Missing north of Peterborough

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CpnCrunch
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by CpnCrunch »

Rookie50 wrote: To put it bluntly, all the glass in the world aint going to help if you can't control the aircraft in the conditions out there, as been shown, time and time again. I'm not even sure it might have mattered if this happened over 8 lanes of the 401 if they entered solid IMC at night.
Well, synthetic vision could help. However it shouldn't be a substitute for proper training.
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by Shiny Side Up »

Cat Driver wrote:Spatial disorentation and complete loss of control at night is the real killer for pilots who are not competent in flight by instruments only.

And the lack of ability to fly by reference to instruments only is due to improper training and lack of experience on instruments only.

And wearing a hood is a piss poor method of learning how to fly by instruments only.
Personally I'd say its easier to fly instruments in cloud than instruments at night, but that might just be me. Either way, I feel its more than just training and experience alone that causes these types of accidents. Its a long chain of poor decision making, coupled with inexperience, some poor training, but also lack of currency is always bad too. I'm not convinced that bad nav would typically be the issue, but rather bad nav is a symptom of getting disoriented. Even if one has a GPS or good VOR knowledge. I've seen lots of pilots get very quickly sometimes get turned around in the dark, at least low time ones.

Hoods and Sims are't perfect instrument trainers, but still some recent practice at it is way better than none. Which is too often the case when people go trundling off in the dark.
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by Cat Driver »

To put it bluntly, all the glass in the world aint going to help if you can't control the aircraft in the conditions out there, as been shown, time and time again. I'm not even sure it might have mattered if this happened over 8 lanes of the 401 if they entered solid IMC at night.
My post was not meant to say that accident was caused by loss of control being the only possible cause, however I do believe it to be the most likely given the experience level of the people involved.

My comment regarding the use of a hood as a training aid to teach flight by reference to instruments only was meant exactly as I wrote it.

Pilots taught instrument flight using such an unorthodox method of limiting vision will find flight into total reliance on the instruments to be a real unusual experience and spatial disorintation can be quick and unrecoverable.

Whoever decided that a hood was a viable device to teach flight by istruments had their vision restricted because their head was up their ass.
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by Rookie50 »

CpnCrunch wrote:
Rookie50 wrote: To put it bluntly, all the glass in the world aint going to help if you can't control the aircraft in the conditions out there, as been shown, time and time again. I'm not even sure it might have mattered if this happened over 8 lanes of the 401 if they entered solid IMC at night.
Well, synthetic vision could help. However it shouldn't be a substitute for proper training.
I'm a low time effectively flying as a PPL, but I'm old school. Flying is, or should be, a gradual apprenticeship.
In that, I agree with the old timers school of stick and rudder. I know of guys, more time than me, fully rated, who have a hard time hand flying in IMC. Partial panel? Forget it!

I seriously think there are accidents that occur just because the AP failed. And that's cause, people never train, and retrain. Too busy, and there is no forgiveness for mistakes.

I'd love to have SVH, btw. Great tool and not dismissing it.
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Lost in Saigon
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by Lost in Saigon »

They didn't crash because they could not control the aircraft in night IMC conditions. They flew for a long time in those conditions. They crashed because:

1) they got lost
2) they ran out of fuel
3) they could not find a suitable place to land in the dark
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by photofly »

Lost in Saigon wrote:They didn't crash because they could not control the aircraft in night IMC conditions. They flew for a long time in those conditions. They crashed because:

1) they got lost
2) they ran out of fuel
3) they could not find a suitable place to land in the dark
Indeed.

The ATC audio (centre, and relays from AC but not the tx from the aircraft in question) is online, if you look. It 100% supports the above. Further, the ground team reported dry tanks at the crash site.
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by PilotDAR »

They didn't crash because they could not control the aircraft in night IMC conditions.
"Controlling" the aircraft in night IMC conditions (or indeed any conditions) includes making the aircraft go where you need it to go - particularly when the alternative is getting to a place where there is no hope of finding a suitable landing area, when you will have to land. If the intended route was Ottawa to Toronto, the accident site is at least a half hour flight from that route. Therefore, for at least half an hour, the control of the aircraft was inadequate. And, if you know that you are having trouble "controlling" direction, you point so the error area is toward the more populated area.

"Pilotage" over that route is difficult in any other than good day VFR, and impossible in reduced vis night flight. Thus, it is a certainty that good radio navigation is absolutely vital. If the flight was undertaken with only one radio nav system (I don't know), that in and of itself was foolish for that route, but then extreme checks enroute are vital to assure you're on course, or at least erring to the more populated side of the route.

