Poke and Hope

I was at school today and we were covering flying en-route to an uncontrolled field with an IMC layer between the MEA and field. When I started pushing the issue of "testing" the layer, "poking in to see if one is able to test it, etc, my instructor started getting irked.

Tonight, I got a text from him asking me to look into an incident that occurred in 2009 in Telluride with a Lear 45. He asked what my thoughts were about the incident after reading the report.http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentReports/l303h322pabmva551c3nvu551/K01242012120000.pdf

I wrote him back and told him that I thought they were retards for attempting such buffoonery, the NF PIC for pushing an SIC beyond what was reasonable, and the SIC for not sacking up, going missed, and making the PIC assume full control, and responsibility for the decision.

The follow up text was that the PIC was his Commercial/CFI student, but more importantly he told me that is what happens when one "Pokes and Hopes".

I very clearly understand the consequences of nosing into IMC without radar coverage, or an instrument approach. What I don't understand is how 1. someone like this is still flying airplanes, and 2. doesn't an incident like this affect one's ability to "climb the aviation ladder"?

Look at the outside pressure the crew was facing not the personality of the crew. They want to keep their job, please the pax and they may feel threatened if they dont land at the intended airport.

No excuse but i belive it is the root cause of many 135 accidents. Pilot pushing is very real. Dont just throw the crew under the bus.

What do you mean poke in and test it? Generally you have no idea how thick it is, and even in familiar areas.... where was that mountain again?

These are all points that were discussed. Sometimes it seems as though what's taught, and what applied are different, and so my aim was to get clarification on where that limitation was, if that makes sense. A little devil's advocate, sure, but also a real interest in understanding when and where it's acceptable to push limits.

I guess this is where I'm having the issue. If bending a $20M jet is of no consequence, why is there the perceived pressure? They bent the jet, did not lose jobs, lost no pay... Biz as usual. So...? Did they know that they wouldn't get fired if they bent the jet? My guess is no. But, still, as PIC, the FINAL authority rests with the PIC. The flight was a re-position flight from SDL. No pax. I would suspect an overnight, and pax pick-up in the am.

As far as "throwing someone under the bus goes", I guess we'll have a difference in opinion. Throwing them under the bus would be calling them out by name. Looking at an incident objectively without bias is what makes a newly ticketed Instrument pilot like myself know how to avoid situations like this down the road. Stupidity is not excluded from scrutiny. I know this all to well from seeing dead USN pilots get called stupid for not punching out of a stalled jet at 900' AGL, and for not adjusting an altimeter setting prior to playing in the ranges. Death doesn't qualify for exemption, either. I guess constant scrutiny in part of the deal, as it should be.

In the scenario, they busted MDA by a lot. 5-600' i think. That's scary. Especially where they are. I fly into airports every day that 500' below and 3/4 scale deflection is probably in the ground or awfully close. As far as where the grey line that doesn't exist is, well you're asking this on a public forum, and even if someone out there busts mda by say 20' to get in, they're not going to admit to such things here.

As a new instrument pilot it should not even be in the realm of your thinking to go below mda/da without being in a position to land. Awesome way to kill yourself.

In normal operation it is never acceptable to push the limits. A limit is a limit. Period. To be honest nothing differs from what is taught and what is applied. Taking a peek, sure its legal, but only to the DH or MDA. At the same time "taking a look" in a turbine is burning a lot of fuel and you have to have an out and be able to get there with reserves in case something goes wrong. The most experienced pilots will tell you the limits in IMC are there for a reason. Some may laugh and say otherwise but its true. I regularly fly in and out of Mexico and if you are deviating from the IFR procedures, even by a little, it will kill the most experienced crews. I fly 135 so I don't really have many choices about pushing any limits, but if I were 91 I would follow them just the same. Pressure of losing a job is out there but if thats how I'm treated then its not someone I want to work for. There will always be jobs.

So much innuendo for such a serious subject.

Wait, so what exactly are you talking about by "poke and hope"? Go to MDA/DA and have a look? I don't see anything wrong with that, and for any instrument rated pilot it should be just another day at the office, something you've practiced so often it's second nature, whether you see nothing and go missed or whether you break out just inside the FAF. That's part of what being a professional pilot is about.

There is a reason that 121 pilots are not allowed to proceed past the FAF of any approach unless weather is equal to or better than mins.

Isn't it the same with 135? That doesn't nullify what I said though, it should not be a big deal for any competent instrument pilot to go to DA/MAP and go missed. What it does do is take some of the factors away that might pressure a pilot to bust minimums.

OK, not a lot of experience with this kind of flying (read as about 3000 hours less than 0), or reading these kinds of reports (this is the first one). But it seems to me from reading the transcript, that the Pilot Not Flying was basically saying...'Go ahead and crash this sucker'.

My question is why risk it. In most cases approaches are going to get you to with in 1000AGL if not much lower. Even in non mountainous terrain I do not want to be that low if I can't see where I am going. If the weather is reporting below mins I just don't understand why you would take the chance just to see. I mean if you are Part 91, there is nothing stopping you but if all the weather in the area is crap, why? We had a discussion about weather being inop on here a while back, if someone can find the link I would appreciate it.

