Pilot Can't Land...TRIES Illegal Approach! 

I think this pilot was so reckless he should have been grounded. It angers me that the FAA allowed him back with a slap on the wrist.

No iPad means he doesn't have the approach plate. Maybe he was trying to shoot the approach with the iPad but that would stupid. Idk man... it sounds to me like he wasn't current.

@pilot-debrief I can't imagine canceling an instrument approach with RNAV, VOR, and especially ILS available in the weather. I'd rather go into the hold and pull the plate up on my phone than whatever decision he made.

Makes me wonder how many times he'd gotten-away with this.

He got lucky this time. But he's flying on borrowed time. You'll be doing another debrief on this pilot in the future with a different outcome, sadly.

Idk, how do you learn?

​​@@TheCatLady65 You learn by being able to admit when you don't know something, which this goober didn't do.

THIS PILOT IS JUST LUCKY TO BE ABLE TO FLY ANOTHER DAY. HE NEEDS TO STAY PROFICIENT AND KEEP OUT OF DANGER. WHEW! THAT WAS A CLOSE ONE. THOSE HIGH MOUNTIAN PEAKS CAN QUICKLY RISE UP AND SMITE YOU

​@@TheCatLady65 with an instructor.

​@@TheCatLady65You must be one of those clowns that thinks the world should step aside while you do whatever the hell you'd like. No matter who it puts in danger. Effing fool

My guess is that he was, but he remained professional in spite of that and did everything he needed to do to ensure a positive outcome. Hats off to him.

@@grundged I guarantee once the pilot landed the other airport called this tower back and said "hey remember the guy you warned us about?..... Well he landed here, but on the WRONG side of the flippin runway!"

He did an amazing job !

@@sister_bertrille911 That's exactly what the original comment meant.

oh... He was PISSED I think he is the kind of guy whos anger is very quiet... but I think there was some real rage in those final few communications. and yes, he did an awesome job despite being basically hampered all the way...

It was kind of obvious he did not have anything calibrated or loaded if he had any idea how to use his instruments in the first place.

@@superbmediacontentcreator given the comments about his next two legs having similar troubled approaches, I wonder if his iPad was ever working on this trip

@@DanaMyersK6JQ Well the rules call for having a backup like his phone which will run the same APP but it is obvious the first issue he has is that he does not or cannot "think" let alone think in a personal emergency situation. In theater we have what we call "rehearsals" so no one goes on stage and says "So how shall we begin the play tonight." In any sport they have what they call "practice" so the players are all generally trying to move in the same direction and not running into each other. I just do not get people who can never ask the question "what if" in any given situation.

@@carlosa7807 True, except that the field elevation is over 500 ft and it’s a mountainous area. The approach plate shows a minimum safe altitude of 4100 ft within 25 miles of the airport. He was very lucky to live through this.

@@dougg6467​​⁠4,100 ft MSL in a 25 mile radius area takes the very highest terrain or obstacle and adds 2,000 ft in a mountainous terrain area. Realistically, that highest point could be miles and miles away from the area you’re operating in. 2,000 ft is a pretty big margin. This guy was still a moron nonetheless.

Well, at least sounds like it's in better hands now. He put that plane through a lot

I was gonna go looking for pics from the sales ad to see if it had an onboard GPS.....thanks for saving me the trouble! Did this guy not even know that he could hit the "direct to" button and find that IAF in the database? Or select the Martinsburg Airport, then hit the "Proc" button, select and load the approach? It's not like the approach is so new it won't be in the database. How do you pass an instrument checkride without being able to do this?

Can concur, I flew it in April and after putting in a current GPS database everything worked great including the autopilot being coupled to the Garmin 430. Aircraft even had 4 USB power sockets on board for charging. Can’t fathom how the previous owner could get so behind the plane.

WHAAAAAAT!!!!! That's a sick story. What are the odds you finding out this, this way. Sick, really sick!

I looked him up in the Airmen database. He's the only Jerry Pipes in the database and he's out of Louisiana. This pilot does not have an instrument rating. His medical expired 3/2024. He probably had no idea how to load and follow an approach in the 430W or King LOC/ILS indicators in his aircraft The aircraft back in 2012 had an STEC 50 AP as well so it should have been no problem getting into MRB. I fly a TR182 out of LKU with a 430W and STEC 60-2 with flight director. I was based at HEF near IAD for 20 years with a 172, 182RG then a TR182. MRB is an easy airport in IFR conditions but I couldn't believe that this pilot appeared to be flying IFR solely dependent upon an Ipad and with no knowledge of the capabilities of his aircraft. MRB is 565 MSL just west over the Blue Ridge foothills in the Shenandoah Valley--pretty low terrain where he was navigating, like 2100-2300 MSL but he just got lucky. Potomac Approach controllers are excellent but you need to tell them what you want....if I were approach control knowing the ceilings at MRB and the pilot's situation I would have suggested declaring an emergency for him, vectored him to intercept the 080 approach course, then told him to establish a vertical descent rate in an attempt to get him below the clouds in order to give him a contact approach clearance (not knowing then that he was not instrument rated). There is plenty of room in that area to perform this but I'm just armchair quarterbacking.

