Plane missing en route YCAB?
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'Joe' I guess compared to other countries we have a fairly flat landscape with good wx most of the time BUT.....yes there's always a but. You can drown in an inch of water you don't need to be in 30 meters of water to die!
An obstacle is an obstacle you can be killed by the only 3 mtr tree for a hundred miles out in a desert landscape if yr unlucky enough to hit it!
It looks like Des & his hapless pax got caught out & sadly died from the results of hitting trees in less than favorable wx conditions & he wasn't in the Himalayas when it happened & he wasn't even in PNG he was in Australia where our tress obscured by low cloud are just as bloody unforgiving as the rest the worlds trees!
Wmk2
An obstacle is an obstacle you can be killed by the only 3 mtr tree for a hundred miles out in a desert landscape if yr unlucky enough to hit it!
It looks like Des & his hapless pax got caught out & sadly died from the results of hitting trees in less than favorable wx conditions & he wasn't in the Himalayas when it happened & he wasn't even in PNG he was in Australia where our tress obscured by low cloud are just as bloody unforgiving as the rest the worlds trees!
Wmk2
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CumulusGranitis is just as impenetrable here as it is in other places. Furthermore, given the prevalence of tigers in the Australian bush, it's an appropriate name.
("The member for spinning wheels has been overruled....I think the Ayes have it....")
("The member for spinning wheels has been overruled....I think the Ayes have it....")
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Just a figure of speech..
The time it took to locate the Dragon in there speaks for itself.
Who's point?
Is that a retort and concession or a retort and self congratulation?
Is that a retort and concession or a retort and self congratulation?
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Please please can everyone not turn this thread into a personal squabbling match, take it to its own thread or do it by PM.
Let's keep this thread focused to what happened & why & lessons that can be taught & learnt.
All the mindless nitpicking & personal attacks are showing complete disrespect to Des & the other 5 souls onboard that lost their lives in this tragic accident
Let's keep this thread focused to what happened & why & lessons that can be taught & learnt.
All the mindless nitpicking & personal attacks are showing complete disrespect to Des & the other 5 souls onboard that lost their lives in this tragic accident
Last edited by rotorblades; 5th Oct 2012 at 07:46.
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Hey rotorblades
Someone we have not thought to much about is your colleague.
How is he doing? I feel I know the few folk on that frequency like mates now, as many of us do no doubt.
I can only assume he has been hit hard and is getting some counselling or whatever is required.
You guys do a superb job under tough conditions at time.
Its about time we went flying again, get your hand in and perhaps another IFR flight so you see the other side again. I hope its been helpful in the past.
Please pass on my best wishes to the ATC plugged in on Monday arc.
Someone we have not thought to much about is your colleague.
How is he doing? I feel I know the few folk on that frequency like mates now, as many of us do no doubt.
I can only assume he has been hit hard and is getting some counselling or whatever is required.
You guys do a superb job under tough conditions at time.
Its about time we went flying again, get your hand in and perhaps another IFR flight so you see the other side again. I hope its been helpful in the past.
Please pass on my best wishes to the ATC plugged in on Monday arc.
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Hey Jaba
I haven't seen him this week, but as I understand it it has been a bit shocking to him & To everyone at BN centre, me included . I didn't know Des that well but I knew of him & seen the dragon a few times & being local to CAB myself it's never good when one doesn't return.
ATC can be as stressful as being in the cockpit in a situation, we have the information but can do very little practical with affecting the outcome apart from providing verbal aid & alerting SAR.
I've had a few a/c get caught by IMC on frequency, all times thankfully had a successful outcome - managed to guide two to Williamtown & one force landed on a beach (poor sod was on his first solo x-country as well),
I do know that this dragon incident in particular has highlighted to several, how shall I put it - less VFR tolerant controllers of the importance of all flights in the area.
It would be good to meet up soon & get a refresher on your side of things, they've been very helpful in the past. I find both pilots & ATC can get very insular & not understand what both sides are trying to achieve (which invariably is the same thing in the end get aircraft from A to B ) & that's why I like meeting up with pilots, to make me & the ones I speak to at work better at what I/we do.
As for getting my hand in its been a while since I've been behind the yoke, & even then it was Aerobats
& Cherokees. Haven't been IFR in light ac for v long time, the last time ended in a belly landing on a ridge in the alps.
I'll certainly pass in your best wishes to the controller at BN.
And if any pilot wants a visit to BN Ctr just drop me a PM, we are always happy to have visitors
Rb
I haven't seen him this week, but as I understand it it has been a bit shocking to him & To everyone at BN centre, me included . I didn't know Des that well but I knew of him & seen the dragon a few times & being local to CAB myself it's never good when one doesn't return.
