Time logging p1, p1s, PUT etc etc
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The other person logs Dual time which counts equally for licence revalidation purposes.
“dual instruction flight time” means the flight time during which a person is receiving flight instruction from a person qualified in accordance with....
My insurer wants a record of my PIC time for their purposes. They're happy to see "dual" time too, if I was receiving training, but it's the PIC time which interests them most for my PIC flying!
the two pilots disagreed as to who was responsible!
Do you sign for the aircraft when you go flying Step? I usually don't.
Tech log is a fair point - but retrospective, and actually as an instructor it's not unusual to have the student fill out the tech log for practice. Signature, yes, IF that's required.
But, to be frank, any flight where it's not absolutely clear who the captain is, before the aeroplane moves under its own power, is doomed at the very least to suffer confusion, and very much at risk of accident, before it starts.
G
Tech log is a fair point - but retrospective, and actually as an instructor it's not unusual to have the student fill out the tech log for practice. Signature, yes, IF that's required.
But, to be frank, any flight where it's not absolutely clear who the captain is, before the aeroplane moves under its own power, is doomed at the very least to suffer confusion, and very much at risk of accident, before it starts.
G
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But, to be frank, any flight where it's not absolutely clear who the captain is, before the aeroplane moves under its own power, is doomed at the very least to suffer confusion, and very much at risk of accident, before it starts.
I rarely "sign for" an aircraft, though when I took helicopter training I did. 'Signed that I took it (and responsibility if it, and how it was flown) and that I returned it X.X hours later.
Step Turn:I am having difficulty understanding how you can "push the P1 responsibility onto the other pilot" yet still retain the RIGHT to intercede in the control of the aircraft. To follow your logic let us say, for example, you intercede incorrectly and there is an accident. Do you think that the "P1" and his lawyers would be happy for him to shoulder all of the blame and for you to walk away scott free?!!!!
This is not an attack on you - its just extrapolating the arguement to show its flaws.
This is not an attack on you - its just extrapolating the arguement to show its flaws.
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I wonder if its just remotely possible that for the large majority of these flights, both of the pilots log P1 time and that nobody actually cares, nobody actually checks, and that for an uneventful flight it doesn't even actually matter.
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Do you sign for the aircraft when you go flying Step? I usually don't.
I state that the "other" pilot is PIC, and I will brief, then intercede, only as required, and that won't relieve them of PIC duties
I wonder if its just remotely possible that for the large majority of these flights, both of the pilots log P1 time and that nobody actually cares, nobody actually checks, and that for an uneventful flight it doesn't even actually matter.
Tech log is a fair point - but retrospective
This may be all pedantic but when the sh*t hits the fan then it will most definitely matter. Ambulance chasing lawyers will get involved.
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Let's review this in the whole sense: PPL shows up to rent a plane. PPL is licensed to fly the aircraft, the licensing authority has no further interest in the PPL demonstrating their skill - they have the PPL. The PPL is confident about their skill, and prepared to take the plane solo - they do not request a check flight. If they did, they would be requesting training, and thus flying PuT with an instructor - but that's not this from the PPL's perspective.
But, the aircraft owner would like the PPL to demonstrate their recency under their commercial 28 day rule. They require an instructor to ride through a check flight with PPL. The PPL has no intention of being interceded by the instructor during that flight.
The PPL has no intention of sharing the flying duties with the instructor, as they came to the dispatch counter prepared to sign for sole responsibility of the aircraft, and to fly it unassisted. Therefore, they did not come to the flight seeking "help" with flying the plane, but they are willing to follow the rules, and allow an passenger instructor to evaluate their skills for currency.
So;
Yes. The PPL came prepared to fly the plane solo, not to request training. So there would be no "right" for the other person to intercede in flying the plane. If they do, they are not interceding, they are interfering. Acting in the employ of the aircraft owner, they should really do know better. If they interfere, and make things worse, they will have to take the responsibility for that - the PPL renter did not accept the responsibility for the aircraft with the intent of assessing the ability of the passenger instructor to interfere, without creating a further hazard. They're just prepared to manage their own skills.
There have certainly been cases where an instructor wanted to "show" a PPL something during a check flight - I've been to a few of the accidents. The maneuver was beyond the required skill set, and beyond the PPL's skills. The instructor took control, and responsibility.
The role of the check pilot during the check flight is to assess the PPL, not to train, or "help" to fly the plane. If they have any need to touch any control, the check flight was a fail, and it's time to go home to reassess.
So if the instructor is along to assess, and not to fly, they're not flying if they're doing their job right. If they are not flying an SEP, then someone else is, so that someone else - the PPL - must be the PIC!
No disrespect taken, nor intended at instructors - who I know are just doing the job they were assigned. I opine that the job may have been poorly defined form the outset..... The renter PPL is PIC during a check flight, because they are flying - that's the purpose of the flight!
But, the aircraft owner would like the PPL to demonstrate their recency under their commercial 28 day rule. They require an instructor to ride through a check flight with PPL. The PPL has no intention of being interceded by the instructor during that flight.
The PPL has no intention of sharing the flying duties with the instructor, as they came to the dispatch counter prepared to sign for sole responsibility of the aircraft, and to fly it unassisted. Therefore, they did not come to the flight seeking "help" with flying the plane, but they are willing to follow the rules, and allow an passenger instructor to evaluate their skills for currency.
So;
yet still retain the RIGHT to intercede in the control of the aircraft. To follow your logic let us say, for example, you intercede incorrectly and there is an accident. Do you think that the "P1" and his lawyers would be happy for him to shoulder all of the blame and for you to walk away scott free?!!!!
