ATC orders him to carry out unusual manoeuvre, jr pilot died

SN30952 · Post by **SN30952** » 16 Jul 2007, 23:17

Sam Cross became the youngest British pilot to die when his Cessna light aircraft stalled as he tried to land at Southend airport during a training flight for his private pilot’s licence.

Boy pilot died after tower gave surprise instruction.

A 16-year-old pilot crashed on his second solo flight after being ordered by an air traffic controller to carry out an unusual manoeuvre

TWR · Post by **TWR** » 17 Jul 2007, 00:36

Nothing unusual about a "go-around"...

jan_olieslagers · Post by **jan_olieslagers** » 17 Jul 2007, 00:48

If I were in charge, I'd have some pointed questions to the instructor who released a pupil to solo who was clearly unable to perform a go-around - sure enough there's nothing unusual about a go-around!

sab319 · Post by **sab319** » 17 Jul 2007, 11:18

I think it's rather a lack of skills and training of the trainee pilot than an ATC error...

Imagine that every commercial airplane doing a go-around crashes, now that would mean loads of crashes every year!

TCAS_climb · Post by **TCAS_climb** » 17 Jul 2007, 11:25

In situation of stress your brain reverts to what it knows best. Maybe he wasn't too knowledgable on go-arounds in the first place. But then comes the additional stress. The poor boy lost the plot and pays a heavy price for the failures of the whole system that put him in a situation where he took the wrong decisions.

SN30952 · Post by **SN30952** » 17 Jul 2007, 11:49

TCAS_climb wrote:The poor boy lost the plot and pays a heavy price for the failures of the whole system that put him in a situation where he took the wrong decisions.

Isn't the training and the license not to coop with these situations. Indeed 'poor boy', but did his instructor not over-evaluate his capacities to coop with eventual failing systems?

That's always the difficult decision an instructor has to confront: will the trainee handle according expected standards.
When a trainee fails, it is also the instructor failing.

TCAS_climb · Post by **TCAS_climb** » 17 Jul 2007, 17:27

Unfortunately not all instructors are equal. That means there are amazing guys but also morons. If you're particularly unlucky you'll end up with a moron who hates his instructor job. I don't know if that was the case in this situation.

Regulations are supposed to define the minimum acceptable level of safety to conduct flight operations. Meaning that accident may very well occur even if you comply with the rules.

So the answer to the question "aren't training and licensing supposed to cope with this situation ?" is IMHO "yes, but don't underestimate the fact that regulations define only the absolute minimum, not a hypothetic zero-accident level". And there's quite a gap between those two levels !

Then comes the second line of defense to prevent accidents: self-regulation by the industry. If the FTO didn't do its job properly or if it wasn't interested in raising the safety level from the legal "minimum" to the "best practical", the chances of accident are worsening.

Reminder: two of the three most frequent causal factors in aircraft accidents are related to the non-adherence to procedures.