Scud running fatal in Maine

(Ace Pilot) wrote

This is the kind of accident that scares me the most. As someone
posted earlier, you'd expect a rookie pilot to get sucked into this
kind of accident, but not someone with the experience this pilot had.
Leaves me wondering if there are weather conditions out there that can
be misleading to experienced pilots, which means someone with less
experience (like me) wouldn't stand a chance of recognizing the risk
in a timely fashion.

I flew with Kathy (the pilot who was killed) last year while visiting
relatives in Maine. I was doing brush-up work for my seaplane rating,
and treating the relatives to some flight-seeing. She was an
extremely competent and skilled pilot. There have been numerous
articles about the accident in the Bangor Daily News, which my sister
has been keeping me abreast of. Some are available at
www.bangordailynews.com but for complete text they ask you to pay.
The most recent info is that the engine was generating power at the
time of impact.

With 12 hours of logged time as a seaplane pilot I hardly qualify as
an expert. But to amplify on Ace Pilot's comments, it doesn't make
sense that a veteran seaplane pilot would plow into a mountainside
even in bad weather, considering that emergency landing strips (lakes,
rivers) are everywhere in that area. Speculation, but some of the
explanation may lie in the common bush pilot's ethic that come hell or
high water, they *will* be there to pick you up when they said they
would (Kathy was on a charter pickup).

Kathy's husband Tim is an equally skilled pilot and decent human
being. He was the examiner when I got my seaplane rating with KT
Aviation 2 years ago (the KT is for Kathy and Tim). We sent him a
copy of a video we made during last year's flight with Kathy. Don't
know what's going to happen to KT Aviation, but I'm not optimistic.
It was just the 2 of them and maybe a part-time instructor in the
summer. My heart goes out to Tim.

Jim Rosinski
N3825Q