RE: The FAA, You are probably 100% correct. What I find interesting is that the pilot (except for the last few seconds of flight) seemed to have every intention, with apparent confidence, of completing the flight to a landing spot (otherwise why request and inititate a climb to 4000' - plenty of opportunities to abort the mission). Looking at the NTSB photos, my guess, the manuever attempted was a deliberate one to climb through a 'hole' (legal- who knows). The key questions are; 1) why the decision in the first place and 2) what caused the pilot to abrubtly 'deviate' from his objective just, seemingly, a few feet & seconds from the ridge top and from on top conditions and to initiate a sequence of events that resulted in loss of aircraft control. IMO, a major distraction occured, e.g. 1) an inflight emergency; 2) an unwanted input from the co-pilot/passenger, or 3) the sudden & unexpected awareness of the proximity of terrain. Every new generation of pilots seems needs to learn the difference betwen 'thinking I can do it' as opposed to 'knowing that I can do it'.
Originally Posted by
SASless
(My bolding of the text)
I shall say it is my opinion Mr. Sumwalt is talking out his hind end.
They will come up with a "Probable Cause", they shall make some recomendations, and that will be the end of it.
They are not able to force any change that shall prevent this from happening again.....that is for sure because helicopter pilots have an astounding ability to repeat history and the FAA has a unique talent at ignoring NTSB Recommendations.