Fatal Accident Near Slave Lake
Moderators: sky's the limit, sepia, Sulako, lilfssister, North Shore
Re: Fatal Accident Near Slave Lake
Another crash of a VFR flight in marginal weather. Good weather at departure, marginal at destination. Pilot was well aware of this. Obviously he pushed it too far and then stalled the aircraft while attempting a last second pull up to avoid a hill. The terrain had been fairly flat until the last ten or so miles from destination. Never screw around in marginal weather in hilly terrain when VFR(except, perhaps if you are highly experienced and extremely familiar with the area).
If determined to press on, I am not sure why he didn't use his Garmin GNS430(which has a moving map display) to maneuver himself over the fairly large Lesser Slave Lake, off to his right in order to be clear of any obstacles above the surface. That will provide obstacle safety down to 100 feet versus the significant hills on the route he chose. That being said, he had decided to change to another destination but it took him into the rising terrain. Over the water can be the safest area while figuring things out, at least in terms of obstacles.
In this case, while maneuvering over the lake(hopefully at a reasonable altitude), he could have seen on his chart that there was high terrain nearby. Instead, he was actually getting lower and lower, probably to maintain VFR, as he approach the hills.
If determined to press on, I am not sure why he didn't use his Garmin GNS430(which has a moving map display) to maneuver himself over the fairly large Lesser Slave Lake, off to his right in order to be clear of any obstacles above the surface. That will provide obstacle safety down to 100 feet versus the significant hills on the route he chose. That being said, he had decided to change to another destination but it took him into the rising terrain. Over the water can be the safest area while figuring things out, at least in terms of obstacles.
In this case, while maneuvering over the lake(hopefully at a reasonable altitude), he could have seen on his chart that there was high terrain nearby. Instead, he was actually getting lower and lower, probably to maintain VFR, as he approach the hills.
Re: Fatal Accident Near Slave Lake
To the south of the Slave Lake airport the hills are much more noticeable. To the north and northeast the terrain rise is very subtle and hard to see.
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Re: Fatal Accident Near Slave Lake
The 430 is a great GPS for WAAS based LPV approaches but the moving map is rudimentary at best by today's standards. The accident report makes mention of the pilot having an ipad with a popular subscription based app, guaranteed Foreflight. I would say the ipad is a much better situational awareness tool provided it had the GPS antennae.
Even with that, the loss of horizon over the lake might have made for the same scenario, the Tindi King Air crash was over the lake when they impacted rising terrain, and the King Air 90 crash at YZH was also over the lake when they lost visual reference while circling.
https://bst.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/ ... sable=true
Either way, this is a classic VFR into adverse weather, loss of visual reference into rising terrain scenario unfortunately. YZH is a bad area to ask for help, I think you drop off radar below 10 000', and YEG radio is only able to provide minimal help through the RCO.
Re: Fatal Accident Near Slave Lake
The pilot was 84 years old and had been flying for over 40 years.
At 125 knots and no flap deployed there is not very good visibility over the nose of a Mooney.
At 125 knots and no flap deployed there is not very good visibility over the nose of a Mooney.
Re: Fatal Accident Near Slave Lake
The visibility is not very good in any airplane when you are IMC or close to it. Poor judgement and planning ahead is the root of the cause.
If you are going to fly in marginal conditions at a fairly low altitude, it is very important to have a plan of where not to go and make sure you always know where you are. If you get to a point where you are not sure where you are, turning back frequently is the best option as you did already fly over that terrain successfully. Potentially more dangerous is when you think you know where you are when in fact you don't.
This case seems to be fairly straight-forward with an easy turnback toward lower terrain as an obvious option. I assume the Mooney had at least basic instrumentation for flying IMC and an operable GNS430. If not, one should be even more conservative.