Flight Training - January/February 2020 - 52

ADVANCED PILOT ACCIDENT ANALYSIS

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
TALK TO SOMEONE WHO'S BEEN THERE
BY DAVID JACK KENNY

a 1961-model
Piper PA-24 Comanche crashed during
an attempted takeoff from Runway
17 at Angel Fire, New Mexico (AXX),
clipping a restaurant building before
going down in a field and catching fire.
Both people on board were killed. A
METAR recorded at just about that
time included winds perpendicular to
the runway-typical for this field, where
the orientation is dictated by the contours of a mountain valley-at 18 knots
with gusts to 30.
The 180-horsepower Comanche
was based in Great Bend, Kansas. Great
Bend Municipal Airport (GBD) is located
on a flat plain at 1,887 feet elevation-a
far cry from Angel Fire Airport's 8,380
feet surrounded by peaks that top out
above 13,000. And while Kansas is no
stranger to wind, it doesn't often experience mountain waves that can create
downdrafts in excess of 1,000 feet per
minute. Angel Fire's a tricky place to fly
even for pilots familiar with high-altitude
mountain fields. It can be entirely too
challenging for those who aren't.
Angel Fire-based pilot Spencer
Hamons responded to this accident by
preparing and posting a well-produced,
impressively detailed introduction to his
home airport. It uses sectional charts,
satellite imagery, and animation to
point out troublesome terrain, illustrate
prevailing winds and associated mountain waves, depict safe departure routes,
and even identify possible emergency
landing sites. You can find it on YouTube
(youtu.be/AmrAX7tSvvQ). It's the kind
of usable, practical information you'd
hope to get if you phoned the flight
school at an unfamiliar destination and
asked to speak to a CFI (which Hamons
takes pains to point out he is not).
That's exactly what all of us are
well advised to do, not just flatlanders venturing into the mountains. Any
situation beyond the range of your usual
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52  FLIGHT TRAINING JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

ANY SITUATION BEYOND
THE RANGE OF YOUR
USUAL EXPERIENCE MAY
CONTAIN HAZARDS YOU
DON'T KNOW ENOUGH TO
ANTICIPATE.
experience may contain hazards you
don't know enough to anticipate. The
Dare County (North Carolina) Regional
Airport is barely above sea level-but
pilots planning to arrive IFR should
know that the GPS approach to Runway
5 is rarely available on weekdays. (It
traverses restricted military airspace.) If
flown with a procedure turn, its opposite-direction counterpart to Runway 23
takes pilots more than 10 miles out over
the Atlantic, not necessarily comfortable
in a piston single in winter-and for years
Runway 23's PAPI (precision approach
path indicator) was deactivated because
of trees that had grown up into the
approach surface.
Airports near Washington, D.C., have
fewer obstruction problems, but are in or
abut some of the nation's most complex
and sensitive airspace. One-Manassas,
Virginia-has a restricted area just to the
south, raising the dual risk of a blackhole night arrival with a slam-dunk
descent at the end. Yes, much of this
information's available from published
sources to pilots who know where to
look and are serious about due diligence.
But talking to someone who lives with
these features every day provides an
efficient and effective head start. FT
DAVID JACK KENNY is a freelance aviation

writer living in Frederick, Maryland.
http://www.aopa.org/financemytraining https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmrAX7tSvvQ
Flight Training - January/February 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Flight Training - January/February 2020
