Good video! The speaker’s German was particularly easy to understand. (I feel that Schwizerdütsch is often easier to understand than many other German dialects.)
Airborne_Again wrote:
Good video!
For once I agree, well done and thankfully Mr Zimmermann has refrained from using tabloid style titles and accusations in the video which he unfortunately has done in previous videos.
There has been written so much of the flight planning aspect of that accident flight. It might not have been perfect but it was a VFR flight after all and not an instrument approach that should ideally be flown 100% as planned. Even if planned at -50ft AGL doesn’t mean that there has to be an accident.
Judging from the pictures (the viewing angle might mislead, however) there was plenty of space to turn around or to circle to gain altitude. They weren’t yet committed to fly the aircraft into the ground, although they should have recognized that they were a little low above the ground way earlier. From the accident report I get the impression, that the plan wasn’t relevant anymore at the time of the accident because the pilot was something like 2 minutes behind his airplane. Maybe he was tired/sick/-drugged- (guess the has been ruled out by the investigation)/stressed/distracted. On the latter two I can totally relate, especially with a kid in the back.
Clipperstorch wrote:
Judging from the pictures (the viewing angle might mislead, however) there was plenty of space to turn around or to circle to gain altitude.
The thing which I keep coming back to is that he WAS high enough to cross the pass and that he came afoul much higher terrain than the actual pass. He was on the wrong side of the Valley. They teach us here to fly on the right whenever possible, also for traffic, but also because visibility below is better and if you have to turn you got enough visibility and can see below. Had he done that, he would have crossed that pass.
As for the story of the reference altitude vs MSA, as I was personally involved in that thread, it has been a dreadful few days since the final reckognition that it is extremely likely that we all but I in particular as someone intimately aware of the GAFOR product failed to give Jonathan a clear NO to that one liner he wrote. It shows me with brutal reality that what we write here NEVER must be half hearted and if we give advice, we must make damn sure that the recipient understands us correctly. I never saw that line at the time. Now it’s too late.
I really wonder if the SUST does not have a very valid point in stressing the fact that Swiss and Austrian pilots flying in this area need to perform compulsory training. Not that it helps in some of those cases, but it would have in this one and many more where flat land pilots come to grief in the Alps. So I wonder if not measures need to be taken to make sure that anyone who flies in that area knows what they are doing on an EASA level.
I think “we” failed to tell him to climb to a height which is obviously above the floor of a canyon he was about to turn into.
The other factors like flying on the right, or the downwind side, or whatever, is secondary.
Plenty of Swiss pilots get killed in the mountains, too.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
So I wonder if not measures need to be taken to make sure that anyone who flies in that area knows what they are doing on an EASA level.
Oh puleeeze – do you really want to introduce more regulations? You guys are discussing on this very board how regulations are strangling GA in Europe and here you call for MORE? Seriously? All the guy had to do is read a chart and spend a few minutes figuring out a safe altitude. Not exactly rocket science and prob90 even taught in the UK.
172driver wrote:
Oh puleeeze – do you really want to introduce more regulations?
Switzerland and Austria have these kind of mountain introductions in their normal PPL Syllabus. What is wrong if that gets extended to EASA level? We are constantly complaining that PPL training does not prepare people to travel. Well, mountain flying is dangerous for people who are not trained to do it. A PPL which is valid for a whole area must prepare the applicants to fly the whole area. A PPL which can be obtained without ever flying above 5000 ft or so is in my view NO qualification to fly in the mountains.
There have been suggestions before that wanted to put the alpine regions into a huge special rules area which may only be penetrated with proper training and currency. This I personally find over the top, but making mountain introductions compulsory for those who wish to navigate the Alpine valleys I would support, yes. Clearly, to cross the Alps at FL150 is not subject to this, but VFR navigation in the Alps is something that needs to be learnt to be as safe as possible.
172driver wrote:
All the guy had to do is read a chart and spend a few minutes figuring out a safe altitude.
This guy spent more time than many asking questions all over the place. But did he have the maps and tools? In the old days, prior to magenta lines, we had to buy the proper paper charts to fly. These charts did have the information he needed, the navigation maps in the software products obviously do not. The MSA displayed on the Swiss chart was not available in Sky Deamon unless you buy the additonal chart set. That is not acceptable. These products should get quality standards which need to be enforced. Only officially approved maps should be used for flight planning, electronic or not is of no concern.
