Twin Engine Piston Missing near Tofino - Dec 14, 2013

[JBI]

http://www.cknw.com/2013/12/14/bad-weat ... ff-tofino/

Bad weather hampering search for missing plane off Tofino
Vancouver, BC, Canada / (CKNW AM) AM980
Virginia McConchie
December 14, 2013 11:28 pm

A small plane has gone missing off the west coast of Vancouver Island.

The twin-engine piston was on a direct route from Abbotsford to Tofino when it disappeared.

Joint Rescue Co-Coordination Centre Captain Dom Lassonde:

“Two persons on board, twin-engine piston aircraft. Went off radar north-east of Tofino maneuvering for an approach. Last radar tracking shows the aircraft over Vargas Island, just northwest of the actual town of Tofino.”

Lassonde says heavy fog and bad weather mean rescue operations – including Coast Guard and RCMP boats and ground crews, alongside Search and Rescue helicopters – have been called off until later today.

” I wish we could do more, but the weather right now is just hampering absolutely all our efforts. It’s just too nasty. The fog is too thick, you can’t see anything. So, it’s basically just on hold until we get some daylight and better weather.”

No details on the cause of the disappearance or identity of passengers has been released.

Anybody have information? Flightaware shows Alta Flights' C421 C-GFMX flew Abbotsford to Tofino today with "Result Unknown"

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/CGFM ... /CYXX/CYAZ

[GRK]

Oh man…not so good at all...

[Diadem]

A father and son from Lethbridge are dead; the SAR team describes it as a large impact crater. The aircraft was registered to an unnamed company in Lethbridge.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... -1.2465112

[1000 HP]

Horrible news. It's been a bad week.

My condolences to the family.

[AirFrame]

Latest word here is that they flew a missed approach at Tofino, and were circling for a second attempt when they disappeared from radar. Father and son on board, reportedly the son was flying on departure from YXX.

[Brown Bear]

Oh man! Why I never do a second approach! Unless I see something really promising, I bug out. Thoughts are with the family and friends.
Fly safe out there.

[5x5]

That sucks - condolences to the family. Never a good time to lose family but Christmas time seems especially bad.

And Brown Bear, I completely agree. I always tell students that 2nd approach should only be considered if there is something really obvious that can be fixed/changed from the first one that would make the second one work. Way to easy to become overly committed to making it work when it simply shouldn't.

[CpnCrunch]

Latest word here is that they flew a missed approach at Tofino, and were circling for a second attempt when they disappeared from radar. Father and son on board, reportedly the son was flying on departure from YXX.

It doesn't look like that on the radar track - they never got anywhere near the airport. In fact they descended to 400ft about 5 miles NW of the field, then started climbing and circling. What type of approach were they doing anyway? The weather was 0.5SM with fog from an hour before departure until after the crash, but the GPS approach for rwy 11 requires 1.75 mile viz as far as I can tell.

The other strange thing is that the radar track suddenly stops when they're climbing through 1200ft, but I'm pretty sure there is no high ground on Vargas.

According to CBC the pilot didn't have a lot of hours, and was new to the plane:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... -1.2465112

[karmutzen]

I don't know why everyone keeps saying that "bad weather" caused the crash. It doesn't matter what the weather is. IFR is IFR, you fly the procedure, get to the MDA, look for the airport environment, if you can see it you land, if you can't you miss the approach and go to your alternate. Everything is programmed, there is no risk. Now if you were trying to get in VFR on your last drop of fuel, then different story, but that wasn't the case here.

The wind favored an RNAV 11 approach, MDA around 600' and recommended visibility around 1.5 miles. Visibility at the time was around .5 mile in rain and fog, so the pilots would have known/expected a missed approach. Nothing wrong with trying an approach, there is no approach ban in this situation and clouds can blow around a bit and maybe leave you a break at an opportune time.

Icing? Temp was 8C, freezing level was likely 4000'+, so not a factor. Looking at the tracking I'd say he was on the RNAV 11 approach (wind was reported as 130 degrees at 15), turn anticipated TEXEC, turn anticipated the IF UDBIB, should have been at or above 2000'. Tracking shows him down to 400' and then a climb back up to 1000 or so. Not a big deal as there is nothing high to hit, and maybe he thought he'd cloud break over the ocean and then troll for the airport VFR. Not disciplined IFR though. Anyhoo, after the IF at UDBIB he kind of does a right 270 and stoves in. He'll have comms taped onto the Nanaimo FSS remote, and Vancouver Center, so that will probably fill in the holes.

