Gesamt
← Back to Squawk list
Very sad situation, condolences to the family and friends.
What can we learn? It was a long flight with stress related to a family cancer crisis. This should raise concerns before any flight planning. The initial final approach to rwy 4 was too slow, and possibly too high and long, to sequence between busy airliners, on final. Rwy 4 is the longest and was the optimum rwy: wind check was 080 at 13 gusts to 18. Houston Hobby is a major hub for SWA and other airlines. You can hear this sequencing stress developing, with experience, but the task saturated student pilot has a full plate just doing the basics. There is no processing capacity left for pilot, but others may have detected the stress.
The pilot was rattled by the initial go around and then accepts the crosswind runway and (out of limit? personal mins?)winds without processing the information. She seems to hear this as an ATC directive, when in fact it was posed as a question: "can you accept 35 winds 090 at 13 gusts 18". At this point perhaps she should have diverted to a quiet uncontrolled field like Pearland less than 5 minutes south and KAXH about 7 min with favorable winds to rwy 9. It is evident that she did not understand or process the winds because she drifts across the final approach course to 35 while on downwind. there seems to be three aborted approaches to 35. The controller is very patient and reassuring throughout, but he cannot instruct the pilot or divert the busy flow into Hobby at this point. Hindsight is 20-20.
What was the pressure to land at Hobby? We cannot rescue this family, but think about what you would do, and how to plan ahead. (Somebody once said "don't risk yourself or your family for a rental car reservation") Perhaps the pilot was not recently proficient at such a busy airport. The home base at Norman may not have been so constrained. Sometime siblings or spouses in the cockpit can add to the pilots workload? Nobody's fault, but something to consider in a task saturation condition like this. I think there was a shift change or a supervisor attempted to intervene for the tower controller. I think this was a good move and crew concept. If you have an experienced or senior copilot, wouldn't you ask him or her to try after the third missed?
helpful data:
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=188000
http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2016/06/cirrus-sr20-n4252g-safe-aviation-llc.html
http://archive-server.liveatc.net/khou/KHOU-Jun-09-2016-1730Z.mp3
[IMG]https://aviation-safety.net/photodata/188000_575a9108f0c27ghggh1.jpg
The critical exchange occurs at 17:22:55 when the tower calls "Cirrus 52 Golf Tower".
I suspect the controller has recognized the task saturation and waits for the pilot to answer. Aviate, navigate, communicate. It is hard to listen, retrospectively, as these three priorities degrade from right to left.
Only then does he (1)issue the go around directive, (2)gives the reasoning, (3)gives the next step for downwind to 35, gives missed approach instructions (4)rwy hdg, (5)maintain VFR, and then (6)gives the winds and (7)asks if she can accept 35. He has issued seven separate pieces of info (which are required by regulation- he has no options here). The pilot only reads back two or three of seven, "go around, rwy 35, and turn downwind", and these may be lower priority of all these elements. Tower catches the error here and calmly reminds "runway heading". His workload is now starting to stack up. We cannot hear all he is hearing but approach probably has two more fast airliners turning final for 4, and he's trying to get the student out of the stress zone onto 35. This was common strategy for students as long as 50 years ago when I was there, in this scenario, but the gusty crosswinds have aggravated this strategy. The controller cannot divert this pilot-- that must be requested by the PIC. The time for repeating the winds again, or having a CFI debrief about diverts, or crosswinds, or wake turbulence, or fuel exhaustion have been exhausted already.
This is instrument rating or at least commercial pilot level of workload. Even with these ratings, regular practice and experience is necessary.
3 killed in small plane crash near Hobby Airport - KHOU - KHOU News
Cirrus crashed just off of Hobby Airport this afternoon. (www.khou.com) Mehr...
Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
Very sad situation, condolences to the family and friends.
What can we learn? It was a long flight with stress related to a family cancer crisis. This should raise concerns before any flight planning. The initial final approach to rwy 4 was too slow, and possibly too high and long, to sequence between busy airliners, on final. Rwy 4 is the longest and was the optimum rwy: wind check was 080 at 13 gusts to 18. Houston Hobby is a major hub for SWA and other airlines. You can hear this sequencing stress developing, with experience, but the task saturated student pilot has a full plate just doing the basics. There is no processing capacity left for pilot, but others may have detected the stress.
The pilot was rattled by the initial go around and then accepts the crosswind runway and (out of limit? personal mins?)winds without processing the information. She seems to hear this as an ATC directive, when in fact it was posed as a question: "can you accept 35 winds 090 at 13 gusts 18". At this point perhaps she should have diverted to a quiet uncontrolled field like Pearland less than 5 minutes south and KAXH about 7 min with favorable winds to rwy 9. It is evident that she did not understand or process the winds because she drifts across the final approach course to 35 while on downwind. there seems to be three aborted approaches to 35. The controller is very patient and reassuring throughout, but he cannot instruct the pilot or divert the busy flow into Hobby at this point. Hindsight is 20-20.
