A Squared:
It's is also true that a accident with a part 135 plane full of mail flying into the side of a hill Alaska will get a lot less attention of all kinds than a Part 121 Airbus crashing rather spectacularly and publicly in a place accessible to the national media. I doubt that many people outside of Alaska and outside of the aviation community were even aware of the Dillingham crash, but I'm pretty sure most people in the US with a television set knew about the UPS crash within a few hours of it happening. That also will have a influence on how much attention an accident receives.
No doubt that the public has much less awareness of the Dillingham accident. And, I understand that the UPS crash hearing will be political, not investigatory.
What really torques me is the lack of a public NTSB docket on the Dillingham crash at this late date, especially since the UPS docket is being release next week. That stinks.
I haven't seen an actual transcript of the communications, but the NTSB preliminary report certainly seems to suggest that the controller issued a clearance below the minimum applicable altitude, so I don't disagree with your claim that the controller screwed up. But I will say that even if that all is true, the pilots dropped the ball pretty badly. This was a non-radar approach and the plate pretty clearly shows that 2000 ft MSL was below the minimum altitude both for the TAA arrival direction and to hold at the IAF. If they had the plate out and were following it, they wouldn't have flown into the hill.
No one is more hard over than me about "the children of the magenta line" and "radar babies." Having said that I believe the BE1900 was still being tracked on the Anchorage Center radar until at, or at least near, the crash site. I have also seen the Anchorage Center MIA maps for the area. The MIA is 2,000 until nearing Dillingham, where it becomes 4,000.
In the U.S., at least, we got a lot of regulatory and procedural changes because of the 1974 TWA 514 accident. Those went out the window for this crash and the entire aviation community should have been made well aware of the primary screw-up of ATC and the subsequent screw-up of the crew.
But, no, instead, we will be "treated" next week about how pilots still can't fly NPAs. Instead, what about a hearing about how controllers can screw up MIAs in a radar environment and how a crew took the bait?
That's something I've been preaching is that if your operating in a non-radar environment, you'd better have a rock solid plan for not flying into a hill, without ATC's help. Not to say that you should abdicate this responsibility within radar coverage, just it becomes even more important outside of coverage. I have had ATC clear me to descend to an altitude which would have placed me below the terrain for that route segment. It's better to think of ATC as providing no terrain separation services and only separation from other traffic. My observation is that teaching about non-radar operations is something that flight training does really poorly these days.
Good points, but the system was fundamentally changed in the U.S. because of the 1974 TWA crash. FAA ATC has long since been required to keep the rocks away, and set you up at a legal and safe altitude for an instrument approach. Pilots don't know MIAs (centers) or MVAs (radar approach controls) So, when
FAA ATC uses those altitudes in lieu of published altitudes their responsibilities are absolute. Had the controller assigned the required MIA this accident would not have happened.
I think that most IFR training takes place in areas of good radar coverage, and is conducted by instructors who really don't have any experience outside of radar coverage themselves. As a result, we're getting pilots who are depending on ATC for terrain clearance and are lost when they're outside of radar coverage.
I agree completely. But, it's bad enough without FAA ATC setting up a crew to crash into terrain above an off-route ATC altitude assignment. And, where was the center's EMSAW that day at Dillingham? It should have been yelling at the controller as soon as the BE1900 crossing into the 4,000 MIA sector. But, controllers have a habit of turning off such safety equipment, because the alarms are "bothersome."