I’m sorry for Dr. Butzier’s family.
When I hear stories like this I think back many years to when I was in pilot training. On one of my first flights Ken deWitt told me point blank, “There are old pilots and bold pilots but no old bold pilots”. Was this the case here?
He missed the first approach and came back for a second go at landing rather than diverting to another airport. FAA, “Dalsing said the plane missed its first approach to the runway and crashed while approaching for a second time. Around an inch and a half of rain fell in the Dubuque area throughout the day and into the night Monday, though Dalsing said it wasn’t clear if weather played a role in the crash.
FAA and NTSB investigators are on their way to investigate the crash.”
““There are old pilots and bold pilots but no old bold pilots”. Was this the case here?”
“GetThere-itis” has killed an awful lot of pilots over the years.
Knew a doctor who flew his family down to FL panhandle to their place there. It rained, tropical with 2-3 inches of standing water on a grass turf runway. Think is was a Cessna single engine. He apparently insisted on taking off with whole family. His wife and one of the two little children survived, barely, she had to have her face reconstructed.
The plane went along, barely lifted, bounced, then went nose down into the turf at the end of the runway, throwing all passengers into windshield/firewall. One child was not strapped in- and flew from back to front and then into instrument panel.
Not get-there-itis, but must-leave-no mattertheconditionitis, brought on by get-there-itis. A real tragedy.
An old saying to keep in mind... There, but for the grace of God, go I
It is not at all unusual to make a second approach after a miss...
File this under sh1t happens
It does not matter how many approaches he made; 2, 3, 4.
If you don’t hit the ground or some obstacle, you do not crash.
And you do neither unless you bust minimums.
What probably happened is that he saw the lights on the first approach but not well enough to land out of it, or maybe he as just a little off the centerline.
So he thinks that he will shoot it again and this time duck just a bit under the minimum. A no no.
This was the weather at the normal reporting time:
METAR KDBQ 140353Z AUTO 36012KT 5SM -RA BR OVC002 13/13 A2946 RMK AO2 RAE18B42 SLP977 P0010 T01280128 $
Certainly there was a special read to him as he started the approach and we will not find out what that was until we see the NSTB report.
With the wind from the north, he could have been cleared for either runway 31 or 36.
I did not look up 31, but 36 has a min. of 200-1/2. I no longer have any approach plates and digging them out of the internet is a pain.
Unless the special was much worse, he should have been able to make it.
But all instrument pilots are not created equal.
Actually I knew quite a few pilots that could shoot a successful approach down to 100 -1/2 and put it on the centerline.
I neglected to mention that there are 5 airports in the area in addition to DBQ.
We don’t even know at which airport he was landing.
A non precision approach to a satellite airport is a different critter.