Arrgh. reply lost to the internet ether. Will try again, in brief.
Changed response above to be more specific. In "trying" to instruct, I try to understand why people make mistakes so you can stay ahead of the mistakes. But why didn't she turn around? One thought is to consider the mindset that lead us to the pass fail grading system. How well do we teach people to recover from failure? - just a thought. On the canyon turn instruction. In the CAP, myself and at least one other instructor were heavily criticized for teaching canyon turns on the yearly flight review. There are still plenty of people that think if you talk to a kid about condoms, it is just encouraging risky behavior, such as canyon flying...

Lots to learn here when thinking about sending out solo students. I'm a big chicken and only feel comfortable send them up the big valley. Would I clear someone to fly over the hill to a destination if we've flown the route together? Maybe. Maybe I need to reconsider?

It is amazing how much people can seem to learn and then forget. The story would seem very damning for the instructor, but I am willing to bet that there was plenty of pertinent training that ultimately seemed to vanish from working memory. Bender, how many pilots have you seen perform great with FCLPs and then try to kill themselves (and you?) by spotting the deck on their first night behind the boat? The overloaded mind is a strange thing to behold...

SixTwoLeemer wrote:

Cary wrote:I have no doubt that there's a reason that this young girl survived, and a reason that the hunters were right there where she crashed. Why that happened, only God knows, but I think He has plans for her.
Cary

Agree 100%

I'd go 1 step farther...... I think there's a lesson for all of us here ......and a plan

I think some are being unnecessarily harsh on both the girl, who was all of 17 and had minimal flight time under her belt, and on her instructor. I suggested earlier to try to remember your skill level when you were on your first cross country solo--but how many here can combine that very low skill level with the emotional make up of being 17? How many here have ever experienced such disorientation that it blocked their thinking processes? I'm not suggesting that the girl didn't make mistakes--she did--but some of her mistakes were the product of inexperience and some were the product of near panic.

If you look at the route she was supposed to take, it was not a dangerous, risky route. I would have had no hesitation to approve that route, had I been her instructor. Her excursion into the mountains was caused by her apparent flip-flopping of numbers, which just happened to cause her new route to coincide with following a river, when she was supposed to follow a river. Haven't any of you made a similar mistake, dialing in the wrong number on a frequency, or on the transponder, or on a VOR head? One of my students did exactly that, and wound up in Scottsbluff when he was supposed to land in Torrington, WY.

I agree that she should have been better prepared to be out in the toolies, with better clothing and a minimal survival kit. Even with a good route that isn't mountainous, there is a lot of inhospitable territory in that part of Wyoming and Montana. I fault her instructor for that. But I instructed in Wyoming, and none of our airplanes had survival kits in them, either. I did tell my students to dress appropriately for the weather. When I was a student in Alaska, we were required to have survival kits, but that's because it's the law in Alaska. Good bet that if it hadn't been mandatory, we wouldn't have had them, either.

The girl did a remarkable job of putting the airplane down. Nobody can fault her for that. And having the courage to go up and finish her training to get her certificate is truly remarkable. Like I said, I think God has plans for her.

Cary

Disclaimer: McKenzie is my wife's second cousin. We don't know her at all, however my wife did spend a summer with McKenzie's mom (my wife's 1st cousin) when she was a kid. McKenzie's grandpa has been a pilot for a long time.

Easy to criticize this story from afar. What it boils down to is a family who got extremely lucky that day, and the young lady went on and finished her rating. I bet her instructor learned several things along the way too.

It's easy to forget how different the earth looks from above on those early flights. I thought I had a good sense of direction and knowledge of the local topography, but I felt lost the first few lessons, and the uneasy feeling (What's the river doing over there? North couldn't really be that way . . . ) didn't leave for a long time. It's good to know that GPS hasn't taken all of the sport out of navigating, but it sure makes it harder to fight complacency. Good on her for sticking with it.