The question posed was you are flying along, part 121, and you come across your airport at night, tower is closed and the ASOS is reporting 1/8 or 1/4 mile vis, min is 1/2, but you can see the airport 20+ miles out, what do you do. There was a lot of good discussion about that, and I think it would depend on the situation at hand but I brought up a point about scenarios I have encountered before. I have departed MDT on 2 occasions where dense fog from the river covered the airport. RVR on 13, the departure runway was 600-800' the whole way down. You really couldn't see diddly squat, maybe a couple centerline lights in front of you, thats it. An interesting thing happened though, as we rotated and climbs through 20' or 30' AGL, everything was clear, and you could see the entire airport. Something about the angle we were looking at the airport from just 50' up vs. on the ground made a huge difference. That is something the weather equipment picked up that I would have never suspected had I been landing instead of taking off, and I would have been blind. Remember hitting the ground in an aircraft won't kill you, its the sudden stopping, if you have altitude between you and any object on the ground, and fuel to spare, its never worth the risk.

Bending anything and not loosing a job is not business as usual. Where I work you bend it you loose flying privileges. Likely you will be sent packing. Now you can't get another flying job. Business as usual in the aviation world is a cruel thing.

PIC does have the final authority to get fired for saying no. It depends on the operator that they work for. In the 135 world all operators are not equal. Even the best operator will question a no, some will fire you for it. In 2009 there were NO jobs. It's possible that the crew was under tremendous pressure to get in to that airport to pick up a VIP or the aircraft owner.

91 repos are the most dangerous part of 135 flying, statistically this is where most accidents happen. Overnight, LOL yeah the operator is going to pay for a high class ski resort hotel so the crew can be comfy, they will pay the astronomical landing fee and overnight ramp fee, high fuel price and pay for de-ice. Oh wait never mind that is the fantasy world I wish I lived in. Likely this repo was for a pickup that day. I have a lot to say about this but I will save you the trouble. Simply put if it costs money it's off the table most places, even if it makes it safer.

What I mean by throw the crew under the bus is that every time I hear about an accident I don't say gee what a stupid crew. I say there by the grace of god go I. I'm not perfect I make mistakes and I have been in a near accident that most likely would have been written off as oh what a stupid crew, unless there was a really sharp NTSB investigator that could see through the lies of a crooked MX shop and was intimately familiar with the type of aircraft I was operating. I got lucky that day and my memory wasn't slandered and trashed by, no offense, armchair heroes that don't understand the nature of aircraft accidents because they don't have the experience.

I think it is great you looked up an accident report and your trying to learn. Your doing good. However take a moment to realize that there are many good people who wound up a smoking crater and there are guys like me who just get lucky. Life is weird. I read the report. I'd hate to be that crew, there by the grace of god go I. I hope that doesn't happen to me.

The OP has never defined what he means by poke and hope, so we're all here just guessing.

I assumed it meant bust mda/da/mea/mva/etc, because, as you said, going to mins shouldn't be even the slightest issue, and this is not what happened in the accident he posted. They went well below.

Sorry for the perceived "hit and run"; life, ya know? Thanks for all of the replies, and I'm glad that Z in the above post asks me to define "poke and hope", and I'll do that. In reading some of the replies, I'm finding that I wasn't clear enough in my initial post as to what the context of the conversation was, so here goes....

If you are flying IFR @ 11,000 into an uncontrolled field with NO instrument approaches, field elevation in the area is 2000, MEA is 6000, and there is a cloud layer over the airport at 4000, what do you do when the controller asks if you have the field in sight, and than advises that you're below the MVA? This is where I asked the question, "What do you REALLY do if you need to get into that field?"

Hope it clarifies...

Great points, all of them. Sorry for the clip, but I wanted to save space. How I got switched on to this was that my current instructor was the PIC's instructor, and used this as a teaching tool after I peppered him with the "what if's". When I read it, I saw it through my controller perspective as I don't have enough pilot perspective in which to see these things. I'd like TO THINK I know what I'd do in this situation, and I'd like to think I KNOW I would do the right thing (divert), but the call of a comfy warm bed, or a cold beer is a formidable foe. I get it. From my controller perspective, I know a lot more about these types of incidents than I'd like to because I've had to write a lot of reports about them because I was on the mic.

That's easy. Fly an approach at a nearby airport that has one, cancel IFR, fly vfr under the layer to your destination. I don't know if I'd do that in a lear.... depending on the terrain and how low I'd have to go I guess.

Also.... I fail to see what your instructors scenario(the accident) has to do with yours.

He was trying to illustrate what happens when you descend into an airport with sketchy wx around the airport, and making a risky play for the field, whether it be a sketchy wx at the surface, or at 4000'. He also wanted to make the illustration by using one of his students.

Ah, well like I said. Approach somewhere else, VFR to your airport.
We do that quite a bit to a couple of the VFR airports we go to. MEA is 8000, but the airport is basically at sea level. Bad radar coverage, and the only way to get down is an approach.