AAY emergency landing. KSFB

[stfitts]

Anyone have the clip of the AAy flight coming down in SFB??

[Biff]

Video is here.

I'm editing up the clip now.  Almost 2 hours of recordings with lots of dead air to sort thru.

Here's a teaser for now....

[Biff]

Ok, here it is.   It's a long clip - 6:33

There's a seaplane driver that gets really pissed for being vectored around the airspace.

I cut out lots of silence and most of the transmissions to/from all the news choppers that were hovering around like vultures.

Also bleeped out the tower phone number at the end.

[Aardvark]

Really appreciate it - While I understand the thinking of the seaplane there was NO reason for him to be such a punk about it. Rules are rules - the tower is not doing it to be mean.

[cactushp]

It is unfortunate that the seaplane pilot failed to understand that their was actually an emergency going on at the airport, specifically an air carrier, which gains presidence over a seaplane, anyways. The pilot acted as if the controller himself decided out of the blue that he would vector the seaplane out of the way. The explanation by the controller on why the vector was needed was very clear, yet the pilot still did not comprehend the situation in full.

Very professional job by controller.

[Miyridian]

Wow, that seaplane guy is a real idiot. No excuses for that kind of behavior.

[inigo88]

Dumbass! Listening to that pilot was like watching a trainwreck. It's people like him that give the rest of us a bad name, not to mention ceding ground to opponents of general aviation who want to further restrict airspace and close smaller airports.

I'm completely angered and horrified by that exchange...

[mfries]

wow that seaplane =\

[Biff]

I should point out at the 5:04 mark you hear the controller say "looks good", and one of the helo pilots say "looks good from this side too".  This was in response to the landing.

Also, the Lake Jessup the seaplane driver keeps mentioning is entirely inside Sanford's class C.  If he was over any part of the lake, then he was inside the airspace.  He was told to circumnavigate the class C and he violated that by flying over the lake.

[KSYR-pjr]

All the irate pilot had to do was drop below 1,300 feet and he would have been below class C airspace (once past the inner ring surrounding the airport) and free to turn to the north much earlier.   Of course, he most likely didn't have a sectional chart handy to know that and therefore came across the dolt that he made himself out to be.

edit:  Added note about inner ring for clarification

[Biff]

I believe he was already at 500 or below, but SFB's class C goes to the surface in the area he was in.  Lake Jessup is the big lake to the southeast of the airport.  The controller was trying to get him outside the inner ring.

I think he did have either a sectional or a GPS on board.  When he did finally clear the airspace you hear him say "we're showing outside your airspace so we're turning north now.  goodbye".   And then of course he went on another 2 minutes trying to argue with the controller.   

[KSYR-pjr]

Lake Jessup is the big lake to the southeast of the airport.  The controller was trying to get him outside the inner ring.

Ah, my mistake.  I didn't know the area and assumed that Lake Jessup was the next lake over to the east there.  My Jepp Flightstar software didn't have the names on the lakes when I looked at the airspace. 

So what was he complaining about then?  Going a few miles more to the east.  Come on....

Thanks for the correction.

[KSYR-pjr]

I think he did have either a sectional or a GPS on board.  When he did finally clear the airspace you hear him say "we're showing outside your airspace so we're turning north now.  goodbye".

Didn't see your above comment when I originally replied.  In regards to having a GPS on board, whether it were a handheld or a certified IFR unit, either unit doesn't necessarily  display altitudes of class B and C airspaces without some extra keystroke and/or pointer manipulation.  Thus, I agree he would be aware of the borders via the moving map but not the altitudes. 

Of course, now that we are talking about the inner ring, altitude is irrelevant since the class C airspace there starts at the ground and goes all the way to the class B airspace at 3,000 feet. 

How about some math to further demonstrate this pilot was nothing but a whiner.  That inner ring is only 10 nm wide from west to east.  He mentioned he was approaching from the southwest so lets call his diversion 7 nm direct east and perhaps 7 to the north (two sides of a triangle, rather than the base) until he was back on course, as opposed to a direct line of 10 miles northeast.  Thus, he actually flew about 4 miles greater than his preferred route. 

Landings.com reports that his tail ID is a Maule M-7-235B that burns about 14 gallons per hour.  Assuming a ground speed of 110 knots, it took our wayward friend an extra 2 minutes to fly the extra 4 nm.  Two minutes at 14 gallons per hour equates to an extra 1/2 gallon of fuel used to divert.

Lets assume an above-average US $5.00 per gallon of 100 LL aviation fuel (average 100LL in the US is around $3.90/gal).  That would mean our friend spent an extra US $2.50 to go around the airspace. 

[Biff]

lol...  That's about right.

If he had circumnavigated the class C as he was told, instead of boring straight into it, it wouldn't have been all that much of a diversion.  His destination was Lake Ashby which is northeast of the airport.  It would have only required a slight bend in his route to avoid the airspace.

