CpnCrunch wrote: ↑Sun Dec 08, 2019 10:50 am
geneticistx wrote: ↑Sun Dec 08, 2019 9:28 am
FIC provides free weather briefings.
As i have read in here before...the pilot used every skill, training and experience to prevent the aircraft from losing control and hitting terrain.
There's an eye opening article in this month's COPA magazine. A FIC briefer recounted 3 instances of cases where he advised the pilots not to proceed, but they did so anyway and died. The third time it happened, he remembered the previous two fatal accidents, and tried to persuade the pilot to delay the journey, but he didn't and died.
Unfortunately some people just can't be helped. Not sure if that applies to this case, or if the pilot just didn't bother getting any weather briefing (whether from an FIC, or self-briefing from the GFA).
Some anecdotal evidence to the contrary....
I was ferrying a small VFR only single engine piston with a very limited fuel range. I was in an area with limited weather report station, like you would find on most canadian flights that take you more than 100 NM away from the US border. Anyway, weather forecast didn't look good for my next leg. There was a danger of low visilibity being forecasted at my destination airport due to fog. I called the FIC to get an updated briefing. The lady at the phone told me that I could probably make it if I left RIGHT NOW. I asked for more information on where the fog was coming from, where the bad weather was located etc. At the end of the phone conversation I told her I wanted to cancel my flight plan. She asked me, verbatim, "Are you sure? If you leave right now you can make it". I told her I wasn't going. I could detect a sigh in her voice as she cancelled my flight plan.
The next day, the weather cleared up and I proceeded to my next destination. I landed and started chatting with some local people on the airport. They told me how the weather the day before was terrible. I checked historical METAR information, and they were right. If I had left on that flight, I would not have made it to the destination and would have been right in it. I might not have made it to any other airport. Best case scenario I would have been able to crash land the plane in some remote area. Not nice.
If I would have been in this situation at the beginning of my career, I might not have cancelled after that phone call. I might have left, and I might have ended up in some newspaper.