Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

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Lost in Saigon
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by Lost in Saigon »

URC wrote:
If the military were making unauthorized transmissions on the Mandatory Frequency, I hope to hell they did not actually contribute in some way to this accident.
Unauthorized ? Can a verbal transmission/confirmation from the controller on frequency override any NOTAMS ? This happens all the time, eg: "runway is now open NOTAM is cancelled". At what point during the approach did the controller initiate communications with the flight ? Being a new/temporary Tower setup, were there any issues with the quality of the transmissions, coming through unreadable and garbled to the flight crew ?
The NOTAM clearly said the tower would not be active until Aug. 22nd. At the time of the accident, the CYRB airspace was UNCONTROLLED. PERIOD! This is self evident because of the Borek aircraft doing his approach without any input from a controller.

We really don't know the source of any transmission from the "Temporary Tower" at this point. Was it Military personnel, or just someone on the radio looking for First Air? I expect that the "Temporary Tower" only got involved when someone realized that there was a potentially missing/overdue aircraft. If it was the Military, it would have been outside the normal day to day operations at Resolute Bay on Aug. 20nd.
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Last edited by Lost in Saigon on Wed Aug 31, 2011 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Lost in Saigon
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by Lost in Saigon »

gwengler wrote:
aurora wrote:I know what I would have done coming in from the South in the flight levels at an uncontrolled airport. I would descend to my 100/25 safe, self vector onto the ILS by OBS'ing the runway with my RNAV and intercepting the inbound track, and complete a straight in ILS.
Fair enough, but that's not legal. Because no part of the approach has "NoPT" written on it you MUST fly the full procedure which in this case coming from the south would have been a racetrack to the right/east.
It is very common to do straight in approaches at uncontrolled airports. You can ask various Transport types if it is legal, but if you ask 10 different inspectors, you'll get about 20 different answers as to how legal it is.

If you can safely position yourself within the safe area of the procedure turn (10nm from POKAN) at 2200 ASL, I see nothing wrong with descending to 1800 ASL and continuing a straight in ILS/DME approach.

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55+
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by 55+ »

"If the military were making unauthorized transmissions on the Mandatory Frequency, I hope to hell they did not actually contribute in some way to this accident. Accidents are always a combination of factors. Something as simple as a minor distraction can start a chain of events that can end in disaster."

In order to reclassify domestic airspace a Designated Airspace Handbook(DAH) amendment is required and can/is usually done on a temporary basis by notam which is the case here. A MTCA, with Terminal/PAR/Tower/Ground facilities/frequencies has been applied which means that during the amendment times(DAH) communication on the military frequencies are required.

As for chatter on specific freq prior to the effective notam time, perhaps to set up/confirm/talk to/vector to/PAR practice up that way on final, I won't speculate but that is just me........however this CFIT train of thought is a little to easy, something else probably was going down.
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cncpc
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by cncpc »

gwengler wrote:
aurora wrote:Well, no, it’s not easy but the whole point of the VOR speculation/scenario is that they were UNAWARE that they had the VOR frequency dialled in instead of the ILF frequency. And they would have thought the G/S is unserviceable. The only way to really know you have the correct frequency is to ident it.

Gerd
Another check is to twist the OBS knob left and right right after the ident. If the needle responds, you're tuned to a VOR not a localizer. Unless it required only a small twist, you'd surely notice it when you set the inbound course.
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onspeed
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by onspeed »

Lost in Saigon wrote:but when the tower controller requested a position update a few minutes later, there was no response, and a Beech 99 pilot - on approach to 17T - was asked to try to contact the flight, with no result
Why would the controller be asking for position updates if he wasn't controlling the aircraft? That is the impression i get from your quote.

From what i understand (second hand information) is that the tower was talking to both aircraft during the descent and approach, I heard that their radio transmissions had been staticy (sp?) and that they had made multiple attempts to pick up the latest wx in CYRB.
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CpnCrunch
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by CpnCrunch »

Lost in Saigon wrote: It is very common to do straight in approaches at uncontrolled airports. You can ask various Transport types if it is legal, but if you ask 10 different inspectors, you'll get about 20 different answers as to how legal it is.
It's perfectly legal to do a straight in VFR approach at an uncontrolled airport. However if you are doing an IFR approach at an uncontrolled airport you would need to follow IFR rules.
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Lost in Saigon
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by Lost in Saigon »

onspeed wrote:Why would the controller be asking for position updates if he wasn't controlling the aircraft? That is the impression i get from your quote.
Who said it was a "controller"? Anyone on an MF can ask for a position update. The fact is NO ONE was controlling any aircraft in the CYRB area that day. The NOTAM says so, and the fact that Borek did the approach confirms this. Why is that so hard to understand?
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nutbutter
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by nutbutter »

CpnCrunch wrote:
Lost in Saigon wrote: It is very common to do straight in approaches at uncontrolled airports. You can ask various Transport types if it is legal, but if you ask 10 different inspectors, you'll get about 20 different answers as to how legal it is.
It's perfectly legal to do a straight in VFR approach at an uncontrolled airport. However if you are doing an IFR approach at an uncontrolled airport you would need to follow IFR rules.

Last time I checked circuit procedures at VFR airports it was written in the CARs that you have to join from the downwind, or cross midfield. I don't remember it being written that you can join a straight in... In reality people join the circuit from whatever direction is easiest.

Also as far as IFR is concerned, I would never even suggest the ability to do a straight in ILS at the airport in question on a ride or to a transport type., but practical IFR is different. What's riskier a straight in, or 3 or 4 tight, low level turns in a turbo jet? Comon guys, you aren't all that naive are you?
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medi-whacked
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by medi-whacked »

"Last time I checked circuit procedures at VFR airports it was written in the CARs that you have to join from the downwind, or cross midfield. I don't remember it being written that you can join a straight in... In reality people join the circuit from whatever direction is easiest."

