The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association Air Safety Institute (ASI) has released a new episode of its Accident Case Study video series: Conflict in the Cockpit.
The roughly 15-minute video recreates the events that led a Bombardier Challenger 605 to crash just seconds before landing at Truckee Tahoe Airport (KTRK) in California.
“We look at factors that affected the flight, including crew dynamics during the flight and improper energy management during the circling approach to the airport,” said ASI Vice President of Operations Paul Deres.
“Circling-to-land approaches often require maneuvering at low airspeed and low altitude during the final approach segment, risking loss of control or collisions with terrain,” he continued. “This risk is even more pronounced in larger, faster airplanes like the Challenger 605, when monitoring appropriate energy management is imperative,”
Accident Case Studies use FAA air traffic control radio communication transcripts, National Transportation Safety Board documentation, and video animation to track an accident’s chain of events.
The videos share critical lessons to help pilots recognize and avoid similar mistakes, ASI officials added.
Good lesson on CRM, indeed. Yes, the captain was behind, making mistakes, etc. But his PM was no help. Yikes. Too harsh? No–I speak from experience–I talked like that in the cockpit in the US Air Force–ONCE–and was told to “Shut your smart mouth!” by my aircraft commander. It was a very painful lesson, but a good one. It may be hard to stuff my ego and be a helpful PM, helpfully calling out mistakes or assisting the PF in keeping up with the aircraft. It may be “hard” to be an excellent Pilot Monitoring guy or First Officer or Copilot, but it’s really really a good feeling to be part of a good, safe pilot team, rather than sitting there like this PM, playing “gotcha,” snidely calling out the mistakes, etc. The PM killed everyone with his bad attitude.
TOPIC CHANGE: At 9:47 in the video, the narrator says “Instead of shooting a circling approach to Runway 20, they could have asked for a straight-in to the longer runway.”
A bit lazy, this narration. They weren’t shooting a “circling approach to Runway 20.”
The crew was shooting the RNAV (GPS) Rwy 20, circle to land Runway 11. Maybe whoever narrated or wrote the narration script wasn’t a pilot?