PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Go-around after engine failure in light twin
Old 1st Jan 2003, 20:19
  #66 (permalink)  
Flight Safety
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Dallas, TX USA
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Rumbo, I appreciate your comments. I was torn about whether to post the personal information at all, but in this case decided to anyway.

I can only think of one logical reason to post such information, and that is the influence a strongly motivated passenger can have over a pilot's decision making, during a critical moment in a flight.

I recall the Gulfstream G-III crash at Aspen in March 2001, when a charter customer sitting in the cockpit, pressed the pilot into attempting a landing in very bad weather, when his judgement should have told him otherwise. The pilot was pressured by the charter customer into a must land "press-on-itis" that got all aboard killed, when the pilot continued the approach below the MDH and still didn't have the runway in site, and when all other indications were telling him that a legal safe landing was a low probability in the prevailing conditions.

All I know is that the decision of the Seneca pilot to attempt a go-around at 5ft altitude, when all other indications should have been telling him that a safe landing was very to extremely likely, is baffling to say the least. Again, I'm still torn about whether to leave the personal information in the post or to delete it, however it might be possible that he was influenced by a passenger to attempt the go-around.

I've noticed that undue influence by a passenger, that causes a pilot to make a bad decision leading to an accident, is rare, but is a factor in a certain number of accidents. In the end as we all know, the accident investigators are in the absolute best position to make a determination as to the probable cause of this accident. However we're all here just trying to learn something from this tragic accident, and like the investigators, we learn by looking at it from a variety of different angles.
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