Call from FSS

NineThreeKilo said:
You hear that lil violen playing

If you are sooo frail and weak as you can't go out in the rain, you probably should be in a assisted living facility.

Maybe it's my medic training, but it bothers me deeply when people won't do chit to help someone in need.

If I were you I'd hope there was no such thing as karma ;)
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+1 :yes:

57 is not old, and at that age she should have recognized the situation for what it is.

Her conscious is bothering her now having failed the humanity test.

It is the civic duty thing that bothers me, along with being a fireman, US Navy sailor, first responder, pilot, and above all human being.
 
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bflynn said:
I think calling the tower was a reasonable next step. You confirmed nothing had landed there in the last 30 minutes, and I presume gave them a report that it was raining cats and dogs. They probably start calling other nearby airports where it isn't raining.
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Calling the tower was the reasonable first step.
 
AuntPeggy said:
That is what I thought. Calling the security patrol is a reasonable second step.
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The tower would have provided a definite answer. There's no point in calling anyone else on that field after calling the tower.
 
For me it would probably be a "What goes around, comes around decision." If tables were turned would I appreciate someone helping either:

1) conform I AM overdue and may need some expedited help to survive;
2) cover my mental lapse in not closing and potentially risking a SAR pilot out looking for me needlessly.

Hence, I would have looked without hesitation.

So, you probably bought yourself some karma of some type that day.
 
AuntPeggy said:
I was 57. I was in treatment for post-menopausal osteoporosis in hip and spine. The following winter, I broke an ankle on the ice. I turned 70 this week.
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Hmmm... You did have a 3rd class medical didn't ya ?
 
Is it possible to believe in karma without also believing in ouija board results, or are they separable under some circumstances?
 
Geico266 said:
Oh please. An ELT? You cannot be serious. They are for finding wreckage not survivors, next to worthless.
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I'll tell the three hunters we had an Army Chinook pull off the bank of a frozen lake a number of years ago, that they weren't found. ;)

Granted, they turned it on themselves (smart) and were found in just a couple of hours, but due to snow depth they had about a two day hike to civilization, minimum. The ELT confirmed they were down during the initial search. The first aircraft overhead spotted them hiking away from the wreckage (dumb, but at least they weren't in regular clothes and knew how to navigate).

I've personally hunted down at least 50 ELTs. They're mostly false alarms. You don't find wreckage, you find an airplane that was landed hard and put away in a hangar or a mechanic with his arms behind the panel doing other work. ;)

My favorite was the local TV helo that had one of the fancy ones that announced in voice the tail number of the aircraft and had a bad G switch.

Every time they landed on the dolly they set it off. We got to a first-name basis with the maintenance folks in that hangar.

To answer APs question, I would have looked for two reasons...

- There's a local CFI (probably retired by now) who "self-recovered" by walking from the crash site of his crash at night at KBJC with third degree burns almost a mile to a pay phone (remember those?). A local Sheriff's deputy who had a personal dispatch radio in his truck (remember those?) heard the dispatch and detoured from going out to dinner with his wife to the pay phone, where he immediately saw how badly the pilot was injured and called for a medevac chopper, back when there was only one in Denver. Saved his life. You do what you can. If the weather or other conditions are bad enough you need folks prepared for it, and you're talking to the folks looking, best to just say so. They're pretty action-oriented.

Which leads to the second reason...

- The AFRCC is going to call soon, and my phone is going to ring with an automated message saying I should go look anyway. Guess I should have kept some rain gear in my truck's "go bag". ;)

Sad part is, that was years ago for me. CAP changed their rules about needing two individuals on every ground team, even for "Urban" DF, and the hoops to jump through are ridiculous. I recently told an active ground team guy that I'd probably never get re-qualified to search ramps "officially" but I'd be happy to point at the hangar where the signal was coming from when his "officially qualified" team finally assembled and arrived, and then disappear before anyone knew I was there.

My DF gear no longer rides in the vehicle but I can find an ELT with my other handhelds almost as fast. If not, the DF gear is at home in the garage.

I can go get it. Hope you don't bleed out while I'm driving back and forth...
 
Recently, the FAA may call for a different reason. We have a transient turbo-prop single sitting in a hangar awaiting re-registration. It made an enroute stop on an IFR flight plan. FAA called and said that the registration had lapsed. It could not be flown. The people continued to their destination after being picked up by another plane.
 
You did what you believed to be correct at the time. I don't live in the past nor with regrets for that which I cannot change.
 
