Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

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bverwegen
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Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by bverwegen »

http://www.bst-tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-r ... 0o0240.asp

Some closure for those involved. Makes me a little sick to my stomach to think about what it would be like inside that plane. Rest in peace to those who lost their lives.

Fly safe everyone.
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flyinthebug
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by flyinthebug »

*Edit* I mis read the aircraft type...my mistake...but nonetheless a very sad accident.
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Last edited by flyinthebug on Fri Mar 16, 2012 6:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Pirx
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by Pirx »

Bonanza is a single.
I feel sick every time I think about this accident.
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Gessle64
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by Gessle64 »

Interesting. The college performed the typical FTU kneejerk reaction. They made a huge list of useless rules that don't address the real problems.

These things stand out like a sore thumb but were not addressed by the college:

-Instructors with no IMC experience have no business teaching IFR, period. They have little experience to relay to the student, and are more susceptible to errors in IMC.
-Simulating IFR in VMC doesn't come close to the IFR environment, and therefore has little value to the student.
-The weather decision-making on the accident flight was piss-poor. There are typical and multiple reasons that this happened. For one, it's a product of the school's culture, which reveals itself in their response to the accident.

All the TC-pacifying fluff that the college rolled together in response does not address the actual issue of pushing unqualified instructors into conditions that neither their plane nor brain can handle.
A standby attitude indicator does nothing if you aren't proficient at scanning and correction. This takes an experienced IFR pilot.
The whole group wx brief and wx recurrency is a joke. A commercial pilot shouldn't have had to call in a committee to know that the flight should not have went that night. Hell, how many CPLs were on board and couldn't get it right?
What all of the above boils down to is that experience pays, but no one wants to pay for experience. The consequence for this will always be lives. No sweat for the school, insurance will take care of the hull.
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Last edited by Gessle64 on Sat Mar 17, 2012 9:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by Meatservo »

Gessle64 wrote: All the TC-pacifying fluff that the college rolled together in response does not address the actual issue of pushing unqualified instructors into conditions that their plane nor brain can handle.
A standby attitude indicator does nothing if you aren't proficient at scanning and correction. This takes an experienced IFR pilot.
This is always the case when TC investigates an accident. Their only agenda in any accident is to manufacture "findings", regardless of the effect the so-called "findings" have on the future safety of the company involved. In any accident where the obvious solution to the problem would be "more experienced pilots" they are especially determined to shy away from this inevitable conclusion. If anybody has an issue with the level of skill and knowledge in new-hire pilots, they need look no further than to Transport Canada for abetting the whole situation with their pathetically low requirements for licensing and experience. They are completely in the back pockets of the modern business-type industry leaders whose agenda is to manufacture large numbers of relatively poorly educated and low-experience pilots for as little money as possible, in order to keep the pilot pool large and the competition for jobs fierce. This keeps wages down.

I blame Transport Canada themselves for almost all these accidents, and for obfuscating any possible improvement in the safety of an air service by tying up the functional management team (i.e the operations manager and chief pilot) making them spend all of their time servicing the non-sequitur-like "findings" rather than devoting their full attention to their real jobs. In other words, Transport Canada has relinquished almost all of their responsibilities to the insurance companies and the business world, who are in constant struggle against each other while pilots watch in dismay (and occasionally die), and the regulatory and "safety" clowns amuse themselves by dreaming up and solving imaginary issues that exist almost entirely outside the real world, as a bromide for the uninformed and innocent public.
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Big Pistons Forever
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by Big Pistons Forever »

Table 1. Total flying times in hours based on the instructor's log book



Total Flying Time 1254.3

PIC
Single Engine Aircraft 1098.5

PIC
Multi Engine Aircraft 2.5

PIC
Night Flying
Single Engine 63.6

Instrument Actual 7

7 hours of actual IMC and the instructor is out on a crappy night teaching.........sigh
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Rudy
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by Rudy »

Thanks for not pulling any punches with your analysis Gessle64. I'd love to see a TSB report be as candid as you were. Maybe there would finally be a push for a change in the way instrument ratings are handed out in this country.
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by Colonel Sanders »

Total Flying Time 1254.3 ... Instrument Actual 7
How the hell does someone with 1200TT only have 7 actual IFR?!
a push for a change in the way instrument ratings are handed out in this country
an instrument rating, like a private pilot's licence (or a multi-engine or float endorsement) is merely a licence to learn.

Looks like this class 1 instructor PIC still had lots to learn about what he was teaching.

