I was asked by the CFI with another student, to go and and drop the other student off so he could fly that aircraft back to palmy and i follow behind him. the weather at this point was perfectly blue sky, the manuwatu george was clear and the east coast looked clear as well. we planned, took off and made it through the george, on approaching dannnevirke, the weather slowly began to deteraite with grey cloud rolling in from the south, the visability had dropped to well below 10km, and a gusty wind had developed. due to the close proximity of the dannivirke to the mountains, the wind was not of a constant direction and the windsock was blowing in a manner of 360 degrees like a breacon every 30-40 sec, after conducting a overhead rejoin i joined for runway 02 thinking it was predomintly comming from that direction. i commited to the landing only finding i was wrong, at the end of the ground roll, a gust had caused the aircraft to ground roll and to the left and into the wind direction. luckily we were on soft grass and no damage was suffered on the undercarriage.

the other student preflighted and was happy with the airplane. he proceeded first and i followed behind him to the george. the weather now was much the same with vis below 10km and showers of moderate rain was now becomming wide spread. the other aircraft had made it over the geroge while ohakea control asked me to wait on at woodville due to overflying aircraft heading east from palmerston north, i was then in a constant orbit around woodville as the weather continued to deterioate and the heavy shower of rain was comming through the geroge through to woodville, at one point i was orbiting with view of woodville and visability reduced to 2000m where i could see the outline of the ranges and some of the windfarm and the river comming through and passing woodville off my right wingtip. once clearence was given 5 minutes later, the heavy shower had passed and visability became about 5km, on vfr minimums, i was given special VFR clearence in which i was to maintain view of terrain and be clear of cloud. i was haunted by a huge wall of cloud that was infront of me however, a hole had developed on the northen windmall field in which i could see ashurst and was my only option besides turning back, i did think about turning back but i told myself, i can do this, but i better not screw up, i must be sure. so i got closer and became more sure. so i went for it, hugging the base of the cloud to provide clearence from the top of the windmill then pulling the power and decending on the other side to remain clear of cloud and in-sight of ahsurst i had made it, but palmerston north tower, made me continue from ashurst to bunnythope, under special vfrm in which the vis as tracking through was only 3000m, as all i could really see was the road off to my right which was the ashurst bunnythorpe road. mid way through atc then asked if i could maintain visual, i said i was at 3000m and was tracking the road, they then left me track to right base runway 25. To my amazement i had poped out of the shower and the visability became 40km. from the airport all the way to south manuwautu. what had developped was a line of showers stretching from the coast in a line directly to the manuwautu george in which the george was like some sort of beacon for the showers. "saying come to me, come to me" all other areas being clear. I then landed without incident and left it down to a ex[ierence that i could learn from.

I did push the limits on what i was comfortable with, there was some unexpected suprises but it was an expierence i got to learn from. one of the things i did find out later is that if i was alot more versed with entry procedures into palmerston north, i would have found that there was an akoutrree arrival, from the southeast, over the pihiatua track. that would have been a more comfortable and less weather challanging arrival, as the visability south of palmerston was 40km and more instead of passing through the george. it would have added a total of 5 minutes onto my flight time, which would have been no problem as i was not fuel critical. but alas it came down to planning there and then in the thick of it a course of action. i was prepared to turn back if it got hairy in that hole above the windmills.

the moral for all those reading this is that this was an unexpected weather event that occured, but the best ways to come out of it is to think outside the box and think of all options, espically when your orbiting or have time up your sleeve. when you do choose a course of action, allow yourself some point in which u can turn back if it all goes pear shaped but above all only procede if you know what to expect, not think that "she will be alright" and not being ready for what might happen. i took the option of going through because i throught i had no other forward options exccept turning back. Which to me i thought was something in vein as the whole point was to recover the aircraft and both get back rather than exchanging one for the other.

thanks

dagger20

The area we flew past (Turakirae Head) is notorious for turbulence in winds SW through W to N.
The area forecast indicated a wind of 320/40 (direction/speed) at 3000 and 5000 ft.

My instructor knew very well it was going to be rough, but he took me trough there anyway to give me some experience in different conditions to what I was used to. However, it was rougher than he expected it would be!

The turbulence was severe perhaps even extreme. We lost control of the aircraft for what felt like rather long, enduring moments although realistically probably no longer than 3 to 4 seconds each. At one stage I was holding full opposite aileron along with rudder, only to be holding an angle of bank of about 70-80° because the rotor we past through had flipped us onto our side quicker than I could react. It was difficult, and at times impossible to maintain direction and altitude. At this point we thought it would be best to get clear of the area immediately so we began a tedious climb from 3500 ft to 5500 feet.