That is a decision making failing of this flight. You can call it "getting lost", which is the simple description of it, but we've all gotten lost - it's not supposed to be fatal.
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by Schooner69A »

"Whoever decided that a hood was a viable device to teach flight by instruments had their vision restricted because their head was up their ass."

Damn it, Cat; I hope that doesn't apply to me... I was part of a group that did exactly that to a multitude of students who then went on to fly fast movers at night, low level, at speeds in excess of 450 MPH as well as many who went on to fly all-weather supersonic interceptors. All based on the training they had received "under the hood". Personally, I enjoyed my time in my little cocoon; I found actual IFR easier than simulated...

I do realize that training under actual IFR conditions would be the ideal, but, given that most training organizations - be they military or civil - have time constraints in their training syllabi and aircraft that may be somewhat weather limited (i.e. no anti-icing, etc) what sort of "vision limiting device" would you recommend considering those limitations?

John
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by Lost in Saigon »

In 1979 I needed to renew my lapsed Multi Instrument Rating. I was living in Winnipeg and arranged to use a Grumman GA-7 Cougar with a retired Transair B737 Captain as my Instructor.

He didn't like the idea of using a hood so he made up some cardboard templates arranged to cover up the windows but still provide enough visibility for the Instructor/Safety Pilot. We had Transport Canada come out and check it out, and they approved it. I did a few hours training and then did my ride using the cardboard instead of a hood.

My next renewal was much less enjoyable. I had to use a hood with an old Norcanair Aztec that had a very old panel with a "hockey puck" directional gyro and fixed card ADF's.

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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by Cat Driver »

what sort of "vision limiting device" would you recommend considering those limitations?
From my experience in receiving and teaching flight by reference to instruments only the best method of restricting vision to only inside of the airplane was the military Two Stage Amber.

The only difference vision wise was everything inside the airplane was blue...the windshield and the side windows were black...therefore no outside visual clues period.

Wearing one of those hoods is in my opinion very unorthodox.

For sure I would not wear one during any instrument check ride I took.

One time in Vancouver I was going for a renewal ride and the inspector asked me where the hood was, I told him I don't wear one....ever...he said he would not do the ride unless I wore a hood.

I called the head of flight training standards and asked for another inspector that would give me the ride without a hood unless they could provide me with a rule that mandated a hood....

......I got another inspector because they did not want to go down that road, in other words I could not continue working without the rating and they were denying me the right to work based on pure stupidity on their part.

It was not really realistic for them to deny me the ride because I refused to wear something I did not need to fly instruments and I told them I was going back to work without the ride and they could try and punish me for it if they wanted to and I would continue to fly until they revoked my license....

....they decided to not go down that road and I got another inspector.
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Schooner69A
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by Schooner69A »

Cat:

The rides I conducted on flying club candidates were with foggles, a hood, or somesuch; they were used to it and did well. All corporate were usually without any restriction and I didn't wear anything when I undertook my own ride when I was in corporate aviation. As I remember, I don't think we wore or used anything when I was an Inspector and was undergoing a check ride.

Regarding your refusal to wear a restrictive device; you've probably done enough check rides to know whether or not a candidate can "cut the mustard". with or without a restriction to vision.

John
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by cap41 »

photofly wrote:
Lost in Saigon wrote:They didn't crash because they could not control the aircraft in night IMC conditions. They flew for a long time in those conditions. They crashed because:

1) they got lost
2) they ran out of fuel
3) they could not find a suitable place to land in the dark
Indeed.

The ATC audio (centre, and relays from AC but not the tx from the aircraft in question) is online, if you look. It 100% supports the above. Further, the ground team reported dry tanks at the crash site.
Where did you find audio? I couldn't find it.
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by Cat Driver »

I was trained in an era when the airplane weighed more than the paper work required to fly it John, all my instrument training was done using two stage amber which did not interfeer with peripheral vision.....i

The first step in making flying easier was when Cessna went from the 170 to the 172 with " Land O' Matic Gear " and that is still the standard for flight training all these years later.

It is interesting to see how many pilots just meekly submit to what ever demands a flight inspector makes, in the case of being forced to wear a hood I found it to be an insult and refused.

The regulator is supposed to be there to ensure compliance with the law....not to make up their own rules.

