I witnessed a near accident today while one of your aircraft was on approach to HXD. The weather was reported at 200 overcast at the time the pilot began the approach. I was holding at the end of the runway when I look up and see the plane in a 1 mile final below 200 feet and 90 degrees to the final approach course heading away from the airport. I watched him circle at an altitude of less than 200 feet trying to come back around to the final, he overshot and just got it straightened out as he was crossing the threshold. The mda for this approach is 540 feet but the ceiling was 200, i took off immediately after he landed so I can say for sure that the atis was correct. My first question is how did he end up 90 degrees to the final on a straight in approach 1 mile from the runway? Second question is how do you go about reporting an incident like this? That pilot doesn't need to be flying, he will kill some people one day doing stuff like that.

 

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I can't believe he tried to do a circle. At those speeds he was wayyyyy off. I wonder what the passengers were thinking when he was banking his arse off.

 

Dont Call The Faa Busting A Fellow Pilot Is Not What We Promote Here, Faa Does Enough To Bust Our Balls

 

Would you have the same attitude if your family was a passenger on this flight? I don't intend to call the faa but his superiors at piedmont should know about this. Flying over the middle of town at 150 feet in ifr weather with paying passengers in the back is dangerous and any pilot who does this deserves to be reported.

 

Probably a new Piedmonster FO... he probably just graduated from UND or Purdue---give him a break.

 

I think you mean Riddle or ATP.

 

I seriously doubt what you thought you saw was what actually happened. I know we had a lot of crazies at PDT but not that crazy. Get a current Pdt pilot on here to look up the flight and who was flying it by the base awards.

 

Lets see, the ceiling was 200, this dash 8 was below the ceiling, I watched from the end of the runway and saw everything except for a few seconds when he disappeared behind the trees. The tower was even questioning him about his position. I'm pretty sure my description of what happened is accurate.

 

Screwing up is one thing, making a mistake is one thing, not knowing something is one thing. All forgivable because everyone does it sooner or later... but shooting out of the clouds on a 90 degree angle 300ft below mins, seeing the airport off your right wing then doing a circle to land, then overshoot again, swirving in. That's different.

The difference is when you screw up, make a mistake, ect. you realize it then make a correction. Not choose to continue to make it worse. Minimums are minimums. Hard deck.