The first 1500ft climb was rough as guts. We hit our heads on the roof a couple times despite being bulked in pretty tight. Each time we hit the roof we would try to tighten out seat belts a little more but soon there wasn’t anymore give in our belts, so we had to put up with the odd knock to the head. Passing 5000 ft the air was much more pleasant although It was still pretty gutsy air to tackle. Felt good compared to what we had just been through though!

It’s really tricky to push buttons or reach for flap/throttle levers and even just talk when being thrown around in your seat. It took me a few attempts to get my finger on the push to talk button to get my climb clearance and a few more attempts to catch the throttle and climb us out of the turbulence.

Since this incident I always keep my hand on the throttle when I suspect I am flying in to turbulence so I can react swiftly encase it becomes unbearable. I also make sure my seat belt is extra tight and tell my passengers/instructor to tighten there belts and stow loose objects because turbulence can be a real pain in the head!

Turakirae Head should be flown past with the utmost caution in Westerlies above about 30 knots. If you need to fly around Turakirae Head I would recommend you to get some altitude and/or track further East of the hills to get clear of the rotors.

Below is a link to a google picture of our track from Wellington to Masterton with Turakirae Head labelled:

http://www.box.net/shared/3ca32ba5ou

The problem was that the flight examiner did not communicate this to me so I was left in the belief that he was happy to conduct the flight. Another problem is the question of who is deemed to be the pilot in command in a flight test situation? I was of the opinion that he was, as he was rated to conduct the flight where I presently was not.

I conducted the flight and we flew in and out of cumulus cloud, never building ice on the surfaces. It went okay.

Upon arrival back at base at the completion of the flight test, the examiner asked me how I thought it all went. I gave him my honest answer to which he disagreed.

He failed me due to my decision to conduct the flight in the first place!!!!! I was in utter disbelief. He even took my $400 flight fee!!!

I resat the test and passed. I did however learn a valuable lesson. Sure, the pilot in command has the final say as to whether or not a flight will proceed, however others on board the flight must voice their concerns to the PIC in the interests of safety. If I had voiced my concerns that night perhaps I would have been a couple of thousand dollars better off!

Weather kills… it is as simple as that. Flight tests not only test your flying skills, they also (and perhaps just as importantly) test your airmanship… your decision making skills.

I had just gained my PPL although the training organisation I was attending had a policy of not issuing PPL’s until the CPL handling standards had been obtained. As a result, I felt very comfortable in handling an aeroplane to CPL standard.

However, being a competent handler and being experienced in other aspects of piloting are two different things and the following tale illustrates this quite well.

I had done all of my flight training in Motueka using C152’s. The weather was generally very good for ab initio flight training, being quite calm and clear for the majority of the time during the handling phases of training and bad weather delays were rare.

I then relocated to Canterbury to undertake further cross country training, and the alpine environment made for a level of decision making which was certainly a step up from that to which I was used to.

It was mid September and I had planned a flight from Christchurch, through the Arthurs Pass to Hokitika. I would refuel at Hokitika and then fly up the West coast, through the Marlborough Sounds to Wellington for the night.

The aircraft I was to use was a Piper PA 28 – 140.

The weather forecast for Canterbury was reasonable as was that for the West coast. The Sounds and Wellington was forecast to be ‘doable’ although there was a moist north westerly flow affecting these areas.

My instructor seemed to think the flight was achievable so I followed his advice and set off.

The flight through Arthurs pass was spectacular and the landing at Hokitika was uneventful. Sure enough, the weather on the West coast was certainly nothing to be concerned about.

Getting airborne from Hokitika and heading north up the coast was most enjoyable and I was able to concentrate on navigation and generally feeling in control of the flight. There was a light westerly and an overcast cloud cover at about 2500’ As I approached Cape Farewell the cloud base lowered and I found myself at about 800’ agl. I reasoned that once I got around the Cape the cloud may be higher and I would be able to continue as planned. I rounded Cape Farewell and followed the coast toward Takaka.

Instead of being higher as I had expected, the cloud base became lower until I was quite concerned about my height above the terrain. By this time was down to about 4-500 agl.

Looking back in the direction that I had come from, it appeared to me that the base and visibility had deteriorated and so I did not attempt a turn towards the ‘back door’ and I decided to try and get around the coast to Motueka.

It soon became obvious that this would not be easily achievable due to cloud and by now, drizzle.

I now felt quite trapped and so decided that the best thing to do would be to get the aeroplane on the ground.

I started to search for a decent paddock and located three which I thought would be suitable. During the search the cloud base lowered even further in showers and I was forced down to approx 300’ agl. During a reversal turn over the sea I accidentally entered cloud but I was able to get out of it by turning the aircraft back toward the coast.

By this time I was very anxious to get on the ground so I lined up on the best of the fields I had selected and landed in it.

There had been heavy rain and flooding in the area recently and I was concerned that the aircraft would sink in on touchdown but the surface was surprisingly stable and I was able to land and taxi quite normally.

