNING ANNUNCIATOR for a second purpose. While a closely related purpose, something as important as the stall warning annunciator should never do double-duty as the response to it is an expected reflexive memory item.
(2c) Given that pilots are then also told to silence and / or ignore the LAA in certain configurations they are being set up for failure...as they are effectively being told to ignore the stall warning.
(2d) She would therefore have not had any reliable warning as she slowed if she had indeed not engaged the flaps (causing her to drive AOA too high).
(3) When she actually did cause the airplane to descend at an excess rate, and leave the glide path, it very well could have been while she was attempting to execute a missed approach according to the book guidance (provided in the docket). The configuration changes needed to do so would likely have re-triggered the LAA, OBSCURING ANY STALL WARNING-introducing additional confusion and even panic even when not in a stall.
(4) Alas, we'll never know what sequence her final actions occurred in as Part 135 STILL does not require an onboard flight data recorder (something all new automobiles are effectively required to have at this point). Therefore we cannot know if she truly had not been attempting to use the flaps at all or if she had retracted them early in a panic caused by the LAA blaring in her ear during an attempted missed approach procedure.
(5) As an added insult, instead of moving the displaced threshold further away from the obstructions (and therefore effectively raising the glideslope above them) the VASI was removed (as it would be unreliable due to being hard to see through the obstructions). I understand they wouldn't want to make the usable length of the runway any shorter than was already forced by airspace obstructions, but given there's no meaningful replacement it was yet another hole punched through the cheese.
Major design errors cause deaths and these are clearly some of them, linked with a procedure, from the manufacturer, that by design normalized deviance, further increasing the likelihood of an incident. Yet, no mention of this horrific set of design choices was made in the final report's findings. That's malpractice so far as I'm concerned as this is a set of design decisions as bad as allowing a patient to be hit with excessive X-Rays just because somebody mindlessly punched the "OK" button. Coupled with the regulatory failures this incident detailed a truly toxic brew.
This is why I conclude that pinning the early departure from MDA on the pilot as a primary cause of the incident is wrong headed. It might not have saved her anyway.
It's good you went through the Docket. One important correction, I never said the Approach design was fine. In fact I have said it is a Trap.
I see any Accident Investigation as two separate issues. I've said this before, too bad you missed it. My background is the USAF method of accident investigation. The first one, completed in 30 days, is the Safety Investigation which focuses on pilot actions, Probable Causes and recommendations. Finding the unvarnished truth about what happened and how we might avoid it in the future. The second one, called the Accident Investigation, starts right after that and focuses on Fault. I don't focus on Fault. I am more interested in Pilot Actions and Lessons Learned because the NTSB never addresses this, much less anyone else. There is not enough time, nor do I have the resources to cover all the bases. From my perspective what affects us, individually as pilots, is what I need to address. And you are quite correct in observing the NTSB does not address the systemic problems that create safety traps like this approach.
This pilot made mistakes that put her in this position. It doesn't matter who she is, I think that it is possible that any pilot in the same situation could make the same decisions, with the same result. Her mistake doesn't make her a bad pilot, or a bad person, or any different from you and I. I think what is important is to learn the lessons she has to teach, it is the only way to truly honor her. It's to bad she didn't have a discussion covering this topic in her background, or a mentor who clued her in. Maybe she wouldn't have made those mistakes.
The faults with the approach do not absolve her from her mistakes. Nor does detailing the actions that led directly to the collision with the tower absolve the folks who designed and published the approach. It's not an either/ or situation.
Thanks for the update. Bottom line.. if the pulsing steam stack surprise wasn't there, in your world, would the accident have actually happened ... the drop in indicated air speed entering the heated steam blob would be noticeable as negative on the steady state descent at a given power and pitch setting ( as you alluded to re: density altitude, and the resluting drop in altitude) ... It wouldn't have time to cool having just been discharged.
If the stack wasn’t there, but if everything else happened as it did. Then she had about 56’ to recover from the 1100 FPM descent before hitting the roof.
@@FlyWirescottperdue 56 feet is nothing. It's theoretically enough but you have to have test pilot skills with ample warning of the event to get that kind of max performance. Those stacks reduced the margin of error to virtually nothing.
So, she pulled off the intentional "look see" on the first pass (I've done that many times in many years of Ice piloting in the Arctic, some no flap stuff in icing, etc), at a higher Vref, no flaps.. and then on the go around, knowing some snow or whatever on the short runway, with a different mindset the second time, and slowed to the frothline speed, knowing it was going to be visual at MDA, a sight picture in her head... a bit over confident maybe, then surprise "poof!! " the steam shot in the face. As you say, shouda coulda not done that... There but for the grace of god and the toss of a coin could have been me on occasion. In the High Arctic stuff, I took off with full tanks many times, over gross because the odds of dying from that were far better than running out of gas on trips with no alternate within gross range and dying a slow frozen death after putting it down on the tundra.... weather information was useless most of the time.