Likewise but only in a car. Concussions & more have given me certain limits but thankfully I still have great night vision at 67 and some minor racing in my past. Beware the nose-picking texting Range Rover owner!

"A man's gotta know his limits." Thanks for keeping it sane and safe out there.

@@My_Fair_Lady That what simulators are for imo. Boring is safe.

@@My_Fair_LadyJeb? Is that you? The Kerbal profile pic goes so well with your reply 😂

Incompetent and unsafe. Referring only to the pilot of said Mooney 83V. A man has gotta know his limitations.

That's the point at which I figured the guy was going to crash

Right! lol....I mean by his logic what does that mean (IPAD is now dead). Is the plan to crash after that happens? Sure sounded like he had NO backup plan.

And also who cares if it happened because it's not supposed to be a primary instrument/tool lol

Dose anyone know the instrument load out on this aircraft, I bet it’s one of the old lat/long 1st gen GPS units and the CDI don’t work correctly. The only way that his argument about the iPad and cross referencing reff point would even be close to logical.

@@alexlindsey6446 He had no primary plan.

Yeah, Kudos to the controller, I was expecting a Gunnery Sergeant Hartman impression: [raising his voice] What is your major malfunction, numbnuts? Didn't Mommy and Daddy show you enough attention when you were a child?. I bet some controllers internal monologues dealing with certain pilots would make decent video.😄

Thanks for the laughs. I can just imagine. 😁

@@R.Sole88109 Yes, thanks for the laughs. 👍👍 In reality, one of the most desirable traits of any authority figure is how they act under stress, or even extreme stress. Can they handle it.

Well I really hope that joker NEVER flies again!!!

Seems like a VFR pilot who didn’t know how to use his equipment. He’s lucky to be alive.

I'm not a pilot but I have watched a few videos and noted iPads being used for approach plates and GPS location and wondered to myself if that was legal (since it's just consumer electronics) and or how many people have an over reliance on it for positioning. Sounds like it's a real issue then, at least for some.

Here’s the flip side of that coin… an ipad with an external GPS device utilizing WAAS (such as a Garmin GDL52) is more accurate than an ILS by a significant amount. Yet the only reason pilots aren’t allowed to use this method, is because it’s not certified and permanently mounted in the aircraft. But the operational capability of foreflight and a GDL52 is literally higher than an ILS and definitely higher than a VOR.

​@@VictoryAviationyou should also get AHRS as a backup with that. The mini sentry ADSB offers it with claimed 1m accuracy. There is a cascading set of problems in the plane if reliance on an iPad is the last resort. Failure of a TSO installed GPS, vacuum pump failure, VOR failure, power failure, getting yourself into a problem with low fuel with poor planning, etc. Now if all that happens or I just happen to be gliding in to an airport deadstick in IFR, then in navigating with the iPad 😂

@@volvo09iPad is fine for redundancy or an aid, but shouldn’t be the primary tool, which is how it sounds like this pilot was using it. You should know they airplane and know how everything on it works, otherwise you end up in this situation where the iPad dies and you’re in trouble because you don’t know how to fly the plane without it. He said he was using the iPad to confirm his GPS, but it sounds like he didn’t know how to use the GPS and was just using the iPads GPS. Plates on an iPad is fine but you should absolutely have paper copies as well. Consumer electronics aren’t made for a lot of this stuff and shouldn’t be trusted to this extent.

You can't punish the majority of people and letting them without the technology because the minority won't use it properly!!!

The controller knew the guy was struggling and tried to help him the best he could. The pilot thought he knew how to fly IFR but really did not! The pilot should have declared an emergency earlier on.

Im with you, RNAVs can be more of a pain then its worth, give me and ILS any day of the week. Simple radio change on NAV1 and you're headed down.

@@KaylieRayne Absolutely!

I agree with you except on the ILS part. I do prefer the RNAV, it guides you by grabbing you by the hand, provided you have a modern good GPS avionics installed.

@@davisandotube ILS wont do anything different than the RNAV here - they will point him at the glideslope and localizer and the needles will do the exact same thing that his ipad or an onboard GPS would have done. It would be legal, safe and probably working regardless of his ipad battery, so why not just take the ILS? So strange.

I'm guessing the family was praying their hearts out... so lucky to have survived this "learning experience".