ATC can be as stressful as being in the cockpit in a situation, we have the information but can do very little practical with affecting the outcome apart from providing verbal aid & alerting SAR.
I've had a few a/c get caught by IMC on frequency, all times thankfully had a successful outcome - managed to guide two to Williamtown & one force landed on a beach (poor sod was on his first solo x-country as well),
I do know that this dragon incident in particular has highlighted to several, how shall I put it - less VFR tolerant controllers of the importance of all flights in the area.
It would be good to meet up soon & get a refresher on your side of things, they've been very helpful in the past. I find both pilots & ATC can get very insular & not understand what both sides are trying to achieve (which invariably is the same thing in the end get aircraft from A to B ) & that's why I like meeting up with pilots, to make me & the ones I speak to at work better at what I/we do.
As for getting my hand in its been a while since I've been behind the yoke, & even then it was Aerobats
& Cherokees. Haven't been IFR in light ac for v long time, the last time ended in a belly landing on a ridge in the alps.
I'll certainly pass in your best wishes to the controller at BN.
And if any pilot wants a visit to BN Ctr just drop me a PM, we are always happy to have visitors
Rb
Last edited by rotorblades; 5th Oct 2012 at 13:15.
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Thanks for that.
Forgot about YHBA and the meatbomber VFR in IMC <2 miles out your window
?
C U Soon I hope.
Haven't been IFR in light ac for v long time, the last time ended in a belly landing on a ridge in the alps.
?C U Soon I hope.
When descending through holes in cloud layers, the highest terrain usually appears to remain in cloud.
So it's pretty scary to then realise that one is flying within a blind valley.
Has anyone else noticed that?
Fortunately, I'm still alive!
So it's pretty scary to then realise that one is flying within a blind valley.
Has anyone else noticed that?
Fortunately, I'm still alive!
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Oh yeah forgot bout that!
The alps thing was a right buggers muddle & might serve some people here.
Heading downwards towards a swiss airport IFR (visual in VMC conditions) through the mountains, ATC ask if we would mind moving over to the north to let jet traffic through, we agree as long as we can have vectors due to approaching cloud cover & likeliness to lose VMC if sent north. So we get a vector & we clarify the level & grid lowest safe vs the route safe we were planning to use if VMC became unliely. Atc said level was okay. we then get vectored all over the joint rights the lefts left again then rights, (didn't have GPS). We now thoroughly confused as to where they're sending us and where we goingbut thinking its okay ATC have us.
Shortly followed by ATC saying traffic believed past you, lost radar contact with you resume own navigation. Oh **** moment hits as we now request to climb as we in cloud &
trying to determine where they've put us in high ground. We ask them what our last known position was & told they'd lost radar on us about 10 mins prior, but hadn't told us.
Anyway about the same time we burst through the layer of clouds in the climb skimmed the top of some fir trees & bellied in on a ridge line heading uphill, much to the shock of us & the goaty things enjoying their lunch before being rudely interrupted by a pa28 tilling the field.
Obviously ATC has got a lot better since then, but the pilot vowed never to give up situation awareness control completely to ATC again
The alps thing was a right buggers muddle & might serve some people here.
Heading downwards towards a swiss airport IFR (visual in VMC conditions) through the mountains, ATC ask if we would mind moving over to the north to let jet traffic through, we agree as long as we can have vectors due to approaching cloud cover & likeliness to lose VMC if sent north. So we get a vector & we clarify the level & grid lowest safe vs the route safe we were planning to use if VMC became unliely. Atc said level was okay. we then get vectored all over the joint rights the lefts left again then rights, (didn't have GPS). We now thoroughly confused as to where they're sending us and where we goingbut thinking its okay ATC have us.
Shortly followed by ATC saying traffic believed past you, lost radar contact with you resume own navigation. Oh **** moment hits as we now request to climb as we in cloud &
trying to determine where they've put us in high ground. We ask them what our last known position was & told they'd lost radar on us about 10 mins prior, but hadn't told us.
Anyway about the same time we burst through the layer of clouds in the climb skimmed the top of some fir trees & bellied in on a ridge line heading uphill, much to the shock of us & the goaty things enjoying their lunch before being rudely interrupted by a pa28 tilling the field.
Obviously ATC has got a lot better since then, but the pilot vowed never to give up situation awareness control completely to ATC again
Last edited by rotorblades; 5th Oct 2012 at 17:29.
A dispiriting pall descends once more as it has often times past, for here we have a recurrent, grim reaperish curse. Nothing, but nothing, will ever drive it home to every single pilot, or pilot in the making, a complete and deeply personal understanding of the shocking price foolhardiness will exact for some, some day.
"Stay safe." "Drive safe." "Fly safe." At times how pitifully hollow the catch phrases ring.
