GAARMS Report: January 2016 fred-gibbs
Fred Gibbs

2015 has come, and 2015 has gone. Last month I cited our good fortune of no fatal accidents in the preceding 4 to 5 months, and lo and behold, we continued that good fortune right up until mid-December. And then, RATS, we had that fatal air ambulance helicopter crash down east of Apache Junction. Unfortunately, two of the three air ambulance medical people, those wonderful folks who fly through thick and thin, good weather and bad, to help us - or rescue us - perished in the accident. The irony…

The NO fatal accidents time-frame window broke at approximately 195 days – that was 6 – 6 ½ months without a fatal accident. OOHRAH! Pat yourselves on the back, but, as I have always said, don’t get cocky or complacent. Remember, it only takes one mistake to create an accident, one error in judgment, one miscalculation, one “OOPS,” one “Oh Sh*t” to erase 20 “Atta-Boys!”

GAARMS V, the fifth General Aviation Accident Reduction and Mitigation Symposium, is in the planning stage. GAARMS is a major joint safety initiative by the Arizona Pilots Association (APA), The Arizona Safety Advisory Group (ASAG), and the Scottsdale FSDO Safety Program. It directly targets the Arizona-based and trained pilot community; in reality, this is the only pilot community the APA can actually reach out and touch. As a member of the APA, it is one of the many benefits we offer. And, as you know, we always ask our members to bring a “Wingman” to the safety programs, hoping to both increase membership by demonstrating the benefits of belonging, and by reaching out to non-members to further instill the safety culture. The date and time are tentatively planned for Saturday, March 19th, 9:00AM to Noon, so mark your calendars. As of right now the actual location is not yet locked down, but it will be somewhere in the Phoenix area. We are working on that as you read this. Stay tuned and watch for that announcement in later this month and in the February newsletter. It will also come out in Late February/early March as a FAA safety program with WINGS credits.

At the GAARMS symposium, we will be dissecting the two fatal accidents that occurred in-state (Arizona) during calendar year 2015, as well as the two fatal out-of-state accidents involving Arizona-based aircraft. All four of the accidents involved Arizona-based pilots. To the best of my knowledge, none were APA members, and none of them ever attended an APA safety program or seminar. While GAARMS will (attempt to) go deep into the accidents, in a nut-shell, there were three accidents that occurred during the takeoff phase of flight. Two are still actual causes unknown, and the third one was categorized as a Loss of Control, an apparent, but not verified, low level stall.

(One should never be too quick to pass judgment, or assume anything about an accident is simple, until ALL the facts are uncovered.) The fourth, the recent helicopter crash, is also cause unknown. All of these accidents will be analyzed, scrutinized, and sanitized, so we can present them to you without any finger-pointing or blame. The intent is to educate you about what and how it happened, NOT who to blame, so that you can learn from others’ mistakes. That is a critical part of flying – and life – learning from other folks’ mistakes, because none of us will live long enough to make all of them ourselves!

FYI, the air ambulance community is steeped in safety programs of their own. They operate in an unforgiving environment – low level operations and dangerous conditions, rescuing folks from tough environments, moving medical patients under emergency situations, landing in off-the-beaten path locations dodging trees, wires, etc… even at night under lousy weather conditions. Several years ago we had a mid-air collision between two air ambulance helicopters both arriving at the Flagstaff Medical Center, which the NTSB said was the result of each failing to see the other helicopter (The old “see and avoid” rule) and not even knowing the other one was out there. As a result of that mid-air collision, the FAA changed the boundary (size) of the Flagstaff Class “D” airspace to a larger surface area that encompassed the Flagstaff Medical Center. That change now requires radio contact with the Flagstaff tower for all helicopter arrivals and departures from the Medical Center. Here is the excerpt from the AIM:

Class D: No pilot may take off or land an aircraft at a satellite airport (like the Flagstaff Medical Center – my words) within a Class D airspace area except in compliance with FAA arrival and departure traffic patterns. A pilot departing from the primary airport or satellite airport with an operating control tower must establish and maintain two-way radio communications with the control tower, and thereafter as instructed by ATC while operating in the Class D airspace area. If departing from a satellite airport without an operating control tower, the pilot must establish and maintain two-way radio communications with the ATC facility having jurisdiction over the Class D airspace area as soon as practicable after departing. Two-way radio communications must be established and maintained with the ATC facility providing air traffic services prior to entering the airspace and thereafter maintained while within the airspace.

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Latest Update on the FAA’s VOR Decommissioning
• The VOR MON (Minimum Operational Network) Program will be implemented by decommissioning 30-50% of the VORs in the NAS by 2025 (although the current plan retains all VORs in the designated mountainous region of the U.S.—roughly the western third of the country).
• The reduction will begin gradually over the first five years during which time the bulk of the procedural/airway/airspace work will assessed. Then the plan is to accelerate the process, with 20-25 VORs shut down each year.
• Only FAA owned/operated VORs will be considered for shutdown.
• DMEs and TACANs will generally be retained.
• Many of the remaining VORs will be enhanced to supply increased service volume. VOR standard service volume (SSV) will become 77 NM radius at 5000 ft. AGL.
• Increase support for direct navigation between VORs without airways.
• Retain sufficient ILSs, LOCs, and VORs to support “safe-landing” at a suitable destination with a GPS-independent approach (ILS, LOC or VOR) within 100 NM of any location within CONUS.
• Provide seamless VOR coverage at and above 5000 ft AGL.
• More than 5,000 instrument approaches may be affected by the reduction in operational VORs.
• Nearly 1,300 SIDs, STARs, and ODPs may be affected by the reduction in operational VORs.
• FAA is working on/pondering how to refer to and chart DME-only facilities
The goals established for the MON include allowing pilots to:
• Revert from PBN to conventional navigation in the event of a Global Positioning System (GPS) outage;
• Tune and identify a VOR at an altitude of 5,000 feet or higher;
• Navigate using VOR procedures through a GPS outage area;
• Navigate to a MON airport within 100 nautical miles to fly an Instrument Landing System (ILS) or VOR instrument approach without Distance Measuring Equipment (DME), Automatic Direction Finder (ADF), surveillance, or GPS; and
• Navigate along VOR Airways especially in mountainous terrain where surveillance services are not available and Minimum En Route Altitudes (MEAs) offer lower altitude selection for options in icing conditions.

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For more information on the VOR shutdown and the future shutdown schedule, go on line and search for “FAA VOR MON” and have fun searching and reading all the different sites talking about this, including the FAA’s own PowerPoint presentations on the subject.

Should you desire a safety or educational program at your local airport, simply contact me directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or call me at 410-206-3753. The Arizona Pilots Association provides the safety programs at no charge. We can also help you organize a program of your choice, and we can recommend programs that your pilot community might really like.