It is a clear case of “stupid “ and ending up in a serious accident with injuries,luckily not fatal. I am going to wager this type of activity will creep in again gradually going forward until……Bede wrote: ↑Wed Jan 14, 2026 1:17 pmTrue. But there's illegal and safeish and there's illegal and stupid. This was the latter.Dry Guy wrote: ↑Fri Jan 09, 2026 11:19 am Nice idea but the reality is homebrew GPS approaches are how flights are operated every day in the North. It's taught to new hire pilots by the management and training pilots of the airlines and then heavily implied that this is how you are to operate your aircraft. There's no way Transport Canada doesn't know this. They just turn a blind eye.
If you need to, go down to 1000', maybe even 500' if you want to push it. This was 50'. That's CAT 3 approach minima with no defined runway and no lateral/vertical guidance.
Air Tindi Twin Otter Down
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Re: Air Tindi Twin Otter Down
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Eric Janson
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Re: Air Tindi Twin Otter Down
It is possible to develop company approaches - with GPS that's possible just about anywhere.
The problem is that certification costs money - as an example an obstacle survey needs to be done as part of the certification process.
The problem is that certification costs money - as an example an obstacle survey needs to be done as part of the certification process.
Always fly a stable approach - it's the only stability you'll find in this business
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goingnowherefast
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Re: Air Tindi Twin Otter Down
It's also unlikely to get CAT IIIA minimums to a bush strip. 500-600ft is likely, with restrictions as part of an RCAP.
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Eric Janson
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Re: Air Tindi Twin Otter Down
That's correct.goingnowherefast wrote: ↑Thu Jan 15, 2026 7:51 pm It's also unlikely to get CAT IIIA minimums to a bush strip. 500-600ft is likely, with restrictions as part of an RCAP.
An approach takes all the guesswork out - at minimums you continue if visual or go-around if you're not.
My company has a client with a company approach and minimums of 600' agl. Unfortunately they can't get it certified so we are limited to a cloud breaking procedure with minimums at 3300'agl.
Always fly a stable approach - it's the only stability you'll find in this business
Re: Air Tindi Twin Otter Down
Considering that I just happened to recently finish reading the accident report for the fatal Air Tindi Twin Otter crash in 2011 that was a mere 6 pages long, this one was a full 64 pages long.
viewtopic.php?p=797259&hilit=canyon#p797259
Much of the 64 pages is dedicated to organizational type subjects which is directed more for regulatory authorities, management, and safety organizations. And while there can be good purpose for that, it does not necessarily have much application in the moment for pilots looking for an answer of......'what would I have done'.
There is mention of the visual flight rules aspect of the operation(departing VFR followed by climbing through cloud to cruise altitude and below VFR weather at the location of the accident but this can simply be dealt with using an IFR flight plan. Having done some flying out of YZF, I remember hearing rumours of this sort of thing(VFR guys somewhere in the clouds - perhaps with transponder off).
The weather was good when they departed although with a low pressure system at the final destination, it is no surprise that the weather deteriorated. Assuming that a client is willing to pay, it is not unusual to go take a look and then make a landing decision. The real issue is what you decide to do when the conditions have deteriorated.
After a successful stop at an en-route location, the winds picked up fairly quickly at the road camp. To be honest, actions taken by this crew, do not give the appearance of competent piloting. Aside from their extreme low-level maneuvering, it appeared that they were unable to properly position themselves multiple times and at one point were planning to land with a 30 knot crosswind.
Unfortunately, despite detailed info on the non-piloting aspects, significant items regarding the actual flight were not mentioned by the TSB in the report(.....again). Did the pilots have contact with people on the ground at the destination?, Had the pilots ever been to this location before, giving them some familiarity? What information did they have? Are they landing on bare ice or snow? This would give more insight into the decision-making. With the winds at 30 knots, snowdrifts become a significant issue. If there is no communication, do you really want to be landing in flat light without an accurate and up to date strip report?