421B is a pretty hot twin to be doing any .. running and stubblejumpers from the prairies and not likely to try the wet coast thing anyway.

Enough armchair, the TSB will do its thing.

[Colonel Sanders]

Enough armchair

Yes, no shortage of that.

[B52]

Not disciplined IFR

There have always been an endless number of newly minted mult-ifr pilots who are appear
to be at their highest risk shortly after being qualified but without experience.

It's at the private level or where they rarely use their rating that the risk seems to rise.

The tracker shows the tragic story, a climb at 60 kts in a Cessna 421 followed by an apparent
vertical descent into oblivion.

Then there was the Cessna 210 that appeared to have a illusion of pitch up and pitched down
after take off.

Can some one post the approach?
Does the approach take it parallel to the airport and not over it?

Good training tells you that if you are not current or doubt your abilities that its
time not to do the approach and get more training or currency.

I can only imagine the fear both pilots went through while planning the approach
and that take off.

It appears that recurrent training needs an overhaul.

I'm doing a lot of refresher study for my FAA CFII and
the more I see how the FAA approach recurrent training
the more I think it needs to be adopted here, especially
the IPC.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I do not know any details of this accident other than what was reported in open sources. The following comments are intended as a general comment and so do not necessarily apply to this accident

The sad fact is that MEIFR rating is an OK introduction to IFR flying when you first get to use it as a FO with an experienced captain to help you transition from the TC IFR syllabus to the real world of A to B hard ball IFR, which is the case for the majority of pilots who are doing the MEIFR rating.

Unfortunately it does not do a particularly good job of prepare PPL's to actually safely fly IFR on their own. In particular there is IMO not enough emphasis in IFR preflight and in enroute PDM, flight in actual IMC and how to organize an approach to an airport you have never seen before.

If you are a PPL with a fresh new IFR rating you are not competent to actually fly a real world IFR flight. It is vital that you get mentored by someone with significant real world A to B IFR flying so you can safely make the transition from TC theory to the real world challenges of actually getting somewhere when the weather is requires flight in significant IMC

[RatherBeFlying]

The 60 kt readout would be groundspeed, but I'll agree that quite a bit of wind would be needed to get that back up to a proper approach speed. That speed could also be derived from the last position. If so, being in a turn would decrease the calculated speed.

Was the store being minded properly, or did some mechanical or instrument problems take their eyes off the ball?

The 270 tight turn back to the last fix below the minimum altitude, 2000, abandons the protections built into the approach. But if you started having engine problems on both sides, do you head for a cold ocean or back to land?

It seems the temps aloft were well above freezing, but sometimes water in the pitot static can affect the airspeed.

[Colonel Sanders]

A lot of flight training is really awful. Enormous
time is spent on irrelevant crap. Very little time
is spent on what you need to know.

I don't know if the people doing the training are
malevolent, or merely incredibly incompetent.

Either way, I find it supremely depressing. No one
will learn anything from this accident, and nothing
will change. That might hurt someone's feelings
and that's just not on.

I strongly suspect that if this guy had received better
training, he and his son would still be alive. There's a
flight instructor and an examiner out there that will
have to live with this, for the rest of their lives. Or
maybe they're psychopaths and don't care.

[karmutzen]

Here's the approach plate for RWY 11. And the LE showing the transition from airways. You go past the airport to the south (west) to pick up the IAF for the RWY11 app.

[Shiny Side Up]

I strongly suspect that if this guy had received better
training, he and his son would still be alive.

Actually it was the 25 year old son who was the pilot, unless the news is incorrect. Small point, but 25 ain't very old to have much IFR experience.

[Colonel Sanders]

As the RCAF pilots will tell you, it's the training that
makes the difference.

IMHO a 421 can get a little busy during departure
and arrival.

You give me a 25 year old 250TT CPL/MIFR and
if he has a week to spare from his busy schedule
to spend with me, he's going to be a pretty sharp
421 pilot at the end of it. Too much to ask, I guess.

Imagine how much time this 25 year old wasted
on the INRAT, trying to figure out how many angels
can dance on the head of a pin. Tragic.

[Rookie50]

Unfortunately it does not do a particularly good job of prepare PPL's to actually safely fly IFR on their own. In particular there is IMO not enough emphasis in IFR preflight and in enroute PDM, flight in actual IMC and how to organize an approach to an airport you have never seen before.

