CFTT Precedes CFIT

IFR separation from other aircraft is well-understood in our community. Within the controller community there is something additional called terrain separation. A loss of terrain separation occurs when an aircraft enters a chunk of airspace at an altitude below the prescribed minimums. Minimum vectoring (or instrument) altitudes arent published, so initially theyre the controllers responsibility. Busting either is CFTT, but they are not the sole province of ATC. Pilots also cause CFTTs. Lets look in our own house first.

Fred Simonds

Monday, January 21, 2019 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Controlled Flight Toward Terrain (CFTT) is a critical precursor to CFIT accidents, representing flight below minimum safe altitudes or loss of terrain separation, and avoiding these conditions is key to preventing deadly crashes.
CFTT incidents stem from both pilot errors, such as complacency, target fixation, insufficient briefing, and inadequate experience with new avionics, as well as controller errors, including issuing incorrect clearances or missing readbacks.
Poor communication, specifically errors in pilot readbacks and controllers failing to catch these discrepancies, is identified as a primary cause of minimum vectoring altitude (MVA) busts and other forms of CFTT.

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Wedged between normal and CFIT flight sits another layer, the precursor to a CFIT accident, called Controlled Flight Toward Terrain, or CFTT. If we can avoid CFTT conditions, we can surely prevent deadly CFIT accidents. Our purpose here is to educate and sensitize the pilot community to the concept of CFTT using examples from the Aviation Safety Reporting System database.

IFR separation from other aircraft is well-understood in our community. Within the controller community there is something additional called terrain separation. A loss of terrain separation occurs when an aircraft enters a chunk of airspace at an altitude below the prescribed minimums. Minimum vectoring (or instrument) altitudes aren’t published, so initially they’re the controller’s responsibility. Busting either is CFTT, but they are not the sole province of ATC. Pilots also cause CFTTs. Let’s look in our own house first.