Aftermath: Tuckered Out

Peter Garrison

Friday, May 20, 2011 at 06:15 PM ET

Verified

** The story of how physical and mental fatigue
contributed to a familiar, yet fatal mistake.**

Key Takeaways:

A commercial pilot and passenger crashed their Diamond DA40 into the water near Arcata, California, during a night instrument approach after a multi-day, cross-country flight.
The pilot accumulated over 23 hours of flight time and 31 "on duty" hours in the 42 hours before the accident, showing clear signs of fatigue and difficulty managing the flight.
The NTSB determined the probable cause was the pilot's failure to maintain proper altitude and glidepath during the approach, with fatigue as a contributing factor.
The article suggests the pilot likely abandoned the instrument approach for a visual one once below the clouds, falling victim to an optical illusion common during night approaches over unlit water.

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A 30-year-old commercial pilot and a passenger left Plant City, Florida, on a Saturday morning in March for a time-building trip to Las Vegas. The plan was to return around the middle of the coming week, depending on weather. The pilot had rented a Diamond DA40 for the trip, a four-seater with a 180 hp engine, a gliderlike wing of nearly 40-foot span and a cross-country speed of around 150 knots. The three-year-old airplane was equipped with a Garmin G1000 glass panel, a system with which the pilot had several hundred hours of experience.

Leaving Plant City at 1100 EST and stopping at Mobile, Alabama, they reached Huntsville, Texas, at 1920 CST. At this point they had been airborne for 7½ hours, and the pilot had put in an additional hour being checked out in the DA40 before their departure. They had originally intended to continue after refueling, but after discussing how tired they both felt, they decided to stay the night at Huntsville.