One need not fear the regulator if one is working within the law.
:mrgreen:
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by fxyz »

Can all 150s fly for 4.5 hours with full tanks? If so, maybe they didn't fill it up, or didn't lean mixture..
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by Lost in Saigon »

fxyz wrote:Can all 150s fly for 4.5 hours with full tanks? If so, maybe they didn't fill it up, or didn't lean mixture..
According to the CADORS report they had been airborne for 3:24 when they crashed: http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/saf-sec-sur/2/c ... d2014O2826
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by Shiny Side Up »

PilotDAR wrote:
They didn't crash because they could not control the aircraft in night IMC conditions.
"Controlling" the aircraft in night IMC conditions (or indeed any conditions) includes making the aircraft go where you need it to go - particularly when the alternative is getting to a place where there is no hope of finding a suitable landing area, when you will have to land. If the intended route was Ottawa to Toronto, the accident site is at least a half hour flight from that route. Therefore, for at least half an hour, the control of the aircraft was inadequate. And, if you know that you are having trouble "controlling" direction, you point so the error area is toward the more populated area.
This is where you have more than one factor at play though. I would say that being disoriented in the dark certainly contributes to getting "lost", and I would say that unattended, it could easily put someone way off track without them really knowing or acknowledging it. GPSs and VORs while they will help, won't alleviate this issue for the inexperienced and the non-current. I might say that a GPS provides its own insidious problem, in that frequently when people realise that they are off track, and maybe having problems staying on track, will simply re-sync "go to" and continue from that point, without adressing the problem that got them off in the first place. If one isn't keeping track of time, one could end up flying longer, burning more fuel than they anticipate. I can think of some of my first times in the soup where one has that urge to do such things, which one has to tell yourself in the back of your mind is putting yourself in the danger zone - of course that was with VOR where that little bit of yourself just wants to grab the OBS center the needle and make things comfortable.

One should also remember (not to you pilotDAR, but towards the discussion in general) that getting disoriented has various degrees, and it always isn't that immediate death spiral. I've seen people fall for the false horizon illusion, and its easy to make assumptions about lit things you can see in the dark. Things also seem a lot closer at night, so it can be easy not to realise how much farther one has to go, or how far one has drifted. With wind especially it can be really tough to guage how much drift is happening if one is doing old map and compass. I was reminded of this a few nights ago - just out of curiousity I was trying to guess distances in the dark and was always wrong substantially according to the GPS. There's a tendancy to lose track of one's position in space-time in the dark.

Either way, in the end, these typse of accidents aren't just one failing, but a series of failings. One could probably start with why they eleceted to do the trip in the first place, the usual suspect, the go/no go decision.
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by J31 »

Lost in Saigon wrote:
fxyz wrote:Can all 150s fly for 4.5 hours with full tanks? If so, maybe they didn't fill it up, or didn't lean mixture..
According to the CADORS report they had been airborne for 3:24 when they crashed: http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/saf-sec-sur/2/c ... d2014O2826
The latest narrative from the CADOR's

2014-11-25
Narrative:
UPDATE: TSB Report#A14O0217: C-GJAO, a Cessna 150 aircraft, with two people on board departed Toronto Buttonville (CYKZ) airport for a cross country trip to Trois River, Quebec (CYRQ) and return. En route to CYRQ the aircraft made stops in Peterborough (CYPQ) and Ottawa, Rockcliffe (CYRO); at each stop the aircraft was refuelled. On the return trip From CYRQ the aircraft landed at CYRO at 1725 Eastern Standard Time (EST), refuelled and departed at 1806 on the final flight to CYKZ. At 2025 EST the pilot declared a mayday on 121.5, stating they were lost and low on fuel. This transmission was received by an Air Canada flight and relayed to air traffic control (ATC). Numerous attempts were made to assist the aircraft; however, the aircraft was below radar coverage and all attempts to locate the aircraft failed. The aircraft's emergency locator transmitter (ELT) activated around 2130 EST. The aircraft was later located by search and rescue in the south end of Algonquin Park. Both occupants were deceased.
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by PilotDAR »

They departed at 18:06, with what we presume to be full tanks. At 20:25 they were getting fuel nervous, and shortly prior to 21:30, they ran out. 2:20 is a bit too quick to be nervous of running empty in a 150, but maybe the fuel gauges erred to the low side. 3:25 is a bit early to run out, unless they were running very high power settings. They might be running very high power settings if they picked up some airframe ice, or they were trying to climb. If they thought they were lost, one could expect that they would reduce power to economy cruise power to conserve fuel. But yes, high power, un leaned, running out from full in 3:25 is plausible. Unlikely they lost a fuel cap, and half their fuel, as they would not have flown that long on half.

What does interest me is that 2:20 out of Rockcliffe, they should be safe and sound at Buttonville with time to spare, unless big head wind. But where they were found was only 1:30 from Rockcliffe. So when they first called for help, they'd been "not on course" for about an hour. Then they spent a second hour not on course. They had at least Trenton, and Peterborough, and probably North Bay within that first hour of being lost, and certainly within the second hour. Or, a half hour in a direction approximating south would have taken them to at least some kind of lit civilization. I suspect a very disjointed "Plan B".