By now it was raining solidly so I secured the aircraft and walked to the nearest road where I was picked up by a local and taken into the township for the night.

The aircraft was successfully flown out of the field by an experienced pilot the next day.

I learned several valuable lessons from this incident which I would like to share.

• Be aware that you never stop learning in aviation. Just because you may feel confident in handling an aeroplane, in the early stages of your flight training you can never have the experience required to make the ‘best’ decision, especially when unexpectedly encountering adverse conditions. To quote an old cliché “you don’t know how much you don’t know”.

• Always stay current. I was fortunate that I was very current in hand flying having just completed ten weeks of intensive flight training. The low flying training in particular was invaluable during this incident.

• Never have absolute faith in weather forecasts. Although they are generally very good, they can and sometimes are, wrong. Having said that though, always strive to increase your meteorological knowledge, if I had been more knowledgeable in this case I may have been able to anticipate this weather event more accurately.

• If encountering bad visibility in flight, be aware that the radius of visibility often remains constant around the aircraft. Put another way, just because it may appear that the visibility has deteriorated ahead or behind the aircraft, this may not be the case and if you were to reverse course you may find the visibility to not become any worse. However, this may not always be the case and you may find yourself in a worsening condition. The best way to avoid this of course is to not put yourself in a bad visibility situation to begin with.

• If feeling out of your depth, make the decision to turn back early, even if it means having to complete the flight at a later date. Another cliché states “If you kill yourself because of weather, your funeral will be held on a sunny day”.

• If you are ever faced with making a precautionary landing, do NOT let embarrassment or fear of repercussions influence your decision. Any good organisation would rather that you and the aircraft were safe as opposed to having an accident.

• Naturally, it is best to never allow yourself to get into a position like this in the first place.

After touch and go, I departed for NP. From there, it’s a long flight to NP on small a/c. Sun was shining really bright and weather around looked really good. I climbed up to 6000 feet as there was no cloud. Weather was good and warm. My friend decided to take some rest as after a while, a long nav flight gets boring unless you are flying the plane. When we got close to NP, I descended and asked NP tower to do touch and go and vacate to South. NP cleared me for touch and go vacating south via Inglewood . NP en route weather was average and clouds were scattered at 2800feet. Initially, I planned direct to PM from NP. First of all, the town that the tower told me to track initially could not be seen clearly. My friend and I were busy looking for traffic which was coming so that we could land towards NP. On top of this, weather was marginal. From this time onwards, things happened so fast and cockpit work load increased significantly. I started tracking towards Inglewood and soon after I was tracking direct to PM. I could not pin point few places on the map any more and even worst, the weather was so bad ahead. I decided to divert to Hawera to WU and PM. At this stage, weather caught us by big surprise. Visibility was like 20km. ( it is still legal though). Now I was busy getting new heading to fly to Hawera. I could not fly direct due cloud on the way. My friend told me to follow a certain road and power line which will take us to Hawera. I was so happy to get that help from him as the situation was pretty bad and trust me, any student pilot who is just learning to navigate would find it hard on a weather like this. Situational awareness was bad as there was one point where I was asking myself where Hawera was. I started turning towards Mt Taranaki although I was far away from it. Due to stress, decision making skills are impaired too. I was flying and dealing with the weather. I had to navigate and talk to local traffic. I was simply overloaded. My friend told me that Hawera is this way and not towards the mountain where I was heading. I replied yes you are right and turned left again towards Hawera. I could see a small town on way to Hawera. At this point, we could not even see incoming traffic due to visibility. We were watching so carefully though after we found a road that gets us to Hawera. This last 5 minutes was so scary and this is a situation that no one should ever put themselves in.

At Hawera, the clouds were so high just like what we just passed through for the previous 15 minutes. My friend asked if he could help me get weather en route. I could see he was worried. He also had to get somewhere that evening. But I was PIC and all the decision was mine. He asked me as he is not allowed to do anything in cockpit especially manipulation control. He said he will get weather updates from OH control. I said go ahead so that I can concentrate on flying. He established communication with OH and got weather briefing. At OH cloud was scattered at 5000 feet with visibility of 50 km. With this weather report, I decided to go ahead to WU and PM. Who would not continue knowing that weather was good around WU and OH. I kept flying ahead.