There have certainly been cases where an instructor wanted to "show" a PPL something during a check flight - I've been to a few of the accidents. The maneuver was beyond the required skill set, and beyond the PPL's skills. The instructor took control, and responsibility.
The role of the check pilot during the check flight is to assess the PPL, not to train, or "help" to fly the plane. If they have any need to touch any control, the check flight was a fail, and it's time to go home to reassess.
So if the instructor is along to assess, and not to fly, they're not flying if they're doing their job right. If they are not flying an SEP, then someone else is, so that someone else - the PPL - must be the PIC!
No disrespect taken, nor intended at instructors - who I know are just doing the job they were assigned. I opine that the job may have been poorly defined form the outset..... The renter PPL is PIC during a check flight, because they are flying - that's the purpose of the flight!
I don't think, Step, that I'd be willing to strap into the right hand seat under the circumstances you describe.
The instructor you are talking about is there because the flying standards of the chap in the left seat are not 100% certain, and because the instructor is a known higher ability pilot who is making a decision about the outcome of the flight. So for them to have the ability - legally - to take control seems essential. And if they have that, they are Captain.
The person in the left hand seat may in some regulatory regimes be P1/S, but the person in the right hand seat is the "S".
G
The instructor you are talking about is there because the flying standards of the chap in the left seat are not 100% certain, and because the instructor is a known higher ability pilot who is making a decision about the outcome of the flight. So for them to have the ability - legally - to take control seems essential. And if they have that, they are Captain.
The person in the left hand seat may in some regulatory regimes be P1/S, but the person in the right hand seat is the "S".
G
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Originally Posted by Step Turn
the aircraft owner would like the PPL to demonstrate their recency under their commercial 28 day rule. They require an instructor to ride through a check flight with PPL.
Originally Posted by Step Turn
they are willing to follow the rules, and allow an passenger instructor to evaluate their skills for currency
If the checkee is required to be checked as PIC then the checker should permit the checkee to operate as PIC. Regardless, the PIC MUST be determined before the flight.
And perhaps the person mandating the 'check flight' should pick up the tab for it…for a change...
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So if the instructor is along to assess, and not to fly
On a recent check ride the instructor said, when I was a couple of feet above the runway, "go around". Not something any club instructor had said to me for years, and in my view it was reasonable for the club to check whether I had actually remembered how to go around.
Clearly in those circumstances the instructor was ready to intervene if, in fact, I hadn't remembered how to go around.
Similarly, a club check instructor might tell you which runway to land on, or tell you to stop by a certain point, or tell you to fly a low level bad weather circuit, or whatever.
I'm quite happy to log such flights as Pu/t: I don't get what all the fuss is about. I always have the option of flying more often and not running out of currency: their train set, their rules, I pays my money and takes my choice.
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Similarly, a club check instructor might tell you which runway to land on, or tell you to stop by a certain point, or tell you to fly a low level bad weather circuit, or whatever.
I always have the option of flying more often and not running out of currency: their train set, their rules, I pays my money and takes my choice.
I'm quite happy to log such flights as Pu/t: I don't get what all the fuss is about.
Honest question, 'cause I don't know, if an airline Captain is flying a route check left seat with a check pilot to their right, who is PIC?
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When I do club check rides, I am PIC and the other pilot logs it as dual. I have had cause to take control on such checkouts and I do not want any confusion as to who is in command. The alternative is to be a passenger with no responsibility for the safety of the flight. No thanks!
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The following is pasted from a newspaper article, which I cannot link. It's a long read, but rather relevant to this topic...
I have made bold the passages I think to be relevant.
I have made bold the passages I think to be relevant.
Guelph Mercury - Searching For Answers - Published May 10 , 2013
PUSLINCH — Elvira Hawkins circles the wreckage of her late husband’s small airplane. She pulls back a tarp to peer into the cabin where he died. It’s a dark mess of seats and wires.
Russ Hawkins, 47, was killed when his Cessna 172 crashed into the hilly shoreline of Puslinch Lake last October. He was practising to land and take off from water. A second man on board survived.
The wreckage is in pieces, stored in the corner of a Brantford hangar. The fuselage is dented. The nose cone is disfigured. Wings and tail are propped up against a wall. Damaged floats sit nearby, peeled back by the impact.
Elvira dabs her eyes, red and wet. It’s the first time she has seen the wreckage. The twisted metal seems small and hardly capable of flight.
The federal Transportation Safety Board, which investigates aviation crashes, closed its probe by saying Hawkins misjudged his takeoff and chose not to wear the shoulder harness that might have saved him.
But the Waterloo Region Record discovered there’s far more to the fatal crash than investigators have revealed in 87 words. Transport Canada initiated a review after the newspaper questioned the safety board investigation.
The safety investigation is silent on mechanical concerns raised before the crash. It does not reveal that the survivor is a flight instructor who was unable to prevent the crash. It does not reveal that the flight may have violated aviation regulations. It says nothing about a cockpit struggle alleged to have occurred in the final seconds in a failed bid to abort the takeoff.
“The investigation was so short and in my opinion brief,” Elvira complains. “A person died here. That’s somebody’s life.”
Simon Kuijer is polite but firm. He will not discuss the crash that killed Russ Hawkins.
Kuijer is the last person to see Hawkins alive. They were seated beside each other when the Cessna crashed. Kuijer suffered minor injuries.
“That was his dream all his life,” his widow Elvira says. “He always wanted to fly.”
“He would study things and examine things. He would consume himself with it,” business partner Robert Sigal explains.
