John King talks about their Cessna 210 crash.

[AdamFrisch]

It's a very engaging and interesting tale and it really shows how bad risk management can kill you quick in airplanes. The whole seminar is worth watching, but if you just want the talk about the crash it starts at 19:48.

RHKbeT-EZHM

[Artistic Intention]

Engaging and interesting maybe, but certainly verging on lunacy. Fortunately I have never bought any of their training products, but if I had I'd be finding them now and chucking them in the bin.

How on earth do you descend to 100ft on a pressure setting from over 500nm away. The last pressure setting they had was 3 hours previously and travelling at say 160-180 kts that's over 500nm. They would only need a pressure drop of 4mb to put them into the ground. That's before you even consider whatever the local terrain is.

Also how do you do dead reckoning for 3 hours above an overcast? I thought dead reckoning was calculating a wind adjusted heading and then periodically checking your actual position to your estimated position. You can't do this with no navaids and no visual references. Sounds more like they flew a constant heading for 3 hours in which case they might have been at Sioux Falls or they might have been somewhere very different. :=

Sounds like a bit of poetic licence to make a good introduction to the risk management stuff.:rolleyes:

[AdamFrisch]

It's certainly madness, but nevertheless this could happen to the most prepared pilot as well. What would you do in the same situation?

Can't squawk 7500.
Can't use radio.
Don't know where you are.
Don't know the terrain under the overcast.
No pitot heat in freezing conditions.
Can't get an altimeter setting.
Sun is setting.
Fuel running out.

[what next]

It's certainly madness, but nevertheless this could happen to the most prepared pilot as well.

Not in the year 2012. Even the "second most prepared" pilot now carries some device with him that either has communication or navigation capabilities (or both!) and is independent of the aircraft power supply. An iPhone would have been enough to get them safely to some place with better weather.

[achimha]

I liked their idea of finding an airliner and following it. That would work well through a thick layer of cloud.

Two years ago, a guy here rented a 172RG in good weather conditions, didn't notice the generator was not working, drained the battery and lost all instruments (GNS430 doesn't have a battery backup). He didn't have a second radio and probably paniced which got him on the slippery slope of bad decision making. He didn't dare to go back to the controlled airport he came from (no radio) and picked the shortest airfield he could find. On the 172RG, both flaps and landing gear are electric and for whatever reason he did not perform the manual gear extension procedure so touched down, gear didn't hold, he tried to go around but didn't manage and crashed into a hill. Only small injuries but the aircraft was finished. All because of very bad decision making.

Being prepared for the not so unlikely case of an electrical failure is very important. Here's what I came up with:


have an engine monitor that monitors voltage and shows an alarm in case the generator quits
have a plan on how to do load shedding to get most out of your battery
always carry a charged ICOM with extra batteries and an external antenna installed in the aircraft
have a battery powered GPS on board
practice no flaps landings often because in a Cessna you won't have flaps without electrical power
practice GCA approaches every now and then with the airforce bases as that is the safest instrument approach that works with just an ICOM
store ATC phone numbers on your mobile phone

[mikehallam]

Thank you Adam, for putting this up here,

A very well produced & executed lecture. The content was laid out with humour and telling points - well worth it {from ~19 minutes onwards}.

mike hallam

[Deeday]

this could happen to the most prepared pilot as well. What would you do in the same situation?
King himself answered that question: you don't get in that situation in the first place and divert as soon as the generator goes out, while you still know where you are.

Flying for three hours hoping that the battery will hold charge (while there is an obvious problem with the electrical system), knowing what sort of weather is waiting for you, does mean pushing your luck.

Listening to their story was gripping though.

