NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Navigation errors and Sahara crash 1952
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2015 Jun 1, 12:13 -0700
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2015 Jun 1, 12:13 -0700
I responded off list thusly:
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I have been a flight instructor for 40 years and i always stress checking the compass and directional gyro when lined up on the runway since the runways are numbered based on their magnetic heading. I'm also a lawyer and I specialized in airplane crash cases for 25 years. There was an airline takeoff accident in Lexington Kentucky in 2006 that killed 49. The pilot lined up on the wrong runway, runway 26 (about 260 heading) instead of the correct runway 22. RWY 26 was way too short and the airplane never got off the ground, it ran off the end at very high speed. If the pilots had simply looked at their compass to make the standard DG check and to confirm lining on the correct runway then those 49 people would not have been killed. They should have taxied past the end of RWY 26 on the way to RWY 22 but stopped at 22 and tried to takeoff.
see
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Hi,
Pilots should cross-check magnetic with gyro whilst taxiing out. They should also check runway magnetic heading checks with both when lined up. This is especially true if carrying stores, e.g. bombs slung near remote magnetic sensors in the wings. How would I know that?
