Accident Case Study: Traffic Pattern Tragedy

On a June afternoon in 2016, a Cirrus SR20 carrying three occupants arrived in Houston’s busy Class B airspace to land at William P. Hobby airport. Miscommunication in the traffic pattern, three go-arounds, and ultimately, a departure from controlled flight resulted in a fatal crash near the airport.
The AOPA Air Safety Institute examines the circumstances of this accident and discusses how to recognize and avoid the mistakes that led up to the tragedy.

[skyflier]

As a student pilot this sounds like absolute hell to deal with.

[georgelopez]

I was totally saturated with too much information just watching this imagine how stressed this pilot became after all these go-arounds re sequencing would have been the best

[cgirl]

When you absolutely, positively, have to get somewhere on a schedule never - ever - take your aircraft. That was my dad's rule and after he passed and I inhereted his Cherokee I keep this rule close to my heart.

[BOEINGMAX-nnku]

Ok enough now!
After reading all these comments from private pilots and other pilots or non pilots regarding "the 737 pilots would have been pissed because of going around", i wanna make one thing clear, and i am sure i speak for 99 percent of my colleagues in the cockpits of their airliners around the entire world: As soon as we receive a "GO AROUND", this call alone triggers an automatism with us that is hard to understand or believe by someone who is not flying/ flying commercial. NOT ONE SECOND! we think about our passengers that could now miss their next flight or the fuel we burn because of this, not to mention that we just for that reason carry extra fuel with us. What are you all thinking?? When is listened to this case study i could clearly hear in her voice the rising stress level, the more friendly she became in chatting with ATC the more she showed that the became exhausted and overwhelmed with this situation. What game was ATC playing? And when there would have been another 100 737s on approach, would they have taken her out of her landing clearance for another 100 times? She should have done only one thing, i was "telling" her this several times: Lady, now you DECLARE EMERGENCY. Let me tell you student pilots or private pilots: As soon as you feel uncomfortable tell this ATC immediately and in clear, short sentences! Make it clear: Until here and no further. It is YOU that MUST tell ATC, enough now of missed approaches or changing runways or giving absurd landing runways with absurd crosswinds, i am UNABLE to FOLLOW. I would like to share something with all of you:

I was once on approach to an Airport which normally did not get that type of aircraft we flew in this day. It was a summer day which started sunny but the weather forecast from the morning showed already a large thunderstorm front arriving from the west and crossing the country in the afternoon in an easterly direction. So, while on approach to this airport, we monitored ATC and there was a small PA28 with a pilot and 1 passenger that just had taken off from ED.. and the VFR departure route let him fly out to the north sea, where he came in contact with this front. The pilot then stated he can not follow the route as he would become IFR and he is not IFR rated. He then said he needs to turn around and request radar vectors as his horizontal visibility became zero and all he had left was vertical visibility, but the ocean below him with the humid air above washed out any reference point for him. He then wanted to return to the airport, that's when ATC stated, because of us on approach, and the rule here is IFR before VFR, they need to vector him out to the ocean again to make space for us IFR traffic. The pilot stated he doesn't want to go further out to the ocean as he has no more reference points. I could clearly listen to his voice and i felt his concerns and that he just wanted to go back to the airport and ATC could do anything else then keep him away from us. As ATC had to follow their procedures and the pilot did not know how to handle all this right now i was sure this could have led into a nightmare. In the meanwhile we approached 2500 feet AGL and i called for "Gear Down", then looked at my first officer and we both knew we had to do something. I pressed the transmit button on my control column and said: " D-E..., declare an emergency! NOW! Dont ask, do it, NOW!" ..1 second later: " XXX Tower, D-E... is declaring an emergency " . Immediately ATC took their actions : " airline-callsign, go around, climb and maintain, proceed to .... enter holding at .... " then " D-E..., fly heading ...., RWY ..., number one, cleared to land".

We left our hold after a very short time and then started our approach again and landed. The airport was kinda small for our aircraft and we parked on the apron. I could see the PA28 from my seat, the piper was parked left to us, maybe 100 m away. The pilot was standing next to his aircraft and looked at me. We both looked at each other. This was a moment i will never forget in my life. He didn't look happy at all and i knew i have to talk to him. We shut down our engines and after finishing the checklist i left the cockpit and squeezed through our deboarding passengers, taking the stairs down and went over to the Piper. The pilot was really young, 21 years, and he came into my direction with tears in his eyes saying " i am so sorry ".. I took him in my arms and answered " Stop, Stop, Stop, you did everything right" and i have to admit because of him crying i also had a tear in my eyes .I told him: " i am so glad you made it back, i am really glad seeing you here! " .