CAVU

The fact that the pilot was a girl and 17 really doesn't matter to me. There's one standard. She obviously didn't meet it, she shouldn't have been flying solo that day, and I blame her instructor. That may sound harsh but let's just "call the baby ugly".

Matt, I'm guessing you know me. PM me if you don't mind or "buy" me a free beer at Tailhook next week and we can talk about how awesome we are

Every student that I've taken to the ship was mentally prepared and you're right, plenty of them have tried to kill themselves and me. However, landing on the ship is the hardest thing a person can do in an airplane bar none. I wouldn't compare it to reading a compass or a map.

Your points about the overloaded mind and CQ students are valid. The overloaded mind is a result of time critical decision making and the brain being unable to process the required amount of information in the short time allotted. For those that don't know, a typical pass at the ship is 15-18 seconds from start to finish and there's a helluva lot of shit that happens within that amount of time. However, in this case the student had no shortage of time to make a decision or realize her errors so I don't believe that a "full bucket" is a valid excuse.

Mistakes from students are to be expected. Lack of basic procedural knowledge is never acceptable.

Bender wrote:Mistakes from students are to be expected. Lack of basic procedural knowledge is never acceptable.

And to be more specific, it is the INSTRUCTOR's responsibility to ensure that a student is truly and properly prepared for a particular solo fight.

So, you folks who are suggesting that it's totally understandable that a person of that age shouldn't be held to "adult" standards when it comes to flying? Really???
Because she's seventeen, we should adjust the standards of safety and permit her to fly at a lower standard of accountability?

Remember, had this flight actually gone off perfectly, this young person could have taken YOUR child for a flight......which may have resulted in results like this flight did.

Thankfully, this young lady was VERY lucky. I have no doubt that she will be a better pilot for the experience.

But, that's a hell of a way to acquire that experience.

Frankly, I would suggest that the mistakes made in this flight lie largely at the feet of the flight instructor, for failure to properly prepare and equip this young lady for what she was about to encounter.

Lest you crucify me, I will admit up front that I haven't always prepared my students as well as I might have. I've been lucky, and none of them got in big trouble. But I learned from every one of those, and I like to think they've all made me both a better instructor and pilot.

MTV

My first solo cross country was almost the same as her desired route. Only difference was I started in Billings and came back up the same I went down instead of flying back over bighorn canyon.

I think a contributing factor was the change in route that morning. That and her apparent lack of geographic knowledge of the area.

Certainly mistakes were made and there's always room for improvement. But, you have to give credit where credit is due... she NEVER stopped flying that plane.

mountainmatt wrote:Certainly mistakes were made and there's always room for improvement. But, you have to give credit where credit is due... she NEVER stopped flying that plane.

This about sums it up best for me. I'm sure glad all the big mistakes I've made in life were not documented on t.v./internet! Fortunately I survived them, learned from them and moved on. I wish more young people were as adventurous as this girl and were interested in flying, but then that would mean more people would be making mistakes too since nobody's perfect.

This is an absolutely amazing story. All the people involved are my flying buddies. I can vouch for the instructor as being very good. The one thing missed was a survival kit. My children amazed me as they started driving in their total lack of figuring out which way was which. They never had to pay attention, just get in the car and miraculously with mom and dad driving they ended up where they were going. The chain of mistakes included changing the original flight plan from one over the plains to one through the mountains. Going from desolate landscape to some of the roughest and most remote country in the lower 48. I am almost certain when she took off on 25 she thought she was heading 25. Met this girl a couple times and she appeared to me to more than suited for the task as compared to others her age.

Coyote wrote: The one thing missed was a survival kit.

Really??? Let's see: Didn't remove the ELT from the wreck and energize it. Left the immediate scene of the wreckage, making it MUCH more difficult to find the pilot in a search. Departed for a flight through significant terrain without clothing adequate to survive in the country over which she flew. After she departed the wreckage, she recorded what could be considered a somewhat hysterical video on her phone to her parents. Give up? Really?

