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Small Plane Crashes Into Akron, Ohio, Apartment Complex
2 killed when a Hawker H25 struck an apartment complex Tuesday in Akron, Ohio, before crashing to the ground. (www.nbcnews.com) Altro...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
Now that this unfortunate event has simmered to the back burner, there are some very valuable nuggets in here for the folks who are younger than their equipment. Go to Google Earth and go to the airport and zoom in a tad. Noting the color,(exactly the same as the environment you're boppin around in) and length of the runway, do you really think you could land there safely, at 140 knts., 500 feet agl. with a 400 foot ceiling, and 1.5 miles viz, especially in a jet. Maybe 1 in 100 day and 1 in 50 at night. It's all about the lights, so turn em up no matter. Go try it in the sim. Don't know the forecast but after you threw it away and got the ATIS, the prudent would instantly be thinkin ILS. KACK. Eight miles away, your new favorite alternate. 8,200 ft., ILS. to four runways! Why, because he'd already thought about it!!! So what if they have to move the limos. The drivers don't care, and will hurry, you can bet. And the time and cost are much less than the cost of the funeral arrangements. Just because it's legal, don't mean it's safe. Ergo, because it's safe but not legal only counts if you are talkin to the FAA. It's all about stayin alive and I ain't talkin about The BeeGees. They pay you the same to know when or where not to go as they do to be able to do it! Cheers.
You said it precisely. When the weather is that low and CAK is that near, you go to Akron Canton, which sits ON a hill as opposed to AKR which sits in a bowl, with hills to the east and north where they went down. At one time I used AKR, but it lacks a lot of facilities and CAK isn't that much farther to downtown. From now through April we will have low scuz that comes and goes. In the Summer there is fog. Sometimes it burns off by 9 and sometimes not til afternoon. You don't have to be a weatherman to know what was going on here. They went to Lunken instead of CVG and then flew about 25 miles from Lunken to Wright Brothers, not DAY. And the weather was low both the day before and day they crashed.
Can you say cheaper fuel?
Cheaper fuel indeed. If you don't have local knowledge, then why do you use smaller airports without ILS approaches much less a tower, when the weather is right at minimums? If you're going to go below minimums to try and sneak in, why in the world would you try it at an airport in a bowl, with hills to the east and north, no ILS and a 4000 foot runway instead on 8000? When flying approach into CAK you can often see part of the runway at AKR, but you know that it's IMC flying that localizer approach - over the hills.
You are correct. 4000' would be a no go. The runway at AKR though is 6336' X 150' which is plenty, even when wet, for the Hawker and most other bizjets. As far as the weather goes, a missed approach is part of the procedure and again is perfectly safe when done correctly. After that you decide if its worth trying again or head somewhere else.
Local knowledge in this case is the fuel price,AKA dispatch, but if that is the goal, and the pilots know it, then you will at least go take a look. If you gotta look that hard, you know that if you don't cheat, the next guy will. Kinda reminds me of my old freight days, if you don't go somebody will. That was in Lear 25s in the 80s.
With an AVQ 46 radar.
The whole point of Part 91/135 flying is that Bizav is not forced to the hub and spoke airports. You go where you want when you want. I have no problem with the airport choices. That being said, the aircraft still has to be operated as professionally and safely as possible keeping in mind both aircraft and pilot limitations. Not all of us can have local knowledge everywhere we go. The charts assume no local knowledge and give us what we need to land safely if conditions are met. This investigation has nothing to do with wether the procedure should have been flown but what went wrong as the procedure was flown.