..one further observation, that I'm sure most here know, is that single pilot IFR is much tougher than it looks. Most of my time was done that way. Transition from the gauges for landing, dumping the autopilot near MDA/DH when you can see where you are headed visually (if you aren't hand flying already) takes a few seconds. If you get a sudden post loss of visibility as you are heading downhill hand flying into a surprise bag of steam popping up suddenly, it will definite take a few seconds to get head down and locked back on to the gauge scan. When you only have say 100 feet to get sorted Head back Down fast is no small feat, and it's a lonesome feeling in that cockpit. Add the steeper 3.7 degree downhill momentum, and there you go. I'm guessing that the windshield would go white /foggy if it was below freezing hitting that saturated steam with a cold airplane. Surprise Transition back to head down is not instant, especially when you aren't expecting it. That's why many single IFR types do the "look see" pass and go around in the first place.
Thanks for your follow up. I've got some important things going on today so will have to give this more attn. later. Agree how could all these stacks have been built on final approach to begin with? Decision makers in that town must have been inhaling potato gas for too long -
If its water vapour why don't they condense it and recover some of its heat then everyone happy, stacks are a lazy option. As far as I see, any visible vapour has different density to surrounding air.
You picture of the location and approach says it all.
You do great work. Thank you very much.
Stopping should not have been a problem because the Caravan has a fully reversible propeller. I currently fly a Pilatus and have many thousands of hours flying with the PT6 engine equipped airplanes and they stop rapidly using full reverse.
Yes, but you can’t rely on Beta. Just like thrust reversers. Stopping distance is brakes.
well done, boss!!
Thank you for the analysis and update.
Thanks Scott for a thorough update and very wise words. Great video thankyou! PS. There was mention somewhere that a bystander heard a power increase just before the collision. If this is true, I am guessing Brittany had begun to realise her predicament of excessive descent rate and low altitude from flying too slow on the approach.
That was the report, but depending on where the witness stood it also could be prop noise. Would need another observation to verify.
Excellent update.
Very well said 👍
I agree, sir
100% agree with you, Scott, as a former C208 driver with hundreds of hours SPIFR flying similar runs. Steam cloud, orange paint, stack, light, approach safety area penetrations, etc, etc. - NONE of that would have been an issue at all UNLESS one flies well below glidepath from a reasonable visual descent from MDA!
Apparently it wasn’t a reasonable visual decent
There is a reason that margin of error is built in to instrument approaches and TERPS requirements. Nobody here flies a perfect approach. If you say you do, you're lying to yourself and everyone else. Everyone gets "a little high" or "a little low" on final. You even get a little slow or a little fast. All flying is a series of corrections...the smaller the better. TERPS requirements are designed in to allow for a reasonable margin of error. The stacks encroached and removed that margin of error. Was she too low? Of course, that's pretty obvious. Something happened for her to get too low so quickly...within just a few seconds. We can only speculate on what. It will be pretty easy to convince a jury she would have successfully landed without incident had those stacks, improperly lighted and improperly marked, not been there. Had the potato plant marked and lit them properly it may not have prevented this but they could have saved themselves a lot of money in what I expect to be an expensive legal battle. My guess is that to properly light and mark them would admit they shouldn't be there in the first place.
@@johnaclark1 Ducking out of the overcast well beneath the glide path is not "something happening to you." It is a mistake, and in this case she seems to have made it. Can we be sure? No. Maybe Dr. Evil hit her with a ray gun. Maybe God just decided to call her home. Maybe a thousand things. But the lesson for pilots is abundantly clear: Don't bust procedures.
@@charlesfaure1189She was actually on the correct glide path and suddenly dropped 145 feet in just a few seconds.
Its just that I have trouble with the idea that most of the energy in that exhaust plume would have been transferred out that quickly.
Not the energy, the cloud would still have momentum. It is the heat energy that dissipates quickly.
Thank you
DPE gave me good advice on my instrument checkride. I was dead on the MDA on an approach, his comment, nothing wrong with being a dot or two high. Don’t be low.
Don't you mean OK to be a couple of feet high at the MDA? There is no GS on a non precision approach. Garmin does offer an advisory GS function, but it is not to be used as primary guidance. Operating below an MDA is visual only.
@@Cmoredebris, The point was don't be low. Doing approaches in full IFR is hard enough. Being low only adds more risk.
I am not sure we can say that a missed approach hadn’t been initiated. The attitude of the airplane in the image shortly before impact suggests to me that a missed approach may have been as likely as was a last minute evasive maneuver. No way we will ever know, but I don’t think it appropriate to assume that a missed approach wasn’t being made when loss of contact occurred due to the steam.
If it was, it was initiated too late.
You're entitled to your own opinion.