Hawkins stored his 1979 Cessna at the regional airport east of Kitchener. Over nine months he spent more than $140,000 to refurbish it inside and out.
“He did fine,” Mavor recalls. “I was in control. Of course he was learning. He wasn’t ready to go solo.”
Hawkins quickly departed Orillia after the lesson ended.
Courtesy Hawkins family Russ Hawkins stands next to his plane, which he was in when it crashed near Puslinch Lake last October. Hawkins was killed and another man survived.
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“It’s almost like ‘Oh my God, we had six deaths in a year, so let’s brush off the last one. We don’t need more trouble,’ ” Elvira says. It pains her even more to be so suspicious.
“It’s a bit of a hard topic to talk about,” he says on the porch of a Georgetown townhouse. “He was a good friend of mine. And that’s about all I’d really like to say.”
The pair flew together a lot. Kuijer, an instructor with the Waterloo Wellington Flight Centre, gave Hawkins his first flying lesson on Feb. 2, 2012. After that they flew together 23 more times according to a pilot logbook kept by Hawkins. For all 24 flights, Hawkins named Kuijer as the pilot in command, while he recorded himself as the student co-pilot.
Kuijer is rated in Canada to pilot single and multi-engine aircraft on land and sea, according to aviation records held by the U.S. government. A website for the proposed Sea Pilot Academy, a business investment that Hawkins was considering, states: “Simon Kuijer is a top level flight instructor with thousands of hours experience in small aircrafts.”
Hawkins was a successful Guelph entrepreneur whose wealth provided him the means to achieve a childhood dream. In January 2012, he bought a used, single-engine airplane for $79,950 with co-owner Tracey Slater, who declined to be interviewed.
To become a pilot, Hawkins applied the same drive and focus that made him a fortune in online marketing ventures. He wrote and passed tests. He purchased a membership in a national aviation association. He flew 70 times between Feb. 2 and Oct. 22, gaining almost 100 hours of experience according to a copy of his logbook.
Transport Canada rewarded him with a pilot’s licence on June 21, 2012. His enthusiasm for flight rubbed off on son Justin, 23, who flew with Russ and who also took flight lessons from Kuijer.
Last September he installed amphibious floats to land the airplane on ground or water. He planned to fly to his business partner’s home on the water in Quebec. To earn a seaplane licence Hawkins needed seven hours of float training, including five hours of dual instruction with an instructor on board acting as the pilot in command.
According to a copy of his logbook, Hawkins recorded his first float training Oct. 13 with Kuijer. It lasted almost two hours out of the regional airport. Hawkins recorded Kuijer as the pilot in command, but never signed the logbook page to certify it as correct.
On Oct. 22 Hawkins recorded just over two more hours of float training. He flew to Orillia to train with instructor Jeff Mavor of Orillia Aviation, the firm that installed his floats. They practised takeoffs and landings (called circuits) on Lake St. John. Hawkins recorded Mavor as the pilot in command.
Elvira and the couple’s son Justin are demanding the government investigate the crash more fully, while they ponder legal options and deal with insurance issues the family will not discuss.
It feels to the Hawkins family as if the aviation community, rocked by six deaths in 11 months out of the Region of Waterloo International Airport, doesn’t want the whole story told.
“Normally you would debrief somebody and talk about the circuits and talk about what he did right, what he did wrong, where he could improve,” Mavor recalls. “He didn’t even give us a chance to do that. He was very quick at things. He was a very nice guy but just very quick, a busy guy.”
At the airport Hawkins chatted with Vito Perino, an aircraft maintenance engineer who works out of a nearby hangar. Perino recalls that Hawkins still had minor work to be done on his Cessna, including aligning the new floats.
“He seemed to be pretty happy with the airplane,” Perino recalls.
Around noon Hawkins met with Dale Bragdon, who owned the hangar that Hawkins leased.
“He was interested in building a group of hangars to lease out for an investment,” Bragdon recalls. “He was a very entrepreneurial guy, always shopping for new ideas.” They talked business for 30 minutes.
The Cessna had dual controls. Kuijer sat in the passenger seat from which he previously instructed Hawkins. They flew to Puslinch Lake east of Cambridge.
Ken Elligson watched them from inside a restaurant overlooking the lake.
“He’d land and then he’d taxi around the lake and then turn around into the wind and take off again,” Elligson recalls.
The final takeoff caught his attention. “We’re watching him taxi along and he didn’t seem to be slowing down. And I thought if he doesn’t slow down soon he’s going to hit the shore. And then at the last minute he took off again.
“Everybody said ‘Oh, I think that plane just crashed.’ ”
Kuijer spoke later to Ron Harper about the crash.
“There was a struggle,” Harper recalls being told. “Simon called it. He said, ‘You need to abort.’ Russ said, ‘No, I can make it.’
“Then (Russ) yanks on the yoke. So it’s flying, but just barely. Now he’s got trees to deal with. He pulls back more … Now it spirals down on its back into the hill.”
The Transportation Safety Board dispatched two investigators who reached the crash later in the day. They examined wreckage and interviewed the survivor and other witnesses to quickly conclude what went wrong.
“There was nothing wrong with the aircraft,” explains Peter Rowntree, regional senior investigator. “They didn’t get off the lake in time to clear the trees.”
“It’s human error,” Rowntree says. “We don’t get into blaming the pilot or anybody else. It’s a fact. They tried to take off from a point where success wasn’t guaranteed.”
Did Kuijer struggle with Hawkins to abort the doomed takeoff?
“I can’t confirm or deny that,” Rowntree says, saying Kuijer’s statement to investigators is confidential.
