Avoidable Accidents

CFIT (pronounced see-fit) is a term you may not have heard of yet in the course of your training. It's the acronym for controlled flight into terrain. Basically, that's when a perfectly flyable airplane, for whatever reason, is inadvertently flown into the ground, water, or an obstacle.

One of the most tragic CFIT accidents occurred on a starry night in Cali, Colombia, on December 20, 1995. In that accident, a major U.S. air carrier's Boeing 757 struck an 8,900-foot summit in a valley surrounded by the Andes Mountains. It was determined that the flight crew had committed a "series of operational errors that led to the accident." Of the 163 persons on board, only four survived the crash.

This particular accident galvanized the U.S. aviation community with a renewed interest in preventing CFIT accidents. Almost overnight, CFIT awareness programs were mandated into almost every jet and turboprop pilot's training curriculum. For turbine pilots, the timing couldn't have been better - it has been estimated that CFIT now represents nearly three-quarters of all fatal turbine-aircraft accidents, far overshadowing any other cause, including midair collisions, icing, in-flight fires, wind shear, or fuel exhaustion.

But don't think that only jets and turboprops are the only aircraft susceptible to CFIT accidents. Many piston-powered general aviation aircraft are involved in CFIT accidents every year. The reports may use more familiar terms such as pilot error, scud running, or inadequate preflight planning, but the result was invariably the same: A mechanically sound aircraft flew into the ground.

CFIT occurs when a pilot loses vertical (altitude) or horizontal position awareness in relation to the ground, water, or an obstacle. This happens more often in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC, where a pilot can't see the ground) than in visual flight rules weather. However, CFIT accidents do occur when it is perfectly clear, and certain VFR operations have a greater risk of CFIT accidents.

Continued VFR Into IMC

The first scenario is "continued VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions," also known as scud running, and is probably the most common type of CFIT accident. According to the 1999 Nall Report published by the AOPA Air Safety Foundation, in 1998 some 72 percent of the fatal weather-related accidents were caused by attempted VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions. In these cases, a pilot presses on into deteriorating weather conditions instead of choosing an alternative, such as turning back, changing his route, making an off-airport precautionary landing, or declaring an emergency and requesting ATC assistance.

Alaska is home to some of the most volatile and unpredictable weather in the world. On December 7, 1999, a Cessna 207 crashed outside the city of Bethel, killing the pilot and all five passengers aboard. According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report, "The airline transport pilot departed on a CFR Part 135 scheduled passenger flight to a remote coastal village. When the flight did not return, an aerial search was initiated. The wreckage was located the following day along the pilot's intended route, about 49 miles from the departure airport. The airplane had collided with flat, featureless, snow-covered terrain."

During the investigation, the NTSB talked to another pilot who had departed about one minute after the accident airplane and had a similar route of flight. That pilot said that "as he approached the area of the accident, he encountered 'a wall of weather' starting from the ground, with tops at 1,500 feet. He added that visibility was low, with fog and varied layers of cloud cover. The pilot stated that he changed his route in order to avoid the worsening weather conditions." The aircraft was functioning normally as far as the board could determine.

This case brings up a few key points. First, even though the accident occurred at approximately 1 p.m. local time, under the weather conditions existing at that time the pilot may not have been able to discern any visible difference between the terrain, the horizon, and the sky. At the time of the accident, ceilings were characterized as overcast layers ranging from 2,500 and 4,500 feet, and visibility was low with fog and varied layers of cloud cover. This type of weather can cause a condition known as whiteout, whereby the fog, snow, and flat, featureless, snow-covered terrain become one. A pilot encountering such conditions would be forced to quickly switch from using outside visual references to instrument references in order to maintain aircraft control. To return to VFR conditions, a pilot would have to take immediate corrective action by climbing, descending, or turning.