The reports that I heard indicated that he received and acknowledged an
altitude alert at 800 feet, just before the accident. Was that not from
Tower?


Andrew Gideon wrote in
online.com:

snip

Or he never completed the hand-off. TRACON might have switched him at
5 miles, but the aircraft never contacted the tower. I don't know.

Frankly, there's a lot about this that confuses me. No warnings about
being too low from ATC? I once has a TRACON controller contact me
almost breathlessly about my altitude (which was, fortunately, a
transponder problem). And this was in VMC.


snip


This does trigger a memory, though. During my primary training, my
CFI wanted to go up into a snowstorm. Not knowing any better, I
questioned it but didn't refuse. We were at the hold line just about
to get onto the runway when the tower talked some sense into the CFI
(and the controllers tone helped me push the matter).

What if that hadn't occurred? I don't recall the CFI carrying any
extra (ie. IFR) charts. And those weren't planes I'd take into IMC
myself (from my current perspective) anyway.

Scary.




Indeed.