Posted on 05/23/2025 5:59:52 PM PDT by BenLurkin
“Doesn’t sound great but we’ll give it a go,”
Oh my.
I guess the drummer wasn’t THAT famous if they didn’t bother to say his/her name in the first couple of paragraphs.
The pilot was incredibly stupid.
Agreed!
The name was not familiar to me.
Well, his car was at this airport so....
Although it would seem to me that the business aspects of things (being late to a meeting, not landing where your car is, etc.) MIGHT play a factor in the decision making. Whereas if you just have a pilot that is only a pilot, he doesn't care if you are late.
Seems more like he didn’t reset his altimeter for local barometric pressure. At and above 18,000 feet, altimeter are universally set to 29.92. Then when decending for the approach to land, the altimeter is set to the actual local pressure. High to low, look out below.....Not setting for the local pressure can find you are hundreds of feet off. An instrument approach with a 600’ Minimum descent requirement could find you plowing dirt in a fireball.
“former drummer for metal band The Devil Wears Prada.”
The “famous drummer”.
The plane wasn't qualified to land at Montgomery Field under those conditions. The airport was shut down for the night, and the marine layer was dense with visibility below minimums.
Bad decisions compounded by missing altitude minimums on approach and hitting a hilltop powerline.
Would not like to hear my pilot say that!
What about “Hold muh beer and watch this”?
Wow - I experienced similar circumstances at probably that same airport 50 years ago. I was with a young Navy Lieutenant that had recently gotten his pilot’s license. We took off from San Diego (where we were both stationed). In the evening coming back, the field was fogged in, so being a younger pilot, he opted to land near Big Bear. I don’t recall how we got back to the ship. Glad he made the right decision.
The pilot FAFO’D, he flew the instrument approach too low and hit powerlines. It is extremely lucky that no one on the ground was killed.
As a current Instrument rated pilot myself, he made a bad choice...
Lots of holes in the “Swiss cheese” he flew through. The airport was also below weather minimums for his instrument type but he elected to try anyway. From what I’ve seen he was a “hot shot” pilot or at least thought he was. As the saying goes “there are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old bold pilots.
What could possibly go wrong?
Give it a go pilots are not very good.
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