In the spirit of "max 5k crosswinds" I see:
Seneca College has instituted the limits shown below for single engine at night operations:

•All night flying is to be conducted in VFR weather only.
•Instrument or IFR training may be conducted at night in VMC only.
So the first time their graduates encounter cloud at night will be after graduation, and they will be totally unprepared for it?
•No observers are permitted on board training flights at night i.e. 1 student and 1 instructor only
Another "cover your @ss" rule, designed to limit the school's liability. If you can safely (eg aircraft W&B, performance) have an observer during the day, why not at night? Obviously more night training and experience is required, and they're going the other direction.

When I teach instrument ratings - been doing it for 15 years now - you can bet we go into cloud at night, because I sure as hell don't want the student to experience it for himself the first time solo, AFTER he gets his rating.

But that's what Seneca is saying should happen - their graduates should kill themselves after they graduate and the school is no longer liable, instead of improving the student's skills.

This is so depressing, how history repeats itself over and over again.
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flyinthebug
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by flyinthebug »

Colonel Sanders wrote:
Total Flying Time 1254.3 ... Instrument Actual 7
How the hell does someone with 1200TT only have 7 actual IFR?![/quote]

Because 95% of instructing is done within 25 NM of an aerodrome, in 3 SM vis or better. This is why I often side with (and hire) float drivers experience over instructing. 7 hour IMC time with 1200+ TT is not at all unusual for any instructor. Sad, but true.
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by Colonel Sanders »

Sad, but true
The problem is that the schools are teaching to the legal minimums set by TC. While this may reduce their liability and superficially improve their safety record, it produces an inferior product.

Just because someone meets the legal minimums does NOT make them safe, as this accident illustrates.

When one is training, one must exceed the legal minimums as required in order to achieve safety. This simple fact is seems blindingly obvious to me.

For example, you get your PPL on a buck fifty and buy a Pitts. You legally do not require ANY tailwheel training, or type-specific landing training, or type-specific spin recovery training, but it is perfectly legal for you to jump into your new Pitts and kill yourself in it.

Just because it is legal for you to kill yourself in your new Pitts doesn't make it a very good idea.

Somewhere along the line, people seemed to have accepted as truth, the horrible lie that if you meet TC mins, you will be a safe pilot.

WRONG
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by Magnetron »

I'm gonna put in my 2 cents.

Being a recent graduate, and someone who had flown with the instructor and one of the students 2 days prior, it's really hard to get technical with this but regardless of emotions spooling within me, I agree with most of what is said here.

I had experienced some of these changes take into effect in real life and I disagree with most of them, especially the group weather briefing and no actual IMC at night. These changes are reactive, they simply prevent the conditions from re-occurring instead of finding root cause and fixing that instead.

I hate to say it but I agree there are some instructors (not their fault) should not be teaching IFR with the little actual IMC experience that some of them have. However, as I have said, it's not their fault, it's the colleges and perhaps TC. We do have numerous experienced senior instructors who have tons of IMC time, yet they don't fly often enough. I know some great instructors who should be teaching IFR were only there for a couple or few days a week, which means the college didn't have the resources available for their students. There is a backlog in the training schedule because of the unavailability of most of these experienced instructors which are only used mostly for multi/MIFR training. Which is why I think they allow low IMC time to teach IFR.

As for some instructors having lack of actual IMC, it's the whole industry in flight instructing. If you've started out as an instructor from your fresh CPL, how else could you get actual IMC time...enough to deem you qualified (beyond the minimums) of instructing IFR. Perhaps like Single Pilot IFR requirements of 50 hours instrument time should be included before you teach IFR in actual IMC. However, SP IFR also states it can be simulated IMC. Maybe that needs a change too.

It's a scary thought really to graduate with so little actual IMC time, and no night IMC time and be 'qualified' for them.
Hopefully some valued experience, further training, and that mindset of 'it can and will happen to you' is enough to keep me alive in the future.

Fly safe everyone.
Ram
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Last edited by Magnetron on Sun Mar 18, 2012 6:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by Magnetron »

Colonel Sanders wrote:
Sad, but true
The problem is that the schools are teaching to the legal minimums set by TC. While this may reduce their liability and superficially improve their safety record, it produces an inferior product.
....
+1
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by Meatservo »

Magnetron wrote:
Colonel Sanders wrote:
Sad, but true
The problem is that the schools are teaching to the legal minimums set by TC. While this may reduce their liability and superficially improve their safety record, it produces an inferior product.
....
+1
Which is an unnecessary shame really, since they make you show up for four years, they should be teaching a great deal more about flying than just the TC minimums.
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Post by Beefitarian »

Colonel Sanders wrote: For example, you get your PPL on a buck fifty and buy a Pitts. You legally do not require ANY tailwheel training, or type-specific landing training, or type-specific spin recovery training, but it is perfectly legal for you to jump into your new Pitts and kill yourself in it.