Around town Patea, the weather trapped us. I kept descending from 3000feet to 1000ft to avoid clouds. I looked back and could not go back to Hawera anymore. I decided to descend further as I had to stay clear of clouds and ended up being 600feet from ground. We were trapped in gap between cloud. I just used to hear about situations like this from instructor but here I am stuck in the real one (bad weather). I could not find any gap to escape. I asked my friend what I should do and he replied "you are PIC". That was true. I looked for field to carry out precautionary landing. For those who don't know what precautionary landing is, It is a landing procedure where pilot just chooses a filed suitable enough to land. Pilot takes length and obstacle into account before he lands in a chosen field. All pilots are trained in this procedure. I was thinking to myself what will happen if I do land in this field there? I might have to stop flying and it’s embarrassing. I made a decision not to land in the field yet. I was low over ground yet I was making angle of bank which I should not have made as I was that close to ground. Reason is if you excessively increase angle of bank ( AOB) , a/c could stall and loose height and it is dangerous when you are close to the ground as you might not recover before a/c hits the ground. I used excessive AOB just to avoid cloud. At this time we were trapped and we could not escape at all, stuck in gap of cloud. When you enter cloud, your SA is almost zero as you are scared some thing bad will happen and you are never ever taken into cloud in your training so you would not know what to do.
I could not track to coast as there were clouds all over the coast. Running out of option and not knowing what to do, I orbited for a minute just 600ft above the ground. After that, my friend advised me to turn towards the coast.There were thick clouds near the coast. Despite that, I did turn towards it. Luckily, there was a gap in the cloud that we could climb up. I climbed up through that small gap and the whole sky was clear above it. At that moment, I was speechless. I felt like we are alive and all the tension was released. Then I had to make sure I had enough fuel to get to PM. Due to work load from NP to that point, I forgot to do my fuel calculation on my nav log and fuel log was not up to date.I was not sure what was the fuel state. Although I had full tank when I left PM, I was sure I could land at WU and I had enough fuel for that. But did I have enough fuel to get to PM? Well after doing some calculation and relying on fuel gauge indicator, I decided to go to PM direct from WU through OH. Although we are told not to rely on fuel gauge indicator, I did used it to back up my calculation. After then,I continued flight to PM safely.

This flight was the most stressful flight I had so far on my training. Starting at TM: I did descend on non traffic side. TM is one of the hardest airfields to land in. I should have really spent more hours studying traffic side, non traffic side and aerodrome plate. For others who are going that way, please make sure you know TM airfield really well. I did descend on the wrong side.It could be lack of experience in that particular airfield. When you go solo there and if circuit is busy, hold it over head city if you like and wait for circuit to clear. Although I was un current (haven’t flown for few weeks) which did not help. Staying current helps a lot.
Secondly, weather from TM to half way through NP was very good therefore complacency could be the explanation assuming weather will be good through out and was less stressed and was taking flight too easy. I should have analyzed weather from NP to PM more often than I did. Thirdly, If there is any help you can use in a difficult situation,I would advise you to use it . For instance, I requested my friend to get weather information en route while I was busy flying and navigating a/c. Despite the difficult situation and although he was not a crew member, conversation was going on between us as he had similar flying hours like me. We were finding a way to get out of that situation. In my view it was good communication skills that helped us get out of that difficult situation and we solved it efficiently. It is good that some schools focus so much on CRM as part of the training.

To student pilots out there, the area towards Patea town- Hawera- NP is so unpredictable and weather in that area is average over all. I am just saying this from my flying experience and from the back seat I have done. Been to that route at least 15 times by now. One of my friends was caught in that difficult situation and briefly entered the cloud. It was over same area. There is low level cloud build up.
Most important question I would like to raise as part of this experience is, As part of early training shouldn’t students be taken into clouds for few hours so that they know exactly what to do when they inadvertently enter into a situation like this? We do minimum instrument flying (IF under hood) but when you get into a real situation, its real scary and that simulated flight we do is not of a great help. Do you think as part of syllabus CAA should introduce real instrument flight time rather than just simulated one? I would like to know what readers out there think about this question. If some one has real IF time it would help them if they enter into clouds one day. Despite the fact that it was a real difficult situation, but because of a bit of luck( that is finding a gap to get out), the skills we have learnt at training and team work, we got out of the situation and stopped us being one of the statistics.

Whilst it is pleasing to read that many valuable lesssons were learned, it is alarming to note some fundamental lack of knowledge of the principles of flight involved.

Specifically "pitching the aircraft at a higher angle" will certainly not make the aircraft climb out of clouds quicker, unless the aircraft is pitched to and best rate of climb speed is maintained. Any other pitch angle will result in an attitude and airspeed that will degrade the rate and angle of climb and either cause an increase in airspeed, or a decrease in airspeed, as is the case here.

Lowering flap as a response to decreasing airspeed caused by excessive nose up pitch will cause a rapid increase in drag, a further degredation in airspeed, rate, and angle of climb and will totally outweigh any 'benefit' in reduced stall speed by simply causing the aircraft to reach it's stalling angle more rapidly.

If this situation were to have been managed more effectively it would have been best to have turned around sooner!

However, hindsight is a wonderful thing and the correct action after entering IMC would have been to have applied full power, transferred attention to the instruments, maintained wings level, attitude for best rate of climb, and most certainly not to have lowered flaps. (Or to have executed a level 180* reversal turn assuming there was room to do so).

