Unwarranted

One special category of pilots are those for whom going fast is important. Why? Because speed is relative. At altitude on a severe clear day, there's little sensation of speed. We have to get close to something before our speed becomes apparent. And the risk with getting close to something is we might hit it. While untrained pilots who engage in such risky behaviors aren't the norm, there's enough of them that the practice has its own term: unwarranted low flying. Its use apparently has fallen out of favor, but the phrase "unwarranted low flying" has populated numerous NTSB reports over the years.

Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside

Thursday, October 03, 2019 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

"Unwarranted low flying" is a dangerous and reckless practice that violates aviation regulations (FAR 91.13 and 91.119) and significantly increases the risk of collisions with terrain or obstructions.
A fatal NTSB case study details an accident where a pilot, known for habitually flying low along a river, struck power lines, with environmental factors like sun position and a river bend contributing to the crash.
The article highlights that a pilot's dangerous mindset and disregard for safety, particularly concerning low-level flight, are primary causes of such preventable accidents, often difficult for the industry to police.

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Pilots fly for different reasons. For some, it’s a living. For others, it’s recreation or personal transportation. Some want to go fast to distant destinations; some want to go slow because they’re not going anywhere anyway. It’s not uncommon for pilots to want to do all of these things at one time or another.

There’s no question that personal aviation can be exciting. But the ways we make it exciting can be problematic. For example, launching into a thunderstorm qualifies as exciting, at least for a while. If you survived, you’d certainly have a story to tell. The same is true for, say, attempting aerobatics without training or depending on the autopilot in lieu of an instrument rating.