NTSB final report on Hendrick crash

Sam Spade wrote:

Maule Driver wrote:
.

Huh? "How to use and not use a GPS' lessons seems to be written all
over it. But if you just want to knock the pilots, then nothing will be
learned. My personal conclusion and lesson is that you need to stick
with your primary navigation instruments and use the backup as backup.
But that's me.


There are no new lessons to be learned from this accident. Because of
the lack of a CVR the NTSB is being speculative about the use of the GPS.

Sam that is perhaps the case with most accidents. I hear "We must
learn from this." In most cases yet the mistakes are recurring ones.
Maybe a listing of pilot screwups would help yet I suspect that you
won't reduce accidents much.

Technology can help in some cases. Even a simple Garmin with terrain
functionality, especially if there is an audible alert, may prevent
some accidents yet not flying in those conditions works 100%.

Personally, I would prefer to quit hearing about "We can all learn
from this fatality" and have those experts determine how to prevent
them in the first place.

Ron Lee

pgbnh wrote:
Not clear (to me at least) is WHY they so clearly lost situational
awareness. Based on when they descended to MDA,and when and how they flew
the missed, they obviously thought they were someplace other than where they
were.
But why? Missing the fact that they autosequenced over the NDB might have
caused some confusion when flying the hold, but once inbound, both the GPS
(if they were using it) and the primary nav (presumedly tuned to the LOC
frequency) would both be showing dme to MAP. The gps would count down to
zero, the primary nav would go down to 1. How could either relying on a
potentially unreliable GPS OR missing the autosequencing have caused them to
to fly several miles PAST the MAP thinking that they had not yet reached it?
IIRC, they descended to MDA several miles PAST the MAP. They used the MAP as
the FAF, and seemed to fly a picture perfect approach thereafter. How could
misreading the GPS or NAV cause this??

I'd guess they weren't looking at the DME. The countdown to the FAF and the
countdown to the MAP don't look any different except for the waypoint name.

Once past what they thought was the FAF, they probably set a normal descent
rate, looked at the localizer needle for course, altimeter for MDA and out
the window for the runway and never looked at the GPS again.

--
Don Poitras

Personally, I would prefer to quit hearing about "We can all learn
from this fatality" and have those experts determine how to prevent
them in the first place.

Um... that's what we're trying to learn from them.

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where
it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jose wrote:

Personally, I would prefer to quit hearing about "We can all learn
from this fatality" and have those experts determine how to prevent
them in the first place.

Um... that's what we're trying to learn from them.

Jose

Um, do you have to have people fly into buildings to know that it is
not a good thing to do?

Fly into Class 5 (?) thunderstorms?

Scud run in the mountains?

Run out of fuel?

Take off on a runway that is too short?

How many unforeseen accident causes do we really see that a competent
pilot with good judgement should know to avoid?

Ron Lee

Um, do you have to have people fly into buildings to know that it is
not a good thing to do?

I'm glad I read the newsgroups. I just learned that crashing is a Bad
Thing.

The question is =why= an otherwise good pilot made a bad mistake. Or
sometimes, why a small mistake turned out really bad this time.

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where
it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

I thought about it some more and went back and reread the NTSB report. It
would appear that they were relying on the INFORMATION (CDI & DME) from the
GPS, but were not looking at the positional display. If they missed the fact
that they had passed the FAF as part of their aborted hold, AND they missed
the fact that the GPS had sequenced to the MAP, then they flew inbound on
the localizer course thinking they were still outside the FAF. The GPS would
be giving them distance information to MAP - they were seeing it as distance
to FAF. They then flew a pretty good approach - just displaced by 5-6 miles.
They also were pretty obviously navigating by the GPS and not using the
primary NAV - or they were at least depending on GPS for DME and not using
an independent DME. I am not familiar with the King GPS - the Garmin 530 has
a big identifier up on top which shows the waypoint being flown to.

