Cirrus SR20 PH-YMC crashed in Croatia

9A_LDSH wrote:

Not less than (4) four major in less than full year!

Plus serious number of not documented and not reported in category of near miss.
What to say about people doing line up of 3 giro on runway obstructing the military secondary
medical flight (inbound&outbound, 15 min time frame) or taking off in UL with 20+ kt of bora tail wind, or …

I think you are right. This is completely irresponsible. Flying should be banned in Croatia in general, shouldn’t it?

Please read last post from @Emir and @Sebastian_G

The allergic on term “safety briefing” is serious problem, in some difficult cases must be examined on the next pilot medical :P

Emir wrote:

The least thing that we need

I suppose that was meant to say “last”.

Emir wrote:

“All GA pilots are inexperienced, they are all bon vivant, fluttering around in their aircrafts without any ATC control, with easily obtained licenses, overbearing, not knowing anything about weather conditions…”

That is a common prejudice which get repeated all over. The major problem with it is, the population believes it, if it comes from experts. Add to that youtubers who take apart accidents in similar styles, like one of my compatriots, and let their spiteful “analysis” usually calling the pilots total idiots run loose onto the general public.

On the other hand, if we see accidents like this, we have to ask ourselfs why they happen with such predictability, every spring. As you say, most probably this accident was totally preventable, so was the one in Switzerland. Both are front page news and VERY damaging to GA’s anyway tainted image in the general population.

I am of the same opinion that the last thing we need is more regulation. However, it has to be examined if the PPL Syllabus is sufficient, particularly in places where people appear never to go over 3000 ft or so. The irrational fear of flying higher is a major problem, as has been proven over and over again. Scud running is rarely a good idea, particularly if the terrain is not as flat as it is in the Netherlands or northern Germany… crossing the Alps or other mountainous terrain without sufficient training and altitude shows a clear deficiency in skills. Rather than starting to demand for compulsory briefings for every single airfield and region, it should be examined if the PPL training per se is sufficient for this kind of flying.

9A_LDSH wrote:

The allergic on term “safety briefing” is serious problem

Why not publish some “Flying (VFR) in Croatia” guide and maybe even distribute a little paper version at all airports in Croatia (there are not so many after all). Nothing is wrong with providing more information etc. What should be avoided is something which makes flying more difficult or even impossible in some cases like those mandatory introduction flights at Samedan or similar.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

However, it has to be examined if the PPL Syllabus is sufficient, particularly in places where people appear never to go over 3000 ft or so.

This is a hard problem to solve without making the PPL impossibly difficult to get. The reality is most PPLs never leave their home territory, so they aren’t exposed to terrain or weather other than what’s close by home base. I’m not sure what the convention is here, but DEs in the US have a tradition of telling newly minted PPLs that this is a “license to learn”. The best we can do (IMHO) in training is to reinforce this fact, and help pilots learn how to make good decisions and keep learning.

Accidents like this also remind us that long VFR cross-country trips must be planned with lots of time flexibility to avoid the temptation to keep pushing through bad weather.

9A_LDSH wrote:

It is not a “problem” with Croatia, simple it is 3 different flying environment within quite small area.
The flat Panonian part, the mountains along the Velebit chain (and Bosnia), and the seaside with islands… all
related to local weather, winds and storms.

As EASA GA promoters have said multiple times, people keep getting killed, lots of time by ignoring existing rules. More rules are not the solution, and I think we are all in agreement on that. But when too many accidents happen in some place or in some fashion, it is right to ask what kind of information could be shared to try and avoid those.
The opposite view, that there’s nothing that can be done, kind of leads to just blaming the pilots involved. After all, the rules were clear and its was their responsibility to conduct a safe flight. That isn’t helpful either.

The way I see it, some kind of ‘safety stand down’, with an analysis of recent accidents and any common pattern, maybe on an interactive remote conference, would be a great service that the local CAA and/or AOPA or other groups could offer. And then maybe create (or update an existing) document/site about flying in that region with reminders of special attention points.

Just my opinion.

Do you have a track for this? The FR track is very incomplete, but shows altitudes even lower than that.

I checked FlightAware. It’s also not complete but at least it gives a clue about their modus operandi; which was: low level VFR.

dutch_flyer wrote:

This is a hard problem to solve without making the PPL impossibly difficult to get. The reality is most PPLs never leave their home territory, so they aren’t exposed to terrain or weather other than what’s close by home base.

There is the issue of terrain and there is the issue of performance. I fully agree that making a mountain introduction compulsory for PPL would mean a lot of hassle for those who lack mountains to train in. However, the issue is not mountains alone.

On the performance level, all our airplanes are capable of altitudes up to 10’000 ft, most significantly more. Almost all of our benign airplanes have a sweet spot in performance at around 8000 ft. So I see NO reason why during PPL training the performance is neglected by never operating those airplanes at the altitudes, where they are best at. This is not only a terrain issue (but in general, the higher you fly, the more options you have) but also quite prominent in the fact that people trained like that never understand how to mix.

On the terrain level, well, there have always been proponents of declaring a special rule airspace “ALPS” which can only be penetrated with a completed Alpine Introduction, as it is done in most of the countries which have mountains here. I am wary of such ideas, as they will create more hassle, but the logic behind it is not totally off hand. On the other hand, accidents like this one show, that even benign hills of 3000 ft altitude may pose a problem to those whose highest obstacle they ever saw is a windmill.

My take is, that the fear of flying low has to be addressed as a) it means people are not trained properly how to operate their airplane and b) it’s a safety issue as the higher you fly, the more options you have in an emergency and obviously, out of 8-10k ft those hills are just specs on the landscape. Even the Alps can be overflown most of the times at 10-15000 ft in VFR in safe distance from any terrain and a darn sight safer than negotiating passes and valleys from close up.

Personally, I always fly as high as convenient, mostly 8-10k ft. It’s the optimum altitude for most non turbo airplanes, it is reasonable far away from terrain and usually also available to fly in most places. Scud running as a SOP is imho an unnecessary risk at any terrain.

You have to be fairly clever with topo maps to work out the terrain elevations along a route. Look e.g. here.

And I know from flying that most people who fly with SD don’t really understand the finer details of it. You get into SD’s bad books pretty seriously for posting that, and the owner will never forgive you, but I’ve been there for over 10 years

Then, add IMC into the mix and you get a CFIT.