Once in IMC however, you have the dilema of not knowing the nature of the terrain ahead of you, although the fact that blue sky had been visible moments before suggest that the aircraft may have climbed above the cloud tops quite quickly and have been able to have been visually navigated from then on.

Entering a wingdrop stall in these circumstances must have been terrifying to say the least and I suggest that more careful attention is paid firstly to further developing decision making skills and secondly, to the principles of flight involved here.

I believe that the average life expectancy of a non instrument trained pilot inadvertantly finding themselves in IMC is approx 73 seconds.

These pilots were very fortunate and I am pleased they are able to relay their experiences.

The weather on that day was quite good for the flight, with almost no turbulence present. There was a very stable condition, good amount of sun shine and light winds throughout the flight. However, the negative side of it was that there was fog, and low broken to overcast clouds covering certain areas due to not having wind to ‘blow’ the clouds away.

For most parts of the flight, we were able to fly as per a routine training flight. All necessary checks were done with regards to the flight, the flight plan was updated, and my fellow student pilot and I did not have any problems with the flight. We decided to leave the control airspace, and descend early at Malborough Sounds prior to reaching our destination so that we could have visual contact with the surface and remain clear of clouds.

Seeing that most areas of the valley are clear of clouds, I decided to fly through the valleys at the Sounds as that would be a shorter and direct route to Nelson instead of flying around the Western edge of the Sounds, which would take us on a longer route. Everything seemed fine while flying through the valley and we were comparing ground features with the map to navigate our way to Nelson.

As we flew, we realised that the clouds above us got lower, and we were forced to descend to a lower altitude of about 700ft above the ground to remain clear of clouds. I was not happy and comfortable with being at such a low altitude hence when I saw an opening in the clouds and being able to see the sky, I decided to climb through it to avoid terrain.

However, I inadvertently flew into the clouds and lost visual contact with the ground. Thus, I felt a need to pitch the aircraft at a higher angle, thinking that I can climb out of the clouds quicker. Unfortunately, my speed was reducing and hence I extended my flaps to reduce my stall speed. All of a sudden, the plane stalled and my left wing dropped, causing the aircraft to descend. I managed to recover the plane back to straight and level flight, and was lucky to regain visual contact again with the ground.

Realising that I was about 300ft above the ground and was close to crashing into the surrounding terrain, I climbed back up to as high as possible, and flew out of the valley to continue flying to Nelson. Thankfully with the help of my fellow student pilot, we managed to land safely at Nelson.

Upon reaching Nelson, both of us did some reflections on the flight, and learnt some important and extremely valuable lessons:
1) One should never get pressured to continue with the flight if he/she feels uncomfortable with continuing at any point of time due to safety concerns.
2) We should always have a back-up plan and a way out to solving problems, in cases such as when we can’t proceed on further for the flight under VFR.
3) As conditions are always changing, and knowing only limited information for the pre-flight and planning of the flight, we must always maintain constant situational awareness of what’s happening pertaining to the flight.
4) Think of possible consequences before considering if the intended actions are safe to carry out.
5) Manage stress by being ahead of the plane. That means knowing what to expect, being prepared for dangers, anticipating changes, and staying calm at all times.

After successfully arriving in New Plymouth and refueling, Avi then set off for Taumarunui to track overhead the airfield. When overhead Taumaranui, Avi noticed that there were heavy showers ahead of him. This was certainly unexpected as it was not reported in any of the weather briefings that he had gone through during his flight planning procedure. The dark Cb clouds ahead was highly unusual as it was reported in the area forcast that the winds were general Westerly direction and such weather phenomenon should occur on the lee side of the Mountains (Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, Ruapehu). Apparently there was a complete turnaround in wind direction that day. According to Avi, visibility was approximately 500m, way below VFR met minima for him to proceed. Avi den decided to track around the mountains to Turangi and Waioru (via Desert Road) and back to Feilding. Weather on the windward side along the Desert Road was clear and visibility was well above 10km. Avi was also worried about fuel considerations. When he actually made the diversion to Turangi, he had approximately 2 hours left of fuel (excluding reserves and unusable). After quick calculations, Avi realised that the fuel he had on board would suffice for his sector back to Feilding.

This incident shows the importance of decisive pilot action. There should be no delay in planning and tracking a diversion should one find himself in a sticky situation with bad weather ahead. Avi was only on his 2nd cross country yet he managed to plan a diverted route and make basic fuel calculations while en route. This incident also shows the importance of good map reading skills (tracking a diverted route visually). As pilots we must never hesistate make changes in our flight plan, always opting for alternatives that prioritise nothing but safety.

Read more about the dirty dozen here . http://aviationknowledge.wikidot.com/pilot:the-dirty-dozen

There is also a lack of safety measures. The school should have assigned an aircraft to follow the solo nav from a distance, for example, another aircraft on dual nav. This is to provide visual coverage and a redundant radio link incase of emergencies.

