Everskyward
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According to @Groundpounder's post, it looks as if they departed on 27 but turned around to fly up the valley.
KTEX Bonanza 10-6-2020
- Thread starter denverpilot
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danhagan
En-Route
Skiing up there, they get some HUGE winds at the ridge (have been there every year for the past 25 years).
I flew in there last November on a day that was supposed to be a calm wind weekend day. I had a 35 knot head wind that was constant from the CONES VOR all the way to down wind (head wind eastbound), that converted to a head wind west bound for landing ... that was some windshear on base leg with winds on the runway gusting to 19.
Everskyward
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Yup, I have been to TEX many times, and have probably done some things I shouldn't have done...
denverpilot
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Tantalum
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..so I wasn't going to mention this, but since you bring it up; there are clear double standards in aviation that have always bothered me. Experience can't be trained, sure, but as pilots we all passed the writtens, practicals, orals, etc., and have some level of competence just based on that fact. The guy with 25,000 airline hours is not a better pilot strictly because of his hours than the person who has 2,000 hrs all in his Lance (for example). The type of flying is hugely important. I'd rather sit next to someone in a small GA plane with 500 hrs in the last two years with 75% of his time doing longer cross countries than the 5,000 hr airline pilot who just got a check out on a C172 at the local club
This point is illustrated by the fact that we had a thread here a little while ago of a Cirrus who pulled the chute when he developed apparent instrument issues while in and out of IMC near Aspen https://www.aspendailynews.com/news...cle_624bbac8-41ec-11ea-8b83-fbb0e9c91898.html the occupants survived, literally walked away from the accident, and he was widely panned as another typical idiot Cirrus pilot who shouldn't be flying in mountainous terrain, how ridiculous it is that he wanted to go back for his luggage, and how stupid he was for not being able to fly IMC and land at the airport near mountainous terrain despite instrument issues, and how reckless it is to fly single engine pistons, period, around the mountains, and that all the other real pilots could have flown and landed the plane partial panel in IMC in an unfamiliar area in mountainous terrain. On the flip side, the reaction here to this accident is very different, and far more sympathetic. I get the other people didn't die so it's much easier to critique, and there's a tragic nature to this (newly weds), but all that aside the double standard you often see in accidents frustrates me. It almost makes it so we can't learn from them. On the one side we excuse them as just low time pilots, and the other side they're excused as tragedies because someone had a bad day flying ("it can happen to anyone" mentality.. no it can't! not with the right training). We need to look past the pilot and the plane and objectively find takeaways that we can all become safer pilots.
Winds permitting, VFR (obviously), I land on 27. The massive walls and box canyon are very intimidating if you are landing on 9. Sure, it's a long runway, but if you have to go around for whatever reason you are basically doing an aggressive climbing right turn, really depending on that piston engine and the wings for every ounce of performance they can give.. no thanks. I'd much rather fly a tight, stable approach to 27 left traffic and slip if I have to. Doing a go around from 27 is a non-event. **however, I do understand why, non VFR, a standard stable approach into 27 is not feasible.
denverpilot
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Yeah it happens. There’s double standards and there’s also real standards.
This accident is an ATP rated (higher real standard) and 121 trained (another real higher standard) and instructor (another higher real standard) pilot vs the Cirrus example you provided. (Assuming. I don’t remember the Cirrus pilot’s background.).
So there’s some real differences in both their training and what they’ve been tested on.
But we also all know a thousand laps around the same airport vs a long weather involved XC vs flying commercially in nearly anything nature throws at the pilot — are all wildly different levels of experience, too.
1000 hours of each of those will create different pilots with different abilities. It’s unavoidable.
I think Bruce says it best here. “Never accept minimum standards.” They’re minimum standards for a reason.
Technically in your example, the Cirrus pilot kept himself one more “out” than this pilot did. He still had the chute handle left to pull.
And even some of the best and most experienced mountain pilots have messed up and let themselves run out of “outs”. Sparky Imeson comes to mind.
I think the “double standard” feeling may actually be that we’re all more surprised when someone who has met a truly higher standard messes up, rather than the lower standard passer.
