Allegedly heard while on ground control in MIA:
VIRGIN Flt: "Every time I come to MIA you women controllers give us a hard time!"
ATC: "For the nine years I have been a controller, I have never had a problem handling a VIRGIN…."
Pilot fined £3,400 for “causing havoc” over Stansted airport
The Herts and Essex Observer has rather dramatically retold a story about a 25 year old pilot named Henry Marriott who could have “caused a mid-air catastrophe” in the busy skies over Stansted airport, being fined £3,400 after pleading guilty to entering controlled air space. The paper even reports that at one point, flights departing from Stansted were halted as the pilot appeared on radar to be “dangerously close” (just 1,215 feet) to an inbound Boeing 737 and it was “purely down to luck” why a mid air collision did not occur.
Of course, one has to take any general aviation or aircraft incident reported by the media with a few grains of salt and it should also be mentioned that blogger Sylvia of the Fear of Landing blog has done an excellent job of clarifying what happened without the hype or jumping to unnecessary conclusions like the need for more regulations or a ban on GA flying altogether.
With that in mind, here are the facts about the incident:
- The pilot did not have an up-to-date pilot’s licence.
- The pilot admitted to flying as a commander without an appropriate licence after failing to renew it when its five-year period expired on October 3, 2011.
- The pilot’s small white and red two-seater had little in the way of instruments and no GPS or transponder.
- The pilot entered Stansted controlled airspace at 1.20 pm and remained in it for 11 minutes, during which time all departing flights were suspended.
- The pilot also wandered into Luton’s airspace where three inbound commercial flights had to be alerted to an unknown aircraft in the area.
- The pilot said he recognized Stansted, but misjudged the distance and that he did not make radio contact because he was concentrating on his flying and navigation due to being lost.
The Magistrates chairman was then quoted as saying:
“You knew the airspace in this part of England is very congested and therefore the burden’s on you to be spot-on in your navigation. While you knew what altitude you were at no-one else did, or what your intentions were. You felt safe but that’s not the point.”
Sylvia did an excellent job of summarizing what happened by writing that:
- He was lost
- He was flying at low level and
- He would be happy with help to get back on track.
For some reason though, the pilot did not ask for directions. She also pointed out that if there was a real risk of collision, the pilot would have been charged with “a lot more than entering controlled airspace.” Nevertheless, the pilot did create enough havoc to warrant charges and fines.
The pilot ultimately pleaded guilty to two offences of entering controlled airspace en route to Cuckoo Tye in Suffolk to Tisted in Hampshire without notifying his flight plan or obtaining air traffic control clearance beforehand. In addition to a £3,400 fine, he was ordered to pay £712 legal costs.
The lessons here? Keep your licence up-to-date, tell authorities on the ground what your intentions are and make sure you can be contacted in the air. In other words, use COMMON SENSE.
Autopilot inexperience or an incorrect installation proves fatal?
General Aviation News will often reprint excerpts from US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident reports, including one dated March 2011 that involved a Cessna 310 with a new autopilot system in Smyrna, Tennessee, that proved fatal for the pilot.
According to the accident investigation, the technician who performed the autopilot installation and troubleshooting work on the aircraft had accompanied the pilot on the first flight of the day and he indicated the pilot seemed to be unfamiliar with the autopilot operation:
The pilot worked the yoke against the autopilot, and, in response, the autopilot ran the elevator trim to the full nose-down position. The pilot responded by swiping both panel-mounted master switches to the off position then attempted to trim the airplane with the electric trim that he had just disabled.
The technician even stated the pilot’s actions had scared him and showed the pilot really didn’t have control of the airplane as he appeared to be “very disoriented with the new technology.”
The second flight of the day turned out to be the fatal flight and was the fourth in a series of maintenance acceptance flights after the installation of a new avionics suite and a new autopilot system. All of the autopilot system’s features were tested satisfactorily on the ground. However, the system did not yet function as designed in flight because the aircraft had a pitch-porpoise tendency when the altitude hold feature was engaged.
During the fatal accident flight, its believed the airplane pitched down as a first action of the pitch porpoise after the autopilot was engaged. The pilot likely pulled back on the yoke to try and stop the aircraft’s decent while the autopilot would have commanded the trim further toward the nose-down position. The aircraft ended up descending in an unrecoverable nose-down attitude.
The NTSB ruled that the probable cause of the accident was the pilot’s improper response to a known autopilot pitch divergence anomaly while the pilot’s decision to perform a test flight on a system for which he lacked a complete working knowledge was ruled a contributory factor. However, a commenter named Guido posted the following comment:
The newly installed autopilot doesn’t work correctly and all blame goes to the pilot? The installer dodged one that time……
Someone named Dennis Reiley then responded by commenting:
I agree Guido, what use is an auto pilot that when engaged in level flight immediately causes the aircraft to pitch the nose down? The answer is none! May I never encounter that technician nor his work.
Both comments are good points as the pilot is not around to provide his side of the story – meaning the NTSB must rely on the testimony of any technician or mechanic involved in the installation work. Moreover and if the pilot’s actions were “scary,” why did the technicians or mechanics allow the pilot to go up for another flight on his own?
Video: How to handle inflight emergencies
Jason Schappert, the blogger behind the MzeroA.com, has posted a roughly 40 minute video (along with a transcript with appropriate links) of his lecture about handling inflight emergencies. In the video lecture, Jason talks about handling three types of inflight emergencies:
Engine Failures in flight.
Engine Failures on take off (both with or without runway remaining).
How to make a better plan for the unexpected.
And if the video is not enough for you, Jason has also written companion book which can be ordered or downloaded online here.
It could be worst…
The only thing worse than a captain who never flew as copilot is a copilot who once was a captain…
Should you learn to fly in a complex high performance aircraft?
A soon to be student pilot named Larry Shaw has posted a question on the Ask a Flight Instructor website about having the opportunity to purchase a more complex aircraft and whether he could get his private pilot certificate in it:
I have a great opportunity to purchase a Commander 112b. I do not have a private pilot certificate. Can I get my private in my new plane?
Wes Beard responded by saying yes but he also warned that it could be overwhelming while the CFI doing the training would have to give a high performance and complex endorsement before any solo flight. Wes added that it will take longer to solo and get a license while insurance requirements may not allow a student pilot to solo the aircraft.
Sam Dawson then commented that Larry needs to check with insurance BEFORE he purchases the aircraft to confirm it will actually fit his budget and he needs to make sure there is a CFI in his area who can teach him how to fly the aircraft. Sam then gave some good tips for buying an aircraft, including:
Look for reason NOT to purchase this airplane. If you can’t find any, then it is probably a good purchase.
Sam concluded by noting that he knows pilots who have done what Larry plans on doing and it took them longer to solo, but they also ended their training with “intimate knowledge of their airplane.”