“Pilot”

Which is rare.

He was so invested and polite!

Panic can cause tunnel vision!

I am not a pilot, but when much younger did get to fly being shown a lot about the aircraft. This was before most craft had GPS and I have to say that VOR seemed pretty easy. Dial a frequency and follow the needle until you’re on top of it.

Sounds possibly like what they call “Plan Continuation Bias”, aka get-there-itis. The podcast Cautionary Tales did a great episode on this, (actually where I learned the term), if you’re interested the episode is called “Danger- Rocks Ahead!” Only in that case the Captain was a very experienced sailor, (unlike the pilot in this video 😬).

Possibly because he didn't have an Instrument Rating. He was determined to cancel IFR to find a hole in the clouds. An ILS would have been so much easier.

Probably didn't have the equipment the controller was lead to believe he had

As they said, if the controller lost his temper or declared an emergency on behalf of the pilot, he would just further stress him out. In a situation like that all that really matters is getting the aircraft safely on the ground. It’s like dealing with a kid who is holding a loaded firearm, you don’t yell and berate, you just focus on getting everyone safely out of a bad situation, then you can get angry later

I agree. This azzhole jeopardized the other dozen planes in the air waiting to land. Should have pulled his license. Period

@AnythingForSouls There could be several possible reasons the FAA was kinder to the pilot than expected. #1 He may have shown true remorse and expressed an understanding of how much trouble he caused. Maybe he caught the Arbiter of his case on a good day. Contrition and humility are increasingly rare in these times, which makes them a bit more effective when expressed. It could also be simply that the outcome after he took control and completed the flight visually (even if breaking rules unsafely) was not worse.

@@transparentaluminum True - he might have also lost his primary IFR navigation system in the aircraft, and was relying on the ipad. We don't know the whole story.

​@@dermicknah, 5 minutes into the video the controller asks if the pilot and plane are IFR capable and and pilot says "that is all correct". The correct response would be "no, my main avionics failed, and my backup iPad is at 8% battery".

@@PsRohrbaugh True - he should have confessed that he had an issue. Also, what he said was probably technically correct - the aircraft seems to have been equipped for IFR in the 1970s - I found this on a website, no idea how accurate it is: Avionics/Radios Dual 170B's King Audio Panel with Marker Beacon King Transponder King ADF Dme Dual VOR with Glide Slope So the aircraft is IFR capable. The pilot probably had an IFR rating, but was not current or not able to do so with the equipment in his aircraft. Stuck on top is not a comfortable place to be for a VFR pilot or even an IFR pilot who's not current or is not flying with the same equipment he trained on. I've been there, and thanks to videos like this, I 'fessed up to ATC, and they helped me find a hole and get down safely and legally. Thankfully I had plenty of fuel, and there were holes out there, so I didn't need to declare. These stories are great for non-pilots because they are kind of entertaining, but for pilots, they are invaluable because we can hopefully learn something that can save our lives.

Takes care of architects, engineers, dentists, lawyers, too.

@@TheOsfaniaNot architects, too poor. Probably same for engineers.

Not new. iPads have been in the cockpits for many years. But, the FAA and the NTSB should have banned them long time ago for the sake of proficiency and safety.

ewwww, IF he was in a V-tail, 100 percent, would have augured in

@@TheOsfaniaI experience similar dangerous results when engaging in amateur anesthesiology or inter cranial scalpel exploration! I fly airplanes for a living and have empathy for those who find themselves in situations such as this. As Clint Eastwood once said “a man should know his limitations.” That quote comes in below my favorite Clint zinger; young man seeking a bounty on Clint’s character throws open the saloon doors, ready to shoot. When it’s clear Eastwood could smoke him from a seated position, the kid says “mister, I’m just trying’ to make a livin’, to which Clint ultimately says “dyin’ ain’t much of a livin’ son!” Truer words have never been spoken. The subject pilot has a high level of cognitive dissonance bouncing around inside his skull. Too bad he took his floaties off before jumping in the deep end 😳

I’m thinking this might have been the new owner flying his new plane that he wasn’t familiar with (and the registration wasn’t updated until later as it takes the FAA a long time to update these records).

I agree, it seems like this scared the living bajesus out of him and he sold the plane, and maybe won't fly again. Hard to say.

He probably sold it to buy a Cirrus 😆😆😆. Sorry, just trying to put a little humor to a horrible situation

yeah selling that plane was a benefit to everybody

@@mfkpI think you're right on

He was probably getting low on fuel - this flight ended up being about 4 hours - quite a long flight, and depending on how well he leaned, he could have been running very low on fuel, adding to the stress.

It comes from instructors allowing it. I’m getting my CFI ticket soon. I’m not gonna allow iPads in the cockpit.