[Piltdown Man]

AI - I don't think you fully listened to their story. For a start, when they say they descended to an estimated 100' AGL, that is exactly what they meant. Yes, it is only 4mb worth of altitude - assuming a flat earth. But the point they were making is that they painted themselves into a corner. They could either descend through cloud in daylight or descend at night, maybe engine out - they chose the former. The important thing they admitted to is that they ran out of options because of poor decision making in the first place. And dead reckoning is just that. An educated guess. I've done quite a few trips like that 'down-under' and I can tell you it works. But overall, we can all now learn from their mistakes. What is a shame is that their initial flying education was so poor. Some vital things were omitted.

PM

[Piltdown Man]

...and one thing they didn't really touch on: They were at 11,500' when their generator packed up. They didn't say if they were on oxygen but I'll hazard a guess that they weren't. Having low levels of O2 in your blood makes it a lot easier for you to make crap decisions.

PM

[maxred]

Two years ago I had a full electrical failure at 7500'. My wife and two kids were aboard. We were mid transit, and I was surprised at how quickly it all unfolded. I was fortunate in that an airfield lay on the nose, however as all started to fail in a dominoe effect my first thought was get on the ground. I commenced a spiral descent, pulled the speed back and dropped the gear. Shortly after I got the three greens, these lights went out also. Again, I was fortunate in that whilst hazy, there was no cloud cover and I was able to keep the airfield in my my circuit as we came down. At about 1500 we spotted an aircraft taking off, this gave me the wind direction, and I came onto final with him, climbing out. Flapless landing, on a reasonable tarmac surface. It ended well, however, very conscious that it could have been very different.

Looking back, I was happy with my decision making, however, the alt belt had detached in flight, and I did have a red alt light about 30 minutes before it all started to go. I had continued with that light on. I sometimes wonder about that.

[Contacttower]

I thought some of the most important things that they said in that video was before they started talking about their crash; firstly that this idea about the drive to the airfield being the most dangerous part of the flight needs to be banished along with an emphasis in training of just how dangerous light aircraft can be and secondly that flight instruction even today is very skill orientated and has little to say about risk management or mitigation. I especially liked that second observation because it seems to me that while a lot minor accidents like runway overruns, broken nose gears etc are skill related most of the fatal ones are actually risk management failures relating to factors like the weather.

So much about risk management I know through experience, reading this forum and reading in general. During my flight training there was no discussion really of risk scenarios that one might encounter on typical PPL flying and how to deal with them; kind of tied in with the general theme of the PPL course instruction being all about just passing the test and little about actually teaching people to fly from A to B safely.

Yes looking back the Kings obviously realise how stupid the situation they got themselves into with the C210 was but they clearly have infinitely more clue about the perils and pitfalls of private flying in light aircraft than a lot of instructors do and I thought that was a good presentation.

[Pace]

Wow

They must have both have guardian Angels as they are both very lucky to be alive ! I think if that had been my flight its something you relegate to the do not tell category as it would be a total embarrassment to do so!

First undertaking a single engine flight with cloud enroute below 100 feet! Icing in those clouds knowing that the flight would be approaching night time.
On top of a solid overcast with 11000 feet of cloud below and cancelling IFR.

Developing a serious problem and deciding to fly for a further 3 Hrs ?
Letting down over unknown territory and finally letting down blindly on a wing and a prayer and crashing.

Not sure its a lesson in flying but I will not say what its a lesson in :ugh:

Pace

[david viewing]

What did the CAA ever do for us? Well they did do that 'low voltage' light.

[RTN11]

This is madness! If you tried to recreate this, 999 times out of 1,000 you would crash and burn, it was pure luck they found their way out, especially considering three layers of ice.

You can't budget for decision making, and it's difficult to teach. When I have students who I perceive have bad decision making, I try to create some scenarios in flight to judge what they will do, and we can discuss other options as we go along. Generally the ones who have the worst decision making don't make the grade, but when put under real life pressure you never know what someone might decide to do.

Ultimately you'll only ever get this lucky once, so these guys must now be on borrowed time.