The really scary thing is if two pilots with these qualifications can make
such a mistake, what hope is there for me?
"Don Poitras" wrote in message
...
pgbnh wrote:
Not clear (to me at least) is WHY they so clearly lost situational
awareness. Based on when they descended to MDA,and when and how they flew
the missed, they obviously thought they were someplace other than where
they
were.
But why? Missing the fact that they autosequenced over the NDB might have
caused some confusion when flying the hold, but once inbound, both the
GPS
(if they were using it) and the primary nav (presumedly tuned to the LOC
frequency) would both be showing dme to MAP. The gps would count down to
zero, the primary nav would go down to 1. How could either relying on a
potentially unreliable GPS OR missing the autosequencing have caused them
to
to fly several miles PAST the MAP thinking that they had not yet reached
it?
IIRC, they descended to MDA several miles PAST the MAP. They used the MAP
as
the FAF, and seemed to fly a picture perfect approach thereafter. How
could
misreading the GPS or NAV cause this??

I'd guess they weren't looking at the DME. The countdown to the FAF and
the
countdown to the MAP don't look any different except for the waypoint
name.

Once past what they thought was the FAF, they probably set a normal
descent
rate, looked at the localizer needle for course, altimeter for MDA and out
the window for the runway and never looked at the GPS again.

--
Don Poitras

Mark Hansen wrote:

By the way, I can't take the unit home to practice (or even practice
in the plane while on the ramp) because these are club planes, and
they don't allow that. Also, there is no PC-based simulator (good
thinking B/K!).

Same here ... club plane and no sim. I'll buy a Garmin given the chance.

Matt

Matt Whiting wrote:
Mark Hansen wrote:

By the way, I can't take the unit home to practice (or even practice
in the plane while on the ramp) because these are club planes, and
they don't allow that. Also, there is no PC-based simulator (good
thinking B/K!).

Same here ... club plane and no sim. I'll buy a Garmin given the chance.

89/B simulator can be found he http://www.bendixking.com/static/simulators/

Matt

--
Don Poitras

Don Poitras wrote:
pgbnh wrote:

Not clear (to me at least) is WHY they so clearly lost situational
awareness. Based on when they descended to MDA,and when and how they flew
the missed, they obviously thought they were someplace other than where they
were.
But why? Missing the fact that they autosequenced over the NDB might have
caused some confusion when flying the hold, but once inbound, both the GPS
(if they were using it) and the primary nav (presumedly tuned to the LOC
frequency) would both be showing dme to MAP. The gps would count down to
zero, the primary nav would go down to 1. How could either relying on a
potentially unreliable GPS OR missing the autosequencing have caused them to
to fly several miles PAST the MAP thinking that they had not yet reached it?
IIRC, they descended to MDA several miles PAST the MAP. They used the MAP as
the FAF, and seemed to fly a picture perfect approach thereafter. How could
misreading the GPS or NAV cause this??


I'd guess they weren't looking at the DME. The countdown to the FAF and the
countdown to the MAP don't look any different except for the waypoint name.

Why would they disregard the DME unless it wasn't working?

pgbnh wrote:

I thought about it some more and went back and reread the NTSB report. It
would appear that they were relying on the INFORMATION (CDI & DME) from the
GPS, but were not looking at the positional display. If they missed the fact
that they had passed the FAF as part of their aborted hold, AND they missed
the fact that the GPS had sequenced to the MAP, then they flew inbound on
the localizer course thinking they were still outside the FAF. The GPS would
be giving them distance information to MAP - they were seeing it as distance
to FAF. They then flew a pretty good approach - just displaced by 5-6 miles.
They also were pretty obviously navigating by the GPS and not using the
primary NAV - or they were at least depending on GPS for DME and not using
an independent DME. I am not familiar with the King GPS - the Garmin 530 has
a big identifier up on top which shows the waypoint being flown to.

The really scary thing is if two pilots with these qualifications can make
such a mistake, what hope is there for me?

Don't beat yourself up.

Their operation that day was very incompetent.