The safety board concluded its crash investigation with a published summary five sentences long:
C-GBLG, a Cessna 172 on amphibious floats, departed Kitchener (CYKF) on a local flight with the pilot and a passenger on board. At 13:56 EDT the aircraft proceeded to Puslinch Lake to conduct circuits on the lake.
After several successful circuits, at approximately 14:30 EDT while attempting another takeoff the aircraft struck trees and a power line on the southeast side of the lake and crashed into rising terrain. The pilot sustained fatal injuries and the passenger sustained minor injuries. Neither were wearing the optional shoulder harness.
A pending safety notice will urge aviators to wear their shoulder harnesses. Hawkins had a harness, but fastened only his lap belt. He smashed his head as the Cessna crashed upside-down.
“I don’t believe it would have been a fatal accident had he been wearing a shoulder harness,” says Don Enns, Ontario manager for the safety board.
. . .
The Hawkins family raises three key issues in demanding a full investigation:
• Why is the Transportation Safety Board not probing deeper as it did in examining two other fatal crashes out of the regional airport?
• Did the misaligned rudders that concerned Russ Hawkins contribute to the crash? Have mechanical causes been properly explored?
• Why do safety investigators call Simon Kuijer a passenger rather than instructor? Why was he unable to prevent the crash? Could he have taken control in the final seconds?
The safety board acknowledges that its crash summary does not reveal the qualifications of the survivor, is silent on any actions to avert the failed takeoff, and says nothing about regulatory issues raised by the flight. It denies this missing information makes the summary misleading.
“Because we didn’t proceed with a full investigation, therefore we have not written a full and comprehensive report as to what actually went on,” Rowntree says. “The details, although they’re brief, they essentially say what happened.”
Hawkins was not yet licensed to pilot on water by himself or with a passenger on board. He still needed an instructor with him to act as pilot in command. The safety board’s conclusion that Kuijer was not an instructor puts the fatal flight on the wrong side of regulations. Lawyers are now sorting through insurance implications.
The safety board acknowledges that 30 years ago it would have fully investigated to bring out all these details. Today it can’t justify a full investigation for a crash it readily explains as pilot error.
“With budget cutbacks we focus more on anything that’s got a safety issue,” Enns says. “This one here was pretty straightforward as to what happened. He misjudged his takeoff.
“We made the conscious decision that there was nothing that was systemic to the aviation industry that had to be looked at. It was explainable right there without going any deeper into it.”
On the day he died, Hawkins juggled his plans. In the early morning of Oct. 25 he cancelled a plan to fly to Orillia for more float instruction, citing gusty winds. He sent Mavor an email: “I’ll stay in Guelph and do some land circuits this morning.”
In the same email he complained that the water rudders steering his new floats were misaligned, causing a yaw (a side-to-side movement of the airplane nose). Hawkins asked if Orillia Aviation could correct the alignment and also complete cosmetic touch-ups. Mavor replied: “Any time you can leave (the Cessna) with us we will tidy up those snags.”
Hawkins went on to the regional airport. He was in touch with seaplane pilot Ron Harper about flying together. Harper lives on Puslinch Lake and was developing the Sea Pilot Academy (which is not operating) with Hawkins. But Harper couldn’t get to the airport until too late in the afternoon.
Just after 1 p.m., Hawkins departed the airport in his Cessna. By now he had arranged for Kuijer, a qualified float instructor, to join him. The Waterloo Wellington Flight Centre says it did not book the flight as it does not provide float instruction. The school would not comment further.
“He just barely cleared the trees on the shore. And when he got up above the trees, straight ahead of him up on the hill was a new house. He was headed for that house. He banked to the left to avoid the house and as soon as he banked to the left the plane just flipped over upside-down and went straight down into the trees.
The ready explanation helps the safety board distinguish the Hawkins crash from two other local crashes it is fully investigating.
“They were certainly more mysterious,” Rowntree says. The other crashes were also commercial flights, unlike the Hawkins crash which was deemed a private flight.
Investigators defend ruling out mechanical causes, despite never conducting an extended probe. They found flight controls in working order at the scene. Witness accounts, propeller damage, and the airplane’s success in getting airborne point to an engine producing enough power.
The misaligned float rudder that concerned Hawkins is “a minor deficiency” that just needed tweaking. “It’s not going to cause a crash,” Rowntree says.
Orillia Aviation installed the floats. “I flew that airplane,” owner Jeff Mavor recalls. “It was a great performer. It flew straight as a dime.”
Seaplane pilot Ron Harper is not persuaded. He thought the Cessna lumbered, watching it in flight.
“I was concerned with the performance of that plane,” he says.
The safety board says Kuijer told investigators he joined the fatal flight as an unpaid passenger.
“This is a touchy area for everyone,” Rowntree explains. “The person who was on board, yes, was a qualified flight instructor. But for this flight, to the best of our knowledge and the facts that we’ve gathered, he was on board as a passenger only and not a flight instructor.”
Rowntree figures Kuijer has “nothing to hide. Because there’s no implication to him either way whether he’s pilot in command or not. Planes with instructors on them have accidents all the time. These things happen. It’s a training environment.
“In the end, it doesn’t make any difference to the outcome of the flight whether he was pilot in command or not. It does on the legal side of things. We don’t care about the legal side of things. That’s not our jurisdiction.”
Yet the safety board understands a concern it did not address in its 87-word investigation. How did the airplane crash with a flight instructor on board?
Could Kuijer have taken control from Hawkins in the final seconds? Enns sees this as plausible even though it’s not what the safety board reported.
Transport Canada, which oversees flight regulations, responded to Record queries about Kuijer’s role by initiating a review of the crash. This will include fresh interviews.