Check again and give us the reference CARS. I am not 100% but I think you will find you are not correct.
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r22captain
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by r22captain »

The AIM rambles on about joining the circuit from an airmanship point of view...CARs do not.
The CARs do not state that one must join the circuit from the upwind side, or on the downwind leg, or from anywhere in particular; nor do the CARs relieve pilots entering or established in the circuit of their right-of-way obligations under CAR 602.19(2).
http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/p ... er-754.htm

anyway.....this thread isn't about joining the circuit....

back on track
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nutbutter
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by nutbutter »

medi-whacked wrote:"Last time I checked circuit procedures at VFR airports it was written in the CARs that you have to join from the downwind, or cross midfield. I don't remember it being written that you can join a straight in... In reality people join the circuit from whatever direction is easiest."

Check again and give us the reference CARS. I am not 100% but I think you will find you are not correct.
You need to get out more often. I would rather have a lobotomy than read the CAR's to reference who is right on a fucking internet forum. Seriously?
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r22captain
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by r22captain »

I threw my bible out and have a copy of the CARS in my night table.
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HighBypass
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by HighBypass »

The plate from last year that I remember for the ILS 35T (when they had the cape martyr ndb) also had an IF called "CIPOT" did it not? That way RNAV capable aircraft inbound from the south could navigate to that point then switch the HSi from rnav to ILS. Why did they get rid of the IF?
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RVR6000
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by RVR6000 »

You are right, the 'CIPOT' fix for the straight-in ILS was there up until few months ago. No idea why they changed it.

Given the crews experience, and local knowledge they wouldn't circle to the east.
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by RVR6000 »

onspeed wrote:
Lost in Saigon wrote:but when the tower controller requested a position update a few minutes later, there was no response, and a Beech 99 pilot - on approach to 17T - was asked to try to contact the flight, with no result
Why would the controller be asking for position updates if he wasn't controlling the aircraft? That is the impression i get from your quote.

From what i understand (second hand information) is that the tower was talking to both aircraft during the descent and approach, I heard that their radio transmissions had been staticy (sp?) and that they had made multiple attempts to pick up the latest wx in CYRB.

There is no tower or MF radio operators in Resolute. Almost every airport in Nunavut has a CARS operator (community aerodrome radio stations), they have minimal training well below that of a NavCanada MF radio operator.

Its all uncontrolled, pilots are responsibly for traffic avoidance in vmc or imc. Controlled airspace over resolute starts at FL270.
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by Diadem »

RVR6000 wrote:There is no tower or MF radio operators in Resolute. Almost every airport in Nunavut has a CARS operator (community aerodrome radio stations), they have minimal training well below that of a NavCanada MF radio operator.

Its all uncontrolled, pilots are responsibly for traffic avoidance in vmc or imc. Controlled airspace over resolute starts at FL270.
There is, or at least was, a military tower and terminal set up for Operation Nanook.
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by Diadem »

Lost in Saigon wrote:Who said it was a "controller"? Anyone on an MF can ask for a position update. The fact is NO ONE was controlling any aircraft in the CYRB area that day. The NOTAM says so, and the fact that Borek did the approach confirms this. Why is that so hard to understand?
I know first-hand that the tower was operational at the time; terminal wasn't, although they were monitoring the frequency, and the Borek 99 was passed off to the tower by them. The tower cleared First Air 6560 to land twice, both when they called 10-mile final and 3-mile final. The 99 did the LOC(BC) because of the wind, but the visibility dropped and they missed, giving no option but to fly the ILS. It had absolutely nothing to do with whether the airspace was controlled.
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another_try
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by another_try »

fish4life wrote:
another_try wrote:There's no question it was a CFIT.

They tracked to the VOR instead of on the LOC, either because they forgot to switch freqs prior to intercepting, or else they flew the arc approach and again didn't switch freqs.

There are only two remaining questions: Why didn't they switch freqs, and why didn't their GPWS save them.?

How can you say that already? How do you know it isn't a situation where the crew applied power for a Go Around and they got nothing, perhaps a roll back in power from contaminated fuel or anything of the sort. It is one thing to speculate it is another to say something happened for sure.
Neither a botched go-around nor an engine failure in the go-around explains how they ended up more than one nautical mile east of the airport, paralleling the runway. With that kind of a lateral deviation they should have had full deflection on the LOC about 20 miles back from the airport. They were tracking the VOR, there's no question about that. CFIT.
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by RVR6000 »

Diadem wrote:
Lost in Saigon wrote:Who said it was a "controller"? Anyone on an MF can ask for a position update. The fact is NO ONE was controlling any aircraft in the CYRB area that day. The NOTAM says so, and the fact that Borek did the approach confirms this. Why is that so hard to understand?
I know first-hand that the tower was operational at the time; terminal wasn't, although they were monitoring the frequency, and the Borek 99 was passed off to the tower by them. The tower cleared First Air 6560 to land twice, both when they called 10-mile final and 3-mile final. The 99 did the LOC(BC) because of the wind, but the visibility dropped and they missed, giving no option but to fly the ILS. It had absolutely nothing to do with whether the airspace was controlled.

Which terminal are you talking about, its Edmonton center above 270. I can bet the Borek 99 wasn't even talking to center.
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Diadem
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Re: Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

Post by Diadem »

RVR6000 wrote:Which terminal are you talking about, its Edmonton center above 270. I can bet the Borek 99 wasn't even talking to center.
No, they weren't, but note my previous post in which I mention that there was both a military tower and terminal in YRB for Operation Nanook. The MTCA had an 80NM radius, but when the 99 contacted terminal they were told it wasn't active yet and had to contact tower 15 miles out.
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