Accident analysis: Local knowledge

Both people on board were killed. A METAR recorded at just about that time included winds perpendicular to the runway—typical for this field, where the orientation is dictated by the contours of a mountain valley—at 18 knots with gusts to 30.

The 180-horsepower Comanche was based in Great Bend, Kansas. Great Bend Municipal Airport (GBD) is located on a flat plain at 1,887 feet elevation—a far cry from Angel Fire Airport’s 8,380 feet surrounded by peaks that top out above 13,000. And while Kansas is no stranger to wind, it doesn’t often experience mountain waves that can create downdrafts in excess of 1,000 feet per minute. Angel Fire’s a tricky place to fly even for pilots familiar with high-altitude mountain fields. It can be entirely too challenging for those who aren’t.

Any situation beyond the range of your usual experience may contain hazards you don’t know enough to anticipate.Angel Fire-based pilot Spencer Hamons responded to this accident by preparing and posting a well-produced, impressively detailed introduction to his home airport. It uses sectional charts, satellite imagery, and animation to point out troublesome terrain, illustrate prevailing winds and associated mountain waves, depict safe departure routes, and even identify possible emergency landing sites. You can find it on YouTube (youtu.be/AmrAX7tSvvQ). It’s the kind of usable, practical information you’d hope to get if you phoned the flight school at an unfamiliar destination and asked to speak to a CFI (which Hamons takes pains to point out he is not).

That’s exactly what all of us are well advised to do, not just flatlanders venturing into the mountains. Any situation beyond the range of your usual experience may contain hazards you don’t know enough to anticipate. The Dare County (North Carolina) Regional Airport is barely above sea level—but pilots planning to arrive IFR should know that the GPS approach to Runway 5 is rarely available on weekdays. (It traverses restricted military airspace.) If flown with a procedure turn, its opposite-direction counterpart to Runway 23 takes pilots more than 10 miles out over the Atlantic, not necessarily comfortable in a piston single in winter—and for years Runway 23’s PAPI (precision approach path indicator) was deactivated because of trees that had grown up into the approach surface.

Airports near Washington, D.C., have fewer obstruction problems, but are in or abut some of the nation’s most complex and sensitive airspace. One—Manassas, Virginia—has a restricted area just to the south, raising the dual risk of a black-hole night arrival with a slam-dunk descent at the end. Yes, much of this information’s available from published sources to pilots who know where to look and are serious about due diligence. But talking to someone who lives with these features every day provides an efficient and effective head start.