Just because it is legal for you to kill yourself in your new Pitts doesn't make it a very good idea.
It's hard to find guys that teach on Pitts. Besides, do you know how expensive that type of training is? :P
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by Colonel Sanders »

And it's all crappy!! :wink:
since they make you show up for four years, they should be teaching a great deal more about flying than just the TC minimums
Once again, the Canadian consumer - and taxpayer, who subsidizes that operation - gets screwed. Pay lots, get little.
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by 5x5 »

A few thoughts prompted by this thread.

Perhaps instead of crapping all over Avcanada's favourite whipping boy, Flight Schools, people should take a moment and think.

Almost to a person, everyone who goes through flight training wants to get it done at the least possible cost and in the shortest time possible. They want to get their licences and get a job. To hire and retain high time, experienced pilots who want to teach would certainly act in opposition to the desire for less-expensive training. Also, to buy and maintain twins with full de-ice equipment and complete IFR capabilities would also raise the overall cost. Plus, giving more than the occasional exposure to actual IFR would raise the cost as well as more hours would be required. A couple of brief encounters doesn't change anything as far as actual skill development goes.

As someone earlier posted here, most, if not all, licences are licenses to learn. It is the responsibility of the operators who hire new graduates to continue their training by having them fly as copilots while the wonderfully experienced pilots show them how to manage true IFR and develop the skills they need to further their career. This is done while the guy is earning money, not spending it.

Any operator that hires a new graduate for single pilot IFR should be run out of business. And any new pilot that takes a job like that should give their head a shake.
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by sky's the limit »

5X5,

It should be pointed out that in helicopters it is not only common, but sought after to have instructors with a minimum of 5000hrs, but often 10000, 15000, or even in some cases 20000hrs of experience teaching new pilots and conducting advanced training like Mtn Courses or sling training at the schools. I'm a bit out of touch on rates these days, but even 10yrs ago many were making $150/hr and flying 5-8hrs/day. Machine rentals are in the $450/hr range, or even more in some cases, with many attaining turbine time in 206's for close to $1000/hr.

The state of instruction in fixed wing is not one that is immune to change, there is as usual no will from TC to do so however. 200hrs for a FW Cpl is too much imho, especially given the extremely low standard to which it is taught. Make it shorter, make it more effective, and pay qualified people to do it. There is an entire generation of FW pilots out there who have never received top notch training.

stl
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Post by Beefitarian »

5x5 wrote:Almost to a person, everyone who goes through flight training wants to get it done at the least possible cost and in the shortest time possible. They want to get their licences and get a job.
And that to a certain degree is fair enough. In fact I my self last year became frustrated because I was spending time with an instructor telling me, "You may have done that last lesson but I wan't to see it." Uh... Sure, why wouldn't I want to spend hundreds of dollars doing basic things fifty times instead of getting on with something that I actually need to work on improving? My money is obviously no object here.

At some point do people think, "This is a difficult or important thing to do. I want to get the best training and practice I can so I can learn to do it well."
Or is almost everyone else thinking, "Once I get a CPL I'll learn on the job so I'm getting paid for it instead of losing money."?

I hate to turn on my fixed wing brothers but flying rotary seems like a much busier task.
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Re: Seneca College Bonanza Report Released

Post by 5x5 »

In no way am I saying that flight training can't be improved. All businesses should be trying to continually improve and the good ones are. What I'm upset with is the repeated implication that if only flight schools would incorporate more "real world" training into their programs, graduates would be ready to hit the line running. But either fixed or rotary, building more content into the training increases the cost to the student. Again. can we do a better job of delivering the required content more effectively - sure. Just like all the operators all the way to the airlines can always do better. It's not something that is unique to flight training and so often threads here seem to wind up slagging flight training in some way. Guess I just need to develop a thicker skin.

STL, I'm not familiar with rotary wing, but are the graduates ready to take on the full responsibility as an operational pilot without further development under the close supervision/guidance of an experienced line pilot? If so kudos to you guys, but there must be an associated cost to the students. I do know of many people who would like to fly rotary but don't pursue it due to the extremely high costs of getting their licences.
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Post by Beefitarian »

5x5 wrote:But either fixed or rotary, building more content into the training increases the cost to the student.
Agreed, I'm certain all you would hear was complaining from most about that cost. Very few would appreciate the value of the training being better.

Looking back at times when training was good is even more difficult sometimes. I like it when I would be flying later and a concept really became part of my skill set because it became clear. I think back to when it was taught to me and gain appreciation for that training I may not have even had at the time it was provided.

There are a couple of times during flight training where I look back and I am angry that I was paying money for the person that was riding with me during a lesson. It was a full time instructor charging out at the "advanced training" rate. They must have been teaching some people how to pass flight tests in order to be there.

Like any prejudice it's the few super terrible examples that you can't forget. Unfortunately I have had many great instructors that I can't remember.
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