All this was AFTER the crash. I'll be the first to agree that students (and some certificated pilots) make errors in navigation fairly often. My point is not so much how she got there (though that performance definitely suggests some review on what went wrong and how she should have dealt with these things), but rather the preparation for that flight.

I've laid a lot if that at the feet of her instructor, though I also recognize that we can teach them and teach them, and sometimes they still do precisely the opposite......so maybe this isn't all the instructors fault.

At my previous employ, we had a policy that the instructor signing off the student had to personally verify the students flight planning, appropriate dress for the flight (which was spelled out in school policy), survival gear in the airplane, etc, etc. That was a great policy, in my opinion.

Finally, in Billings just a few years ago, a Rocky Mountain College student departed Billings on a night cross country in mid winter. Largely because the temps in Billings were unseasonably warm that night, that student chose to launch wearing shorts and flip flops. He crashed at (as I recall) about the 8000 foot level, where it was a lot colder, and started snowing shortly after his arrival. Lots of snow by the time he was found the next morning, but had he crased just a bit more remotely, he'd probably have died.

This was an accident with many similar and easily avoided contributing factors, which occurred and was very widely discussed in the very same local pilot community as this one.

Which begs the question: Do we learn nothing from these accidents?? Is that because nobody was killed? If she had been killed, would we have similarly made excuses to avoid assigning responsibility, to avoid hurting someones feelings? Really??

I would point out that had it not been for perfect timing and the presence of those sheep hunters, this young lady would probably not have survived, particularly if she was already as hysterical as she appeared to be in her cell phone video to her parents.

Look, folks, I'm not suggesting any if this is a killing offense. For what it's worth, I sincerely hope that we can learn from the mistakes made in this case, rather than gloss them over. To do otherwise would suggest we'll repeat these mistakes, and the next person might not be as lucky, and that would be a serious disservice to the loss of a good airplane, and a very close call for this young lady.

To me, endorsing a student's logbook for a solo flight, a cross country, or to take a checkride is one of the most solemn responsibilities there is. I take that responsibility very seriously, and if at some point one of my students screws the pooch, I sincerely hope that folks will question my preparation of that student in the review of that incident, and do so thoroughly.

FWIW

MTV

Thinking about her post-crash actions, I'd cut her a lot more slack than you would, Mike. Although as Matt said, she certainly continued to fly the airplane, once she'd crashed, the shock of the crash might have affected her much more than any of us can know.

Although I've had to land in a field, and I've had an airplane with a cocked nose wheel depart the runway on landing, I can't say I've "crashed"--not nearly the violence associated with either of those events as in a crash such as this young woman experienced. But about 20 years ago I was T-boned at an intersection by a woman who was totally distracted by her kids and literally drove through a stop sign without slowing, right into the side of my car. The car windows blew out, my dog was thrown out, and had her van hit only a few inches farther forward on my car, I would have been killed.

Here is how the shock of the accident affected me. A number of people apparently gathered around the accident scene, but the only person I remembered being there was the investigating cop, who gave me a ride to the ER for evaluation. For a couple weeks afterwards, several people, all of whom I knew, came up to me and asked me how I felt, how my dog was, etc. It turned out that each person who inquired about me had been there at the scene, and I didn't remember that any of them had been there, although I knew them. Yet I wasn't hurt other than some minor bruising and a bit of a whack to the side of my head, no loss of consciousness, etc.

My only point is that trauma, whether physical or emotional, can make us forget a lot of things. Assume that this young woman was trained to stay with the airplane, to remove the ELT to try to use it outside the airplane, etc. I don't think it's a stretch for her to forget those things, nor to panic when she felt all was lost. People with a lot more experience than any 17 year old forget things when they panic, often important things.

Incidentally, on removing the ELT, I just last week changed the bracket of my 406 ELT from the Velcro version to the new stainless steel strap version. As I unplugged the multi-pin plug and the antenna, it occurred to me that although I could easily remove the ELT, it was totally useless without an external antenna, so I need to get a rubber ducky antenna for it--but how many other ELTs are in airplanes, without any way to use them if they're removed from the mounting tray?

