Down By The River

Matt Johnson

Thursday, May 26, 2022 at 11:45 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

A pilot dangerously underestimated rapidly changing weather conditions, flying too far from his home base in a fast aircraft and ignoring multiple warning signs, including EFB weather alerts and opportunities to land safely at intermediate airports.
Prioritizing avoiding an imagined FAA violation over immediate safety, he continued flying into severe snow and an IFR environment for which he was not prepared, eventually landing at his home airport under emergency conditions.
The incident highlighted critical lessons: the importance of instrument currency, understanding local weather phenomena like "river effect" snow, trusting EFB warnings, and prioritizing conservative decision-making and safety over convenience or perceived regulatory issues.

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It was a December afternoon at Spirit of St. Louis airport (SUS), about 1400 local time. Sunny, with scattered clouds, cool. The weather forecast had the word “snow” in it, starting about 1800, which would be after dark, but right now it was sunny. Snow? Seemed like a long way off.

Turns out it wasn’t. I incorrectly reasoned that since I would only be doing touch-and-goes at airports located maybe 25-30 miles from SUS, if the weather started to get bad, I could quickly return home and be on the ground before, well, before what happened…happened.