Peter wrote:
I think “we” failed to tell him to climb to a height which is obviously above the floor of a canyon he was about to turn into.
If any of us would have paid attention and seen this wrong statement, it could have been corrected. I will have to live with the fact that I did not see it despite being very active in this thread trying to give information about GAFORs. Obviously I did not make myself clear enough.
Peter wrote:
Plenty of Swiss pilots get killed in the mountains, too.
As I said: Training and currency. Yes, also Swiss and Austrian pilots get killed in the mountains, you can’t have 100% safety unless you shut alpine flying down. But the kind of accidents are different and far less. This obvious lack of knowledge about basic topics of mountain flying has caused countless accidents involving people for whom flying above 5000 ft is something they only ever do in airliners.
But yes, maybe it is time that a general training requirement AND currency needs to be imposed to stop these totally avoidable tragedies from happening. An alpine intro done 20 years ago is probably almost as useless as none at all.
Airborne_Again wrote:
(I feel that Schwizerdütsch is often easier to understand than many other German dialects.)That was no Schwizerdütsch spoken in the video, but just “Hochdeutsch” (Standard German) with a Swiss accent. If he would speak his local Swissgerman dialect (I suppose Bern dialect), you probably wouldn’t have understood one single sentence.
(And Germans wouldn’t have understood it either…)Plenty of Swiss pilots get killed in the mountains, too.Yes, and please tell me if I’m wrong, but I’ve the feeling that the Swiss Alps has the worst incident rate, compared to Austrian, French or Italian Alps. Are other pilots better trained in those other countries? I don’t think so, I even think the PPL training in Switzerland is on the highest level in Europe or even the world (and also the most expensive one
). However, even high experienced and trained pilots seem to make obvious mistakes. It could happen to all of us. Other pilots become too confident or think they own the Alps, which causes negligence. Other accidents might have happened in a flat country too, which is sometimes hard to tell afterwards.The MSA displayed on the Swiss chart was not available in Sky Deamon unless you buy the additonal chart set.That is not true. Skydemon tells you the MSA on the pilot log and the mountain passes are also mentioned with their height and minimum altitude on the basis chart. Thanks to functions like “Colour High Terrain”, these tools are actually safer than the old-school paper chart. It’s just the point: You need to know how to use your tools correctly.
Only officially approved maps should be used for flight planning, electronic or not is of no concern.Good luck on flying ‘official’ (whatever that means) Italian charts. I bet you’ll be 200% safer when flying with Skydemon or similar EFB-products. Also the fact that each country has a different chart style, doesn’t improve simplicity at all.
My take is 50% or even more of the syllabus and regulations can be deleted (especially the MQB clicking), and instead a one afternoon „ga safety training“ can be added, with the intent to get attendees to realize it is their responsibility to „know stuff“ by always learning, taking steps adequately based on experience and understanding that what happened to others is exactly what can happen to oneself.
I’m for less regulation babysitting and more individual responsibility.
How much is an airline ticket for wife and child? Hoping over in FL100, meeting on the other side?
Frans wrote:
That was no Schwizerdütsch spoken in the video, but just “Hochdeutsch” (Standard German) with a Swiss accent.
I stand corrected!
That is not true. Skydemon tells you the MSA on the pilot log and the mountain passes are also mentioned with their height and minimum altitude on the basis chart.
Well, not really. Skydemon tells you the MSA according to parameters that you have entered. Even if you set the MSA to be 1000’ above the minimum corridor width that SD accepts (±0,5 NM), it gives you a MSA of 9100 at the Simplon pass itself and actually even higher (9600) a bit further to the south. Also you have to be exceedingly careful with setting frequent waypoints or the MSA values will be unusable.
If you are aware enough to go into this kind of painstaking detail then you probably don’t need the figures SD provides.
On the other hand, while plying with SD I found something that I wasn’t aware of. If you zoom in the map to 50 k scale or greater, the route through the pass will appear a dotted green line in SD and the minimum safe altitude (8300’) is stated on the map!
