Page 28 - Mar17ABS

Low-visibility takeoffs are lost in practice. We don’t spend much time training and reviewing them, and we don’t track our proficiency in low-vis departures by logging and tracking the number we fly or practice.
accelerating and descending as it turned about 20 degrees to the left to a heading of 200 degrees, followed immediately by a turn to the right. By 2238:38, when the airplane was about 4.8 nm from MDW, the airplane had descended about 700 ft to an altitude of 1,500 ft MSL. The airplane then began climbing. As the climb was initiated, a left turn was also initiated. The left turn continued while the radius of the turn decreased until the end of the radar data. During the final left turn, the airplane initially climbed about 400 feet, descended about 400 feet, and then climbed again about 1,300 feet before reaching a peak altitude of 2,800 ft MSL at 2239:24. At this time the airplane was about 5.9 nm from MDW and about 0.1 nm from the accident site. The final radar data point was at 2239:29 at a recorded altitude of 2400 ft about 6 nm southwest of MDW. The calculated rate of descent between the final two radar points exceeded 5,000 ft per minute.
The pilot held a private pilot certificate with single-engine land, multiengine land and instrument airplane ratings. The pilot received his multi-engine rating about eight months earlier. He had 417 hours of total flight experience, including 114 hours of multiengine experience.
Lost in Practice
Instrument training and evaluation is weighted heavily toward arrival and approach procedures. We log the number and type of approaches we fly, and consider precisely flying an arrival procedure the ultimate test of our IFR ability — even if we let an autopilot do the job for us, albeit under the pilot’s watchful eye.
26 • TWIN & TURBINE
Way down on the training/evaluation priorities list, however, is practice and proficiency in flying departure procedures.
Low-visibility takeoffs are lost in practice. We don’t spend much time training and reviewing them, and we don’t track our proficiency in low-vis departures by logging and tracking the number we fly or practice. When called upon to make an IFR or marginal VFR night takeoff, our skills are often far less polished, and we frequently have far less recent experience in flying the procedure.
False Climb
Compounding the challenge of low-visibility and sometimes high-workload departures is a physiological hazard known as the “somatogravic” or “false climb” illusion. The Flight Safety Foundation identifies somatogravic illusion as the result of fluid moving in a pilot’s inner ear when an aircraft accelerates. We sense this motion as a pitching movement upward — a false sensation of climbing. Without a good natural horizon and if inattentive to or distracted from the instruments, this sensation can cause us to want to push forward on the yoke to “recover” from the false climb. They force the airplane downward because we think it is going up too steeply or too rapidly. I suspect this was a primary factor in the Bonanza’s early-morning dark IMC departure, and could have played a part in one or both of the other cited crashes.
Fatigue
In our three examples pilot fatigue is a big unknown. In both the Citation and Baron crashes, the owner-pilot flew a plane full of passengers to a sporting event in the early evening, then lost control during a late-night departure after the game. The NTSB has not published any data, but I’m betting these pilots didn’t get out of bed just before the trip. More likely they spent a full day at the office before going to the airport — crashing 15 or more hours after they woke up. In the early-morning Bonanza crash, again we have no idea, but a 5 a.m. airport showtime might mean the pilot had an abbreviated sleep period the night before.
Spool-Up
Here’s a conundrum: you might be tired and a little worn- out by the time you begin an instrument approach at the end of a flight, but you have plenty of time to get “into the groove” and prepared for a low-visibility arrival. You have no way of knowing for certain you’re up to speed for an IMC departure, however, until you’re in the air and in the clouds, fairly slow while at a high angle of attack close to the ground. There isn’t any spool-up time before a low-vis takeoff to get the feel for the airplane, or to catch any missed briefing or checklist items.
A common personal minimum is to require weather to be at least circling minimums for takeoff, in part to provide a greater margin if you find yourself a little behind the airplane during this unpredictable spool-up time.
Departure Control
All three pilots had fairly low time in type. But the Citation and Baron pilots both passed check rides not too long before
March 2017