Aircraft: Piper Cherokee. Injuries: 2 Fatal. Location: Canton, Conn. Aircraft damage: Destroyed.
What reportedly happened: The pilot’s logbook indicated that he had flown one hour at night in the Cherokee in the preceding year. The accident happened at night on the second day of a long cross-country trip.
Radar data showed that when the airplane was about 12 miles from the destination airport, it began to descend. The airplane crashed into trees and terrain about six miles from the destination airport, at an elevation nearly 400 feet below the airport’s traffic pattern altitude.
A state police helicopter dispatched to search for the airplane reported that the terrain surrounding the accident site was “surprisingly” dark, and that some of the only nearby ground lighting came from a parking lot about one mile beyond the accident location and along the airplane’s course.
According to the aeronautical information manual, lights along a straight path can easily be mistaken for runway lights at night.
Given the pilot’s lack of recent night flying experience, investigators determined it was possible that he initiated the early descent because he had mistaken the nearby parking lot lights for those of the destination airport.
Probable cause: The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from terrain while performing a night visual approach to an airport. Contributing to the accident were the dark night and the pilot’s lack of recent experience flying at night.
NTSB Identification: ERA13FA064
This November 2012 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
I read this report with extra interest since I live in Connecticut and have flown in the accident area and at the pilot’s intended destination airport many times. This accident report includes several questionable points on the part of the pilot which are understandably going to produce a few sardonic comments. However this accident was really a very tragic incident. The pilot was 73 years old and making a grueling two day trip from Florida to Connecticut due to the death of his father. Since there were also some snarky comments about parking lots and GPS equipment, you may be interested to know that the parking lot east of the accident site was probably that of an elementary school, and a handheld GPS was recovered in the airplane.
What can we learn that would be beneficial. Of course night proficiency and effective use of the GPS were mentioned. We’ve been reading a lot more in recent years of the importance of good risk assessment including fatigue and external pressure considerations. The pilot flew only 219nm the first day, and attempted to complete the flight on the second day covering 643nm. According to the NTSB report, the pilot was talking to Bradley approach but it looks like he did not request ATC assistance in finding the airport. The destination airport, Simsbury Airport 4B9, is located within a cut-out area of Bradley’s Class C airspace, where ATC could have vectored the flight directly over the airport at a safe altitude to eliminate the possibility of misidentifying the airport. I requested vectors once on a night flight to a small New Jersey airport that was located in a heavily populated area in a sea of lights. The help was invaluable. Vectors could have been requested to the glide slope lights at Bradley International itself for a landing there, less than 5nm from his intended destination. It is so sad that this family had to suffer first from the loss of a family member and then the loss of one of his sons and the son’s wife.
Duh, altitude check? The airplane crashed in an area that was 400 ft below the airport’s elevation! Know either the airport’s elevation or that of the touchdown zone and plan accordingly a nominal 3 degree glide slope (300 feet per mile) to touchdown when making a straight in approach. Even that relatively simple task could have saved Asiana 214. Obviously some kind of distance measuring equipment is needed.
Distance measuring equipment? Who doesn’t have “distance measuring equipment”? If this guy didn’t have at least a portable GPS then it really was ridiculous even to turn the prop and start the engine in the first place. Anybody that can’t use a simple aviation GPS and position the aircraft on the approach course to the runway and maintain sufficient altitude to make a safe landing in any conditions except very low ceilings doesn’t need to be out there flying at all.
I hope that you have more tricks in your navigation bag than just a GPS. A lot of pilots flew a lot of different airplanes for a lot of years before GPS, and found their destinations just fine. In this case, a 58 degree magnetic course from the Danbury vor would have tracked the pilot directly to the Simsbury airport. The 341 radial set in the second vor receiver tuned to the Hartford vor would confirm arrival at Simsbury with the needle gradually reaching the center (which may be easier to see than a small dme field on the GPS). These two settings could be pre-set for the last 25 mile segment, making the arrival about as easy as with a GPS. In fact, the vor’s may be better. Since GPS’s came onto the scene, pilots at all levels have made serious errors. One that happened was a commuter flight on an instrument approach that overflew the airport and eventually collided with rising terrain – the pilots were depending on the GPS to find the airport but the GPS was set to the wrong fix. I don’t remember ever reading about a mistake of that kind being made with two vor receivers. The NTSB report on this Canton, CT accident noted a GPS unit was recovered from the aircraft. But we’ll never know what the pilot’s mode of navigation was. I like all of the new equipment, but if I’m in an old fashioned airplane equipped with two vor’s, I can still easily maintain positional orientation by cross-checking the vor’s and using the sectional folded like a large multi-function display. I think that is actually much better than using the tiny screen on many GPS units. I’m certainly not going to cancel a flight just because there’s no GPS – I was having a lot of fun flying perfectly safely for many years without them.
I work there, and I see the Walmartians, too!!! If I have not flown at night for a long time, I get and instructor to go with me til I am comfortable with night flight.
It was probably a Walmart parking lot and the pilot was probably distracted by the women getting out of their cars dressed in those crazy clothes that many wear there………….Come on – you’ve seen em too!