NTSB final report on Hendrick crash

Sam Spade wrote:
Maule Driver wrote:

The implication is that the plan to fly to this airport, in that
weather, with that aircraft flown by those pilots, was a bad decision.
Everything seems fine to me. That situation seems to me to be exactly
why race teams use GA.

For a personal flight it wouldn't be a bad decision at all given the
marginal weather. For a "must arrive" situation it was bad planning.

Someone did suggest that there was some urgency to the flight (urgency
is relative, without urgency, no need to fly). But there's *no*
indication that there was any 'get there-itis' or "must arrive" pressure
involved was there? It appears they pushed on beyond the miss point
because they didn't realize they missed the miss.

Two competent, proficient, experienced pilots just botched it. There
are a lot things to learn from it and avoid having it happen again.

I don't know what the lesson to be learned is, other than they were
certainly not competent and proficient that day.
Huh? "How to use and not use a GPS' lessons seems to be written all
over it. But if you just want to knock the pilots, then nothing will be
learned. My personal conclusion and lesson is that you need to stick
with your primary navigation instruments and use the backup as backup.
But that's me.

I've been watching this stuff for a long time, and these kinds of errant
blunders happen over and over. That's why airliners have TAWS these
days, which was an outgrowth of GPWS, whicn in turn came about because
of an air carrier errant blunder.

And tomorrow we will be wondering why *anyone* would dare fly a trip
uncoupled from TO to landing or even consider flying in an aircraft with
out a autopilot capable of flying from startup to shutdown. This wasn't
an airline flight and yet they were well equipped and the operation
seemingly well managed.