On Sunday, June 23, 2013 5:31:13 PM UTC-7, waremark wrote:
Frank was amazingly well equipped for such an eventuality and his management of the situation after the crash was excellent. However, there are a couple of aspects not present in his analysis which I might have expected to see, and discussion of which may help keep others of us safer in future.



In preparation for a flight over unfamiliar territory, I would have expected to ask for a local briefing, of which there is no mention. If the flight was over hostile territory, I might have looked at marked landout options on Google Earth. Either of these just might have told him something relevant about the airstrip which he failed to find.



Then there is no discussion about the handling which resulted in the crash. He could have been in comfortable glide of a safe airfield and still have crashed in the same way. I think this is about the caution with which it is appropriate to make an initial approach to an unfamiliar ridge - speed, angle of approach, degree of closeness all come into this. Pilots with more experience than me in mountain flying will be more competent to comment here.

My thoughts exactly. His writeup is excellent and very helpful and cover all aspects of what happened *except* the crash itself. There is only one line describing it. Surely we cant blame the 20 knots wind for the crash, nor did he apparently tried to circle in it or turned into the ridge, from what he described he did the right thing by initiating S turns so I am puzzled what cause the actual crash? This is important to understand since there were quiet a few fatal accidents when experienced pilots flew into the mountain, at least this time thankfully we can learn some valuable lesson. From the write up it sounds like he believes being over unlandable terrain contributed to the accident, but I dont see the connection unless he believes the stress impaired his judgment.

Ramy