Author Topic: Iced up pitot tube results in confusion, possible task overload for pilot  (Read 14835 times)

Offline KSYR-pjr

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I turned on the Syracuse, NY, feed tonight around 6:20pm local time to hear a pilot thanking the tower controller for getting him in safely.  Wondering what had just happened, I waited until the 23z archive appeared on LiveATC and then downloaded it to take a listen.  In it I discovered this interesting clip.

A pilot was flying his Bonanza up from a nearby airport at night in light snow and rain with a ceiling of 1800 feet AGL.  At first all was normal and he reports a pirep of no icing.  However, after a controller position change he reports that he is losing power and needs to get in.  The controller begins vectoring him onto the localizer when the aircraft drifts off the localizer and also loses some altitude.  I must admit that to me this incident had some of the characteristics of the fatal Angel Flight accident that happened last August in Boston.

Fortunately all ends well.  Kudos to the controller who immediately recognized the urgency and provided exceptional service to this pilot.

Again, note that there is a position change at the beginning of the approximately 4 minute clip (from a male to a female controller).  Clip has been edited with the removal of dead air and non-essential communications.  Also note that the handoff from approach to tower was not in the clip (another transmission on another frequency superseded it).



Offline ftlurker

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Re: Iced up pitot tube results in confusion, possible task overload for pilot
« Reply #1 on: November 24, 2008, 11:51:26 PM »
Outstanding work by all ATCers, most especially the female controller who truly performed remarkably IMHO.

Great clip thanks!

Offline Аэрофлот Jr.

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Re: Iced up pitot tube results in confusion, possible task overload for pilot
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2008, 06:30:45 AM »
I turned on the Syracuse, NY, feed tonight around 6:20pm local time to hear a pilot thanking the tower controller for getting him in safely.  Wondering what had just happened, I waited until the 23z archive appeared on LiveATC and then downloaded it to take a listen.  In it I discovered this interesting clip.

A pilot was flying his Bonanza up from a nearby airport at night in light snow and rain with a ceiling of 1800 feet AGL.  At first all was normal and he reports a pirep of no icing.  However, after a controller position change he reports that he is losing power and needs to get in.  The controller begins vectoring him onto the localizer when the aircraft drifts off the localizer and also loses some altitude.  I must admit that to me this incident had some of the characteristics of the fatal Angel Flight accident that happened last August in Boston.

Fortunately all ends well.  Kudos to the controller who immediately recognized the urgency and provided exceptional service to this pilot.

Again, note that there is a position change at the beginning of the approximately 4 minute clip (from a male to a female controller).  Clip has been edited with the removal of dead air and non-essential communications.  Also note that the handoff from approach to tower was not in the clip (another transmission on another frequency superseded it).

great clip ! thanks

Offline aevins

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Re: Iced up pitot tube results in confusion, possible task overload for pilot
« Reply #3 on: November 25, 2008, 09:54:00 AM »
It's possible we see this again at the next Archie League awards  :-)

Offline goowe

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Re: Iced up pitot tube results in confusion, possible task overload for pilot
« Reply #4 on: November 25, 2008, 10:12:22 AM »
Aww, great recording! Thanks for putting it together.

It's great to hear that everyone performed well; I like the sincerity of the pilot's thank you! :)

Offline Squawk 7700

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Re: Iced up pitot tube results in confusion, possible task overload for pilot
« Reply #5 on: November 25, 2008, 03:51:54 PM »
Great teamwork!
Thanks for posting. :-)

Offline bcrosby

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Re: Iced up pitot tube results in confusion, possible task overload for pilot
« Reply #6 on: November 25, 2008, 04:09:54 PM »
I hate to say it but...

The decision to even fly in that type of precipitation seems like a poor decision. Rain/Snow mix, with temperatures hovering around freezing at low altitudes spell disaster.

Glad everything in the end worked out though. Hopefully the pilot learned his lesson.

Offline beechsundowner

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Re: Iced up pitot tube results in confusion, possible task overload for pilot
« Reply #7 on: November 25, 2008, 05:51:46 PM »
I hate to say it but...

The decision to even fly in that type of precipitation seems like a poor decision. Rain/Snow mix, with temperatures hovering around freezing at low altitudes spell disaster.

Glad everything in the end worked out though. Hopefully the pilot learned his lesson.

Agree IF THE weather did not move in sooner then expected.  I checked the weather conditions before and it was not good for single engines ops not certified for ice.  Even worse, it looked like he try to "pick his way" through the weather unless it was truly coincidental the vectors were between the precip echos.

Do Bo's have deicing boots on their wings?

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N3448B/history/20081124/2300Z/KOIC/KSYR

The reason I say IF THE weather did not move in sooner is that his outbound leg, the weather was NE of his flight track http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N3448B/history/20081124/1645Z/KSYR/KOIC

If the weather indeed did catch him off guard, I am the first one to understand, as I found myself once in a pickle for un-forecasted weather that required ATC assistance and I am VERY conservative in my go decisions.

See http://discussions.flightaware.com/viewtopic.php?t=4004&start=0 for my experiences and request for address to send compliments for good ATC services.

Videos do speak a 1000 words and links are within the URL above for what I experienced.  Unfortunately prior flights are having issues with displaying flight paths on the links provided in the link above.

Just have to love it when the system works!

Offline keith

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Re: Iced up pitot tube results in confusion, possible task overload for pilot
« Reply #8 on: November 25, 2008, 05:53:03 PM »
I'm relieved to hear this ended well, it sure sounded like it had the makings of something more sinister.  All that said, is it just me, or does it seem like there were an awful lot of deviations from assigned heading and altitude all because of an airspeed indicator? Perhaps he was spending a lot of time trying to work out if there was an icing issue, but it seems to me, in that type of aircraft, and given his proximity to the ground, his options were limited, and given that he was already on the approach, it would've been better to concentrate on flying correctly and getting down ASAP on the approach.

