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Do you have any thoughts on the Cirrus accident?

There is a lot of speculation about accident causes in this podcast, but I appreciate Jason's bluntness about personal minimums for flight in a SEL plane over mountainous terrain at night. That's as good a place as any for a newbie like myself to start...and then heap on extra security to boot!

But I can speak from experience on one issue in the podcast which is the terrain involved. Having lived in Colorado for 14 years, 4 of them in the ski areas, I know Kremmling. It sits in a high mountain "park" area between the Gore range and the Front range, I'm guessing at about 7K to 8K' elevation. (For the ski buffs, it's an hour south of Steamboat and an hour north of Summit County.) So there's an added density altitude consideration in addition to the icing that Jason hypothesizes. All that, with dark skies and hills all around, would make it a pretty nasty place to be if you're not very familiar with the terrain.

It's nice to hear from somebody who knows the area.

Thanks.

_________________
"To Live is To Fly" - Townes VanZandt
www.thefinerpoints.net
jason@thefinerpoints.net

I fly out of JeffCo, the destination for the SR20 in the report. Those are some serious peaks between McElroy and JeffCo, most of them around or above 13,000'. The pilot was smart to at least ask to divert. Too bad it was to 20V.

McElroy field elevation is 7411', which makes for a density altitude of 8565' at 30.34" and 15C temp. Runway 3-27 is ~5500', not a problem according to the SR20 specs. The bigger problem is terrain. Almost due west, 8nm, is a 10,500' peak; Almost due north, 4nm, is a 9,100' peak; and southwest also 4nm is a 9,400' peak. A quick look at the sectional shows that you don't have much room to maneuver. It's gorgeous up that way in the daytime, but I wpuldn't want to even think about trying it after dark - even in good weather.

I have to agree with Moski on Jason's comments. I'm still a VERY green student pilot, but my CFI has already drilled into me to ALWAYS know my limits and the limits of my aircraft. Better to be on the ground wishing you were flying than in the air wishing you were on the ground.

I'm nowhere near experienced enough to make any judgements, just wanted to add some more local info to the discussion. Hope they help.

For someone who used to love to fly in the mountains at night, I always looked for a clear night when there was at the least a partial moon. And the statement that you need daylight so that you can find a place to land if your engine goes out. Well yes but I hate to tell any one who has ever flown in the mountains. There is no good place to land most of the time, day or night is not going to change that. I would always like to find the highest peek and stay above that when ever I few over at night. Now I know that it is not possible in Colorado but, you need to stay as high as you can. One thing that I have learned is it is better to fly through turbulence then decide to land to get out of it. And that goes for sure in the mountains. Also if it is bad turbulence up at the mountain peaks it is going to be very bad as you descend down and have all of that air falling on top of you. Yes he could have had icing and he could have had a whole lot of air coming down off the mountain. I been in this same type of situation once and I never want to repeat it. You learn better to stay up there and get to a place that you know the terrain. Then go to a unfamiliar airport in the mountains at night. The plane will not break up on you even if the turbulence is very heavy. I know you get a head ache from bumping your head on the roof of the plane but that is a much better then landing and hitting something.

I would have liked some explanation of what the NTSB report meant when it described all the damage to the airplane -- wings delaminating, propeller breaking off, angle of crash 250 degrees, etc. Jason read this with great care in the podcast.

It's all easy enough to visualize, but what is the significance of these details? If a plane crashes, I would expect damage to the exposed parts. But, should we read something special into the kinds of damage this plane suffered and which Jason specifically enumerated?

Did the pilot recognize his problem and try to avoid it? Or did he fly into terrain as a total surprise?