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Situational Awareness


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One of the things I used to stress on check rides was situational awareness. I'd take the airways chart from the pilot and hand it to the FE and ask him to point to where we were. A few had no idea; which brings me to the point of this post. Last Friday afternoon, a McGuire C-17 landed at Peter O. Knight airport which has a 3,580' runway. It was supposed to land at MacDill AFB's 11.421' runway. The airplane stopped with the nosewheel a few feet short of the end of the runway and, since the 100' wide runway was too narrow to turn around, they backed down the entire runway. It had 23 passengers and 19 crewmembers. Was no one looking outside? The runways have basically the same orientation, but Peter O. Knight is on an island in Tampa Bay! A sure career-ender for a few pilots, at least.

Oh, by the way, the aircraft departed for the short hop to MacDill later Friday evening.

Don R.

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I had the dubious honor of landing at the wrong airport once.

We were supposed to land at Langley but we ended up at Navy Norfolk and just to ice the cake on this FU we had the TAC IG team onboard; we were taking them home following our ORI.

Nothing like having to ask Langley ON THE RADIO "where are we" and getting the answer "we trying to find you right now"

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Well, I can understand this, with 19 crewmembers, nobody could see outside................... Let's see, if I'm correct the -17 doesn't have a nav and an FE????

Yeah go figure huh? ROFLMAO. :rolleyes: Crash at EDF and now this that was almost deadly. Yep, flying without an FE and NAV makes a lot of sense. Either one would have been screaming so loud you wouldn't need an interphone connection.

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W can't land here, my Form F wouldn't be correct!!!!!!!!!! Big deal on the take-off. ol Herk woulda taken off, landed, backed and went again in that distance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! once ended up way over in North Carolina on a drop rout to Blackstone,from Langley, once, though!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NC school buses were a different color than VA ones at that time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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After the Jackson Hole crash the TERPS training got started and then it was implemented. The AF started flying Herks like an airliner. Instead of going about things after the Jackson Hole incident the way it was IMHO making a better crew briefing standard was a better way. Having the FE review the location of obstructions relative to the runway on takeoff, the height(s), and the distance(s) and have them run the numbers will give everyone a better situation awareness. Sometimes ATC will kill you if you let them. ATC assumed a Herk could clear the mountain near Jackson Hole because corporate jets did it al the time.

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It was an E model and had a FE. The crew day was involuntarily extended for "presidential support" after Clinton vacationed there and there was some equipment to be piceked up. One or two secret service agents were on the plane. After take off ATC directed them to fly towards the mountain they hit. It was a young crew that had been on the road for several days and then that day was extended because no one says no to "presidential support". The AF reaction was to use a climb gradient for take off and use TERPS. Sometimes the climb gradient wouldn't allow you to takeoff when the performance charts said you would miss the obstacle on two engines. A sad mishap caused by a simple mistake and then an over reaction to it. A better standard for a crew briefing and flight planning would have been a far better fix.

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It was an E model and had a FE. The crew day was involuntarily extended for "presidential support" after Clinton vacationed there and there was some equipment to be piceked up. One or two secret service agents were on the plane. After take off ATC directed them to fly towards the mountain they hit. It was a young crew that had been on the road for several days and then that day was extended because no one says no to "presidential support". The AF reaction was to use a climb gradient for take off and use TERPS. Sometimes the climb gradient wouldn't allow you to takeoff when the performance charts said you would miss the obstacle on two engines. A sad mishap caused by a simple mistake and then an over reaction to it. A better standard for a crew briefing and flight planning would have been a far better fix.

I was referring to the C-17, but you are correct about KJAC. They have had a lot of runway overruns there as well. It's getting to be an FAA hotspot. My company even made takeoff there part of my last sim ride.

I remember going TDY up to Charlie West out of Pope and working with the WV guard. Fun flyin!

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  • 4 weeks later...

One of the things I used to stress on check rides was situational awareness. I'd take the airways chart from the pilot and hand it to the FE and ask him to point to where we were. A few had no idea; which brings me to the point of this post. Last Friday afternoon, a McGuire C-17 landed at Peter O. Knight airport which has a 3,580' runway. It was supposed to land at MacDill AFB's 11.421' runway. The airplane stopped with the nosewheel a few feet short of the end of the runway and, since the 100' wide runway was too narrow to turn around, they backed down the entire runway. It had 23 passengers and 19 crewmembers. Was no one looking outside? The runways have basically the same orientation, but Peter O. Knight is on an island in Tampa Bay! A sure career-ender for a few pilots, at least.

Oh, by the way, the aircraft departed for the short hop to MacDill later Friday evening.

Don R.

That and the fact that McDill is only about 10,000 feet long and 300 feet wide. Might be tough to make that mistake if you're paying attention.

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