“Transport Canada has embarked on a review of the information to determine if there were any violations of Canadian aviation regulations,” spokesperson Brooke Williams said. She would not comment further while the review is underway.
“It’s about time,” Elvira says. “I’m glad they’re doing another investigation. That should have been done the first time.”
Kuijer no longer works for the Waterloo Wellington flight school. He has not spoken to the Hawkins family about the crash.
While they grieve, Elvira and Justin remember how they first heard of the crash. As news spread in early confusion, it was not clear anyone died.
Though startled, Justin knew his father as a confident, able man.
“I thought I was just going to go pick him up from the hospital and it was going to be fine,” he recalls.
“My mom was crying on the phone and I was like, ‘Mom, don’t worry. This is Dad. This is Russ Hawkins here. He’s going to be fine. He’s always fine.’ ”
News services
PUSLINCH — Elvira Hawkins circles the wreckage of her late husband’s small airplane. She pulls back a tarp to peer into the cabin where he died. It’s a dark mess of seats and wires.
Russ Hawkins, 47, was killed when his Cessna 172 crashed into the hilly shoreline of Puslinch Lake last October. He was practising to land and take off from water. A second man on board survived.
The wreckage is in pieces, stored in the corner of a Brantford hangar. The fuselage is dented. The nose cone is disfigured. Wings and tail are propped up against a wall. Damaged floats sit nearby, peeled back by the impact.
Elvira dabs her eyes, red and wet. It’s the first time she has seen the wreckage. The twisted metal seems small and hardly capable of flight.
The federal Transportation Safety Board, which investigates aviation crashes, closed its probe by saying Hawkins misjudged his takeoff and chose not to wear the shoulder harness that might have saved him.
But the Waterloo Region Record discovered there’s far more to the fatal crash than investigators have revealed in 87 words. Transport Canada initiated a review after the newspaper questioned the safety board investigation.
The safety investigation is silent on mechanical concerns raised before the crash. It does not reveal that the survivor is a flight instructor who was unable to prevent the crash. It does not reveal that the flight may have violated aviation regulations. It says nothing about a cockpit struggle alleged to have occurred in the final seconds in a failed bid to abort the takeoff.
“The investigation was so short and in my opinion brief,” Elvira complains. “A person died here. That’s somebody’s life.”
Simon Kuijer is polite but firm. He will not discuss the crash that killed Russ Hawkins.
Kuijer is the last person to see Hawkins alive. They were seated beside each other when the Cessna crashed. Kuijer suffered minor injuries.
“That was his dream all his life,” his widow Elvira says. “He always wanted to fly.”
“He would study things and examine things. He would consume himself with it,” business partner Robert Sigal explains.
Hawkins stored his 1979 Cessna at the regional airport east of Kitchener. Over nine months he spent more than $140,000 to refurbish it inside and out.
“He did fine,” Mavor recalls. “I was in control. Of course he was learning. He wasn’t ready to go solo.”
Hawkins quickly departed Orillia after the lesson ended.
Courtesy Hawkins family Russ Hawkins stands next to his plane, which he was in when it crashed near Puslinch Lake last October. Hawkins was killed and another man survived.
1 of 5
“It’s almost like ‘Oh my God, we had six deaths in a year, so let’s brush off the last one. We don’t need more trouble,’ ” Elvira says. It pains her even more to be so suspicious.
“It’s a bit of a hard topic to talk about,” he says on the porch of a Georgetown townhouse. “He was a good friend of mine. And that’s about all I’d really like to say.”
The pair flew together a lot. Kuijer, an instructor with the Waterloo Wellington Flight Centre, gave Hawkins his first flying lesson on Feb. 2, 2012. After that they flew together 23 more times according to a pilot logbook kept by Hawkins. For all 24 flights, Hawkins named Kuijer as the pilot in command, while he recorded himself as the student co-pilot.
Kuijer is rated in Canada to pilot single and multi-engine aircraft on land and sea, according to aviation records held by the U.S. government. A website for the proposed Sea Pilot Academy, a business investment that Hawkins was considering, states: “Simon Kuijer is a top level flight instructor with thousands of hours experience in small aircrafts.”
Hawkins was a successful Guelph entrepreneur whose wealth provided him the means to achieve a childhood dream. In January 2012, he bought a used, single-engine airplane for $79,950 with co-owner Tracey Slater, who declined to be interviewed.
To become a pilot, Hawkins applied the same drive and focus that made him a fortune in online marketing ventures. He wrote and passed tests. He purchased a membership in a national aviation association. He flew 70 times between Feb. 2 and Oct. 22, gaining almost 100 hours of experience according to a copy of his logbook.
Transport Canada rewarded him with a pilot’s licence on June 21, 2012. His enthusiasm for flight rubbed off on son Justin, 23, who flew with Russ and who also took flight lessons from Kuijer.
Last September he installed amphibious floats to land the airplane on ground or water. He planned to fly to his business partner’s home on the water in Quebec. To earn a seaplane licence Hawkins needed seven hours of float training, including five hours of dual instruction with an instructor on board acting as the pilot in command.
According to a copy of his logbook, Hawkins recorded his first float training Oct. 13 with Kuijer. It lasted almost two hours out of the regional airport. Hawkins recorded Kuijer as the pilot in command, but never signed the logbook page to certify it as correct.
On Oct. 22 Hawkins recorded just over two more hours of float training. He flew to Orillia to train with instructor Jeff Mavor of Orillia Aviation, the firm that installed his floats. They practised takeoffs and landings (called circuits) on Lake St. John. Hawkins recorded Mavor as the pilot in command.
