NTSB - Scott Crossfield accident 4/2006

[barit1]

NTSB probable cause (http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20060501X00494&key=1)has been issued; Inadequate wx information available to pilot.

[old-timer]

I'd missed this report, what an awful tragedy, Scott was an aviator way beyond great, he was one of THE VERY BEST.

[Avman]

But for me, the question is why do so many aviators, flying light a/c, insist on going ahead with flights into anticipated severe adverse weather conditions?

There are still far too many weather related tragic accidents such as this one in GA.

[david viewing]

But for me, the question is why do so many aviators, flying light a/c, insist on going ahead with flights into anticipated severe adverse weather conditions?
Reading some aviation mag on a flight to the US I came across the quote "If you haven't yet taken off in the face of thunderstorms, you haven't flown enough yet. Because you will" or somesuch, paraphrased from memory.

This made me think because at the time, I hadn't ever flown in the face of thunderstorms.

Now I'm not advocating any kind of recklessness or even familiarity regarding thunderstorms and flying into storms IMC is a very different matter to flying around them VFR. But a pilot who won't take off at all with thunderstorms in the forcast will lose much of the potential of 'GA as a mode of transport' in the US.

To complete long personal transport flights in the US you simply have to make measured calculated judgements about adverse weather. There's plenty of support including ATC, Flight Service and Flight Watch who willingly advise on the best way around storm systems. Maybe they didn't work so well on this tragic day, but in the end the decision to turn back is the pilot's, not the ground.

Not long after reading the article referred to above I found myself for the first time negotiating lines of thunderstorms in order to complete a cross country of 4,000 miles or so. Was I influenced by the cavalier, gung ho attitude of the article? Perhaps, a little, in that before I'd have waited days if neccessary for better weather. But the real difference was the realisation that it is possible to continue safely by exercising good judgement, having firm personal limits and being prepared to take advantage of the countless no bureacracy potential diversionary fields that dot the US landscape.

RIP dear Scott Crossfield whose "Always another Dawn" did so much to get me started on a lifetime of private flying.

[old-timer]

Godspeed Scott, you pushed the envelope in your test flying days & expanded flight knowledge for the benefit of aviation & mankind.
100% safe aviation doesn't exist & Scotts skill & judgement is way beyond doubt in my book, he was a very special pilot, we will never know the exact circumstances, perhaps instrument failure, power failure, the ATC liason question ? - we'll never know for sure.......
On a cross country from Ca to TX I delayed a sector for a similar forecast & the Wx dissipated completely against the forecast - on another leg a CAVOK forcast went completly the other way & after that I now firmly believe that Wx has to be a pilots judgement & when things go wrong it can be for many reasons including technical that no pilot can ever know in advance.
If the Wx deteriorates & an incident occurs only the pilot there at the time can answer the question exactly about the cicumstances at the time I believe - Godspeed Scott, we'll miss you