In one flight operation, we used to have strip reports made for a lot of the offstrip locations we went to(including sending a pilot in advance for an analysis). In another flight operation, it was less organized and pilots had to figure it out themselves. For the first time going into a destination, I definitely liked for the weather to be good. This also allowed you to get runway threshold coordinates for the GPS allowing you to set up a proper inbound track and set up a safe descent and be familiar with local terrain.
The accident flight appears to have been poorly flown, trying to do it all visually in what I suspect was total whiteout conditions. One can instead, simply set themselves up on a final approach inbound track using a GPS until getting closer and then do a visual inspection of the landing surface and then set up for another approach for landing, once again using the GPS for tracking. Much better than low level maneuvering. While on the inbound track, one simply starts from a proper altitude such as 1500’ agl at 5 miles back and does a nice 3 to 1 descent(either by a calculation of rate of descent based on expected groundspeed or a vertical descent path on the GPS if it has that). It is assumed on this flight that the crew is familiar with the area and that there is no significant terrain(having flown in the area, I know that there is no significant terrain). Using my method, you are now clear of any terrain while in this case, having a pressure altimeter setting from Diavik and the radar altimeter as a back-up. Nice and stable. Instead, they were maneuvering around at 50’ in total whiteout conditions at 1.5 miles back. How wise is that? Doing what they did turned insignificant terrain into significant terrain.
Considering that one of their approaches was totally messed up geographically with them not even close to the landing strip and the fact that they were down at 50 feet, so far back from the landing strip when they crashed, I think the TSB should have looked(and reported) on how accurate was the information being given to them on the EFB’s that they had. Was there a reason(such as an input error) for the lack of accuracy. I never used an EFB for this stuff but it is unnecessary for the most part(especially if familiar with the location). One just needs bearing and distance on a GPS from known, accurate coordinates, and there is extreme accuracy.
Of course, one can say that based on the weather, the approach was not legal but one can use the GPS to simply go down to whatever the legal minimum is and you will be in a position to continue for a stable approach to landing if you happen to get the required visual references. One is simply setting themselves up for a nice ILS equivalent approach. It can seem like this method is taking longer as one positions the aircraft and slowly descends on approach but a look at this accident shows about 10 or 15 minutes of low level, high risk maneuvering.
I used this technique a lot on pitch-black approaches on clear nights into remote ice strips with not much extra landing distance and it works extremely well. The runway elevation was 1500' ASL. I set up a waypoint ten miles back with a plan to level off at 3000' ASL. Between ten and five miles, the aircraft was in level flight, slowing down and configuring. A five miles back, the final descent was started. The only thing visible out the window is pitch black and a pinpoint of light ahead which is the landing strip. I had marked down the target altitude for each mile back from the runway. The PNF can act like a PAR controller(for those who remember that stuff) with callouts of high or low on approach at each mile back from the runway(eg. "Four miles back, slightly high, adjust your rate of descent"). At about a mile back is when good depth perception is achieved(No PAPIs or VASI's at these places) and one can be mostly visual at that point. Having seen the hazards of the low level maneuvering first hand several times(done by others), I recommend the stable approach technique.
After the accident, they occupants were in a precarious position that reminded me of a Hollywood movie. The aircraft was balanced on the edge of a precipice with the tail extending out over the edge. The emergency supplies were in the tail and going into the back of the aircraft meant that the aircraft would tip back and slide off the edge of the precipice. They tied down the nosegear to a rock with a ratchet strap.
viewtopic.php?p=797259&hilit=canyon#p797259
Much of the 64 pages is dedicated to organizational type subjects which is directed more for regulatory authorities, management, and safety organizations. And while there can be good purpose for that, it does not necessarily have much application in the moment for pilots looking for an answer of......'what would I have done'.
There is mention of the visual flight rules aspect of the operation(departing VFR followed by climbing through cloud to cruise altitude and below VFR weather at the location of the accident but this can simply be dealt with using an IFR flight plan. Having done some flying out of YZF, I remember hearing rumours of this sort of thing(VFR guys somewhere in the clouds - perhaps with transponder off).
The weather was good when they departed although with a low pressure system at the final destination, it is no surprise that the weather deteriorated. Assuming that a client is willing to pay, it is not unusual to go take a look and then make a landing decision. The real issue is what you decide to do when the conditions have deteriorated.
