Accident Report: Foggy night in Blue Earth

Numerous accident reports tell the tales of pilots who flew in marginal VFR (MVFR) conditions that progressed to instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). Controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) sometimes results, although statistics demonstrate that many such flights satisfy only the “FIT” part of the acronym.

In either case, visual flight into weather that isn’t playing ball is a continuing problem for general aviation.

That, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, is despite the fact that “about two-thirds of general aviation accidents that occur in reduced visibility weather conditions are fatal. The accidents can involve pilot spatial disorientation or controlled flight into terrain.”

The NTSB included that statistic in a discussion of “Preventing Similar Accidents, Reduced Visual References Require Vigilance,” which was appended to a report of a CFIT accident that occurred a mile from the airport in Blue Earth, Minnesota, at about 10 p.m. April 2, 2017.

A Cessna 182 single-engine airplane with the aircraft’s owner, 56—a student pilot—in the left seat, an instrument-rated private pilot, 67, in the right seat, and a teenage rear-seat occupant departed an airport in the Minneapolis area into marginal visual conditions and headed south. The weather was still marginal when the flight, aided by GPS and electronic flight bag technology, arrived in the vicinity of Blue Earth Municipal Airport, the NTSB report said.

Flying with advanced navigation capabilities seduces some pilots to take risks they would not likely have assumed in their absence.“The pilot reported that, while approaching the destination airport in night, marginal visual meteorological conditions, he turned on the pilot-controlled runway lights,” according to the accident report narrative. “He added that he began a descent to the runway without observing the runway lights or airport and encountered ‘ground fog’ about 200 to 300 feet above ground level (agl).”

The airplane hit terrain while in a left turn about a mile south of the runway, resulting, fortunately, in only minor injuries to the front-seaters and no injury to the rear-seat passenger, described in a newspaper account as the student pilot’s 13-year-old son. A photograph with the news story showed the airplane nose down in a foggy cornfield, with first responders and an ambulance on the scene.

The NTSB report added that the pilot, not seeing the airport, continued the descent “while referencing the navigational moving map and GPS altitude on his electronic flight bag (EFB) application.” The report added that while en route, the pilot had “reset his airplane-installed barometric pressure altimeter to the GPS altitude indicated on his EFB,” which resulted in a 300-foot error.

The NTSB included data from an automated weather observing station located about 14 nautical miles west of Blue Earth. It recorded visibility of 2.5 statute miles, light rain, mist, and an overcast cloud ceiling at 300 feet agl.

The NTSB assigned as the accident’s probable cause the pilot’s decision “to continue the night, visual flight into instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in controlled flight into terrain while on final approach.” It added a contributing factor of “the pilot’s improper use of an electronic flight bag.”

The greater ease and efficiency of flying with ever-more advanced navigation capabilities has always had as its alter ego a seductive ability to coax some pilots into taking risks that they would not likely have assumed in their absence. A blind descent toward an unseen runway on a foggy night might well be one.

If you are the kind of pilot who would never let MVFR lure you into IMC, risking CFIT, promise yourself and the future occupants of your aircraft that you won’t downgrade your safety standards when you upgrade your navigational technology.