Just a question. is this classified as a case of CFIT? was bad weather involved?

Sanjay Purusottam was on a solo nav flight for him ppl and had taken off from the Sultan Ismail airport in Senai, Johor at 9.42am and was heading to the Batu Berendam airport in Malacca. He was expected to arrive in Malacca at 10.50am.

He then decided to turn his aircraft back to Senai after experiencing problems due to strong winds. The pilot obtained permission from the Department of Civil Aviation to return, only to lose contact with the Senai air traffic control tower at 10.15am, as he was flying over Benut, Pontian. Batu Berendam ATC then notified the relevant authorities when no mayday call was heard and the aircraft did not arrive as scheduled. The police, air force and Fire and Rescue Department launched a joint search and rescue operation after being notified about the incident at 12.30pm

The search and rescue teams had combed areas around Gunung Pulai, Kelapa Sawit. Pontian police had also directed villagers in Benut to look for the aircraft's whereabouts. One source states that the rescue effort was hampered by poor visibility and the precarious position of the plane. It was also mentioned in another source that initial effort to airlift him from the crash site was hampered due to thick fog. A team of rescuers found Sanjay trapped in the aircraft which was stuck nose-down on the branches of a tree in the forest at about 5pm.

Supt Zulkepfly Yahya, Kulaijaya Police Chief, said: "Around 7am in the morning, the rescue team successfully rescued him from the forest and he was straightaway brought to the Sultanah Aminah Hospital."

Emergency specialist on site mentioned that they had to keep him company and constantly engage in conversation with Sanjay to avoid him from going into shock. Sanjay suffered a fractured right thigh and a swollen right eye and is currently in stable condition.

Investigations are underway and are still uncertain of whether the accident was due to pilot error, bad weather conditions or an engine fault.

For a glimpse of the flight path, take a look at air crash map.

Lessons Learnt:

I think it can be said for all initio pilots that solo navigation is a rather challenging and at times can be highly stressful. Flying solo navs requires HEAPS of preparation (in this case, efficient turn around procedures). It was said in an online Malaysian Pilot's forum that it is normal practice in their flying clubs for students to be certified to fly solo cross country after two dual navs. In my opinion, this stance is rather laid back which puts flight safety in serious jeopardy. Regulation on such issues should be put in place to allow for sufficient practice and familiarity before pilots are sent on their solo navigational flights.

One major hindrance to rescue attempts, was the pilots lack of communication with ATC. Should he have made his mayday call, changed transponder code or activated his ELT it would certainly have expedited the process of locating the aircraft. This once again reflects poorly on the pilots training in handling emergency/distress situations.

Cheers

It was a cloudy day when I arrived at my training organisation to prepare for my solo navigational flight. From the weather radar and charts, I observed that a front was going to be over the top of the North Island by the evening. As expected with fronts, low clouds, broken around 2500 ft, and scattered at 1500ft was forecasted. It was only possible to go to areas of lower terrain. Hence the route was chosen to Omaka via Tory and back via Wellington. Since the front does not arrive till the evening, and 2500ft cloud base would be more than enough for tracking around the coast, I continued my planning. I persuaded myself that I can even just fly at the minimum legal limit of 500ft if the weather does close in. However, deep within I doubted myself. Flying at 500ft across an ocean was beyond my personal limit.

After my pre- flight preparation, I seek the duty instructor for help in weather interpretation. The duty instructor agreed that the front will only arrive in the evening according to the forecast. As for the low cloud, he asked me to go around it since it’s only forecast to be scattered. He told me that I can always ‘go and have a look’ and ‘come back if I am not happy’. Still, the decision is mine. I was not fully happy with the weather, however, I let the instructor’s words to sink in and decided to go and ‘have a look’.

As I took off and continued toward Kapiti Island, a deterioration of the visibility further south towards Wellington was obvious. However, I was ‘going to have a look’. As I arrived over Mana Island, scattered low clouds seemed to block my flight path to Tory. I began to circle over the island, trying to make up my mind whether to continue or to turn back. The ‘go and have a look’ and ‘can always turn back’ thoughts dominated my mind, and I decided to continue. I requested Wellington Control for radar monitoring and headed across the Cook Straight.

After about two minutes across cook straight, I observed some low clouds ahead of me. I decided to descend from 2500ft to 2000ft to avoid them. However, I misjudged the height of those clouds and I was forced to descend to 1500ft in order to be cleared of the clouds. I looked for ways to go around it, but saw that the clouds seemed to be closing in to my sides as well as in front. I started to panic, wandering whether I should turn back. While I was trying to make my decision, I heard a radio call to Wellington Control from another aircraft from our training organisation on a dual navigation flight, also crossing cook straight. They seemed to be perfectly fine. They weren’t turning back, then why should I? With doubt I pressed on. It was not until I realised that clouds ahead of me completely blocked my view of the south island that I realised I should turn back around. I started my turn back around and initiated a shallow descent to avoid the lowering cloud base. As I was turning back around, to my horror the clouds were closing in behind me as well! I was stuck in this hole within the cloud with not only the clouds closing in all directions, but also lowering fast. Could not go back, I headed toward Tory and started to descend faster. It was not until I was at 600ft that I could just faintly see the tops of the South Island. I tracked to that piece of land I could faintly see at 600ft. Finally through that passage I broke through clouds just North of Tory and was able to climb back up to altitude.

