According to the pilot, he departed the Nashville area earlier in the day in his Rans S-6S and was en route to Greenville, South Carolina, at 9,500 feet above mean sea level (msl).
He checked the automated surface observing systems weather report and that the clouds in the Morristown, Tennessee, area were reported to be at 7,000 feet above ground level.
He added that he knew that he would be able to clear the mountains just below the recorded ceiling height when needed.
He was operating under the provisions of day visual flight rules (VFR) on top of the broken/overcast cloud layer prior to beginning the descent through the clouds.
During the descent, he stated that the ceiling appeared lower than reported and he elected to climb back up to VFR on top. During this process, he became disoriented, hit a tree, and hit the side of a mountain near Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina. The pilot sustained minor injuries.
Examination of the airplane by an FAA inspector revealed substantial damage to the fuselage, wings, and empennage.
The recorded ceiling and visibility at Greenville Downtown Airport, about 10 nm to the southeast of the accident site, was an overcast ceiling at 800 feet msl and the visibility was 9 statute miles.
The NTSB determined the probable cause as the pilot’s decision to continue visual flight into deteriorating weather, which resulted in an encounter with instrument meteorological conditions and subsequent inability to maintain clearance with terrain.
NTSB Identification: ERA14CA062
This December 2013 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.
Their again, Its that little piece of mush between the ears that makes these bad mistakes. It does-n’t make any difference what kind of aircraft your flying be it experimental or factory built, Its just bad decision making in pilots minds..sorry !!
Never heard of a Rans (I don’t ride in anything that has “experimental” or “amateur built” printed on it) so didn’t know if it had an auto pilot or not which is why, if you read my remark carefully, you’ll notice that I wrote “more of a question than a suggestion.” However, I’ve seen this same scenario occur in planes that I know had an auto pilot so my question still stands?
What auto pilot? He was fly a Rans
I often wonder why people in this predicament don’t use their autopilot so that disorientation doesn’t become an issue? I’ve never found myself in that situation, and pray that I don’t, so can’t say for sure that would work, so it’s just more of a question than a suggestion?
Your assuming an AP was available on this presumably Experimental Amateur Built airplane? I don’t think so. This RANs airplane was being hand flown because there was no other way to control it.
He’s lucky to be alive, hopefully he garnered something from this incident.
Not sure how the NTSB calculated the ceiling at Greenville Downtown (800′ MSL) seeing as how the airport elevation is 1048′ MSL.
Cloud base heights are reported in AGL, never MSL lest it be an area forecast (FA) as opposed to a terminal area forecast (TAF). The MSL reference is assumed to have been a misprint. Surely the NTSB didn’t make that very fundamental mistake or did they?
They did. Go read the NTSB report.