If you are a PPL with a fresh new IFR rating you are not competent to actually fly a real world IFR flight. It is vital that you get mentored by someone with significant real world A to B IFR flying so you can safely make the transition from TC theory to the real world challenges of actually getting somewhere when the weather is requires flight in significant IMC

I agree completely with all of this, as a recent, low time IFR GA pilot. I've had the mentoring, fly regularly, and although both legal and current to fly approaches right to minimums, I choose higher minimums as a single pilot IFR and a non- professional. Simply not enough recency compared to those who do it daily.

[Colonel Sanders]

I choose higher minimums

ummmm ... sometimes, the minimums choose you.

Not saying that a TAF could ever be wrong. No, sir.

Free advice: practice a few more ILS's. Fly them
fast. Then fly them down to 100 feet. Then fly
them down to a blind landing. The ever-so-tiresome
Legal Beagles here will be in a full braying howl about
the impropriety of learning to do a 0/0 approach,
but learn to do it anyways.

[Brown Bear]

The Colonel is bang on about the training. How many hours do we spent doing holds? Hold entries? I'm all for 0/0 approach training. Anybody with the typical bare bones FTU twin IFR rating owes it to themselves to seek out pilots like CS to learn the dirty side, shall we say?
From me, and a certain learned colleague, that number at the bottom of the approach (minimums) is a "hard deck"....go below that number, and all bets are off!

[5x5]

The problem with any training is you can't teach experience. You can show a student different procedures, simulate more difficult situations, but it's all still training and there is a competent pilot in the right seat carefully manufacturing the setting. And the student knows this no matter how well you 'hide' surprises. Nowhere near the reality of facing completely unknown situations all by yourself.

And is it possible that showing a student a blind landing or two (again not close to real life or nearly enough times to count as actual experience) and then telling them "Never do that though, hold to the hard minimums of the approach" kind of contradictory? If they are expected to hold to hard minimums, is not showing them successful 0/0 landings actually setting them up to think "Hey, I can do this" when they actually get worse weather?

After all, the lack of experience is dangerous in two ways. The student/freshly minted IFR doesn't have the experience/skills to handle the really tough situations and they also don't have the experience to necessarily recognize when they're in a really tough situation. That's why you see new or low-time IFR pilots get sucked into single-pilot IFR jobs (CPL) or go off into situations over their heads (PPL).

[Shiny Side Up]

As the RCAF pilots will tell you, it's the training that
makes the difference.

All else being equal though, I'd still rather have someone with more experience than less. Experience is what all that practice buys you. For example:

You give me a 25 year old 250TT CPL/MIFR and
if he has a week to spare from his busy schedule
to spend with me, he's going to be a pretty sharp
421 pilot at the end of it.

After that week with you, I'd rather have the same pilot after he did a buttload of practice after, and stayed exceedingly current. These are the two factors after training account for a lot. The big problem with PPL IFR guys I find is that they don't practice outside of when they do a test or renewal.

[MrWings]

If you are a PPL with a fresh new IFR rating you are not competent to actually fly a real world IFR flight.

I am going to disagree with this.

An IFR flight is not trivial by any means, but if you are fully prepared, then there is very little reason for the flight not to be successful.

If you are not comfortable or confident then, yes, fly with someone else.

[Big Pistons Forever]

An IFR flight is not trivial by any means, but if you are fully prepared, then there is very little reason for the flight not to be successful.

.

IFR training only "fully prepares" you to pass the IFR flight test. Much of what is tested has little relationship to how an IFR flight is conducted for real.

[Rookie50]

If you are a PPL with a fresh new IFR rating you are not competent to actually fly a real world IFR flight.

I am going to disagree with this.

An IFR flight is not trivial by any means, but if you are fully prepared, then there is very little reason for the flight not to be successful.

If you are not comfortable or confident then, yes, fly with someone else.

BPH is correct. A brand new ppl IFR is not competent to fly an ifr flight with an IMC departure, enroute IMC completing with an approach, right off the bat. Way too much at first.

No way, and being comfortable or confident has nothing to do with with it. As a new IFR, you don't even know what you don't know, in my limited experience, without some carefully acquired actual experience, therefore -- you can't be fully prepared.

Brand new, file IFR, do a flight with some actual enroute IMC, depart and arrival in VMC, sure. Then, progress from there. But I'm cautious. Hence I train to minimums, but adhere to higher minimums for planned flights, too. I don't choose to plan to try to complete flights, for example, at night, with gusty winds and a 200 foot ceiling, with 5000 feet of cloud below freezing temps, in a single engine piston. I would stay on the ground and watch football. No thanks.

Call me chicken....I really couldn't give a rip.