On Feb 13, 2:58*am, Mxsmanic wrote:
WayPoint writes:
At many many airports you don't have that luxury because of rough
vegetation, industrial & residential built up areas.
Turning back is sometimes the only choice that will give you and others the
best opportunity to survive.

Obviously, if there are only jagged rocks or other unpleasant things in front
of you, then your only option is to try to turn. But many pilots get in
trouble because they don't want to do expensive damage to their airplanes, and
they end up killing themselves in an attempt to save on money or insurance.
The phenomenon is not limited to pilots.

To a certain extent one can rationalize this by thinking that broken bones may
heal but broken airplanes must be fixed or replaced. There is a logic to that,
but the probabilities and other factors are often incorrectly assessed by the
person making the decision. The probability of dying or serious, life-altering
injury is far higher than the pilot is willing to admit. Optimism encourages
him to make a bad decision.

If the area in front of the airplane is truly flat, smooth, and safe, so much
so that there's no harm in landing on it, I wonder how many pilots would still
be tempted to turn around. If you know you can land ahead off the runway with
no damage to the airplane, is there still any reason to turn around?

Can you tell that an area in front of you is truly flat smooth and
safe from 500 feet altitude? If you can, can you also explain why
real pilots are taught to do precautionary search and landing passes
at 100 feet, if they need to make an emergency landing but still have
the power/time to do so?