Scary Icing ATC tape

On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 10:42:19 -0800, G. Sylvester wrote:

What amazed me was she decided to continue the flight.

Indeed... Even if she was 99% sure it was ice there's still that 1% chance
she's wrong. Wouldn't it make good sense to get it on the ground and check
everything out?

On top of that, she's just had a massive jolt of adrenaline. If you've
ever had one you know that it takes more than a few minutes to get your
system back to normal.

I watched a car in front of me roll over and catch fire. The occupant came
out of the window severely burned and several of us who had stopped managed
to get him and hold him down until the ambulance came, which seemed like
half and hour. The guy looked like something out of a horror movie with
planks of his skin separating from his body. The whole experience had me
screwed up for several hours. I can't speak for her physiological state,
but I wouldn't think it's a good idea to fly in that condition if you have
a choice.

--
Dallas

in article , Mxsmanic at
wrote on 2/3/07 1:06 PM:

Tony writes:

There's no evidence she paniced. She was scared, that came through
clear enough, but she regained control of the aircraft -- that's
number one, and she communicated -- that's number two. That's what
professionals do.

Her voice sounded a lot more like panic or hysteria than fear.
Compare it to other voice recordings where the pilot is manifestly
terrified, and you can hear a difference.

The tone of voice of both the pilot and the controller is absolutely
immaterial. It in no way gives us a clue as to their respective actions
while they were talking. As someone else pointed out, it's quite possible
that the pilot's hands and eyes were busily doing exactly what they'd been
trained to do, even while her voice betrayed fear.

She may not had read the script the way some would have liked (even on
a good day she's not going to sound like Chuck Yeager) but she
executed her job well. Good on her! I doubt many of us would reject
her from the left seat, especially after the experience she gained
from this flight.

She still didn't seem to have a clue as to what went wrong at the end
of the incident. I think she only survived because the ice melted.

Yeah, and I've only survived a couple hundred flights because the engine
didn't quit.

On Feb 2, 1:51 pm, "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...-26_N1278L-May...

(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.
--


Has there EVER been a voice recording of an incident where the
consensus is that the pilot handled the situation in the WRONG way? It
seems that every time one of these are posted, no matter how much the
pilot freaks out, people always respond with "Oh that pilot stayed so
calm, what a great job. I'd fly with him/her!!". It seems to me that
people don't have a very good idea what a normal level of "freaking
out" is when dealing with an emergency. For instance, the mayor of New
Orleans in my opinion did not handle the Katrina situation as well as
Rudy handled the 9/11 tragedy. Remember the NO guy yelling over the
phone, blaming the federal government? Rudy never did that. He stayed
calm and did what needed to get done, without whining or panicking.
When in danger, the leader (or PIC in this case) should not lose their
cool. That doesn't mean they have to be stone faced, but a good leader
resists the urge to go into all-out panic mode.


Honestly, comparing this one to other similar voice recordings I've
heard, this woman went bonkers. I wouldn't say she is a terrible
pilot, but at the same time, I don't think she handled this situation
as best as she could have. I think this woman was lucky. Going by what
I heard on the MP3, if things had been a little different, she may not
have made it. It's my opinion that she was saved by dumb luck. All
though with more info I may be proven wrong.

On 3 Feb 2007 15:48:52 -0800, "buttman" wrote:



Has there EVER been a voice recording of an incident where the
consensus is that the pilot handled the situation in the WRONG way? It
seems that every time one of these are posted, no matter how much the
pilot freaks out, people always respond with "Oh that pilot stayed so
calm, what a great job. I'd fly with him/her!!". It seems to me that
people don't have a very good idea what a normal level of "freaking
out" is when dealing with an emergency.

Yeah.

They often end with statements like:

- "Oh, God!"
- "****"
- "Awwww"
- "Ah.. Here we go..."

Get the picture?

Sometimes, like the Alaska Air stab trim failure, they did the best
they could, but it still ended poorly. Other times, they got
themselves there.

For those that got themselves in the situation and couldn't get out, I
can only honor them by trying not to repeat it.

In article .com,
"buttman" wrote:

Has there EVER been a voice recording of an incident where the
consensus is that the pilot handled the situation in the WRONG way? It
seems that every time one of these are posted, no matter how much the
pilot freaks out, people always respond with "Oh that pilot stayed so
calm, what a great job. I'd fly with him/her!!".

Several years ago there was an mp3 circulated I guess in an attempt to show how
vauable ATC is. A guy was calling mayday because he was in a spin (apparently)
but survived after popping out of the bottom of the clouds.

I don't think many people would say the "pilot stayed so calm"

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

Taylor writes:

You must have an amazing talent to know what someone might be "thinking"
about.

I know what they talked about. The controller mentioned icing many
times; the pilot never said anything about it that I can recall. She
didn't appear to be listening. And she didn't seem worried about
picking up ice.

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

Philip S. writes:

The tone of voice of both the pilot and the controller is absolutely
immaterial. It in no way gives us a clue as to their respective actions
while they were talking.

It says a lot about their state of mind, however.

As someone else pointed out, it's quite possible
that the pilot's hands and eyes were busily doing exactly what they'd been
trained to do, even while her voice betrayed fear.

I'm not sure I heard much in the way of fear in her voice. It sounded
more like a hysterical irritation, like "how dare the aircraft refuse
to obey me!"

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

buttman writes:

Has there EVER been a voice recording of an incident where the
consensus is that the pilot handled the situation in the WRONG way? It
seems that every time one of these are posted, no matter how much the
pilot freaks out, people always respond with "Oh that pilot stayed so
calm, what a great job. I'd fly with him/her!!".

I wouldn't fly with this pilot, or with any pilot who couldn't keep
his cool in an emergency.

When in danger, the leader (or PIC in this case) should not lose their
cool. That doesn't mean they have to be stone faced, but a good leader
resists the urge to go into all-out panic mode.

Yes. Panic is counter-productive.

Honestly, comparing this one to other similar voice recordings I've
heard, this woman went bonkers.

Agreed.

I wouldn't say she is a terrible
pilot, but at the same time, I don't think she handled this situation
as best as she could have. I think this woman was lucky. Going by what
I heard on the MP3, if things had been a little different, she may not
have made it. It's my opinion that she was saved by dumb luck. All
though with more info I may be proven wrong.

I agree. She got lucky. She did nothing to recover, she just had
some random luck. She didn't even seem to know what had happened.
She ignored every mention of icing, and her actions indicate that she
wasn't concerned about icing, even though she didn't really know what
was wrong.

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

Mxsmanic wrote:

Taylor writes:

You must have an amazing talent to know what someone might be
"thinking" about.

I know what they talked about. The controller mentioned icing many
times; the pilot never said anything about it that I can recall. She
didn't appear to be listening. And she didn't seem worried about
picking up ice.

You weren't listening very closely. She said that she had turned on the
heat and boots, and that is likely what allowed her to regain control.

Icing is a well-known problem with Caravans, and the FAA has recently
issued some ADs as a result of the number of icing accidents and
incidents. Any regular Caravan pilot would be well aware of the
problem.

By the time the controller was mentioning icing, the pilot had already
taken the necessary actions, and had things under control.

Consider that the plane was probably cruising along on autopilot, when
the autopilot shut off and the plane went into a sudden dive. The pilot
would be shaken out of lethargy, and be trying to sort out what likely
happened. The uneven loss of ice buildup perhaps explained the wild
gyrations, with the pilot struggling for control. It's amazing she had
the presence of mind to communicate with everything else going on.

" '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!!