It's on the written test about 15 different ways. Some people are just too dumb to keep alive in airplanes without a lot of luck. I wish you could unsat a candidate "with prejudice" like they do in court. That guy should not be allowed to take the checkride again.

​@@mowtivatedmechanic1172I don't really see how that's solving the problem. Pilots need to be proficient with EFBs. They're not going anywhere.

Hmm, the aging brain is not so good at working under pressure. He might be OK in a car, but it doesn't sound like he should be navigating anywhere that the wheels are not touching bitumen.

CFII fail

Thanks!

This is now my Sunday morning dose of reality with no unnecessary drama or gore. What is it when people need to see more tragedy as opposed to common sense? I once made it through an F4 tornado, the roads were clogged with tragedy seeking sightseers. Just pathetic.

@@dicksonfranssen Same thing after a fire.

@@pamelaremel7477 I'm 67 so I think I've seen it all and have mid range PTSD. "Is this where that guy was shot?" Look! A backyard shed on fire! Just really stupid human behavior.

Well said! Thank you very much!

Well they mandated he get some training before returning to the air, so hopefully he doesn't go to some rubber stamp academy and actually learns how to use his instruments before he turns himself and his plane into scrap.

Who is Grace?

Wouldn’t help. Didn’t have up to date subscription to data for his equipment. I guess he couldn’t afford to fly IFR. Are there any “poor” IFR pilots flying their own/rented planes?

You actually see this more and more?? Really??

@@sludge8506 I don't doubt they do. The entire world is falling to gross incompetence.

As a pilot who uses an iPad somewhat regularly, it’s mostly a convenience tool. Sure, I could go home and print out every approach plate I need. But that would be literally dozens of pieces of paper I’d have to reprint every month when they’re out of date.

@@sectorcodecjust getting into IFR and I’m a a lower time pilot, but the iPad is more like you said. It’s an EFB (electronic flight bag) rather than messing around with big maps that run out of date, supplements for airports and needing different runway print outs for every place, you press around on foreflight or garmin and it brings up the information you need with no fumbling or wasted time. You don’t fly off the map, you look at it for pilotage and dead wrecking help and the charts you may need when you’re landing or taxiing. Nothing too complicated there. How does one fly based on an iPad. Insane.

​@@sectorcodec poor excuse. Just print out the main plates your planning to use and a couple more, cut them out to size and put it in your pocket.

I like this idea 🎉

He didn't even have an approach plate😮

@@sarahalbers5555 Didn’t need one. The GPS will give you all the course data. Depending on the system, it will also give you each step down altitude. Older systems might not have the step down altitudes, but just ask. an LPV get vectors onto final, follow the course and glide path. Again ask for DA. Weather was not that bad. If I recall, he would have broken out at 1000 fr or more above ground. Don’t know who was flying, but couldn’t possibly have an instrument certificate. Declare an emergency if needed.

That's the point.

@@foreverpinkf.7603 yep! Thanks for playing and def glad you can understand!

Is it just me, or are too many pilots obscuring their view with high mounted ipads reducing their "see & avoid" ability as well as safely taxiing?

Agreed. This is a quote from my first comment. *"AI is killing our creativity, self reliance & common sense"* You can include iPads in there.

That's why its important we teach students how to work things out, confidently, the old fashioned way with maps and charts

@@randynielsen1413 and to be able to navigate on 'old style' conventional navaids before migrating to newer technology.

@@dicksonfranssen And the automation reliance is seeping into the commercial category too. The young guys do not know how to fly the aircraft just manage the SIM.

Thanks for your input, sir. As a long ago retired commuter airline pilot and CFI, i agree with you- there’s a shocking deterioration in piloting skills as aviation technology increases - but the worst part was the misrepresentation of his situation to the controller. Xx

Anytime!

Another excellent video,Hoover...thank you​@@pilot-debrief

​​@pilot-debrief are those 2 models on thefire placer behind you kits that you made yourself or premade desk top models?

If you would have paid attention to the video, you would know the aircraft sold one month after the incident.

@@james1795 Lighten up, Francis.

The insurance company is not the appropriate entity to regulate via insurance rates. The local FSDO is the correct entity. The reason is, when action is taken by the FSDO, there is a legal process - and the pilot has rights. As such, the pilot has the right to be represented by counsel to, basically, provide the pilot’s side of the story. And while insurance companies can set premiums based upon actuarial facts, were they to make a decision to raise rates based upon no actual incident or accident, would be to step into the regulatory role that they aren’t - nor want to be - tasked with filling.

You could simply try having a clue next time

@@JustMe-fo4ev You and @arctain1 don’t get invited to a lot of parties, do you? At least not twice.

Or have another nav system like your iphone.