When lost, choose one Plan B for escape, and stick to it - fly one heading you have selected, and don't start turning circles. The circle (other than at ATC radar request) has the chance of getting you more lost, or worse, into a spiral dive. Pick one good heading, and fly it as if your life depends upon doing so. If I was life worried about being lost in that area, I'd be doing my darnedest to get nearer to Trenton, to get on their radar. Once they have you, life gets better....
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by photofly »

What does interest me is that 2:20 out of Rockcliffe, they should be safe and sound at Buttonville with time to spare, unless big head wind.
The winds that night were strong out of the south-west. I can't find an archive of FDs, but The U of Wyoming online archive of atmospheric soundings has the data for the 0000Z balloon at Buffalo. Three hours or so before the crash the winds there at 3000' were 29kts from 215° increasing to 37kts from 225° by 4700', veering to the west and increasing down low to nearly 40kts by 1200z, 9 hours after the crash.
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by pelmet »

PilotDAR wrote:They departed at 18:06, with what we presume to be full tanks. At 20:25 they were getting fuel nervous, and shortly prior to 21:30, they ran out. 2:20 is a bit too quick to be nervous of running empty in a 150, but maybe the fuel gauges erred to the low side.
Maybe they did not fuel up completely. It is easy to be over gross is a C-150 with two fellows on board and some baggage.

That being said, when I was flying long flights in GA aircraft, if takeoff/climb performance was not an issue, I was willing to be a few pounds overweight in order to max out fuel quantity. Not many planes crash due to being, for example 75 pounds overweight but plenty crash due to running out of fuel. And trying to judge exactly how much fuel you have with partial fuel levels is guesswork at best for many GA aircraft and their inaccurate guages increasing the chance of misjudging the fuel level on the low side.
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by trey kule »


My next renewal was much less enjoyable. I had to use a hood with an old Norcanair Aztec that had a very old panel with a "hockey puck" directional gyro and fixed card ADF's.
Hey be nice.. I have got a bit of time in one of those old girls...in and out of Laronge, when it was a dirt strip, circa 1969-70. That log book is long gone..but I recall it was reddish on the outside, reg maube CSO, but I could be mixing that up.
I have always hated hockey puck DG's...sorry for the thread drift. A bit of a walk down memory lane
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Lost in Saigon
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by Lost in Saigon »

The Norcanair Aztec I flew in 1980 was C-FPCY. Besides the ancient instrument panel, I remember it had generators instead of alternators, and only one hydraulic pump.
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by Illya Kuryakin »

pelmet wrote:
PilotDAR wrote:They departed at 18:06, with what we presume to be full tanks. At 20:25 they were getting fuel nervous, and shortly prior to 21:30, they ran out. 2:20 is a bit too quick to be nervous of running empty in a 150, but maybe the fuel gauges erred to the low side.
Maybe they did not fuel up completely. It is easy to be over gross is a C-150 with two fellows on board and some baggage.

That being said, when I was flying long flights in GA aircraft, if takeoff/climb performance was not an issue, I was willing to be a few pounds overweight in order to max out fuel quantity. Not many planes crash due to being, for example 75 pounds overweight but plenty crash due to running out of fuel. And trying to judge exactly how much fuel you have with partial fuel levels is guesswork at best for many GA aircraft and their inaccurate guages increasing the chance of misjudging the fuel level on the low side.
I used to do the same thing. C150/172/182. Always filled it to the rafters. I'm sure I was a touch over on a few trips. Never saw much harm in a 1675 pound 150! Still don't.
It's been a wee while, but I seem to remember wanting to be on the ground for pop and petrol at the 3 hour mark?
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by trey kule »

A wise old pilot once told me that he might be able to fly a bit overweight, but not a little bit underfueled.

I never really passed on that wisdom because the problem in commercial flying was the ' you cant have to much fuel' crowd, who would insist on five hours of fuel for a one hour VFR flight when it was CAVU..
A huge problem for new float drivers on a 185 with the big fuel tanks. Fuel planning was never emphasized in their training...always go with full tanks..works well in an FTU.
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Re: Missing north of Peterborough

Post by PilotDAR »

For a C 150 (as opposed to a 152), any concern that you might have with being a bit overweight with fuel would be seen as poor full flap climb performance. So don't take off a bit over with fuel, and do a full flaps overshoot with close obstacles. I have never partly fueled a single Cessna for a planned distant cross country.

In any case good decision making was missed for this flight. That is the take away for new pilots reading this - plan your flight well, and have a good plan B, and know when to enact it. Once you have enacted your good plan B, 'cause things went wrong, stick you your plan B, until it's best outcome is obtained. Never switch back to plan A.
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