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Old 20th Dec 2021, 20:10
  #10 (permalink)  
havoc
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Wyoming
Posts: 511
Received 37 Likes on 15 Posts
IIMC incident 2016, Florida (good outcome)

Food for thought, as reported by the pilot, (2016)

He was doing HAA workover in Florida, EC135 (non-IFR program) but he was current as an IFR pilot. Night VFR flight and went IMC, broke out after a few minutes, encountered second IMC and declared emergency with ATC. He requested vectors to VFR and ATC responded, "Do what you need to do to maintain VFR" ATC did ask him if he had visual with the antenna at 12 which he did not, and they gave him a vector away from the tower. He already set up the autopilot during the second IMC and began a climb to attempt to get above the cloud deck, which he did not break out and leveled off at 5000 msl.

Hearing several aircraft reporting to ATC they broke out at 1500 msl, he began a decent. He broke out at 1500 and advised ATC he was VFR and returning to base.

Some takeaways from the incident after reading his report and discussion with him.
He was proficient/current IFR pilot, so he set up the autopilot and was not concerned with the ATC response.
Leveled off at 5000 hemispheric but didn't think about possible conflict with an aircraft on an IFR flight plan.
He felt that he knew where he was (Garmin moving map) when he began the decent, not 100% sure of possible obstacles and he did not announce to ATC he was descending.
He did not observe his rate of decent (2200 FPM), determined by the Safety department review of aircraft system alerts.

The company training program and from day 1 as a pilot during IIMC training the steps are the same, Declare an Emergency, Request vectors to VFR, Request vectors to an Instrument approach. All of which the instructor accommodates, the pilot didn't question the ATC response because he felt ok with his skill set.

We ran this same situation during sim periods and flight training in which ATC (Instructor) gave the same instruction "Do what you need to do to maintain VFR" after declaring the IIMC emergency. 75% of the pilots pushed back to ATC regarding and emergency and assistance, the other 25% did not question ATC and "winged it".

The Director of Operations presented the report to the FAA asking to inquiry with ATC about the incident. An official response regarding ATC was never presented back to the instructor staff.


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