"So long digger. Keep your powder dry." Then off he goes, to spread himself across the landscape. It's more than sad. It sickens and dismays to the very core. A cloud comes down and no birds sing.
"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, or emptied some dull opiate to the drains some minutes past, and Lethe-wards had sunk."
Let the last item of the pre take-off self-brief be -
"Occasion no grief to any living soul."
"Stay safe." "Drive safe." "Fly safe." At times how pitifully hollow the catch phrases ring.
"So long digger. Keep your powder dry." Then off he goes, to spread himself across the landscape. It's more than sad. It sickens and dismays to the very core. A cloud comes down and no birds sing.
"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, or emptied some dull opiate to the drains some minutes past, and Lethe-wards had sunk."
Let the last item of the pre take-off self-brief be -
"Occasion no grief to any living soul."
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Rotorblades, that experience will ensure you never do that sort of thing to anyone and when you become a trainer of abinitios (if you aren’t already, what with the mess that woman left behind her) it will sink into their minds indelibly right from the start.
Walking away from near death experiences is a wonderful training aid.
Walking away from near death experiences is a wonderful training aid.
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Just a thought.
60's # 179 Walking away from near death experiences is a wonderful training aid.
Sadly, there is no acceptable method of simulating shaking the skeletal, filthy hand of death. But until you have been there; or, accepted the fact that immortality is not granted at the tit, bold pilots will never become old pilots.
Selah.
Last edited by Kharon; 5th Oct 2012 at 23:08.
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A terrifying flight it must have been.
It has come to light that one of the passengers called their workplace to speak to someone with flying experience that might be able to help them out. They must have been fully aware of what was happening. There would have been nothing worse.
It has come to light that one of the passengers called their workplace to speak to someone with flying experience that might be able to help them out. They must have been fully aware of what was happening. There would have been nothing worse.
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God give me the grace...
I too read that one of the females onboard rang someone at Virgin Australia where she worked hoping maybe to be patched through to someone who could help. A truly awful realisation it must have been to know that all was seriously not well. My heart goes out to the families and friends (and the person that took that call if indeed that's what happened).
For me, after a tragedy like this, a prayer is "God give me the grace, wisdom and Truth to never find myself in such a situation & put my family or friends through such a thing".
We all have to be so vigilant not to fall into that false sense of security that can so easily come through pride, ego or any number of attributes of the human condition (not that I'm suggesting Des had succumbed to this). And like Kharon said, there's no way of simulating this stuff and the experience of losing someone close to you through a tragedy like this. The nature of life is that we just don't understand these types of things until we're directly involved (which is why as we speak there are bound to be dozens of street races going on in all different parts of the country involving teenage boys in hotted up cars who think they're **** hot drivers but in reality they probably have about 5% of the understanding of physics & what can go wrong with breaks & what a tyre blow out at speed can do & how innocent bystanders could unwittingly stray into their pathway, etc). Such is the nature of experience.
Thanks for your interactions Jaba & Rotorblades. They're hugely helpful. That story of yours Rotor is a further reminder of how easily a fowlup can happen. That you're here to tell us about it is a miracle in & of itself.
I really appreciate all that ATC does too. A friend I've been flying with for a long time has a son who's just been accepted in Airsevices Australia & is now in Melbourne commencing his ATC training. He has GFPT too & is very committed. I'm looking forward to seeing him become a great asset to aviation.
Ren
For me, after a tragedy like this, a prayer is "God give me the grace, wisdom and Truth to never find myself in such a situation & put my family or friends through such a thing".
We all have to be so vigilant not to fall into that false sense of security that can so easily come through pride, ego or any number of attributes of the human condition (not that I'm suggesting Des had succumbed to this). And like Kharon said, there's no way of simulating this stuff and the experience of losing someone close to you through a tragedy like this. The nature of life is that we just don't understand these types of things until we're directly involved (which is why as we speak there are bound to be dozens of street races going on in all different parts of the country involving teenage boys in hotted up cars who think they're **** hot drivers but in reality they probably have about 5% of the understanding of physics & what can go wrong with breaks & what a tyre blow out at speed can do & how innocent bystanders could unwittingly stray into their pathway, etc). Such is the nature of experience.
Thanks for your interactions Jaba & Rotorblades. They're hugely helpful. That story of yours Rotor is a further reminder of how easily a fowlup can happen. That you're here to tell us about it is a miracle in & of itself.
I really appreciate all that ATC does too. A friend I've been flying with for a long time has a son who's just been accepted in Airsevices Australia & is now in Melbourne commencing his ATC training. He has GFPT too & is very committed. I'm looking forward to seeing him become a great asset to aviation.
Ren
Last edited by RenegadeMan; 6th Oct 2012 at 05:32.