Elvira and the couple’s son Justin are demanding the government investigate the crash more fully, while they ponder legal options and deal with insurance issues the family will not discuss.
It feels to the Hawkins family as if the aviation community, rocked by six deaths in 11 months out of the Region of Waterloo International Airport, doesn’t want the whole story told.
“Normally you would debrief somebody and talk about the circuits and talk about what he did right, what he did wrong, where he could improve,” Mavor recalls. “He didn’t even give us a chance to do that. He was very quick at things. He was a very nice guy but just very quick, a busy guy.”
At the airport Hawkins chatted with Vito Perino, an aircraft maintenance engineer who works out of a nearby hangar. Perino recalls that Hawkins still had minor work to be done on his Cessna, including aligning the new floats.
“He seemed to be pretty happy with the airplane,” Perino recalls.
Around noon Hawkins met with Dale Bragdon, who owned the hangar that Hawkins leased.
“He was interested in building a group of hangars to lease out for an investment,” Bragdon recalls. “He was a very entrepreneurial guy, always shopping for new ideas.” They talked business for 30 minutes.
The Cessna had dual controls. Kuijer sat in the passenger seat from which he previously instructed Hawkins. They flew to Puslinch Lake east of Cambridge.
Ken Elligson watched them from inside a restaurant overlooking the lake.
“He’d land and then he’d taxi around the lake and then turn around into the wind and take off again,” Elligson recalls.
The final takeoff caught his attention. “We’re watching him taxi along and he didn’t seem to be slowing down. And I thought if he doesn’t slow down soon he’s going to hit the shore. And then at the last minute he took off again.
“Everybody said ‘Oh, I think that plane just crashed.’ ”
Kuijer spoke later to Ron Harper about the crash.
“There was a struggle,” Harper recalls being told. “Simon called it. He said, ‘You need to abort.’ Russ said, ‘No, I can make it.’
“Then (Russ) yanks on the yoke. So it’s flying, but just barely. Now he’s got trees to deal with. He pulls back more … Now it spirals down on its back into the hill.”
The Transportation Safety Board dispatched two investigators who reached the crash later in the day. They examined wreckage and interviewed the survivor and other witnesses to quickly conclude what went wrong.
“There was nothing wrong with the aircraft,” explains Peter Rowntree, regional senior investigator. “They didn’t get off the lake in time to clear the trees.”
“It’s human error,” Rowntree says. “We don’t get into blaming the pilot or anybody else. It’s a fact. They tried to take off from a point where success wasn’t guaranteed.”
Did Kuijer struggle with Hawkins to abort the doomed takeoff?
“I can’t confirm or deny that,” Rowntree says, saying Kuijer’s statement to investigators is confidential.
The safety board concluded its crash investigation with a published summary five sentences long:
C-GBLG, a Cessna 172 on amphibious floats, departed Kitchener (CYKF) on a local flight with the pilot and a passenger on board. At 13:56 EDT the aircraft proceeded to Puslinch Lake to conduct circuits on the lake.
After several successful circuits, at approximately 14:30 EDT while attempting another takeoff the aircraft struck trees and a power line on the southeast side of the lake and crashed into rising terrain. The pilot sustained fatal injuries and the passenger sustained minor injuries. Neither were wearing the optional shoulder harness.
A pending safety notice will urge aviators to wear their shoulder harnesses. Hawkins had a harness, but fastened only his lap belt. He smashed his head as the Cessna crashed upside-down.
“I don’t believe it would have been a fatal accident had he been wearing a shoulder harness,” says Don Enns, Ontario manager for the safety board.
. . .
The Hawkins family raises three key issues in demanding a full investigation:
• Why is the Transportation Safety Board not probing deeper as it did in examining two other fatal crashes out of the regional airport?
• Did the misaligned rudders that concerned Russ Hawkins contribute to the crash? Have mechanical causes been properly explored?
• Why do safety investigators call Simon Kuijer a passenger rather than instructor? Why was he unable to prevent the crash? Could he have taken control in the final seconds?
The safety board acknowledges that its crash summary does not reveal the qualifications of the survivor, is silent on any actions to avert the failed takeoff, and says nothing about regulatory issues raised by the flight. It denies this missing information makes the summary misleading.
“Because we didn’t proceed with a full investigation, therefore we have not written a full and comprehensive report as to what actually went on,” Rowntree says. “The details, although they’re brief, they essentially say what happened.”
Hawkins was not yet licensed to pilot on water by himself or with a passenger on board. He still needed an instructor with him to act as pilot in command. The safety board’s conclusion that Kuijer was not an instructor puts the fatal flight on the wrong side of regulations. Lawyers are now sorting through insurance implications.
The safety board acknowledges that 30 years ago it would have fully investigated to bring out all these details. Today it can’t justify a full investigation for a crash it readily explains as pilot error.
“With budget cutbacks we focus more on anything that’s got a safety issue,” Enns says. “This one here was pretty straightforward as to what happened. He misjudged his takeoff.
“We made the conscious decision that there was nothing that was systemic to the aviation industry that had to be looked at. It was explainable right there without going any deeper into it.”
On the day he died, Hawkins juggled his plans. In the early morning of Oct. 25 he cancelled a plan to fly to Orillia for more float instruction, citing gusty winds. He sent Mavor an email: “I’ll stay in Guelph and do some land circuits this morning.”
In the same email he complained that the water rudders steering his new floats were misaligned, causing a yaw (a side-to-side movement of the airplane nose). Hawkins asked if Orillia Aviation could correct the alignment and also complete cosmetic touch-ups. Mavor replied: “Any time you can leave (the Cessna) with us we will tidy up those snags.”