After he calmed down, He looked at our aircraft and said: " What a beautiful aircraft, one day i want to become a captain in this". I offered him and his passenger, a friend of him, to come with me and i will show them the cockpit.

It was quite a nice view, his Piper PA28 next to our 747-400.

I am 56 years old, Captain on the Boeing 747-400 and 747-8i and have 23000+ flight hours logged. I am glad that this pilot got the chance to add one more landing to his log book. A chance the lady here did not have anymore. Rest in peace, that's what i really wish the occupants of the Cirrus aircraft.

[alanlobb]

I am an Australian private pilot and have also flown in the United States.When i saw this video it sent chills through my body. This young lady was treated so badly i was in disbelief. This event was so simple to solve. The 737 should have been instructed to go around. The cirrus would have landed safely. What a tragedy that could have been avoided.My thoughts and prayers of the cirrus are with me always.

[ballan]

Such a polite and friendly lady. Breaks my heart she didn't make it.

[glennrudolph]

Man, as a private pilot, this is EXACTLY the examples and 'conversations' that need to be had... to save lives. Thank you ASI! Please keep them coming as you are helping me become a better private pilot for sure!

[rtrThanos]

As soon as ATC said “Turn left heading 30 degrees, ” I was wondering if he meant to turn left by 30 degrees or if he meant to fly the heading of 30 degrees. He did say “heading 30 degrees” so I assumed he meant to fly heading 30, just like the pilot did. Not cool ATC, not cool at all.

[xm]

Petition to make declaring an emergency due to “pilot fatigue because I’m tired of your bullshit” part of regulations.

[twest]

I remember my first flight instructor say : "when you crash, the folks in the tower get another cup of coffee". Not meant to be insulting or degrading, just matter of fact.

[selftrue]

Controller fatigued the pilot with needless relentless bombardment of orders in an obvious high-stress situation. Send her out--way out--to reset herself. She's not a fighter pilot.

[billyjack]

I’ve been a pilot for 52 years and a 747 Captain for 33 years. NEVER let an air traffic controller jerk you around or tell you how to fly an airplane like they did to this Cirrus pilot. I can’t tell you how upsetting this is to me.

[okrafeet]

Polite and accommodating to the end of her life. Damn.

[karekarenz]

This reminds me of driving a Mini Cooper on a 4 lane highway, surrounded by massive semi trucks all doing 100mph, trying to cross lanes to get to an exit you know is coming up but can't even see. Stuff of nightmares. Poor lady pilot. She was trying to keep so calm.

[danielgoodson]

Experience ATC prejudice to small aircraft daily. When flying for my income, in larger aircraft, I am treated normally. When getting into my PA28 to fly home after work, (from the same airport) the the tone of the controllers (to stay safe, think "coordinators") is different. Have been given the runaround as recently as yesterday. This would max out the abilities of a low time pilot who believes that ATC are in charge. ATC does good work. They will sometimes try to kill you. I think of ATC as my best friend....but he is drunk and has the hots for my wife, so I watch him every minute.

[patton]

I’ve been flying for 23 years and I’ve never heard such conflicting and confusing instructions from a class B airport tower. I’ve learned over the years that airfields have a like minded mentality amongst it’s controllers. That’s due to their respective leadership. And good leadership results in good training. And I heard bad training here.
Yes they know how to move Southwest planes around, but they clearly struggle with keeping GA in sequence. I’ve never flown into KHOU but I’m going to do extra homework for it in case I do.

[mem]

That was some really crappy controlling! I say this as a retired controller of 31 years.

[dolnick]

I'm here staring at my computer, with a clear graphic representation of everything, and all the communications printed out, and no one's life on the line, and I still felt easily overwhelmed by what was being asked and amended. I can only imagine how much worse it must have been for the pilot in this situation.

[robertd]

My stress levels went through the roof listening to this. Why on earth would you clear her with a 737 right behind her? I get so tired of controllers treating GA like a nuisance that they are obligated to deal with.

Then came all the nonsensical further orders that would have turned a lot of people’s spacial orientation around.

Get her away from the airport in a straight forward fashion, ascertain if she’s fuel critical the sequence her in on a stabilized approach. God damn I’m pissed.

[jerrymarshall]

"I'll just land on the nearest interstate highway, I'll figure out the heading on my own."52 gulf over.