They are having a hard time finding a comptroller that has all his RPT and NIB and other debts all sorted...what ever became of Lightbourn anyways? Our dear tax dodger...

Might as well go out and pass the torch onto the next fool, that way it won't be PGC losing the next election, cause he sure is not going to get re-elected. Let someone else run and use them as a scapegoat for when the PLP get crushed at the next election.

While I agree that a crime plan should be agreed upon by all, we also need an education plan...this crime won't get any better until we start producing some educated children that have better opportunities in life than resorting to crime.

Proof read people!!
"Hundreds Father To Say Farewell To Pilot"

Only 10 more to go and we break last years record!! Let's go Bahamas!! We can do it!! *sigh*

Until they replace the pilots with full blown computer controls or robots, there will always be that chance of pilot error.

Well 'contact' is a tricky term to use. You contact Freeport tower on the radio...that does not mean that Freeport tower sees you, or has you in sight, and since they have no radar, they have no clue really as to your whereabouts at any given time. You would be talking with Approach typically while you are in the holding pattern and getting ready to shoot the approach...in most instances you are still talking with approach when you announce you are at the outer marker...in this case 4 miles out...there would be a transmission to the effect of ..."Approach, this is N17UF, at the outer marker beginning the approach." Approach would usually respond at that point and say something like..."Roger N17UF continue on the approach and contact the tower."...next would be switching channels to tower and saying something to the effect of "Freeport Tower, N17UF, checking in...on the ILS approach just inside the marker." Tower would likely respond with something like "Roger that N17UF, continue approach, advise when airport in sight or missed approach...current conditions at the field are...blah blah blah..." That's about the extent of the 'contact' per se. If the weather permits, the tower MIGHT be able to see him...may see a couple specks of his landing lights through the mist or rain, but really the controller is blind and just going by what he is being told by the pilot...he knows he is inside that marker, so within 4 miles...in a Lear doing 120 on the approach, that's 2 miles a minute, he should be touching down in 2 minutes. If you don't see or hear from him in 2 minutes, start asking questions.

There is an error in the report with regard to the location of the crane... "The impact occurred with two support beams above the crane operator’s cab approximately 115 feet mean sea level (MSL). The crane was stationed at coordinates; latitude 26 degrees, 45 minutes 46.05 seconds North and Longitude 78 degrees, 45 minutes 25.20 seconds West." The west coordinates are spot on, but 26'45" north is way north in the water of Little Bahama Bank. If you change those coordinates to 26 degrees 31 (not 45) degrees, 46.05 minutes...that puts you right in the heart of the shipyard. I guess because 45 minutes was also in the west coordinate, it got transposed into the north coordinate by mistake. I guess in their hurry to get a preliminary report out they did not proof read their coordinates.

The suggestion has been made that the pilot mistook some of the lights in the shipyard as the approach lights leading up to the runway. Unfortunately again, if this is the case, it comes straight back to pilot error. When flying in bad weather and having to depend on your instruments it is drummed into your head to trust your gauges, he would have had numerous indicators, from the DME coming off of the VOR, a plane like that would have a VERY nice GPS unit in it, he even had a second backup pilot in there that helps with the workload and is meant to catch glaring errors. If you are meant to be 2.5-3 miles out...the GPS would read it at closer to 3 as it would use the centre of the airfield, you need to trust that, and check yourself, and the glideslope and realize that 2.5-3 miles out from the physical landing strip, 115 feet is not the right altitude. So many of the instruments would have been feeding him the information that he needed to be well clear of those cranes. "hey look...runway lights...NO...I'm still 2.5 miles out, that can't be right..." Both pilots should have been checking and cross checking like crazy those last few minutes. Now...with all this being said, you've seen it happen a few times, usually at night, where a nice big airliner, lines up for a visual approach to what they believe is their destination and they land at some super small private strip or feeder airport. It can happen, but in those instances, it all comes down to pilot error and not having your brain in gear and making sense of the data that is being presented to you.

The 1.9 miles...OK...picking apart the distance from the airport...I can see what the report writer did. if you take the most extreme NE corner of the Shipyard...basically their fenceline, and you take the western fenceline that secures the airports perimeter, that distance is 1.9 miles...but when you are trying to analyze his actual position in relation to the approach to the actual runway, that figure is very misleading. If I take that building at the NE corner of the shipyard that next to the roundabout and measure out to the threshold of the runway, you are looking at 2.4 NM...extrapolating the approach...from 0 feet at the threshold (which it is not, technically it is about 1,000 feet down the runway), to 1,400 feet altitude at 4 miles out, he should have been at 840'. As you move that glideslope instrumentation down the runway to where it actually is...or is meant to be, his altitude should only have been higher still, probably closer to 900 feet. To be that far out of position he either encountered a major downdraft/microburst (possible), he had a mechanical failure (possible), or he was pushing the envelope and dropping below the glideslope in hopes of seeing the runway...obviously there would be other mitigating factors, very rarely is it ever just ONE thing that is pure cause of the crash. Without the weather none of this would have happened, was he low on fuel, was he being pressured by the boss to get into the airport, was he just being over confident and pushing the limits...we will need to wait for the full report to dig into it any further. Assuming no mechanical issues or radical microbursts, everything else unfortunately comes down to that dreaded phrase of pilot error.