GALVESTON, Texas – A retired airline captain is sharing his thoughts after a Mexican Navy aircraft carrying a burn patient crashed in Galveston Bay Monday.
Cpt. Richard J. Levy runs Aviation Expert Consulting. He has decades of experience flying in both the military and commercial airlines.
Levy says based on the foggy weather conditions in Galveston, the aircraft should not have attempted to land.
“Galveston says that on Runway 14, you need to have one half of a mile visibility to start the approach and continue and legally land. The National Weather Service apparently was reporting a quarter mile visibility. That is not legal, it’s not safe and you should not start the approach,” Levy said.
Levy painted a picture of the usual protocol when pilots deal with fog on landing.
“You do not start the approach unless you have required visibility of a half a mile, in this case at Galveston Scholes. And if you do fly the approach and you reach the minimum altitude to make a decision, land or go around and it’s usually at 200 feet and that’s the case of this chart, looking at the approach chart you execute a missed approach and at that point you again in a holding pattern wait for the weather to improve or you go to an alternate,” he said.
Levy says the minimum legal visibility for landing at Galveston Schols is 1/2 mile.
Levy says the data also shows the aircraft was descending far too quickly for a landing approach. This is commonly known as the sink rate.
“They should have been descending at 600 feet per minute,” he said. “If they’re descending at 1,200 feet per minute, this is what we call in the airline industry, an unstable approach. That can happen. The solution is not to get scared, its to execute a missed approach and try another approach unless the weather is staying bad, then you divert.”
Gage Goulding: “Do you believe that this could have been prevented?”
Capt. Levy: “100% should not have even started the approach."
The FAA will investigate the accident.