What was the pressure to land at Hobby? We cannot rescue this family, but think about what you would do, and how to plan ahead. (Somebody once said "don't risk yourself or your family for a rental car reservation") Perhaps the pilot was not recently proficient at such a busy airport. The home base at Norman may not have been so constrained. Sometime siblings or spouses in the cockpit can add to the pilots workload? Nobody's fault, but something to consider in a task saturation condition like this. I think there was a shift change or a supervisor attempted to intervene for the tower controller. I think this was a good move and crew concept. If you have an experienced or senior copilot, wouldn't you ask him or her to try after the third missed?
helpful data:
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=188000
http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2016/06/cirrus-sr20-n4252g-safe-aviation-llc.html
http://archive-server.liveatc.net/khou/KHOU-Jun-09-2016-1730Z.mp3
[IMG]https://aviation-safety.net/photodata/188000_575a9108f0c27ghggh1.jpg
The critical exchange occurs at 17:22:55 when the tower calls "Cirrus 52 Golf Tower".
I suspect the controller has recognized the task saturation and waits for the pilot to answer. Aviate, navigate, communicate. It is hard to listen, retrospectively, as these three priorities degrade from right to left.
Only then does he (1)issue the go around directive, (2)gives the reasoning, (3)gives the next step for downwind to 35, gives missed approach instructions (4)rwy hdg, (5)maintain VFR, and then (6)gives the winds and (7)asks if she can accept 35. He has issued seven separate pieces of info (which are required by regulation- he has no options here). The pilot only reads back two or three of seven, "go around, rwy 35, and turn downwind", and these may be lower priority of all these elements. Tower catches the error here and calmly reminds "runway heading". His workload is now starting to stack up. We cannot hear all he is hearing but approach probably has two more fast airliners turning final for 4, and he's trying to get the student out of the stress zone onto 35. This was common strategy for students as long as 50 years ago when I was there, in this scenario, but the gusty crosswinds have aggravated this strategy. The controller cannot divert this pilot-- that must be requested by the PIC. The time for repeating the winds again, or having a CFI debrief about diverts, or crosswinds, or wake turbulence, or fuel exhaustion have been exhausted already.
This is instrument rating or at least commercial pilot level of workload. Even with these ratings, regular practice and experience is necessary.
Dana had flown the same route the day before shuttling family.
I was looking at the turn 30 left call and realized from the diagram that she is on downwind for 4, even though she read back downwind for 35. The overshooting tailwind at almost 20 knots is causing disorientation. There is also a probability of a wide runway illusion, discussed here by FAA safety: google spatiald_visillus.pdf
The tower actually figures this out and calls her traffic at 2 o'clock and tells her to follow the traffic to 4, caution wake turbulence. With task saturation she has turned 30 left away from the traffic she was to follow and rwy 35 is now passing behind at her 6 o'clock. She could have landed on 4 into the wind, but she had lost orientation and may not have any idea where 35 is now or what to do. So the controller "calls her base" now back to 35 and so on.
The tower actually figures this out and calls her traffic at 2 o'clock and tells her to follow the traffic to 4, caution wake turbulence. With task saturation she has turned 30 left away from the traffic she was to follow and rwy 35 is now passing behind at her 6 o'clock. She could have landed on 4 into the wind, but she had lost orientation and may not have any idea where 35 is now or what to do. So the controller "calls her base" now back to 35 and so on.
What confuses me is why were they trying to land her on 35 with what accounts to be a 15-20 knot tail wind. I heard no aircraft utilizing runways 17 or 12L/R during the ATC transmissions and unless I missed it, saw no closures of those runways on NOTAMS. Seems everyone would have been using those runways based on the winds alone. Maybe a low time pilot in over her head but the controllers certainly didn't help matters. Pick a runway already, work with her to get on it, and if a Southwest has to go around, oh well.
Yep I saw that too; however, it comes down to this, we are the pilots and should let ATC know what we are thinking or wanting.
I am a low time pilot, 450 hours, since 2007. When I was taken lessons for my pilot license, we visited the Tower at MSY, which I received the best advice for ATC, "let us know what you want, as we can't read your thoughts." There is more to this conversation, but that was the main point. ATC is going to do what they do, follow their processes, unless you ask for something different.
2 years later coming in from Houston to New Orleans (KMSY), same day has the Hudson River Miracle, MSY was landing on 10 (from the west, heading east) and departing from 01 (departing to the north), with the winds out of 010 (from the north)blowing 20-25 knots. I was in a piper PA28-180, coming into land 10, with 20 knot crosswind. Let just say, I called a go-around. When tower acknowledge, tower asked, is there something we can do for you. I came back, I would like to land 01, on your departing runway, which he proceed to say, " proceed on coarse and make right traffic for 01". This was way more easier.
My heart goes out to the family of this accident. So sad...
