Crash near Shaunavon, Sask

[Squaretail]

I got a lot of thoughts about an incident like this.

First I will start by saying I know no details about it aside from the small bit that has made it into the news. Pipeline patrol, 2 on board a 172. The terrain around Shaunavon is pretty flat like you imagine most of Saskatchewan is. I don’t know the company, specific plane or the pilot.

However there’s a lot of things that part of me feels are contributing factors. The first is of course the probable low experience of the pilot. Increasingly I find there is more of this kind of flying, so where I think before there were slightly more experienced fellows in this game, lots of them now will be straight out of flight school. It will be their first flying job, or maybe their first step “up” from instructing. This isn’t so bad, the airplanes in use aren’t hard to fly, more and more of them are 172s or something close to in performance. The flying is low though, usually 500’ and sometimes lower range. That requires your attention, but isn’t difficult.

The first point is that kind of flying is somewhat tiring. Especially on hot days - very few of these ships are going to have a/c - and a full duty day of that you’re going to be pretty ripe. Peeing in a bottle isn’t as easy as one would think, especially if you’re on the stick, so you’re probably going to work the day in some level of dehydration. Pee breaks are fuel stop to fuel stop, meter your h2o intake carefully. It’s frequently also bumpy, and bouncing against the straps for a long while.

Now combine that with a long day. 702 ops will frequently get max duty days if the sun is shining, make the hay. When you’re young and eager, you will do this without complaint. Hours in the book after all. This also makes these guys really easy to push into illegal territory. Busting duty times, no rest periods, if they even know what those are yet. I get it. I was young once and thought that I was willing to stretch things, that was going to get me farther ahead. Fortunately I didn’t do those things in aviation, and even still, I’m lucky to be around to tell the tale. That’s for another time though. The main thing is, there are still operators out there who if they aren’t pushing the kids to do this, at least look the other way when it happens.

On the topic of operators, the story gets more worrisome. Currently there’s a lot of growth in 702, and a lot of new operators are trying their hand at it. Stuff like pipeline inspections are increasing partly because there are so many options for sensors coming on the market or in development. If you see some of these things which are essentially prototypes or in alpha or beta test stage, you will go “wtf!?”. One problem I’ve run into is shoddy equipment. Some of the techies, just take no consideration as to what should constitute airworthy, and some of them should not be allowed around airplanes, but I have seen some really shitty set ups flying, (and said no to flying a few) a prime problem is where the pilot’s display is and what quality it is. More than once I have seen a laptop in the passenger seat that somehow the pilot is supposed to fly by reference to. At the very least it would be a severe pain in the neck, worst case a contribution to a fatality. I have run into equipment operators who have no business being in an airplane (and barred some from getting in mine).

Even in the operation I work in now, I butt heads with management about what is legal and safe. I have to wonder what goes on in an operation where perhaps someone isn’t as vocal as I am, or has their own profit motive that works against the well being to the aircrews working under them.

Additionally I have in the last few years, when recruiting pilots had window into what goes on at some of these operations. Absent Chief pilots are common (just like absent chief flight instructors in FTUs) No initial or recurrent training. Complete ignorance of the rules they operate under. Pilots didn’t have a clue what a dispatch system was, operational control, flight and duty time restrictions, defect recording… I could go on. Some interviewees even unwittingly admitted to openly hazardous flying - flying a 172 through known ice with ForeFlight as the only serviceable navaid perhaps being the worst example.

There should be more people looking out for these kids, but sadly I just feel there’s a lot of traps they will have to survive.

[TundraTire]

For better or worse, low level survey work will soon be done by drones.

[Squaretail]

Not in the near future though. Drones have a long way to go before they will be cheaper and more operationally useful than a low time pilot and a small piston plane.

[TundraTire]

Not in the near future though. Drones have a long way to go before they will be cheaper and more operationally useful than a low time pilot and a small piston plane.

Depends on your definition of "near".

I'd bet we start seeing commercial drone use for survey/pipeline inspection in 3-5 years.

[Slick Goodlin]

This isn’t so bad, the airplanes in use aren’t hard to fly, more and more of them are 172s

That in itself could be a major factor in that it can breed complacency. I was talking to some MNR pilots a couple winters back and they were talking about the Maules that the Ontario government used to fly. Sounds like they wrecked most if not all of them through pilots not really paying attention since any idiot can fly one of those little planes, right? I think the phrase used was “They were supposed to fly with a pilot and observer but they usually had two observers on board.”

I can see how a similar thing could happen in a line patrol 172.

[Squaretail]

Depends on your definition of "near".

I'd bet we start seeing commercial drone use for survey/pipeline inspection in 3-5 years.

Let’s say “near” is the rest of my lifetime, or at least the rest of my active flying life. Drones are already doing the jobs drones can do, until there’s a substantial jump in technology, they have already taken the niche they can. Drones have taken a big chunk of survey work that used to be the realm of helicopters, mainly because rotary wing costs are so high, but also the realm of work entailed. To do a lot of the fixed wing work, you would need drones of the predator/reaper capability, which even if they were commercially available, still wouldn’t make sense financially. Never mind that even with those drones the reliability isn’t there for viable commercial use. While the US military has the budget to expend these assets, not many commercial operators do. The loss of a drone with its sensor at the moment would be impossible for but the largest company to absorb.

In the end though, it’s the plane’s ability to haul along its own fuelled and technician that is going to keep it more viable for a long time. I would even speculate that these specialty areas of aviation may resist the push to get rid of pilots the longest, since the support structure to do for a drone what a pilot does cheaply keeps it viable. Pilots of course will likely need to have a larger skill set than just pilot to defend this position.

[Squaretail]

This isn’t so bad, the airplanes in use aren’t hard to fly, more and more of them are 172s

That in itself could be a major factor in that it can breed complacency.

Indeed, but it should be recognized that this is a management error. It’s a choice to hire poor candidates, just seat warmers, than good pilots. It’s also a choice to skimp on training and supervision. Maybe a majority of neophyte pilots you can just throw in the deep end and they’ll figure it out. But sooner or later you are going to find someone that will sink instead of swim.

[Slick Goodlin]

Fair enough, and back when I was responsible for things I’d never keep a pilot who kept me up at night wondering if they’d be fine so I get what you mean.