I do give a lot of credit to ATC who gave him a lot of leeway and tried to head off any problems the moment they started to develop.  He's very lucky that the airspace wasn't busy, or his deviations may have been cause for concern.

At the very least, we can try to put ourselves in his shoes and benefit from his experience.  If this happens to me, I'll try to remember this, and focus on flying as efficiently as possible to get the plane down quickly. It's GREAT that he contacted ATC, informed them of the apparently problem, and asked to be brought down quickly. That is a very good first step.

Offline beechsundowner

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Re: Iced up pitot tube results in confusion, possible task overload for pilot
« Reply #9 on: November 25, 2008, 06:02:53 PM »
I'm relieved to hear this ended well, it sure sounded like it had the makings of something more sinister.  All that said, is it just me, or does it seem like there were an awful lot of deviations from assigned heading and altitude all because of an airspeed indicator? Perhaps he was spending a lot of time trying to work out if there was an icing issue, but it seems to me, in that type of aircraft, and given his proximity to the ground, his options were limited, and given that he was already on the approach, it would've been better to concentrate on flying correctly and getting down ASAP on the approach.

All conjecture on my part with headings, but maybe with the ceilings near his flight level he tried to stay VMC warranting the turns and the sudden drop in altitude?  Weather below is from http://www.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KSYR.html

24   22:54   SE 10   10.00    Light Rain   OVC023   36   33           29.78   1008.5      
24   21:54   SE 14   10.00   Light Rain   BKN020 OVC026   36   33          29.81   1009.5   
24   20:54   SE 17 G 21   9.00   Light Rain   BKN017 OVC023   35   32          29.83   1010.4   
24   19:54   SE 14   9.00   Light Rain Snow   BKN016 OVC024   35   32          29.86      
24   18:54   SE 15   9.00   Light Snow Rain   FEW015 BKN020 OVC026   35   32    39   34   

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Iced up pitot tube results in confusion, possible task overload for pilot
« Reply #10 on: November 25, 2008, 06:09:04 PM »
The decision to even fly in that type of precipitation seems like a poor decision. Rain/Snow mix, with temperatures hovering around freezing at low altitudes spell disaster.

My take on this incident is that it was not caused by anything as sinister as ice build-up on all the leading edges.  Instead, it was more likely caused by something as relatively harmless as impact snow blocking the pitot tube.  Of course, this could have been prevented had the pilot used the pitot heat much earlier.   A good habit to roll into one's pre-takeoff checklist is to always flip on the pitot heat if departing IFR when temps on the ground are 45 degrees F or so.  

In terms of the comments about the pilot's deviations, it seems to me that the pilot probably got distracted by the airspeed indicator and then fell behind the aircraft on approach, resulting in both heading and altitude deviations.

I had my Bonanza's pitot heat fail once while flying in snow at night.  The first indication that the heat was no longer melting the snow was a slowly declining airspeed indicator, but of course it took a bit of thought to come to that conclusion.   It definitely was a good experience about how to troubleshoot and then disregard the bad instrument.

Offline beechsundowner

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Re: Iced up pitot tube results in confusion, possible task overload for pilot
« Reply #11 on: November 25, 2008, 06:24:15 PM »
In terms of the comments about the pilot's deviations, it seems to me that the pilot probably got distracted by the airspeed indicator and then fell behind the aircraft on approach, resulting in both heading and altitude deviations.

I initially thought the same, but the immediate climb instruction from the approach controller was AFTER the pilot reported the ASI was back in service.  Most of the heading deviations also were after the airspeed pilot reported it was back at 2.33 into the clip.  Controller asked three times after and pilot confirmed three times he had the ASI working after he reported no ASI.

Thus why I thought he was playing dodge with IMC.  Altitude would be consistent with the reported broken deck.

Like you say above, he probably fell behind the plane which I am sure excasperated the turns and altitude deviations even after getting his ASI.

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Iced up pitot tube results in confusion, possible task overload for pilot
« Reply #12 on: November 25, 2008, 06:39:07 PM »
In terms of the comments about the pilot's deviations, it seems to me that the pilot probably got distracted by the airspeed indicator and then fell behind the aircraft on approach, resulting in both heading and altitude deviations.

I initially thought the same, but the immediate climb instruction from the approach controller was AFTER the pilot reported the ASI was back in service.  Most of the heading deviations also were after the airspeed pilot reported it was back at 2.33 into the clip. 

Right.  Despite the ASI coming back online, it seemed to me that too much was happening too quickly.  Assuming no icing or other critical concern, there is no harm for us pilots when realizing that we are behind the aircraft/approach to admit to ATC that we are no longer ready for the approach and to request vectors back around for a second attempt (to get caught back up).

Offline beechsundowner

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Re: Iced up pitot tube results in confusion, possible task overload for pilot
« Reply #13 on: November 25, 2008, 06:46:58 PM »
there is no harm for us pilots when realizing that we are behind the aircraft/approach to admit to ATC that we are no longer ready for the approach and to request vectors back around for a second attempt (to get caught back up).

Amen on the above!

Only thing I can think is just like "not going around" for an unstabilized approach on a VFR landing that we are always taught to do, we get ourselves in a denial that things are not so unstable and I can salvage this landing would be my guess that he didn't break off the approach

Or when he was just before the FAF and saw ground just that urgency, get me out of the clag so he dipped below the FAF altitude to see ground when approach said climb immediately.