Bob Hoover crashed a LOT. Wasn’t usually his fault when the engine quit, but some probably judged him harshly for it anyway in his military days. Led to a pilot more in tune with his flight energy state than almost all of the rest of us.
Also made him the expert on talking other about to crash pilots down at Reno for a decade or more.
Every pilot is made up of various stuff and quite a lot of it that’s not learned in classrooms and tested on tests. The best we can do is train and test to the standards and encourage all to do and try far more.
I think Bruce says that best around here. “Never accept minimum standards.”
In a perfect world, we’d all be trained for unusual ops like high DA mountain flying before doing it, but it’s not always practical.
Me, I’ll go fly the rocks anytime. Been doing it since 19. But I know I have never lived anywhere with solid absolute all the way to minimums IMC as a regular occurrence — and yet, my ticket says I can go fly where it happens, anytime I want. Would I blast off out of VMC-land here on a trip with bare legal currency in my airplane? Probably not. I’d go knock on those skills real hard and break rust chunks off before such a trip.
Would the internet crowd after I plowed into some approach lights somewhere be kind and only find the ratings and say I was fine to be doing what I was doing, or look at my logbook with low IMC numbers and say tsk tsk?
Dunno. Wouldn’t matter much to me at that point, since I wouldn’t be around to give my thoughts on why I did it that way.
Just a total bummer when any of us isn’t being blatantly dumb or reckless on purpose, but gets caught by something simple to avoid. Not that I truly mean anyone harm, but I can think of a few constantly reckless pilots I’d rather see crash than this guy. Especially with so many attesting that he wasn’t that type of pilot.
MauleSkinner
Touchdown! Greaser!
So if the Bonanza pilot had survived, do you think he’d say, “yeah, I screwed up,” or do you think he’d blame it on multiple, unrelated malfunctions and be upset with the people who saved him from freezing to death?
what may to you be a double standard is a set of completely different circumstances to others.
sarangan
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It still doesn't make sense to me why he flew into a
The lesson I take away from this is to never assume flight experience in one environment would translate into another. Flying an Airbus under part 121 is very different than flying a single engine piston under part 91. Not only does the experience not translate, it may in fact give someone a false sense of security and elevate the risk factors. We will never know why the Bonanza pilot chose to fly into that blind canyon. It is possible that he thought he could outclimb the terrain and get over the mountain. Or may be he lost power and attempted a 180 turn back towards the airport. Regardless, he made a perilous decision without considering the hazards of the route.
Tantalum
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Very true. Which is why I also look at GA accident stats with a very heavy grain of salt. We all do different kinds of flying and what may eventually (let's hope not though) bite us can't really translate directly to someone else
Fair point, but the judgement that gets us to that point seems to be what's forgiven (or not) depending on hours, age, etc. Maybe that's just part of human nature
The insidious part is that he likely didn't know the severity of the hazards to consider. In many cases, you don't really know how real the threat of something is until it happens (or nearly happens) to you. I'm glad my first encounter with ice was in a FIKI plane, it made me appreciate how quickly it accumulates and how screwed you might be if you don't have any way of shedding it
Everskyward
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I would say this is definitely true. Even if logic might tell you that your small single engine piston won't perform like your jet, you have been desensitized to certain conditions that your work plane might be able to handle easily, and your play plane might not.
denverpilot
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Yeah this. And I don’t think it’s so much as we don’t “know”... most pilots have the knowledge in their heads that performance is severely degraded by density altitude, no matter where we hail from... it’s more that emotional and motor skill and techniques real-world application of that knowledge, along with having seen the airplane truly become incapable of doing what is desired and needing a backup plan... that many don’t have the experience of.
I don’t know many long time mountain pilots who don’t have a story of having to use the “out” they gave themselves. The first time you have to do it, it’s a connection between what you’re seeing out the window and what you knew in your head as knowledge that gets linked in some way in our brains. After that it’s more a feeling of “I’ve seen this before and it’s time to get out of here, this just isn’t going to work today.” You see the cues sooner and react sooner too.
It’s why I said that very first screenshot gave me the willies. My experience is screaming at me about a quarter mile or more before that view.
