Discussion for article #242745
Two pilots on board and they hit wires? Why would they be so low? Visibility? Presumably that’s why they have instrument approaches. Power lines are not a common aviation hazard as far as I am aware. Something must be very wrong about the procedures being followed by those pilots.
1 Like
Not all airports have instrument approaches, in fact most don’t. But to your point my guess this will be ruled pilot error unless they find that their instruments were malfunctioning. If the wires were that close in to the approach as to be a hazard they would have been clearly marked on the pilots airport info card.
A little premature for definitively blaming pilots at this point. The one witness they quoted said the plane “dropped out of the sky, veered and crashed”. A number of things could cause that to happen. But from that description, that does not sound like they were low (at power line level) on approach, they were still 2 miles from the airport. It says they clipped power lines, but that does not mean the power line impact caused the crash. Sounds more like when it dropped and veered, it hit power lines.
Yes, it might turn out to be pilot error (visibility was only a mile and a half) and this witness might not have described it totally accurate, but I’d like a little more info before definitively blaming the pilots.
Edit: Looks like there is some surveillance video of the crash, but hard to see much. But it does appear it is more “plunging”, not that it was low flying and clipped lines. But that needs to be examined further.
1 Like