Customer Reviews

Pilot Error: The Anatomy of a Plane Crash

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The author did a superb job in researching and documenting all the events leading up to this crash. However, as an instrument rated pilot familiar with the Provincetown approaches and similar small planes, it is apparent to me that Phaedra missed the root cause of this accident. Without revealing what Phaedra believes happened, I believe that she has overlooked the simplest explanation of all, which is that Sinzheimer never used his VOR-ILS instruments to fly the ILS-7 Provincetown approach, but instead used his much newer GPS (with moving map display) to fly an illegal "pilot improvised approach". I say this because the simplest explanation for why the primary VOR was not found tuned to the ILS-7 approach frequency is that he had never set it to that frequency in the first place. The GPS would not provide glideslope (vertical) guidance, so his logical work-around was to drop down to 100 feet and skim along the water inbound to the airport. Provincetown was a tempting spot to try this because it sits at an elevation of 8 feet above sea level and there aren't any tall obstructions anywhere near by. The problem with this technique (besides being illegal) is that flying at 100' above the water in poor visibility is very tricky. Under these weather conditions, there wouldn't be any visual references outside the cockpit with which to control the plane visually until he was less than a mile from the airport. Alternatively, flying on instruments at 100 feet above the water is theoretically possible, but I would not want to bet my life on my ability to do it. It appears to me that this is exactly what Sinzheimer did. Read the book and see what you think.

Pretty good book. The author really did a lot of research with the people who were personally involved with the accident. She also did a good job by not writing the book as a lengthend NTSB report but rather the whole process the FAA, Coast Guard, and NTSB have in place to react to a downed airplane. She gave a lot of background information also and sometimes even too much. I really didn't get why she would write about the Mayflower or the history of the Coast Guard but it was her book to write, not mine.