What if there weren’t that passage in the clouds for me to go through? What if the clouds had closed in faster and I was forced to enter IMC? What if the engine had failed at 600ft across Cook Straight? I would have no chance in gliding safely back onto land. Back on the ground, I could not stop asking myself what a close call that was. If the situation had only gotten a little more worse, or closed in a little faster, the consequence was unimaginable. As it is often said in aviation, ‘The best pilot is only as good as his judgment’. It is not about how well you can fly, but how right are the decisions that you make. My wrong decision making started from when I took off with the ‘go and have a look’ attitude, to my decision to follow the other aircraft from my training organisation across Cook Straight. The whole time I was mentally persuading myself to push beyond my own personal limit. It is so right that “carelessness and overconfidence are usually far more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks” (Wilbur Wright). The truth is that no one knows better but yourself what YOU are capable of. Therefore, it is advisable to sit down with your instructor and establish your own personal weather minima. And ALWAYS stick to it. Never have the attitude that everything will be okay, because one day it may all go wrong. After all, it is always better to be safe than to be sorry!!

If placed in the same situation , I should have requested clearance from Ohekea Control to climb to a higher altitude ensuring i was clear of the mountainous terrain as well as ensuring that i was clear of traffic as was I was not able to lookout for any.

[In behalf of SBK981A, originally posted on 22 Oct 2008]

It was a Saturday morning when myself and a mate (we had the same instructor) were due to fly on a solo pre-PPL cross-country to Napier. It was a less than average day for flying, but the plan was to fly to Napier, do a T&G and then land at Hastings for lunch before returning to Palmy. The first indication that we probably should be flying was that when we called (telephone) for clearance to park at Hastings for a few hours the guy asked if we had seen the SIGMET for severe turbulence over the lower north island… We said we had and we thought it wasn't gonna be that bad. So we got an instructor to sign us out, after a long chat whether or not to go. Looking back he signed us out in the full intention of us having to make the decision to come back due to weather. Needless to say we got hammered going throught the Gorge and it was pretty miserable on the other side, however it looked relatively clear and rainless up ahead, so we decided to keep going. We were talking to each other on an aircraft to aircraft frequency, and were constantly assessing whether or not to turn back. It looked much better up ahead than what we had flown through so I thought it best to keep going, even to the disagreement of my 'wingman'. We landed in NR and checked with ops the state of the weather in Palmy, and it was worse. So we ended up staying the night in NR and flew back the next morning.

We should have realised how bad it could have been, instead of thinking "she'll be right". Also the fact that even the people in Hastings didnt think it was fit to fly was a good indication of the conditions that side. This was a great lesson about decision making and the go/no-go decision. Even though it was a scary experience at the time I look back at it now as a good learning experience and a few laughs.

SBK981A =)

On a back-to-back solo x-country flight from chch back to palmy, we were flying over the marlbrough sounds at 5500 feet. All off a sudden the cherokee encountered some light turbulance, followed by a "sideways" dive of about 500 feet (kind of wing drop stall, but no stall)… definitely made the flight interesting!
the PiC at the time went straight to wings level, fuel pump on and full throttle trying to regain the lost height…

On a solo back to back nav, we were flying from masterton around ferry down to omaka. to the east and parallel with the mountains that encompass NZWN, we hit moderate to severe turbulence, which began to scare me and the other pilot. after about 3 or 4 mins into it, and after an attempt to outclimb it we were still experiencing it. Feeling a bit sick we had began to contemplate diverting or returning back home. after a further few minute discussion and still experiencing the turbulence we made an educated desicion that once we passed the ranges we would be passed it. From this experience we both learnt that you shouldnt be afraid to turn around dont expect invulnerability, beacauase after that experience i was feeling nauseated, air sick and really scared of the aircrafts structural strength during the periods of turbulence. Dont test fate do what you're trained to do, to make the correct descions that will ensure safety for all.

From that I learnt a lot that to be a good pilot we don't have to be panic. We have to make a good decision according to the situation around us. And also I realize that hours and experience is very important to Pilots…

[In behalf of charliemikehotel, originally posted on 22 Oct 2008]

I came across a good quote once:

"The least experienced pilots press on, while the more experienced turn back to join the most experienced who never left the ground in the first place!"

I feel that almost every pilot has been involved in situations where weather had been an issue.

