"Greg Farris" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
But given the low-altitude alert and the apparently continued low altitude
until impact, it seems conceivable that the instructor was actually
letting
the student fly the approach, and failed to take control when the plane
got
dangerously low.

Come on now, that's a wild guess!

I clearly characterized it as a guess. I don't think it's particularly wild
though.

Could have been any number of things. Maybe they couldn't find the GS.

Then they should have flown above the LOC minimums, or gone missed. Any
other decision would be grossly incompetent. I'm making the charitable
assumption that the CFII at least knew how to fly an approach properly
himself, but may not have developed a sound technique for letting a student
fly it safely.

Maybe they thought they were still above it, when they were already below
it.
Sounds like there was some confusion about what their actual altitude was,
which should not be going on if established on an ILS a mile out.
According to
the controller's radar they lost 300ft in 14 sec - trying to duck under?

Could've been just 200', if the controller's radar was rounded to the
nearest 100. Still, that's indeed on the faster side. But in any case,
trying to duck under a reported 200' ceiling from a mile out would not have
been a competent decision.

Trying toget their GS indicator to come alive? Maybe there was something
wrong
with the instrument - we can't exclude that at this early stage.

Trying to get the GS indicator to come alive by diving while inside the FAF
and after having acknowledged a low-altitude altert a few hundred feet AGL?
That would be beyond mere incompetence.

It's conceivable that the GS was giving a false reading without flagging
(and without the needle just being stuck in one place, which would've been
readily noticeable), though I've never heard of that happening (if you
penetrate the GS at the prescribed altitude). But if the GS did falsely
indicate a proper altitude, the pilot should certainly have gone missed as
soon as the altitude alert was issued. If your GS says you're on target and
the controller's radar says otherwise, you don't continue the approach until
you figure out which is right.

The weather report indicated 200 ft - but that was 20 minutes earlier. The
Citation reported 200 also, but when I hear jets reporting minimums, I
always
wonder if it's really lower, and they just don't want to say it.

Could be, but they crashed a mile out. A lower ceiling wouldn't have had any
effect until they reached DA (and even then, the only effect it should have
is to trigger a missed approach).

--Gary