pelmet wrote: ↑Wed Aug 02, 2023 10:22 am
Bottom line....GA has all kinds of incompetents in it.
That doesn't mean that they are incompetent in life. Some are hugely successful and extremely smart but don't have the ability to understand their limitations. They have skill bit not good judgement. Others are seriously lacking in skill. Some have poor decision-making skills. Others can't handle a stressful situation. Still others have cowboy attitude and take things too far. Others may be hesitant but get pushed into situations that they would not let themselves be pushed into if they were operating alone. Some are excessively cheap and take risks that way through maintenance or stretching fuel to save a few cents per litre.
And yes, there are problem pilots in the professional world as well but ask yourself to name the last airliner crash. There is a much more rigorous training and weeding-out program and plenty who never make it to pilot in command, unlike GA.
One can always blame someone else(as is so trendy in society these days) like the instructor but that only goes so far.
Of course, this extends well beyond aviation with vehicle and boat operators dying and killing en masse and plenty of people in other activities dying on a regular basis.
As Dirty Harry once said.....A man's got to know his limitations. Many don't.
Great post.
The comparison with vehicle and boat operators resonates here. There are two things different between aircraft and surface vehicle operations. With service vehicles, emergencies do not last more than a few seconds, if that. Problem? Foot off the gas pedal, on the brake. Same with a boat, throttle back and bob. Aircraft emergencies are developing before the pilot may even know it, and can last for half an hour or more. This Lance was in an emergency as soon as it took off.
The second thing is that crimes and lesser offenses for surface vehicles take place with potentially many witnesses and with an abundance of law enforcement tasked with enforcing laws against conduct that puts others at risk. Private aviation in Canada is for the most part lawless and without any significant surveillance. People are killed monthly in Canada by pilots in private aviation, who had they demonstrated the same level of mind boggling stupidity in a vehicle, with fatal results, would certainly be charged with criminal negligence or manslaughter.
This sad and ghastly affair is such a case. So was that one up by Grand Prairie where the guy takes off at night, in snow showers, in an R44, and kills himself, his wife, and two children. Who in the name of Christ goes flying a frigging Robbie, at night, over unlit and featureless terrain without stability augmentation, and snow showers? And the guy a few months back who takes off from the Island for a flight to Glacier airport in Montana, ends up wandering about in shite weather down in the Bellingham and Mt. Vernon areas, then buggers off back over the line to start wandering up the Fraser and or Coquihalla, still in or around the clag, up to 17000 feet without oxygen, and then impacts Needle Peak out of control. Killing himself and the woman with him. All he had to do was call US FSS, change his destination to Bellingham that was almost directly below him, land, clear customs, and go and have a coffee, now free to fly any safe route across the Cascades he chose. He had 175 hours and was a flatlander.
At some point, we need to give a new meaning to the acronym RIP. That should be "Rest in prison".
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience often comes from bad judgment.