I was on a navigational cross country flight with one of my mates, as a passenger. There were 3 of us, all trainee pilots. We departed Palmerston North enroute to Nelson via Woodbourne. It was one of the first few solo navigational flights and as such we were all excited, especially going somewhere (outside Palmerston North) for the very first time! The weather was marginal, forcasted to get worse later in the day and we didn't know if we could make it to Nelson, let alone Woodbourne.

Passed Paraparaumu, the weather started to deteriorate. But the PiC pushed on although the other passenger and I felt that we should turn back. The PiC said, "I have flown in worse weather than this". As we were not flying, and being merely passengers, we kept quiet although deep inside we knew we should have turned back. It was very very turbulent crossing the Cook Strait, . There was an instance where we lost about 200 feet due to the downdraught of the cumulonimbus clouds. But that did not scare the PiC one bit.

Approaching Woodbourne, we could barely make out the sounds which were to the west of the town . The PiC contacted Woodburne Tower and was given a particular arrival. Passed Blenheim township, we should have been able to see the runway easily but the visibilty was so bad that we couldn't. Looking from ground to map, the airfield should be in the vicinity but we had no visual of it. That was when the PiC decided he has had enough and felt that he should turn back.
The return trip was quite bad, but not as bad as the initial flight down. The front was moving down from the North to the South.

I am sure that almost everyone of us has been in a similar situation before. How should we as fellow pilots voice out and influence other pilots that we should turn back? Sure if you survive such an ordeal, you would be bragging that "It was really bad etc etc.. but i made it.. I'm the best pilot in the world….".
But what if we didn't?? It's not worth the risk eh!

As mentioned earlier, KDP #1 ——> Go or No Go. As they say, "The best pilots never leave the ground".
We should instill such an attitude in each and everyone of us.

It was a bright sunny afternoon of May the 15th, 2008. I had planned a solo CPL cross-country navigation flight from Palmerston North to Waiouru, Taupo (touch & go) , Napier (full stop to refuel) and back to Palmerston North. I was scheduled to depart at 2pm. I was all prepared to set off by 130pm. Unfortunately, my aircraft had not return from it's previous scheduled flight although it was due to be in on the […school's…] Apron by 1pm.

Instead of waiting around […the school…] for the aircraft to return, I approached the Duty Instructor for the day to inform him of my flight plan so that he could sign me out. He sat down with me in one of the briefing rooms and we discussed the flight. Towards the end of the discussion, he asked me which aircraft i would be in. I told him that i was waiting for the aircraft to return and that i would have to refuel it once it's back. He told me that although he was happy with my flight plan and details, he would only sign me out once the aircraft is back and refuelled.

The aircraft finally arrived at about 210pm and i managed to get the rufueller to refuel my aircraft. I was all ready to go by 220pm, already behind schedule by 20 minutes. I then looked for the Duty Instructor to sign me out. This time, he was briefing a student of his and thus i had to wait. He finally signed me out at 230pm. By now, i was worried about ECT (Evening Civil Twillight). […The school's…] SOP stated that pilots had to be back 45 minutes before ECT.

I did my flight as planned and was on the way back from Napier towards Palmerston North. As i was nearing Dannervirke, the sun was shining brightly. I didn't have sunglasses on and it was hard to see what was ahead of me. Even worse, my windscreen was not clean. It had many tiny dots of drops of water on it. i was experiencing sunstrike.

MY immediate action was to contact Ohakea Control on 125.1Mhz (controlled airspace) to request to transit the Manawatu Gorge at a higher altitude. I wasn't comfortable with going through the gorge with such reduced visibility. My request was welcomed by the radar controller. I transitted the gorge at 2500ft, well clear of the menacing windmills. I thought that it was the end of my worries but it was only the start of it.

After transitting the gorge, i was relayed on to Palmerston Tower frequency 120.6Mhz. I requested to land and they gave me a straight in Runway 25 approach. By now, the sun was starting to set and Runway 25 is pretty much a in a westerly direction. As such, the sun was directly in my eyes. I had no sight of the runway. I informed the radar controller that i had difficulty finding the runway. He understood the position i was in and tried to vector me to the runway. Finally, i had the runway in sight but i was way too high on approach. I requested to go around and came in to land on the 2nd attempt without any episodes.

It was quite an experience for me considering that one of my course mates had undergone a similar situation but he wasn't lucky enough to even spot the gorge nor the windmills. As such, he got lost and ended up abeam Levin on the eastern side of the ranges.

Below are a number of things that can be improved:

1. Pilots should stick to the scheduled timings for the aircraft (i.e depart and return at scheduled timings)
2. The Duty Instructor should be at Operations whenever he is on duty.
3. Windscreens should be cleaned prior to every flight.
4. Get a good pair of sunglasses.
5. Stick to ETA's and read ground to map features if unsure of position.