Ouch!
I’m not surprised @Mike-R is getting the idea that most accidents are happening to young women. These were progressively hard to watch. I’ve seen Dana’s accident and Britney’s I think it was, featured by the Aviation Safety Institute. I remember the smoke stack accident was one the Institute actively worked with the family who were very keen to see it featured so lessons could be learned.
Dana was so incredibly pleasant I feel really bad that things ended the way they did. I’m amazed she even managed to get into the Class B airspace as she seemed to have hit rush hour, with a steady stream of 737’s making for runway 4 at speed. I think everything’s been said about this accident that Hoover mentioned, so I won’t repeat it. She was flying a modern Cirrus with a CAPS system and I did wonder if she thought about asking to be vectored to a higher altitude and a patch of suitable ground far enough away where she could land by parachute. The winds were getting worse for runway 35, runway 4 had a steady stream of airliners and if it had been me, I’d have been worried they hadn’t seen the smaller plane and a midair collision was a danger. There didn’t appear to have been a fire and by this time I was wondering if she even had enough fuel to divert or fly back out to approach, where she’d still have had the 737’s to avoid all over again.
The Nimibia accident sounded a big ask for such a young inexperienced pilot, with a long flight involved. It’s a real pity Britney chose to land at an untowered airport with such stupidly positioned, almost invisible hazards on the approach path. The last flight was a disaster from start to finish. Badly planned, if her Dad was intending to fly part of it, they should have firmly established who was doing what before they took off. Her Dad needed a couple of post-it notes reminding him of the mic to use, the airport name and the landing runway clearly stated. An approach briefing stating approach speeds, flap settings and missed approach parameters would also have helped. She complained about family distractions, then provided most of them herself. Her phone should not have been in the cockpit, her husband could have sent text messages, but her friend driving shouldn’t have even been looking at them. Say what you will about TNFlygirl, there was a much less dysfunctional atmosphere in their cockpit and her Dad was a massive improvement on Shauna’s.
I’ve forgotten what the first flight even was now, but I’ve said enough and would be interested in what other people think.
If she would’ve had the capacity in the moment to be able to maneuver the aircraft to do this then she would’ve had the presence of mind to be able manage the sequencing and land the aircraft safely.
These were not her problem. Her lack of airspeed management during her go around was her problem. Having insomnia medication in her system didn’t help. Sadly she put herself in a higher workload environment than she was capable of handling.
I wasn’t aware of that as I was working from the Aircraft Safety Institute video (or what I could remember of it) where it wasn’t mentioned. I don’t understand the mentality of this ![]()
. What kind of person takes a sleeping med even the night before a flight, any flight? If it was diphenhydramine that’s long acting, as well as No Fly. And that’s the best possible scenario. Anything stronger would be even worse. It’s becoming a factor in so many GA accidents. A big majority of them shouldn’t have happened because they shouldn’t have even taken off!
Despite that disadvantage, I was just putting myself in the same situation and while you say the 737’s weren’t her problem, to her I think they were. I know my mind would immediately go back to the midair collision where an aircraft didn’t see a Cessna underneath him, leading to a catastrophic accident. They hit the Class B airspace at rush hour and the steady stream of big, fast airliners would have rattled me and I think it rattled her. Nothing was said about her fuel state, but to fly back to approach and hope the 737 traffic had begun to ease, might just have been too risky. A better solution might have been to divert, do you think?
~ Moira
Her problem was putting herself in too high of a workload environment. She then wasn’t able to execute basic airmanship and lost control of the plane. 737s or not she just wasn’t ready for such a high workload environment. The same thing might have happened to her for any number of other reasons that generated high workload, such as low IMC single pilot, etc
@RufusXS I agree. I suppose because I can’t actually visualise what going back to approach consists of, it’s harder to think what her best course of action would have been. To me, the idea of flying back out to try again, with all these 737’s this time coming towards me, is scary, because I’d just have to turn round so they’d now be chasing me again, to attempt the thing I’d already failed twice at.
I think her best bet would have been a new plan and if she had enough fuel, she could have diverted to a nearby nice quiet GA airport. Do you feel she was doomed whatever she did? Not being a pilot is why I would have opted to find a nice quiet field and used the parachute. I would at least have had the advantage of being alert
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