This sounds exactly like the same accident by a corporate jet into Truckee only a few months ago. Circling to land and augered in.
The Nest camera makes it look like a pretty vertical descent, although that could be the camera angle. I'm guessing stall. I have many hours in a Lear 35. Never stall it, even up high. Also it has a pusher which will pull the yoke out of your hands. I've done this in the sim.
There is no such convention. A pilot's choice of epithet in any given situation is arbitrary and spontaneous and based more on what word he might normally use in other stressful situations than on the cause of the situation.
I'm not familiar with the area, but the chart shows the top at 1273, with an airport elevation of 388, so roughly 100 feet below the traffic pattern for small aircraft. I am from Indiana, (which is pretty flat), but that doesn't seem insignificant. With the wider pattern of a bizjet, would the hill be more significant than for a piston closer in?
There is also an RNAV straight-in approach to RWY 9L. NA for Cat C and D, though, and I’m not sure in which category the L35A is classified.
and plenty of people are getting night current, or practice their night landings there, myself included, on VFR nights. Legality aside I would take it as a clue that the approach is going to be more challenging on a marginal vfr, really IFR / IMC night. 3 mile visibility is thin, you pass TOMTY and just barely get the airport in sight.. that's going to be a high workload if you are single pilot with low ceilings, low vis, etc. No one wants to die, that's a tough audio to listen to. So if you put your blancolirio hat on and work backwards 'up the chain' the decision to take 27R instead of the straight in to 17 started this set of events. Honestly the LOC-D sucks too. SEE is not a great IFR airport tbh, terrain aside, that localizer spits you out monster high, you're going to be circling if it's real IFR it's not, but someone put the track together above and it certainly looks like he cranked in that base to final turn harder than the plane was willing to give. Maybe it wasn't the mountain, perhaps he just didn't want to overshoot the runway and deal with going around and figuring out a missed approach when you've already cancelled your IFR.. It's really tragic. SEE has had more than it's fair share of accidents this year
According to the FAA Aircraft Characteristics Database, the Learjet 35A is a Category D aircraft, approach speed of 143 kts.
Sounds like this Learjet went down in bad weather yesterday and actually landed on a residential street avoiding homes; but no survivors on the jet. No injuries to anyone on ground fortunately.
I'll go with the hero part, but I think he was ballistic at that point. He was going where Sir Isaac Newton told him to go, not where he wanted to go.
Why do so many people want to award hero status to pilots whenever they just happen to miss hitting a home, school, or other such building during an accident? If they do take action to avoid hitting something like that, it is more likely a case of them choosing an area to hit that will do less harm to themselves rather than avoiding harm to anybody else. Besides, in this case it appears that the pilot was not in control of the airplane enough to have made such a noble effort. It was just simple dumb luck.
He was keying the mic during the final moments, so I imagine the yoke was at least somewhat in his hands.
He wasn't technically circle to land - he had cancelled and atc confirmed. MVFR at night in an unforgiving environment. Sent from my SM-G960U1 using Tapatalk
And look at the descent angle on the LOC-D. 6.88 degrees. I've done it straight in, but it's work. Foot to the floor slip in a C172 with full flaps and used quite a bit of that 5342' of runway.
I don't think the actions of the pilot are all that surprising. He was cleared straight in for 17, didn't want it, couldn't circle to land 27R, so he canceled IFR. Given the weather at the time, visibility was quite poor and based on asking for the lights to be turned up it seems that there is a decent chance he lost the runway environment. Having landed making left traffic to 27R at night, that dark hole of a hill can definitely cause you some panic especially if you're coming in quickly and think you're not turning tight enough. Can only imagine at 150kts instead of the 85-90kts I'm probably doing. I'm instrument rated but unfamiliar with the commercial/private world. I assume that since the localizer approach is not a straight in, they can't accept it at all? So right off the bat they are pushed into landing on a runway they feel is too short/unfavorable winds or canceling IFR in marginal conditions and maneuvering to land.
Or going to an alternate airport. Or not taking the flight. We so often focus on the mission we place ourselves in a mental box.