Graueradler said:
Recently, the FAA may call for a different reason. We have a transient turbo-prop single sitting in a hangar awaiting re-registration. It made an enroute stop on an IFR flight plan. FAA called and said that the registration had lapsed. It could not be flown. The people continued to their destination after being picked up by another plane.
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I would not assist the FAA with this. If the FAA calls, and I answer, all they will hear is a click, and then dial tone. I'm not in enforcement, and want nothing to do with their registration problems.
 
JoeSelch said:
Not required for a student pilot.
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Interesting... A student pilot can solo and get all the way up to the PP check ride without a 3rd class medical... I will remember that.. Thanks for the correction.:rolleyes:
 
N801BH said:
Interesting... A student pilot can solo and get all the way up to the PP check ride without a 3rd class medical... I will remember that.. Thanks for the correction.:rolleyes:
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i don't think so. You have to have a class 3 medical to solo. You can be a student up to solo without a medical.
 
I guess the real takeaway from this discussion is that there are a lot of people who will feel obligated to go out into a cold, wet night to look for your plane when you forget to close your flight plan.

Don't forget.
 
As well as a some who feel compelled to impute urgency into a situation in which it is unnecessary and then seek to guilt-trip anyone who calls BS on all their flailing around.

AuntPeggy said:
I guess the real takeaway from this discussion is that there are a lot of people who will feel obligated to go out into a cold, wet night to look for your plane when you forget to close your flight plan.

Don't forget.
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AuntPeggy said:
I guess the real takeaway from this discussion is that there are a lot of people who will feel obligated to go out into a cold, wet night to look for your plane when you forget to close your flight plan.

Don't forget.
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The real takeaway is there are a lot of people that feel obligated to go out and try to verify that a plane has landed so sar can be launched if needed. The reason may be failure to close a flight plan but that is not the only reason. Nice try at twisting answer to fit your guilt.
 
jtheune said:
The real takeaway is there are a lot of people that feel obligated to go out and try to verify that a plane has landed so sar can be launched if needed. The reason may be failure to close a flight plan but that is not the only reason. Nice try at twisting answer to fit your guilt.
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When a VFR flight plan shows a towered field as the destination the first step FSS normally takes with an overdue aircraft is to call the control tower. If the tower reports the aircraft landed the matter ends there. If the tower reports the aircraft did not land they look elsewhere, there's no reason to call anyone there for a ramp search.
 
roncachamp said:
I would have asked if they had called the tower.
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I'm with Steven on this, especially if I were a frail person and had no way to use a vehicle to stay out of the pouring rain while searching. If the field has a tower they also very likely have access to a maintenance crew with the authority and equipment required to operate anywhere on the field (and that crew would likely enjoy the OT). I would have offered to call the tower myself but it seems weird that the FSS didin't do that already.

OTOH, if I had a raincoat and/or umbrella I might have undertaken a search of the tiedown area within walking distance after calling the tower but my only concern would be getting wet, not falling down and breaking bones.
 
N801BH said:
Interesting... A student pilot can solo and get all the way up to the PP check ride without a 3rd class medical... I will remember that.. Thanks for the correction.:rolleyes:
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Ben, please can the sarcasm; it was uncalled for. AP already established that she was flying with an instructor, which doesn't require any sort of a medical. Or, to make it more complete for you, it doesn't require any sort of a medical for the student pilot; there is one required for the instructor.
 
roncachamp said:
The tower would have provided a definite answer. There's no point in calling anyone else on that field after calling the tower.
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Perhaps, perhaps not. I know that more than one aircraft has landed at my home base in darkness while the tower was open without the tower being aware of it. Add some rain and a pilot hoping no one notices they were VFR in IMC and...
 
If he's hiding, why in the world should I waste time looking for him? No my yob, mon.

gismo said:
Perhaps, perhaps not. I know that more than one aircraft has landed at my home base in darkness while the tower was open without the tower being aware of it. Add some rain and a pilot hoping no one notices they were VFR in IMC and...
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gismo said:
Perhaps, perhaps not. I know that more than one aircraft has landed at my home base in darkness while the tower was open without the tower being aware of it. Add some rain and a pilot hoping no one notices they were VFR in IMC and...
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And I think FSS would still get a definite answer. I suspect pilots that don't want to be noticed operating VFR in IMC don't file VFR flight plans.
 
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pilot_dude said:
You did what you believed to be correct at the time. I don't live in the past nor with regrets for that which I cannot change.
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Yes, but one can always revisit past decisions and recompute based upon what they have learned since to determine if given the same set of circumstances, would the choices be the same.

"...correct the errors of the past, pickup new disciplines for the future." - Jim Rohn (R.I.P.)
 
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