A Turn Too Late

Its easy to look at controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents as the kind youll never get into. Sure; you may suffer an engine failure from contaminated fuel, or scrape a wingtip while landing in a stiff crosswind or even forget to put down the gear before landing. But flying a perfectly good airplane into the side of a mountain? Never happen. The thing is, Im relatively certain every pilot who was ever involved in a CFIT accident said the same thing at one point or another, perhaps right up until the moment a tree trunk came through the windshield.

Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside

Friday, February 23, 2018 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) is a risk for any pilot, often resulting from a loss of situational awareness, adverse weather conditions, and a misplaced confidence in continuing a flight into hazardous environments.
A case study highlights a CFIT accident where a VFR pilot, despite holding an instrument rating but lacking currency, continued a flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) over mountainous terrain, leading to impact exacerbated by downdrafts.
Preventing CFIT relies on sound aeronautical decision-making, a thorough understanding of weather conditions (especially in mountainous areas), maintaining instrument proficiency, and critically, the timely decision to turn around or choose an alternate route to avoid deteriorating conditions.

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It’s easy to look at controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents as the kind you’ll never get into. Sure; you may suffer an engine failure from contaminated fuel, or scrape a wingtip while landing in a stiff crosswind or even forget to put down the gear before landing. But flying a perfectly good airplane into the side of a mountain? Never happen. The thing is, I’m relatively certain every pilot who was ever involved in a CFIT accident said the same thing at one point or another, perhaps right up until the moment a tree trunk came through the windshield.

The point is that a CFIT accident can happen to the best of us—and the worst. All it takes is loss of situational awareness, perhaps some bad weather and the misplaced confidence that all is well, that there’s nothing to worry about and that the last thing that will happen is flying into terrain.