After a successful stop at an en-route location, the winds picked up fairly quickly at the road camp. To be honest, actions taken by this crew, do not give the appearance of competent piloting. Aside from their extreme low-level maneuvering, it appeared that they were unable to properly position themselves multiple times and at one point were planning to land with a 30 knot crosswind.
Unfortunately, despite detailed info on the non-piloting aspects, significant items regarding the actual flight were not mentioned by the TSB in the report(.....again). Did the pilots have contact with people on the ground at the destination?, Had the pilots ever been to this location before, giving them some familiarity? What information did they have? Are they landing on bare ice or snow? This would give more insight into the decision-making. With the winds at 30 knots, snowdrifts become a significant issue. If there is no communication, do you really want to be landing in flat light without an accurate and up to date strip report?
In one flight operation, we used to have strip reports made for a lot of the offstrip locations we went to(including sending a pilot in advance for an analysis). In another flight operation, it was less organized and pilots had to figure it out themselves. For the first time going into a destination, I definitely liked for the weather to be good. This also allowed you to get runway threshold coordinates for the GPS allowing you to set up a proper inbound track and set up a safe descent and be familiar with local terrain.
The accident flight appears to have been poorly flown, trying to do it all visually in what I suspect was total whiteout conditions. One can instead, simply set themselves up on a final approach inbound track using a GPS until getting closer and then do a visual inspection of the landing surface and then set up for another approach for landing, once again using the GPS for tracking. Much better than low level maneuvering. While on the inbound track, one simply starts from a proper altitude such as 1500’ agl at 5 miles back and does a nice 3 to 1 descent(either by a calculation of rate of descent based on expected groundspeed or a vertical descent path on the GPS if it has that). It is assumed on this flight that the crew is familiar with the area and that there is no significant terrain(having flown in the area, I know that there is no significant terrain). Using my method, you are now clear of any terrain while in this case, having a pressure altimeter setting from Diavik and the radar altimeter as a back-up. Nice and stable. Instead, they were maneuvering around at 50’ in total whiteout conditions at 1.5 miles back. How wise is that? Doing what they did turned insignificant terrain into significant terrain.
Considering that one of their approaches was totally messed up geographically with them not even close to the landing strip and the fact that they were down at 50 feet, so far back from the landing strip when they crashed, I think the TSB should have looked(and reported) on how accurate was the information being given to them on the EFB’s that they had. Was there a reason(such as an input error) for the lack of accuracy. I never used an EFB for this stuff but it is unnecessary for the most part(especially if familiar with the location). One just needs bearing and distance on a GPS from known, accurate coordinates, and there is extreme accuracy.
Of course, one can say that based on the weather, the approach was not legal but one can use the GPS to simply go down to whatever the legal minimum is and you will be in a position to continue for a stable approach to landing if you happen to get the required visual references. One is simply setting themselves up for a nice ILS equivalent approach. It can seem like this method is taking longer as one positions the aircraft and slowly descends on approach but a look at this accident shows about 10 or 15 minutes of low level, high risk maneuvering.
I used this technique a lot on pitch-black approaches on clear nights into remote ice strips with not much extra landing distance and it works extremely well. The runway elevation was 1500' ASL. I set up a waypoint ten miles back with a plan to level off at 3000' ASL. Between ten and five miles, the aircraft was in level flight, slowing down and configuring. A five miles back, the final descent was started. The only thing visible out the window is pitch black and a pinpoint of light ahead which is the landing strip. I had marked down the target altitude for each mile back from the runway. The PNF can act like a PAR controller(for those who remember that stuff) with callouts of high or low on approach at each mile back from the runway(eg. "Four miles back, slightly high, adjust your rate of descent"). At about a mile back is when good depth perception is achieved(No PAPIs or VASI's at these places) and one can be mostly visual at that point. Having seen the hazards of the low level maneuvering first hand several times(done by others), I recommend the stable approach technique.
