Re: Three Dead....Another Night Bad Weather Flight Over Dark Terrain
We can only read the information available to us and form our own thoughts about what might have happened.
I can see several issues that jump out at me thus far. This accident like so many others we read about seem to have some very common threads that tie them together.
Dark night, bad weather, dark area, VFR only machine, no STAB(SAS) machine, limited recent IFR flight and training beyond some very quick practice on an annual checkride, and crash scene in very close proximity to a base, destination, or place of takeoff, and with no patient aboard.
The base had a source for obtaining graphic radar reports to determine precipitation locations along the planned route, and good access to trend data and airmets and sigmets. The investigation showed some sort of weather check had been done thus we can assume the "pilot" knew of the extent of the bad weather in the area. How did the pilot miss....or fail to determine (or decide) the intense/extreme weather return that was ten miles north of the accident location was a factor (or not a factor)for his flight? Did that information appear on his source of weather.
Did the dispatch center have access to aviation weather? Are they trained to read Metars and TAFS as a backstop to a pilot making an unwise decision?
Did the base television have the weather channel available for the crews to monitor weather trends and radar data and serve as an additional source of information? Did the base have internet service for hitting commerical web sites for up to date radar data?
We also know that base and operator allowed interference in weather decisions by others than the pilot concerned. That fact alone throws up a huge RED FLAG! That one part of the accident report tells me there was a poor Safety Environment at that location. That is compounded by the Comm center not confirming the aircraft had landed either by radio or by telephone. That shows a failure of the flight following system that had been normal practice over a period of time.
The FAR's are quite plain....they call for "postive" control of all flights under part 135. The CP is required to know of the status of all flights all the time (or establish a system to ensure that happens). The non-patient leg might be legally a FAR part 91 flight but it was dispatched to retrieve a patient which was part 135. The practice of reverting to Part 91 weather standards when without patient is a troublesome practice as well. They are not anywhere as strict as Part 135 is.