Warning On Dangers Of Cloud Flying

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29802, 19 April 1962, Page 19

Warning On Dangers Of Cloud Flying

(N.Z: Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 18. A fatal air crash near Raglan on October 3 must serve as a further warning of the dangers of cloud-flying by pilots insufficiently competent in that art, said the Chief Inspector of Accidents (Mr O. J. O’Brien) in a report into the crash. Mr O’Brien said that the aircraft, a Cessna 180, had set out from Wellington on a flight to Auckland and crashed a few feet below the crest of a cloud-enshrouded ridge near Raglan. The pilot, Vincent Roy Draffin, aged 29, was killed. Draffin, the proprietor of a company engaged in rental and charter operations, held

a certificate authorising him to undertake charter flying operations in daylight under visual meteorological conditions. He took off from Wellington airport at 4.8 p.m. He was advised of the deteriorating weather on the flight, and as a result, amended his flight plan to eliminate a brief landing at New Plymouth and to proceed direct to Whenuapai by way of the coast. The report discussed alternative possibilities to account for the crash inland and said: “In any case he must have been flying into conditions utterly incompatible with visual flight rules, and his decision to press on into deteriorated conditions constitutes the primary cause of the accident.

“Draffin's attitude to poor weather and his approach towards his responsibilities as a pilot in general may perhaps be judged by consideration of a series of incident reports taken from his personal file held by the Civil Aviation Administration.” Then followed extracts referring to seven instances of unsatisfactory pilot behaviour between July 5, 1960, and August 8, 1961, leading to the suspension of his commercial licence for 14 days from August 10, and an interview with the Director of Civil Aviation during which he had been told a much higher standard of airmanship would be required. “Furthermore, he was told in so many words that if he continued to operate in his present manner he would

certainly be killed.” After this interview the licence was reinstated on August 14. “The accident,” said Mr O’Brien, “was caused by the pilot’s imprudent decision to continue a flight (rather than abandon Lt by making for an alternative aerodrome) by entering weather incompatible with visual flight rules, with the result that the aircraft flew off-course and collided with a ridge totally obscured by cloud.

Bear Straight Ahead.— Traffic was held up for 20 minutes recently on the main road into Fort Churchill, northern Manitoba, when a weary, footloose polar bear decided to take a nap in the middle of the highway.