After the accident, they occupants were in a precarious position that reminded me of a Hollywood movie. The aircraft was balanced on the edge of a precipice with the tail extending out over the edge. The emergency supplies were in the tail and going into the back of the aircraft meant that the aircraft would tip back and slide off the edge of the precipice. They tied down the nosegear to a rock with a ratchet strap.
Re: Air Tindi Twin Otter Down
I remember flying into an ice strip one night with a high time captain on a larger aircraft type(much larger than a Twin Otter). It was probably -30, dark night, light winds, but a fair amount of ice crystals. The runway was reasonably long for aircraft type. I was flying in the right seat and we descended and as directed by the captain, crossed overhead to join a left downwind leg at a thousand feet above the strip. It is all instrument flying as there are zero lights except the outline of the runway that we saw go by.
We configured and turned onto final fairly close in and then discovered that we were way too high. We had been fooled by the runway lighting set up. For some reason, the first half of the temporary lighting , that was powered by generators, was extremely dim while the second half of the landing strip had very bright lights. It was only when we got close that the dim lights became visible and discovered that we were too high.
The captain took over and did a whole bunch of low level yanking and banking to come around for another attempt. Most of the time it was complete darkness out the windows and to this day, I really don't know what the overall track over the ground would be as he was unsuccessful at his first attempt and then came around again for a second attempt. I do remember calling "Speed" twice and both times, he did add quite a bit of power. From my position it was all on instruments with an occasional glimpse on the far left side of runway lights. On the second attempt, he was somewhat successful in getting us closer to being in a position to land but we still had to dive down and also maneuver laterally with a significant bank such that we lined up with the runway just before the flare. During the flare, the captain said " Don't ever let me see you fly like this". He never would have. I decided that the stable approach technique is much better. Another time we circled at a hundred feet in order to stay below the clouds. Had the chief pilot do similar(dive and bank) on a daytime NDB approach to a gravel strip as well and land halfway down the runway. A third guy landed 3/4 down a paved airport runway that was not particularly long but at least we were empty and the reverse was very effective(He ignored my suggestion to change plans for an ILS approach to the long runway after fog quickly moved in). At one place we went, the strip was on the hill and we were low maneuvering around, slightly below the elevation of the landing strip for a while. He seemed to think that was very cool when I mentioned it to him.
Saw some weird stuff. The good old days. Operation now gone.
We configured and turned onto final fairly close in and then discovered that we were way too high. We had been fooled by the runway lighting set up. For some reason, the first half of the temporary lighting , that was powered by generators, was extremely dim while the second half of the landing strip had very bright lights. It was only when we got close that the dim lights became visible and discovered that we were too high.
The captain took over and did a whole bunch of low level yanking and banking to come around for another attempt. Most of the time it was complete darkness out the windows and to this day, I really don't know what the overall track over the ground would be as he was unsuccessful at his first attempt and then came around again for a second attempt. I do remember calling "Speed" twice and both times, he did add quite a bit of power. From my position it was all on instruments with an occasional glimpse on the far left side of runway lights. On the second attempt, he was somewhat successful in getting us closer to being in a position to land but we still had to dive down and also maneuver laterally with a significant bank such that we lined up with the runway just before the flare. During the flare, the captain said " Don't ever let me see you fly like this". He never would have. I decided that the stable approach technique is much better. Another time we circled at a hundred feet in order to stay below the clouds. Had the chief pilot do similar(dive and bank) on a daytime NDB approach to a gravel strip as well and land halfway down the runway. A third guy landed 3/4 down a paved airport runway that was not particularly long but at least we were empty and the reverse was very effective(He ignored my suggestion to change plans for an ILS approach to the long runway after fog quickly moved in). At one place we went, the strip was on the hill and we were low maneuvering around, slightly below the elevation of the landing strip for a while. He seemed to think that was very cool when I mentioned it to him.
Saw some weird stuff. The good old days. Operation now gone.
Last edited by pelmet on Mon Feb 02, 2026 7:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Air Tindi Twin Otter Down
Circling at 1000' at night in the north is a death sentence. I really hope you guys don't do this.
Re: Air Tindi Twin Otter Down
What? 90% of the approaches I did up North were circling to a gravel strip, minimums were always below 1000’ in non mountainous
