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Old May 5th 05, 11:46 AM
Greg Farris
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Maybe I'm missing something as well.
I fail to understand why everyone is making a big deal of this accident, and
the coverage it received in the press, when I don't see anything so unusual
about either.

Certainly the accident is regrettable, and it is highly likely that the final
report will come in with PIC error as causal and low IFR weather as
contributing. We'll wait and see, but this is most likely.

Taking a pre-PPL student up in these conditions for IFR training may be a poor
use of the student's time and money, but the CFI is PIC, and if he's current,
IFR with lots of experience and lots of recent time, there's nothing so
"shocking" about it.

If we're lucky, there will be something we can all learn from this accident.
But just as likely there will be a sum of circumstances that simply got the
better of the crew's resources. Poor judgement to go there under these
conditions? Probably - but then IFR is meant to fly in poor conditions, and
still leave your options open if it gets below minimums. When the facts are
all in, will we end up with the feeling they should have diverted elsewhere?
Maybe.

I think it's useful to discuss accidents - even typical accidents - as there
is something instructive in trying to understand how they let themselves get
in too deep (if this turns out to be the case); But I fail to see what is so
shocking or unusual about this particular accident, or the press coverage of
it.

G Faris