Hawkins went on to the regional airport. He was in touch with seaplane pilot Ron Harper about flying together. Harper lives on Puslinch Lake and was developing the Sea Pilot Academy (which is not operating) with Hawkins. But Harper couldn’t get to the airport until too late in the afternoon.
Just after 1 p.m., Hawkins departed the airport in his Cessna. By now he had arranged for Kuijer, a qualified float instructor, to join him. The Waterloo Wellington Flight Centre says it did not book the flight as it does not provide float instruction. The school would not comment further.
“He just barely cleared the trees on the shore. And when he got up above the trees, straight ahead of him up on the hill was a new house. He was headed for that house. He banked to the left to avoid the house and as soon as he banked to the left the plane just flipped over upside-down and went straight down into the trees.
The ready explanation helps the safety board distinguish the Hawkins crash from two other local crashes it is fully investigating.
“They were certainly more mysterious,” Rowntree says. The other crashes were also commercial flights, unlike the Hawkins crash which was deemed a private flight.
Investigators defend ruling out mechanical causes, despite never conducting an extended probe. They found flight controls in working order at the scene. Witness accounts, propeller damage, and the airplane’s success in getting airborne point to an engine producing enough power.
The misaligned float rudder that concerned Hawkins is “a minor deficiency” that just needed tweaking. “It’s not going to cause a crash,” Rowntree says.
Orillia Aviation installed the floats. “I flew that airplane,” owner Jeff Mavor recalls. “It was a great performer. It flew straight as a dime.”
Seaplane pilot Ron Harper is not persuaded. He thought the Cessna lumbered, watching it in flight.
“I was concerned with the performance of that plane,” he says.
The safety board says Kuijer told investigators he joined the fatal flight as an unpaid passenger.
“This is a touchy area for everyone,” Rowntree explains. “The person who was on board, yes, was a qualified flight instructor. But for this flight, to the best of our knowledge and the facts that we’ve gathered, he was on board as a passenger only and not a flight instructor.”
Rowntree figures Kuijer has “nothing to hide. Because there’s no implication to him either way whether he’s pilot in command or not. Planes with instructors on them have accidents all the time. These things happen. It’s a training environment.
“In the end, it doesn’t make any difference to the outcome of the flight whether he was pilot in command or not. It does on the legal side of things. We don’t care about the legal side of things. That’s not our jurisdiction.”
Yet the safety board understands a concern it did not address in its 87-word investigation. How did the airplane crash with a flight instructor on board?
Could Kuijer have taken control from Hawkins in the final seconds? Enns sees this as plausible even though it’s not what the safety board reported.
Transport Canada, which oversees flight regulations, responded to Record queries about Kuijer’s role by initiating a review of the crash. This will include fresh interviews.
“Transport Canada has embarked on a review of the information to determine if there were any violations of Canadian aviation regulations,” spokesperson Brooke Williams said. She would not comment further while the review is underway.
“It’s about time,” Elvira says. “I’m glad they’re doing another investigation. That should have been done the first time.”
Kuijer no longer works for the Waterloo Wellington flight school. He has not spoken to the Hawkins family about the crash.
While they grieve, Elvira and Justin remember how they first heard of the crash. As news spread in early confusion, it was not clear anyone died.
Though startled, Justin knew his father as a confident, able man.
“I thought I was just going to go pick him up from the hospital and it was going to be fine,” he recalls.
“My mom was crying on the phone and I was like, ‘Mom, don’t worry. This is Dad. This is Russ Hawkins here. He’s going to be fine. He’s always fine.’ ”
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Step Turn: in answer to your query about airline check rides. If the checker is occupying an OPERATING SEAT ( versus a jump seat) then he will be P1 regardless of relative seniority.
If you think about the possible scenario of a check ride which is failed by the candidate then you still need a qualified crew ( ie. P1 + P2 ) to operate home or subsequent sectors. In other words a "failed" P1 pilot can be legal to operate second pilot.
If you think about the possible scenario of a check ride which is failed by the candidate then you still need a qualified crew ( ie. P1 + P2 ) to operate home or subsequent sectors. In other words a "failed" P1 pilot can be legal to operate second pilot.
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If the instructor is not eager for you to log checkout time as P1, find a new instructor. Does your license entitle you to fly the plane as PIC? Are you flying from the seat customarily occupied by PIC? Are you flying the plane? Why would you not be P1?
But, the aircraft owner would like the PPL to demonstrate their recency under their commercial 28 day rule. They require an instructor to ride through a check flight with PPL.
P1 = PIC = In Command = Person legally responsible for flight and who, therefore, has absolute (dictatorial) authority during the flight to make all, or any, decisions they choose and to take all, any or no actions they choose.
In EASA land it is very simple: Only one person can be in command, and therefore log, PIC. I know there are certain ceircumstances under FAA rules whereby two pilots can log PIC at the same time and this, to me, seems VERY confusing
Honest question, 'cause I don't know, if an airline Captain is flying a route check left seat with a check pilot to their right, who is PIC?
Right seat = PIC
Note that, under EASA, PICUS can only be recorded during multi crew operations or some integrated flying courses and in the UK (only?) for successful Flight Test or Proficiency Check candidates.
I think the bottom line is:
- If Insurance or Group/Club rules specify a checkout with an Instructor they are expecting someone to exercise the functions of an Instructor during the check flight and, therefore, the checkee has to be PUT.
- If Insurance or Group/Club rules specify a checkout with an experienced pilot then it can be decided before flight who will be PIC however, for all the reasons listed in other posts, I think PIC should be the Checker with the Checkee being a passenger and recording nothing in their logbook.
