Lear 35A / 27 Dec 2021 / KSEE

[Colonel]

Agreed, but I will try explaining one more time ...

This was NOT a circling IFR approach. That was specifically prohibited on the plate
because of the hills to the northeast.

At less than 400 AGL, these nutbars cancelled IFR (runway 17) and turned left to join
the VFR circuit for runway 25 with spectacular results, as they tried to thread the needle
between and below two hills at 160 mph and below 400 AGL at night in shitty wx.

Once again, review the ADS-B data (feet is MSL, subtract 400 for AGL).



This was NOT an IFR procedure. They were VFR when they crashed.



I understand the Lear 35A had a drag chute, but I'm going to guess it wasn't installed
on this airplane. A strange choice, considering the short runways at their home base.

If they absolutely had to land at KSEE that night (to deliver medicine to dying children?)
perhaps given the terrible wx they were experiencing, a straight-in to 17 with the drag chute
deployed would have been a reasonable choice? I know a 4100 foot wet runway is not
the longest for a little bizjet, but maybe the chute would have stopped them from running
off the end of the runway at 20 mph (horrors).

[Nark]

Landing on 27R (hell even the left) requires you to thread those to peaks. The north peak, the tower loses site of you in the traffic pattern (not Germaine to the crash talk, but a reference for those grammatically-visually impaired).

I could see all sorts of visual illusions coming from that 270* turn. Looking East, and Northeast it’s pretty dark and rising terrain, add a low cloud layer, proprioceptive feelings, …boom!


Well, literally a boom.

This is like the Kobe crash. I think we all know what caused the crash, the why, is a little harder to answer.

[Colonel]

Chuck says that no one ever died because he refused a flight.

Like a teenage girl, young pilots have to learn to say "no". I'm probably
not allowed to say that, but it's true. Kept me alive. All my life, people
have been trying to kill me. In an airplane, on a motorcycle.

You will live a lot longer, if you don't mind hurting people's feelings, sometimes.

[Colonel]

This is like the Kobe crash

Well, perhaps. The job of a pilot is not to just wiggle the controls, but to make decisions.
These decisions often have serious consequences, and we hear about when pilots make
bad decisions.

Now, why do pilots make bad decisions? Complex topic, terribly important, of not much
interest. Often bad decisions look attractive at first, and they suck you in. Got that.

But I think often pilots are severely pressured to make bad decisions. We can divide
these pressures into external and internal sources of pressure.

Anyone ever fly for Ron Joyce? If so, I am sure you were fired before you ever landed,
and that's something you've got to learn to deal with (external pressures to make very
bad decisions). Please don't forget who is pilot-in-command. Look in the mirror if you
are unsure. That guy has the responsibility, not the rich @sshole screaming at you.



The worst kind of pressure to make bad decisions, however, is internal. This is often
something we see in young pilots who do stuff that us older guys just don't understand.

Anyways. No one gives a sh1t about this kind of thing. I apologize for wasting your time.

[John Swallow]

I don't know about being pressured as the crew had been to Fox Harbour many times.

It was the result of a 'gotcha'... The difference in EWH (eye-to-wheel height) between their previous aircraft (604) and the new one (Global 5000) resulted in touching down prior to the runway. There was a whole bunch of other stuff and I've posted the link to the accident report below.

An interesting tidbit: I heard after the accident that the insurance company had stipulated that the crew had to have "X" number of hours before landing at Fox Harbour. The crew and/or the owner assumed that simulator time could be credited towards the necessary flight time...

The link:

https://www.bst-tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports- ... a0134.html

It could have been so much worse...