It “looks wrong” sooner if you can already feel the airplane won’t climb, controls are starting to feel mushy from lower airspeed (even with the included faster groundspeed illusion that your airspeed is fine), the engine isn’t showing a very high MP even with everything full forward, etc.
Little hints that once they’re all connected in your head all scream “no” up there.
Does it help a LOT that we also get all of those hints along with the crappy aircraft performance even at our lower but still high DA Front Range airports and see it much more often if we live here? I think so. We start connecting those dots in early training even as students.
Waiting on a Skyhawk to even make pattern altitude before turning base in the summer with half tanks and two people, drives the performance problems home early for us. Someone always near sea level? It’s only seen as a simulation by pulling the throttle waaaay back. Doesn’t quite trigger the brain / adrenal system as much.
I agree with the poster that stated that they were likely well beyond Ingram Falls. I think I found the exact spot where the wreckage was found based on some nearby rock formations seen in photos at the south end of Ingram Basin.
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danhagan
En-Route
Those double standards are because we're biased based on aircraft type first then number of hours and ratings second and project are preconceived judgement. I say Cirrus, and everyone thinks instantly of the last 9 guys that cut them off taking advantage of a 10 mile final FAR rule while they were in the pattern ... identically, I fly an RV but haven't pulled an overhead break in front of anyone or done any low level aileron rolls on takeoff
I had a night electrical loss, smoke in cockpit alternator separation in the Tiger years ago as I approached the home drone. After putting it away, I thought," Gee if I pranged that plane hard enough or worse, no one would ever have known about the electrical problem and smoke in the cockpit and simply blamed it on single engine night flight as the "evidence" was destroyed."
Airline pilots operate into mountain airports safely on a regular basis. The more complex ones require special qualification training. That being said, it is still quite possible that the pilot in this accident had little if any mountain flying experience in light aircraft or jet aircraft. His GA and regional airline flying experience seem to have been entirely on the East Coast. His few years of UAL flying was all on the 757/767 doing mainly UK / Europe and transcon type flying. The 737 / A320 fleets see the mountain airports. Bottom line is that despite his experience level, it is possible that mountain airports are something he didn’t have much if any experience with.
KSCessnaDriver
Pattern Altitude
You don't think I'm distinctly aware of how airline pilots operate into mountain airports? Yes, we do have much more information available about the area, even for airports that require special training. But the problem is, any 121 jet with an engine out is going to have significantly better performance than the Bonanza with it's engine running, in this case. And if you aren't used to that, I could see how quickly you can get yourself in trouble flying GA.
I'm familiar with the pilot in this accident, I went to school with him. I won't speak ill of the dead, and I'll leave it at that. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
woodchucker
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So sad. @JustinD sorry for your loss.
I feel blessed getting my ticket out of KSLC. Not only dealing with Bravo airspace but having mountains everywhere to the east helps gain that necessary respect for granite. The PoA community has helped provide feedback in my early flying trips, one of which was a ski trip to Aspen. Someone mentioned flying to Glenwood Springs and one of you locals was like heck no bad idea. On that trip I settled on Rifle and my ski buddies picked me up from there. But on the day of departure I hired a local cfi to take me to Glenwood Springs for the experience. It was actually his first time there also so that was fun for both of us. Lesson learned on that flight: should have performed an engine run-up before departing Glenwood. Altitude difference resulted in slightly reduced engine performance on a short runway.
If you have not flown GA at the altitudes of Colorado and Utah and the surrounding states take nothing for granted. There have been takeoffs I’ve made with little over 100 fpm climb. You won’t be able to turn away from obstacles. You gotta milk that climb for 10-20 miles sometimes. DA is no joke out here. Try flying to Bryce Canyon sometime. Keep the plane light though. I’ve done that in a C150 and a 180 hp 172. Both times saw anemic departures. Thankfully lots of space to work things out but you have to do your hw.
