I would "generally" prefer that the airport be listed as "NO WINTER MAINTENANCE". That leaves things open to us ski flyers. Unfortunately, PILOTS have also been known to try and pull the lawyer out of their pocket and put the blame and price tag of their mishap on the government or operator of the airfield. Thus, it seems we see more fields listed as closed in the winter. Which leaves the ski flyer to wonder if it is for lack of winter maintenance or other some other purpose.

fern_hopper wrote: We have all done stupid sh!t and gotten off lucky, maybe even realized how close we came to bending metal till afterwords. I know I have!Matt

AMEN brother!

Eric,

No, I did not mean to suggest that you ought to be landing on closed runways routinely. My point was that the onus is generally on the PILOT to figure out whether it's a good idea or not. And, the discussion, I thought, was centered on FAA enforcement.

If you track up some guy's private strip, the FAA could care less. Not their problem. Now, the landowner might get a little tight, but....I seriously doubt you'd get in big trouble. Shouldn't go there, though.

You bet--there are LOTS of good reasons NOT to land on ANY runway, including closed runways.

I repeat, it is incumbent on US to do a little of that pilot shit PRIOR to landing. As in figuring out whether it makes sense to land there, and if there might be consequences.

It's still about making good decisions. And, we all wind up paying for others bad decisions, in publicity, in further closures, etc.

I've done some dumb stuff as well. Hopefully, I learned and moved on. I'll probably do something dumb again. But, hopefully, it won't be because I couldn't figure out that a snow covered runway isn't the best place to land a wheel plane.

MTV

mtv wrote:I've done some dumb stuff as well. Hopefully, I learned and moved on. I'll probably do something dumb again. But, hopefully, it won't be because I couldn't figure out that a snow covered runway isn't the best place to land a wheel plane.
MTV

AMEN to that Mike.

Cheers...Rob

Well said MTV

-Matt

mtv wrote:If you land airplanes in snow of unknown depth or composition, you should plan on leaving the airplane there. If it works out for you, good on yer. If not, it'll probably look like this. There is really no reliable and consistent means by which to determine whether it's safe to land in untracked snow.

If you see an "airport" with no tracks, no signs that it's been plowed, etc.....you might think twice about landing there. The A/FD provides information that I guarantee you the FAA can and may hang their enforcement hat on, but the bottom line is if you wreck it, you obviously did something wrong.....

I would respectfully point out that, WHEREVER you are landing an airplane, it is YOUR responsibility, regardless of what the A/FD or NOTAMS say, to determine if its safe to land there. Do we need a NOTAM to tell us a snow covered runway isn't open, when the dang thing is obviously covered with snow, and the surrounding country has a bunch of snow on it? If so, we're hosed, folks.MTV

I am not one to usually pass judgment on another's misfortune, but this one should not have happened. This is an accident with 4 people on board, an obviously unplowed and never plowed grass airstrip in a mountain valley with significant rising terrain on go around, using a tricycle geared, small tired aircraft. Had he made the landing, he would have likely required a lot of shoveling for the takeoff and avoid a swim in the lake. We all have done stupid things, but if we are going to do them leave the passengers at home
We need to remember that we as a group in general aviation pay in some form for all these avoidable accidents.

Good point about leaving the others on the ground.

Everyone should be able to go out and screw up if they really want to, but innocent passengers shouldn't have to be subjected to it.

And yes, we pay heavily as a group, for the mistakes pilots make. If I only had a dollar for every time a non-aviation person asked me "But, WHY would they DO that?" after another wreck, I'd go buy an airplane.

Looks to me like there was about 2-3 inch's of snow when the picture was taken, the nose wheel still looks like it's where it is supposed to be? tracks right on the other side of upside down plane looks like maybe a 90 degree turn?? Was this a ground loop gone upside down ? Will be interesting to hear what happened??
And it's down hill from either end of the runway, down the crick to the northwest and down to the lake on the other??
GT