Hobby was landing 04 and departing from 12R, with the wind coming from 11, but variable from 09 - 12 and gusting at times. 35 would be a bad choice for most aircraft. When the controller ask the pilot to go-around, due to spacing on rwy 04, and changed to 35... and mentioned the wind, I would have had to say something right there, specially on the first try on 35 which was high.
For me, I would put some blame on the controllers, putting the pilot is bad situation. Then a little on the pilot, for not being more demanding with ATC, after ATC told the pilot the winds.
And last, always... always fly the plane... unless it was fuel starvation, like "homburge" posted above.
I am a low time pilot, 450 hours, since 2007. When I was taken lessons for my pilot license, we visited the Tower at MSY, which I received the best advice for ATC, "let us know what you want, as we can't read your thoughts." There is more to this conversation, but that was the main point. ATC is going to do what they do, follow their processes, unless you ask for something different.
2 years later coming in from Houston to New Orleans (KMSY), same day has the Hudson River Miracle, MSY was landing on 10 (from the west, heading east) and departing from 01 (departing to the north), with the winds out of 010 (from the north)blowing 20-25 knots. I was in a piper PA28-180, coming into land 10, with 20 knot crosswind. Let just say, I called a go-around. When tower acknowledge, tower asked, is there something we can do for you. I came back, I would like to land 01, on your departing runway, which he proceed to say, " proceed on coarse and make right traffic for 01". This was way more easier.
My heart goes out to the family of this accident. So sad...
Hobby was landing 04 and departing from 12R, with the wind coming from 11, but variable from 09 - 12 and gusting at times. 35 would be a bad choice for most aircraft. When the controller ask the pilot to go-around, due to spacing on rwy 04, and changed to 35... and mentioned the wind, I would have had to say something right there, specially on the first try on 35 which was high.
For me, I would put some blame on the controllers, putting the pilot is bad situation. Then a little on the pilot, for not being more demanding with ATC, after ATC told the pilot the winds.
And last, always... always fly the plane... unless it was fuel starvation, like "homburge" posted above.
Thanks hou1crj for the info.
HOU tries to keep GA on 17/35 as part of standard ops from my understanding. GA terminal is a quick left turn from midfield 35.
What I did hear, though, was on the very first attempt to land, the tower controller getting a bit impatient that the traffic *behind* was closing fast, and possibly the SR20 didn't get down fast enough; so the Tower calls the SR20 off in order to make room for SW235 to land without having to go around.
I'm not sure, but my sense is that the FARs say the lower-altitude traffic has priority on landing, but obviously a controller can alter that. However, this could have been the first link in the accident chain. I don't know whether the SR20 could have landed long (assuming she was on a high approach), but rwy 4 is 7600' long, so there's a chance that had SW235 been sent around, the SR20 could have landed safely, eventually, on rwy 4, and the rest of the story would not have happened.
Next, there seems to be confusion on the (first) go-around. The tower puts the SR20 into a right downwind for rwy 35, which makes sense, but then the controller issues a "turn left heading 30 degrees" for some unknown reason, taking the SR20 away from the 35 pattern. Then, a second controller comes on and offers her to follow a 737 to rwy 4, which she would like. But it seems she is now headed AWAY from the airport, but given clearance to land on a runway that is both behind her and in the same direction as she's now heading. Which means a full 360-degree pattern to get back to it.
More confusion on the radio (about which right base the tower wants her on, if any??), and the now-exasperated Second Controller clears her to land on 35. It sounds like this would work out (I can see it on paper), but her next call is "I don't believe I'm lined up for that [rwy 35]". Which confuses me now, since I can't tell what's she's lined up for. Then the (Second) controller sends her into a right turn to about 040 which again would take the SR20 away from the airport.
A few moments later, the Tower gives the SR20 a right turn back to 35, and tells another plane that the SR20 is on a one-mile final. So all this maneuvering is happening in a small area... But this approach is evidently high, according to the tower, so he calls the missed and the SR20 goes around again. Rwy 35 is 6000 feet long, so perhaps all the maneuvering was done too close to the field -- i.e., the tower should have waited for the SR20 to fly a bit further out before coming back around to land this time.
For the next approach, we hear that the SR20 is cleared again onto 35, even though the tower says there's no traffic on rwy 4 (which would have been better given the winds). Another link in the accident chain??
Then the SR20 misses 35, sounds like she was high this time, and the controller gives a left turn back to the rwy 4 downwind, and he's advising her about the traffic situation for rwy 4, and in the middle of it there's the "Straighten up, straighten up" call, and that's the end.
Through it all (except for maybe this last turn), the SR20 pilot sounds composed and in control of her airplane, given all the stuff going on around, the traffic calls, and the changes in plan. I don't get the sense that she's too low-time for the work at Hobby, and certainly she's not daunted by landing with big iron around nor overwhelmed by the controllers at a major airport. Something else must have gone wrong here -- fuel starvation? stall-spin at a low airspeed while maneuvering in close?
I don't know, but this seems to me an accident that shouldn't have happened and one from which we can all learn a lot.