Without a doubt, going somewhere else when things just are not lining up right is the best call. But you know as well as I do that when you have people waiting for you or onboard the plane, thinking that you are a "good enough" pilot to get in to a field is what creates that mental box of "I need to land here and I bet I can do it." Smart regulations and rules give pilots an excuse for why they HAVE to divert or go around. This is just very sad to see. When I finished my IR checkride, the DPE told me that basically circling approaches are one of the most dangerous things you can do in actual. That in training, you "pop out" and take off your foggles and you circle to land in perfect VMC. In real life, circling is done in poor conditions and is not going to feel the same. You very well could lose the airport environment. Suddenly find yourself in a cloud. Then what? It's easy for us recreational pilots to avoid these things or get away with poor form at 85 kts, but in the professional world the line between success and disaster is blurred due to the faster speeds and the pressures of having passengers (or patients in this case) expecting you to get in. Hope we can do better as pilots and regulators, there is clearly a problem which needs addressing.
Not that I'm aware of. In neither this case or the MYF 310 crash, was the pilot doing a circling approach at the time control was lost. In this case, he had canceled IFR and was maneuvering under VFR. While the other guy had been told to circle to land, he wasn't anywhere near the point you'd break off the approach to circle. In fact, his approach clearance was canceled before he crashed.
I think he is talking about the Truckee crash, which was also a bizjet crashing while circling to land in marginal conditions https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/ntsb-releases-preliminary-report-on-truckee-challenger-crash/
The VASI was out for 17. Perhaps with the shorter runway and the VASI being out is why 27r was chosen. The lighting intensity request makes one wonder if he was looking at a street. I just ate lunch when I listened to that audio. Wish I didn't do either.
Edit: removed smart ass comment. I suspect they should not have canceled. It was implied without being specifically stated in my post you quoted.
From a CNN article (no reason to think it's fake)... "Weather observations from Gillespie Field showed visibility dropped below 1 mile about 6:50 p.m., with cloud ceilings below 500 feet, which would have required the pilot to follow instrument flight rules, Javaheri noted. The conditions lasted until about 8 p.m. when visibility returned to 3 to 5 miles, he said."
I wonder if the day is coming that the FAA bans circling approaches at night. Technically it could be said this wasn't because he cancelled IFR in advance, but for practical purposes it was. They just cancelled to make what they were about to do legal, if still not smart. Or at the very least ban circling at night for 121 and 135 operators. I know many have already removed them from their ops specs. The worst part of this type of accident, is that is was entirely avoidable. The pilots didn't even realize the situation that was developing until about 10 seconds before the crash. Everything was business as usual up until it wasn't.
If they knew before departing SNA that they wouldn't be using 17 at SEE due to runway length and conditions, knew the marginal weather conditions, and knew how challenging a circling approach in MVFR would be, then I believe it started before they even took off from SNA. That's the level of advanced planning that should go into it.
I absolutely despise SEE for a reason. These reasons. If I ever left MYF, I'd go to SDM before SEE. That audio is just absolutely terrible. Circling to 27R is not just challenging, but forbidden under IFR. He cancelled to circle. The LDA on 17 is 3695', which is 1000' shorter than the published landing distance for a Lear 35. The only decent landing runway at SEE in those conditions, especially at night, is 17. Completely unacceptable and absolutely tragic. 27 does not have a true straight in instrument approach. It was likely MVFR. Yeah, and the flight history suggests the aircraft was there all the time. Looks like an air ambulance, so safety first, but you aren't getting a straight in IFR approach to 27R. 27L is unlit and 2700'. It would have also been an even tighter final. The 27R TPA is 1200 AGL. For a good reason. There is a mountain literally in the pattern. Third, if you count the 310 circling too early and getting spatial D. Well, he was doing a circling approach, just a VFR one. The 310 was doing a circling approach, but started the circle at the FAF instead of the MDA. There really was no reason to not use 17 - it is plenty long enough. If they were uncomfortable using 17, they should have gone to MYF, SDM, CRQ or SAN. While MYF has a short LDA, it is more than enough for a Lear 35 and is on a stable, ILS GP.
The Flightaware track is interesting. If the data are reliable, he crossed over SEE midfield southbound at 130 knots groundspeed, at 700' MSL -- which is 312 feet above field elevation. He started the left turn before reaching the south field boundary, then climbed about 250 feet and ground speed increased to 145 knots before the data points stop. It's hard to visualize how at those speeds he could have lined up with 27R from where he started the left turn, as least without pulling some serious Gs.
Yep and witnesses always report hearing an unusual noise coming from the aircraft. There was nothing wrong with this aircraft and the fact that no one died on the ground has nothing to do with hero status. Once the expletives flew, he was along for the ride. RIP.
