Scary Icing ATC tape

This is the audio tape of a Fed Ex Caravan pilot who tangled with some
severe icing conditions.

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photoga...78L-Mayday.mp3

(It's a good-sized .mp3 file, so be patient while it downloads...)

This was given to me by our local FAA safety guy, to share with our
airport user's group. The stark terror in her voice is chilling, and
really points out how quickly things can go bad.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck writes:

This was given to me by our local FAA safety guy, to share with our
airport user's group. The stark terror in her voice is chilling, and
really points out how quickly things can go bad.

It sounds a lot more like hysteria than terror. This surprises me
coming from a commercial pilot.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Mxsmanic wrote:
Jay Honeck writes:

This was given to me by our local FAA safety guy, to share with our
airport user's group. The stark terror in her voice is chilling, and
really points out how quickly things can go bad.

It sounds a lot more like hysteria than terror. This surprises me
coming from a commercial pilot.

As someone who is scared to go outside you ought to have a pretty good
handle on both hysteria and terror.

Mxsmanic wrote:
It sounds a lot more like hysteria than terror. This surprises me
coming from a commercial pilot.

Spoken bravely by someone who's "crash" will not cause anything more
than re-starting the simulation. It is a bit different when your butt
is strapped into the airplane, moving through real three dimensional
space, and the airplane is out of control.

Steve A writes:

Spoken bravely by someone who's "crash" will not cause anything more
than re-starting the simulation. It is a bit different when your butt
is strapped into the airplane, moving through real three dimensional
space, and the airplane is out of control.

Yes, if you get hysterical in a real plane, there's a good chance that
you'll kill yourself.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Steve A writes:

Spoken bravely by someone who's "crash" will not cause anything more
than re-starting the simulation. It is a bit different when your butt
is strapped into the airplane, moving through real three dimensional
space, and the airplane is out of control.

Yes, if you get hysterical in a real plane, there's a good chance that
you'll kill yourself.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Msxmanic does have a point in the fact that if you panic and/or get
hysterical during a in-flight emergency there is a good chance that you will
lose total control and crash. However in this case I didn't feel that the
pilot was in panic mode but rather was VERY concerned about the fact that
she couldn't maintain altitude or airspeed and communicated to ATC that she
did indeed have a serious in-flight emergency. I myself think she did a very
good job of keeping control of the aircraft.

It sounds a lot more like hysteria than terror. This surprises me
coming from a commercial pilot.

Doesn't surprise me at all, just because someone has a commercial license
doesn't mean that they are immune to panic. Training for emergencies is the
best way to survive an in-flight emergency but training is training and I
feel doesn't have the same impact as the real thing.

Having said all that I am happy that she survived the ordeal and hopefully
will come away from this a better more experienced pilot!!

GDBholdings writes:

Msxmanic does have a point in the fact that if you panic and/or get
hysterical during a in-flight emergency there is a good chance that you will
lose total control and crash. However in this case I didn't feel that the
pilot was in panic mode but rather was VERY concerned about the fact that
she couldn't maintain altitude or airspeed and communicated to ATC that she
did indeed have a serious in-flight emergency. I myself think she did a very
good job of keeping control of the aircraft.

She repeated herself a lot and kept telling ATC about something that
ATC could not help with. Then she hogged the frequency a bit with
long reports about what she had done, what she was doing, and what she
intended to do, even though none of these were relevant to ATC.

She says "6500 and descending many times," but if she were truly
descending, she wouldn't remain at 6500 for subsequent reports.

The big surprise is that she was a commercial pilot. I'm glad it was
FedEx, which implies that nobody else was at risk.

Doesn't surprise me at all, just because someone has a commercial license
doesn't mean that they are immune to panic. Training for emergencies is the
best way to survive an in-flight emergency but training is training and I
feel doesn't have the same impact as the real thing.

The most successful pilots and controllers are those who remain
emotionless even in dire situations. If you listen to tapes of many
accident situations, veteran commercial pilots often sound as though
they're having tea rather than trying to overcome an emergency. And
ATC is famous for its constant "Houston center" calm, even in the face
of the worst emergency. People like this are people who survive in
emergencies.

It surprises me that she's a commercial pilot, supposedly with
considerable experience in this aircraft and in flying generally, and
she doesn't seem to understand the risk or reality of icing. ATC has
to suggest it to her, and even then she doesn't seem to get it.

Having said all that I am happy that she survived the ordeal and hopefully
will come away from this a better more experienced pilot!!

Maybe. But personalities don't change much, and if she handles one
emergency poorly, she'll probably handle them all poorly.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

" 'Sperience...."

" What you now have all kinds of....

Just AFTER you really needed it.."

Dave






On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 02:24:15 GMT, "GDBholdings" wrote:


"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
.. .
Steve A writes:

Spoken bravely by someone who's "crash" will not cause anything more
than re-starting the simulation. It is a bit different when your butt
is strapped into the airplane, moving through real three dimensional
space, and the airplane is out of control.

Yes, if you get hysterical in a real plane, there's a good chance that
you'll kill yourself.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Msxmanic does have a point in the fact that if you panic and/or get
hysterical during a in-flight emergency there is a good chance that you will
lose total control and crash. However in this case I didn't feel that the
pilot was in panic mode but rather was VERY concerned about the fact that
she couldn't maintain altitude or airspeed and communicated to ATC that she
did indeed have a serious in-flight emergency. I myself think she did a very
good job of keeping control of the aircraft.

It sounds a lot more like hysteria than terror. This surprises me
coming from a commercial pilot.

Doesn't surprise me at all, just because someone has a commercial license
doesn't mean that they are immune to panic. Training for emergencies is the
best way to survive an in-flight emergency but training is training and I
feel doesn't have the same impact as the real thing.

Having said all that I am happy that she survived the ordeal and hopefully
will come away from this a better more experienced pilot!!

Jay Honeck wrote:
This is the audio tape of a Fed Ex Caravan pilot who tangled with some
severe icing conditions.

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photoga...7-1-26_N1278L-
Mayday.mp3

(It's a good-sized .mp3 file, so be patient while it downloads...)

This was given to me by our local FAA safety guy, to share with our
airport user's group. The stark terror in her voice is chilling, and
really points out how quickly things can go bad.

Speaking pilots on tape. Did any else hear the story on NPR's Morning
Edition this morning about the guy with the autopilot that would release and
he had to land while fighting the AP. The controller talked him through the
GPS approach because he couldn't take hands off the controls to set up the
instruments.

If you didn't it is probably on thier website by now.

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Gig 601XL Builder wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote:

Speaking pilots on tape. Did any else hear the story on NPR's Morning
Edition this morning about the guy with the autopilot that would release and
he had to land while fighting the AP. The controller talked him through the
GPS approach because he couldn't take hands off the controls to set up the
instruments.

If you didn't it is probably on thier website by now.

Yep. Heard it this morning as well. Found the article and
posted the text of the incident. Should be hitting your NNTP server
shortly.

BL.
- --
Brad Littlejohn | Email:
Unix Systems Administrator, |
Web + NewsMaster, BOFH.. Smeghead! | http://www.wizard.com/~tyketto
PGP: 1024D/E319F0BF 6980 AAD6 7329 E9E6 D569 F620 C819 199A E319 F0BF

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