- If Insurance or Group/Club rules require a minimum number of logged hours in that make/model of aircraft then the pilot would have to fly them as PUT with an Instructor.
- If Insurance or Group/Club rules require a minimum number of logged PIC time in that make/model of aircraft then the pilot cannot fly that Group/Club's aircraft until they have the required PIC hours - and they will need to go somewhere else.
I think we have made this far too complicated.
If it is agreed or implied that one pilot will intervene, or take over, if he deems it necessary, at any time during the flight, then that pilot is PIC.
MJ
If it is agreed or implied that one pilot will intervene, or take over, if he deems it necessary, at any time during the flight, then that pilot is PIC.
MJ
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I think we have made this far too complicated.
If Insurance or Group/Club rules specify a checkout with an experienced pilot then it can be decided before flight who will be PIC however, for all the reasons listed in other posts, I think PIC should be the Checker with the Checkee being a passenger and recording nothing in their logbook.
If it is agreed or implied that one pilot will intervene, or take over, if he deems it necessary, at any time during the flight, then that pilot is PIC.
For the newer or less certain pilots reading this thread, though not necessarily participating, I would encourage you to understand and if needed, discuss the aircraft provider's policies in this respect, as an element of your business arrangement with them....
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There is a big problem here although you will never notice until the excrement hits the fan. This is especially the case where the check pilot has no instructors ticket.
The above seems totally reasonable to reasonable folks, however, I think its work having a look at the AAIB report on G-ARHNs last accident (yes it was written off twice - the second time only a week after a 2 year rebuild.
Its clear from this report that the more experienced pilot - the check pilot - was supposed to be in command due to a group rule, 'If a member undergoing check has exceeded the 90 day, 3 take off and landing limit, then the check pilot has to be P1.’ After the accident it would appear pilot 2 changed his mind as to who was in command of the aircraft leaving pilot 1, who was out of 90 day currency, with the responsibility for the flight. The change in command here leaves pilot 1 in the position of illegally carrying a passenger and open to damages for injuries to pilot 2.
Aditionally the AAIB point out that,
‘The aircraft was certificated for single pilot operation and therefore the only person who can be a member of the flight crew in addition to the handling pilot is a flying instructor who is instructing or supervising the handling pilot. A person who is not a flying instructor and not the handling pilot would be a passenger'
So who is in command of an aircraft? Is it a case of 'he said she said' (I guess this really only applies to GA aircraft with poor checking procedures and maybe dodgy record keeping.) BUT it shows just what can go wrong and how an innocent check ride can turn into a nightmare.
It would also appear that the CAA arent really interested unless there is a fatality and then run for the hills!
How does the innocent group co-owner protect themselves from this sort of debacle? I guess a written statement before a flight of who has what responsibilities.
I think the bottom line is:
- If Insurance or Group/Club rules specify a checkout with an Instructor they are expecting someone to exercise the functions of an Instructor during the check flight and, therefore, the checkee has to be PUT.
- If Insurance or Group/Club rules specify a checkout with an experienced pilot then it can be decided before flight who will be PIC however, for all the reasons listed in other posts, I think PIC should be the Checker with the Checkee being a passenger and recording nothing in their logbook."
- If Insurance or Group/Club rules specify a checkout with an Instructor they are expecting someone to exercise the functions of an Instructor during the check flight and, therefore, the checkee has to be PUT.
- If Insurance or Group/Club rules specify a checkout with an experienced pilot then it can be decided before flight who will be PIC however, for all the reasons listed in other posts, I think PIC should be the Checker with the Checkee being a passenger and recording nothing in their logbook."
Its clear from this report that the more experienced pilot - the check pilot - was supposed to be in command due to a group rule, 'If a member undergoing check has exceeded the 90 day, 3 take off and landing limit, then the check pilot has to be P1.’ After the accident it would appear pilot 2 changed his mind as to who was in command of the aircraft leaving pilot 1, who was out of 90 day currency, with the responsibility for the flight. The change in command here leaves pilot 1 in the position of illegally carrying a passenger and open to damages for injuries to pilot 2.
Aditionally the AAIB point out that,
‘The aircraft was certificated for single pilot operation and therefore the only person who can be a member of the flight crew in addition to the handling pilot is a flying instructor who is instructing or supervising the handling pilot. A person who is not a flying instructor and not the handling pilot would be a passenger'
So who is in command of an aircraft? Is it a case of 'he said she said' (I guess this really only applies to GA aircraft with poor checking procedures and maybe dodgy record keeping.) BUT it shows just what can go wrong and how an innocent check ride can turn into a nightmare.
It would also appear that the CAA arent really interested unless there is a fatality and then run for the hills!
How does the innocent group co-owner protect themselves from this sort of debacle? I guess a written statement before a flight of who has what responsibilities.
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How does the innocent group co-owner protect themselves from this sort of debacle? I guess a written statement before a flight of who has what responsibilities.
From another thread, I understood that "booking out" was common in the UK, and I figured that was the same thing. Perhaps a less formal aircraft sharing arrangement would not have a signout system, but it would seem easy in institute, and remove any doubt beforehand.
The premise being that the "checkee" pilot is legally entitled to fly the aircraft in terms of their license (they just need the check for "club" rules), so they can legally sign out the aircraft as PIC, and carry a passenger - the "checker". They sign, they fly. If the checker feels a need to actually fly the aircraft, the checkride was probably a fail anyway.
A part of the checkride is for the checker observe how the checkee handles the role of PIC, which is more difficult to do if the checkee is not flying in that role.