It's easy to second guess others' mistakes, and that's helpful, so that maybe we won't make the same or similar mistakes ourselves. But learning from others' errors isn't necessarily helped by unduly criticizing them for making them.

Cary

Sorry Cary, sugar coat it all you want so as to not hurt anyones feelings but Mike is 100 percent spot on. I admire the girl for flying and "getting back on the horse", I don't think she is to blame, however the people who were supposed to teach, mentor and look after her did her a big disservice which nearly cost her her life.

Very well said Mike.

Kurt

Cary,

FYI, my 406 ELT activated by itself (bad switch) so I disconnected it, turned the switch off and laid it inside the airplane. Twenty minutes later, my phone rang and the nice major from RCC told me my ELT was alerting again. No antenna, and they received a clear 406 signal.

Worth a try in any case. Doesn't cost anything?

MTV

SkyLarkin wrote:This about sums it up best for me. I'm sure glad all the big mistakes I've made in life were not documented on t.v./internet! Fortunately I survived them, learned from them and moved on. I wish more young people were as adventurous as this girl and were interested in flying, but then that would mean more people would be making mistakes too since nobody's perfect.

X2

I finally got around to watching the video. Great story with a happy ending, what more could I want?

G'Day

Blame the instructor if you want. In my opinion it would be difficult to deduce the quality of the instruction she received based solely on this video.

As with 95% (not a scientific number ) of aviation accidents the pilot is ultimately responsible. And this accident seems to follow a clear chain of events that lead up to the accident (accident chain). A well laid plan was complicated by last minute changes due to unexpected fires (TFR's I assume) which resulted in a late arrival to one location which resulted in a longer that expected lunch and fuel brake to calm the nerves which led to a late departure and then a departure from a different runway then was planned for from the last airport...the added stressors of this flight clouded her ability to think clearly and in the end she missed some vital details on her final course check. She confirmed the terrain and river but missed that little number called a heading. 2 out of 3 isn't bad with a lot of things in life. "You can't buy experience", and she likely had very little experience with this type of stress. After all it was her first solo cross country.

Many "experienced" pilots who had "excellent" (and responsible) instructors still crash their airplanes because of bad decisions.

She gained a lot of experience that day that will serve her well into the future! Too bad it involved a crunched plane.

CW

clippwagon wrote:As with 95% (not a scientific number ) of aviation accidents the pilot is ultimately responsible. And this accident seems to follow a clear chain of events that lead up to the accident (accident chain). A well laid plan was complicated by last minute changes due to unexpected fires (TFR's I assume) which resulted in a late arrival to one location which resulted in a longer that expected lunch and fuel brake to calm the nerves which led to a late departure and then a departure from a different runway then was planned for from the last airport...the added stressors of this flight clouded her ability to think clearly and in the end she missed some vital details on her final course check. She confirmed the terrain and river but missed that little number called a heading. 2 out of 3 isn't bad with a lot of things in life. "You can't buy experience", and she likely had very little experience with this type of stress. After all it was her first solo cross country.

^^^this^^^ IMO it started after runway25.

I know we all make mistakes, but when when you start to wonder, hey, my instructor wouldn't send me into the mountains, maybe I'm going south instead of north, wouldn't you check that little thingy called a compass? We all learned to use it and its very important for navigation. You can't accidentally put a 0 behind the numbers to have it lead you the wrong direction. I'm with MTV, sugar coat it if you want, but there was some basic pilotage skills that were apparently lacking for a trip over the mountains.

To quote Scotsman Robert Burns

” The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley, “

John Steinbeck took the title of his 1937 novel Of Mice and Men from a line contained in the penultimate stanza: "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley" (often paraphrased in English as "The best-laid plans of mice and men / Often go

I think the Marines have a saying something along the lines of " What's your go to Hell plan? "

Finally, lest we think we are all experienced sticks, there is an old Chinese saying that has always resonated with me: " Even monkeys fall from trees ".

This has been a very thought provoking thread... at least for me...