I feel blessed getting my ticket out of KSLC. Not only dealing with Bravo airspace but having mountains everywhere to the east helps gain that necessary respect for granite. The PoA community has helped provide feedback in my early flying trips, one of which was a ski trip to Aspen. Someone mentioned flying to Glenwood Springs and one of you locals was like heck no bad idea. On that trip I settled on Rifle and my ski buddies picked me up from there. But on the day of departure I hired a local cfi to take me to Glenwood Springs for the experience. It was actually his first time there also so that was fun for both of us. Lesson learned on that flight: should have performed an engine run-up before departing Glenwood. Altitude difference resulted in slightly reduced engine performance on a short runway.
If you have not flown GA at the altitudes of Colorado and Utah and the surrounding states take nothing for granted. There have been takeoffs I’ve made with little over 100 fpm climb. You won’t be able to turn away from obstacles. You gotta milk that climb for 10-20 miles sometimes. DA is no joke out here. Try flying to Bryce Canyon sometime. Keep the plane light though. I’ve done that in a C150 and a 180 hp 172. Both times saw anemic departures. Thankfully lots of space to work things out but you have to do your hw.
Possum
Pre-takeoff checklist
The takeoff view from 09
woodchucker
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Here is another western airport with limited options, Monument Valley (UT25)
Land 16 to the south (3* upslope) with a rock wall right in your grill. Did that once. There is no go around option. Here’s another view taken by a heli I believe:
Epic place to fly if you ever get the chance. No fees and a lodge and camping is available. They have a shuttle van that will deliver you to either place.
There is a disclosure form needed to fill out and send in ahead of time though.
Land 16 to the south (3* upslope) with a rock wall right in your grill. Did that once. There is no go around option. Here’s another view taken by a heli I believe:
Epic place to fly if you ever get the chance. No fees and a lodge and camping is available. They have a shuttle van that will deliver you to either place.
There is a disclosure form needed to fill out and send in ahead of time though.
Zeldman
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Monument Valley, one of my favorites. I have done charters there back when it wasn't paved. Beautiful area. Call before departure to get permission to land.
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denverpilot
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When the weather up there goes to crap, it really goes...
(Not related to this accident but just sharing...)
(Memories @Everskyward ? Heh...)
(Not related to this accident but just sharing...)
(Memories @Everskyward ? Heh...)
Everskyward
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Everskyward
They must not be local since they had never heard of Hayden...
denverpilot
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Haha yeah they’re out of FL, perhaps ironically in this thread... but I noticed that too.
Kritchlow
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I don’t think we should confuse flying in and out of mountainous airports with “mountain flying”.
We airline guys are not looking to fly in canyons and site see. We care about getting above and avoiding the terrain, especially with an engine failure. I have countless landings at Eagle, Aspen, and Telluride, yet have never “flown in the canyon to site see”.
Fearless Tower
Touchdown! Greaser!
For those that have access to BeechTalk, there is a lot of discussion and 'reconstruction' of this accident.
Apparently the accident flight wasn't the first time the pilot had flown that route. On the previous flight they had done almost the exact same thing, but obviously successfully. As previously mentioned, they departed from 27 and then flew up into the box canyon. Probably to get photos/video. The successful first flight likely led him to believe he could do it again.
Apparently the accident flight wasn't the first time the pilot had flown that route. On the previous flight they had done almost the exact same thing, but obviously successfully. As previously mentioned, they departed from 27 and then flew up into the box canyon. Probably to get photos/video. The successful first flight likely led him to believe he could do it again.
Fearless Tower
Touchdown! Greaser!
Important distinction as this was not a run of the mill piston single making a high DA takeoff in the mountains accident.
smv
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smv
My favorite way of expressing this actually started in my motorcycle life but transfers easily to my airplane life.
There is a big difference between 10,000 hours (100,000 miles) experience and 1 hour (10 miles) repeated 10,000 times.
smv
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smv
A while back I was doing an online safety course (ASA or FAASafety, I do not recall*) that stressed the point that unless the aircraft was actually out of control due to flight control failure or some other structural anomaly that prevented the aircraft from being able to be controlled, the resulting crash is considered to be CFIT. They even went as far as to mention specifically engine failure crashes that were under control up to the moment of impact.
*EDIT: Thinking back on it now, it may have been the Sporty's eFIRC I did over the summer....
sarangan
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