[AdamFrisch]

But by slightly altering the circumstances it could all of a sudden be good decision making:

When the generator quit they were probably flying over some very high mountains in the Rockies (as there's no way around that in Colorado). Their destination on the other hand, South Dakota, is flat as a pancake. Now, let's say they diverted and let themselves down through the clouds immediately, above all these very high mountains. Yes, they would still have juice in the batteries, but how long would that last with the pitot heat on for de-icing? Not long. Now, where would you rather be - over the Rocky Mountains or South Dakota in that scenario?

Or what if the battery itself had died and shorted?

If both of these scenarios had been the case, they did the right thing. So it's not always an automatic that you divert when the generator light comes on. It depends on the circumstance.

[Pace]

Adam

But there were grosse errors from the start taking off in a single with weather giving cloud at 100 feet or below? Not clever.
Clambering on top at 11500 then cancelling IFR?
Disregarding icing conditions in a non approved into ice aircraft?
Flying into approaching night conditions?
Generator failure they could have diverted for an IFR approach while they still had juice?
What would have happened if they had to descent while still over the Rockies?
Making a blind descent when unsure of exact position and still descending when 100 feet over ground faced with trees and cars.
Grosse bad airmanship by two people who sell airmanship and make a lot from doing so.
As stated had it been me I would have kept mum and held my head in shame and thanked my God! Even an unsecured tool box took a trip through the front screen.

Pace

[AdamFrisch]

Pace, I agree they botched up, but...

The weather was forecast at 1000ft. The reason they didn't break out could have been wrong altimeter setting and/or that the ceilings lowered. And being on IFR flight plan rather than VFR hadn't made much difference if you can't use VOR/ILS/GS or radio. The culprit here is not that they were VFR on top in itself.

Icing was not forecast (as far as I understand).

I'm not saying they didn't mess up, just that one could end up in the exact same scenario, or worse (over mountains), even if one diverted promptly. I think the right response in both scenarios (battery dead, generator dead), would be to find VFR conditions. Failing that, I would let down over water or flatlands. But then again, how would you know without navigation equipment?

Thankfully, with more and more battery powered GPS and iPads on board, the same scenario would be harder to get in to today. But not impossible.

[Pace]

Had they been on an IFR flight plan and alternated the squawk between 7600 and 7700 chances are a controller would have been alerted to their predicament and an escort aircraft dispatched.
With suspect weather and low cloud bases especially in a single it is normal to check where good weather lies even if its 90 degrees off course I may have expected this from a new pilot green behind the ears but not from two experienced pilots with awards and commendations for their achievements in safety.
Yes we are none of us perfect and all mess up but this was something else!
While they had power it would also have helped to have explained to the controller that they had lost a generator but they decided to plod on for three hours. Three hours they could have diverted to good VMC conditions with the help of the controller.
Adam however you try to paint this it is an example of shocking airmanship no more no less even the blind descent before the crash.
You say there was no icing forecast. The fact that they landed on standing snow and the fact that there was cloud 10000 feet thick would indicate that the cloud more than likely would contain ice!!
You also state that actuals and TAFs gave nothing worse than 1000 feet cloud was that the destination airport? What was given enroute as it very rare to get a cloudbase of less than 100 feet when its forecast at no worse than 1000 feet.

If this happened a long time ago and was a lesson learnt which helped them towards their quest for safety??? but if not so long ago not a good advert!

Pace

[maehhh]

In think the lesson learned is:

A handheld GPS, a handheld transreceiver (and maybe a mobile phone) can save you a lot of trouble... :ok:

[peterh337]

Absolutely right. Never go up with battery powered GPS and a radio.

[Pace]

A handheld GPS, a handheld transreceiver (and maybe a mobile phone) can save you a lot of trouble...

As can airmanship and basic pilot skills /decision making both sadly lacking in this instance.
The GPS and handheld would have helped them but only they put themselves in that situation.
As in the other thread (Peter ;) technology should add to basic airmanship and piloting skills and not be a substitute for those skills

pace