"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
In this particular case, though, it appears that the [co]pilot was doing
as
he was trained. If he was trained to do the wrong thing, it was the
training at fault and not the pilot.

IMHO, that's an oversimplification. For example, some Private pilots are
trained to fly the VASI glideslope, while others are trained to fly a
steeper, power-off gliding approach. A pilot flying the VASI glideslope who
experiences a power failure will wind up crashing short of the airport, but
that doesn't mean that the practice of training pilots to fly the VASI
glideslope is necessarily wrong. Each method has positive and negative
aspects, and it's up to the pilot to make a decision regarding how to apply
their training.

As far as this particular accident goes, are you saying it's the case that
the pilot training specifically *instructed* the pilot to make large back
and forth rudder inputs? I haven't seen any documentation of that claim.
What I have seen are statements that the training neglected to mention that
multiple full deflection rudder inputs were bad; that's an entirely
different claim. After all, flying the airplane into a mountainside is also
bad, but I would be surprised if pilot training spends much time covering
that topic.

One could argue that pilots ought to be familiar with the certification
rules and understand that the rules only grant the pilot a single full
deflection of the rudder in one direction, after which the rudder can be
returned only to the neutral position. Regardless of training.

Now, that's a debate for another time, and I don't even feel that it's a
strictly "either/or" debate anyway. But my point is that ultimately it was
the pilot who over-controlled the aircraft, contrary to the certification
rules that govern the design of the aircraft. To that extent, it is
patently obvious that the pilot shares at least some of the blame.

Beyond all that, it is still factually true that the pilot's control inputs
are what *caused* the accident. My original point is that the NTSB will
state a fact like this, and the media will misinterpret to mean that the
NTSB is assigning blame or fault to the pilot. That's simply not the case.
The pilot can still be the cause of an accident without being to blame,
either partially or wholely. My use of the word "blame" obviously
distracted from what I was really trying to say.

As I read the article, while it does say that the pilot's actions caused
the crash, it does not appear to afix blame to the pilot.

Which article? This thread started with a "news blurb" Corky wrote about.
We were not afforded the opportunity to review the media report Corky wrote
about. If you mean the article that was posted here, that may or may not be
relevant to Corky's post.

In any case, the article to which you refer seems to more accurately convey
the NTSB's likely position (which we'll know once the report is actually
available).

Pete