I wonder if he called the tower today.  Wish I had a recording of that.   

[Ben Diss]

I agree that the seaplane pilot was a dolt.

Did the controller use the correct verbiage or should he have said "remain clear of the class C airspace"?  I ask that because I wonder why they wouldn't have been pissed at the guy and reported him for a violation?  Did miss something in that regard?

[Studentpilo]

Seaplane is a complete moron. I have no idea what that man was thinking when he made those transmissions. When ATC tells you something YOU DO IT. I don't care if its inconvenient, if it does not risk safety on your flight, you do it even if you don't understand it. Seaplane needs ground work on radio etiquette big time.

[corny357]

This seaplane guy pissed me off so badly that I found who he was.  If anyone else wants his phone number to have a word, just PM me.  I'm sure I'm not allowed to post it publicly here. 

Want to know the sad part?  He's got an ATP with type ratings on the 737 and DC-9.  Obviously retired airline captain.  Maybe they need to extend the retirement age from 60 to something higher, but certainly not for this guy.

[KSYR-pjr]

When ATC tells you something YOU DO IT. I don't care if its inconvenient, if it does not risk safety on your flight, you do it even if you don't understand it. Seaplane needs ground work on radio etiquette big time.

Ummm, not so fast.  Trust, but verify.  Controllers have been known to make mistakes that sent aircraft into mountains, other aircraft, or into the teeth of thunderstorm cells.  If a pilot does not understand an instruction, he/she is obligated to request clarification.   

In no way am I defending the pilot of this clip.  Instead, my point is that we pilots have an obligation to fully understand a controller's instruction to be absolutely sure it fits into our situational awareness of the flight.  A pilot who blindly or mechanically follows a controller's instruction is potentially setting him/herself up for a very bad day.   

 

[KSYR-pjr]

This seaplane guy pissed me off so badly that I found who he was.  If anyone else wants his phone number to have a word, just PM me.  I'm sure I'm not allowed to post it publicly here. 

Relax.  While this certainly was not general aviation's finest hour, there is nothing to be gained by embarrassing this pilot. 

[Biff]

It's not hard to find who's the owner of that airplane.  It doesn't mean he was the one flying it that day.

But yea, whoever he was, he embarrassed himself enough.  No one got hurt.  No need to go vigilante on him. 

[Miyridian]

Ummm, not so fast.  Trust, but verify.  Controllers have been known to make mistakes that sent aircraft into mountains, other aircraft, or into the teeth of thunderstorm cells.  If a pilot does not understand an instruction, he/she is obligated to request clarification.   

Did the controller not specify that there was an emergency in progress? That would tell me all that I needed to know.

[KSYR-pjr]

Did the controller not specify that there was an emergency in progress? That would tell me all that I needed to know.

Again, I repeat:  My comments were NOT a defense for the pilot in the clip.  I was responding to Student Pilot's specific words in his post that stated, "When ATC tells you something YOU DO IT... even if you do not understand it."



 

[Miyridian]

Understood and agreed. Sorry about the confusion.

[Studentpilo]

Did the controller not specify that there was an emergency in progress? That would tell me all that I needed to know.

Again, I repeat:  My comments were NOT a defense for the pilot in the clip.  I was responding to Student Pilot's specific words in his post that stated, "When ATC tells you something YOU DO IT... even if you do not understand it."



 

I should have been more specific. If there is an emergency on freq and ATC specifically tells you he needs to do something for that emergency, you do it. Emergency aircraft come first no matter what/

[KSYR-pjr]

I should have been more specific. If there is an emergency on freq and ATC specifically tells you he needs to do something for that emergency, you do it. Emergency aircraft come first no matter what/

Yep, in this particular case you are completely correct.   The controller made it extremely clear to the dolt of a pilot that there was an emergency IN PROGRESS.  After his diversion, the pilot makes the asinine comment that HE didn't see how HIS aircraft would have interfered with the emergency in progress, as if this goof had an air traffic radar on board his little Maule that depicted all aircraft around him.

In listening to that clip I picked up that the emergency aircraft was landing TO THE EAST and already called one go-around that resulted in a runway heading/maintain 2,000 feet altitude instruction straight out to the east.  If you look at Biff's sectional image he posted earlier in this topic, you will see that a runway heading go-around on runway 9 Left a second time would have placed the emergency aircraft right into the path of the Maule had the Maule been allowed to cut through the inner ring of the class C just to the east of the airport.  As controllers are not fortune tellers and couldn't predict a successful landing on the second attempt, they kept all options open by ensuring nothing else was in the airspace to the east of the airport.

So perhaps it turned out that the emergency aircraft did land and that the "sterile" airspace requirement exceeded the emergency by a minute or so (note the sarcasm here).  For a paltry $2.50 (see this cost of the pilot's diversion calculated earlier) the Maule pilot got to make a complete a$$ out of himself over public airways and suffer even more ego bruising right here in this board.