@@charlesfaure1189 Many missed approaches and go-arounds are.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Not an opinion, but a fact. We have no way to know what that pilot did in the seconds before impact without a voice and data recorder, neither of which is on this airplane. We don’t know if she simply flew into the stack, if she saw the stack and tried to evade it or if she recognized she was below the MDA and initiated a missed approach too late. Suggesting we know is an opinion. Saying we don’t know is the fact.
@@LTVoyager Actually, LT we do know a lot of the things you claim we don't, or have no way of knowing. The video shows the airplane did fly into the stack. It was not maneuvering or climbing. There is no evidence of going missed, power was on, but not at high rpm.
She had to know she was below the MDA... she was on profile for the descent on the VDA, until the last few seconds. To say anything else says she was a bad pilot and I don't think that was the case at all.
I'm sorry and understand you want it to be another way. There are huge problems with the approach and obstacles. But none of that absolves the pilot of her mistakes. I see that you don't like it. I would suggest that understanding her mistakes is a legacy that can save lives. It is my contention that virtually any of us could find ourselves in the same situation. We honor her by learning from her mistakes. My own father died in an airplane accident, that could have been prevented, that doesn't mean I think he was a bad person, or an inferior pilot. He made a bad choice and I have learned from it.
This is not an either or situation.
I have a question...if the tower wasnt there. Would the landing be successful?
Judas will never address that. Instead he goes after those who do in service to his masters.
Possibly, depending on the recovery from that push. The airplane was about 50' from the roof.
If the rules ans laws were followed. She would still be flying today.
IMO, the aircraft probably would've then impacted the next "Group of Six Stacks" that were only "about 200 ft southwest" and just BARELY off the aircraft's flight path from the impacted stack (as seen in the photo at 4:00 in Mr. Perdue's video). The same question could be analyzed if ALL the stacks were removed. The roof of the Gem Plant is about 33 ft. AGL (approximated from Figure 2 "Copy of engineering drawing of the Agglomerate stack" in NTSB Docket Item #41). The aircraft's altitude at impact with the stack was 86 ft AGL --- or about 54 ft above the Gem Plant roof.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Making a lot of excuses for the moneyed but zero for the poor Girl just starting out. I am sure you were perfect but been in this game far to long to think anyone is.
Don't "de-friend" Blanco!
He tends to be rather impulsive when he's off his meds and you're his hero!
He didn't mean it...
What didn't he mean?
I was making flippant, oblique reference to the whole "steam" issue.
As you point out, Law is Law.
IMHO, if YOU say something about this sort of business, it's gospel.
At the end of the day, a girl died, for what? Money? It wasn't Life Flight.
I may have dropped the mitts too soon in an effort to poke at these clowns who stir the pot, just to do it.
You spend all this time and energy to help everyone, and instead of just listening, they poke at you?????
It's maddening, and frankly, it's ignorant and rude.
Grrrrrrrrr...
You know your business and "they" should STFU.
That's all.
Had the authorities known the truth about the stacks, would the approach have been changed accordingly?
Seems like the authorities knew about the problems...
@@FlyWirescottperdue they knew only what the potato people and the city told them, and that was not the truth.
Grider is a self-aggrandizing egomaniac who thinks he's above the law. His behavior is appalling.
Thank you Scott. Great breakdown. The image you showed at 3:38 is the best one I've seen so far. It's taken at a position and altitude that really captures the relationship of the position and height of the smokestacks, relative to the runway. My sense is that both you and the other RUclipsr are making valid points, but most accidents have contributing factors of varying degrees and I agree that the BIGGEST error and contributing factor (and also the biggest takeaway in order to avoid making the same mistake) was made when the pilot busted minimum altitude. Your hunch that that was done intentionally to avoid runway overrun sounds like it's right on the money. As you also pointed out, I would add violating DMMS as the other major contributor, but that in all likelihood was also about not running off the runway. From the perspective of adhering to AQP training, in order to avoid making bad decisions in an emergency or borderline emergency situation; it would seem that no training had been done that anticipated a scenario such as this. I'm a huge fan of AQP and I doubt that any pilot who ISN'T is practicing and planning for all the emergency situations that they should. Thanks again Scott. Excellent work.
There is no such thing as AQP for GA.
@@skyboy1956 There is no FORMAL or OFFICIAL version of AQP for GA, but there's absolutely zero to stop a pilot from creating their own AQP training and practice standards for emergency situations. For example, what is my response if I lose power upon takeoff and I'm less than 'X' feet AGL, and how will I train for that? At what minimum altitude will I train? is my proficiency such that I should only practice with a CFI on board? If you don't practice for surprises, you WILL be surprised. I can't even think of a reason NOT to set personal training standards for the most frequent emergencies that kill pilots. I would certainly recommend creating ones own AQP program with a CFI that is versed with the AQP concept, is in favor of it, and can advise on which emergencies are just too dangerous to practice anywhere but a flight sim.