“Fly The Plate and You Won’t Get Hurt”

Frank Zilka and his employees are great. They were very helpful during this incident. Here is exactly what happened that night.
The VASI has nothing to do with this incident. The pilot was aware of the Notam. The approach should have been de-commissioned at the same time the VASI was shut down.
I can assure you the approach was flown precisely as depicted on the approach plate.The PIC was aware that this was not a precision approach; however the advisory glide-slope should be used in your scan. The aircraft was on a stabilized approach. All crossing altitudes and minimums were adhered to. After going visual, no changes were made to the stabilized approach. This PIC has never flown the "Dive and Drive" profile. He has flown stabilized approaches his entire career; that is how he flew 56 years and 30,000 plus hours without ever putting a dent on an aircraft. It's hard to maneuver a plane through trees that penetrate the "Clear Fly Zone" by more than eighty feet, especially at night with moderate rain and one and a half mile visibility. The approach plate on the night of the incident clearly showed the shaded arrow between the VDP and TCH indicating the pilot was guaranteed a 34:1 obstacle clearance slope. The survey during the investigation showed a 9:1 would be required.
To give you a better perspective, the error of 946.5 feet from the eighteen year old survey would have equated to a TCH of 96.5 feet at the published TCH instead of 46 feet. Big difference.
The pilot made no error: the FAA took no action against the pilot, did not rule the incident pilot error, conducted a TERP's analysis, and de-commissioned the approach for eight months until the fifteen trees were eventually cut down.
The law enforcement officer did not even see the plane. He did not leave the FBO facilities. The crew was well aware of what had happened ( read the story) but had a letter of confidentiality with the owner and did not feel it was appropriate to tell anyone any more than they had to at that time of night. The FAA was notified the next morning and the investigation went forward.
J. Huddleston has sued no one. He was informed a settlement had been reached. He has had to bite his tongue for four years, wanting to write this article, because he is convinced there are more GPS approaches like this one. He has suffered more from this incident than anyone.
The crew landing on RW 23 may have known what we were told after the incident, "The trees are lower on RW23"; however Albany approach vectored us for GPS RW 5 which was appropriate arriving from the southwest. I regret any hardships Mr. Zilka may have endured during this period, but the tree matter had been known for years and ignored. Look at a copy of the approach plate for the date of the incident.

I am not a frequent user of 5B2 but have flown the GPS 5 with twilight snow squalls during the mid-2000s in a SEL. That same weekend, I departed runway 23 during a heavy snow storm. Whoa! Thanks for this account.
Generally speaking, I sense there's a lot of "inertia" in the dense northeast working against keeping approach paths clear (and even closing down too many airports). I now enjoy flying around NC and the SE US where runways are being lengthened and approach paths are generally kept clear.
But I'll be lot more suspicious of all those lovely LPV approaches and thankful I'm not flying anything fast or heavy.

Glad that it all worked out safely and the root cause was addressed. Did you end up getting a little mud on the tires?

By 2007, it had become common knowledge for the pilots frequenting 5B2(Saratoga County Airport) to not land RWY 5 at night. The trees were a problem during the day, and a hazard night. Immediately after this incident, the trees in question were taken down and very large clear zones were established on the end of RWY's 5 and 23. So, the question becomes this, if the trees weren't a problem on July 12th 2008, why did they start coming down so quickly afterward? I guess we'll have to wait for the court to decide.

Hey Jim...great reply. I've flown many trips in years past with Jim when he was my Chief Pilot for a Learjet operator in Nashville. Jim is as good of a Learjet pilot as anyone I know. Jim's DECADES of experience in the Lear is something to marvel at. His 56 years and 30,000 hours of flying is not an exaggeration. He's as good as they come.

Sam Swift

Preacher and Rich. I'm buying see u soon

During the Saratoga race season mid July thru sept approx 15 jets / day utilize 5b2, on weekends as many as 30. Not including based jets at the field Depositions and ultimately a trail will clarify many convoluted facts, that will make this a great story. Once your done " flying the plate " your visual . The fact the crew survived , the airplane landed, no one was injured on the ground was a miracle .

Preacher I lived it payed for it and now laughing about this pr stunt I'm at 5b2 we run the FBO, sued for that reason . Come visit I'll buy you and anyone else a coffee that would like to hear our side. Congrats to Jim ,your friends in the right places . It's a great story and it nearly 80 yrs old you should enjoy yourself.

I just flew the GPS approach on FS with the same weather condition's and was 1 mile out and hit trees at 950 ft....

What's ironic here is that to construct something near an airport you must get a permit and if the local code folks are informed there has to be a survey to make sure it doesn't change any obstacle clearances. Ironically, trees don't stay the same height very long. Some one has to notice and question that and inform the FAA. In defense of the FAA, they can't flight check every airport in the country on a regular basis. About two years ago, I read where there were lots of airports that didn't meet the legal obstacle clearance for either a clearway or stopway. There was a program to enforce compliance. Where did this go wrong here? Well, for one, it costs someone money. Property owners would want the airport to pay and the airport would want the property owners to pay. Here we go to court. The little trees were just fine 19 years ago. Why do I have to cut them now? One has to wonder just how many years and approaches went by with those trees in the obstacle clearance limits?

I don't know anything about 5B2 but I have several comments. 1. There are probably hundreds of approaches similar to this around the US. Old surveys, no actual flight checking by specially equipped FAA aircraft, property developed close to airport approach paths and people either not aware, not able, not wanting and for whatever reason ignoring the situation. 2. The FAA is like the IRS--guilty until proven innocent with regards to the flight crew. What about the airport and the approach? Oh no, that's THEIR (FAA) territory of approval. They certified it so it must be right--yeah, 18 years ago. Baloney! 3. Was there a CVR? An FDR? What has the FO had to say about this. 4. If he "firewalled" it and pitched to 15 degrees after hitting the trees, how eventful was his recovery, in moderate rain, from an unusual attitude at less than 500 feet AGL? There is something to be said about being a "great stick", (old USAF term). Sometimes just being able to fly the airplane has saved many lives. Don't ever forget--fly the airplane! Whatever happened, he did a great job landing and walking away.

I'm unable to find the incident report in the NTSB Accident Synopsis database. Is the date correct? July 13, 2008?

There are many sad things here - but - let me start by saying: Am not a pilot, but, a friend of aviation!

Sad to me:

1) This was not dealt with immediately after the event. Bureaucracy means we need to spend a few 100K to tackle the obvious.

2) Based on everything I read - 600K was allocated by the FAA to cut trees down. Why is my tax dollar going to cut down tree's in NY? Don't start - am not a Tea Party or Republican (nor Democrat) member! I am a realist: If you want planes to land in Saratoga - here are the rules: Cut the damn tree's down!

3) If the house was built after the airport - then - should be at the owners expense. If built before - move the damn airport at taxpayers expense (but federal taxpayers expense).

4) To the pilot - I am very extremely sorry you had to go through this. I am not saying sorry to those who ran the airport - despite red tape they knew they had a problems and let it go based on the problems they would go through to correct it.

Correct me were I am wrong - understanding I debate not to be proved right - but am aggressive to find middle ground and the right answer!

I will verify the date. Keep in mind that the lawsuit is not settled. Information may not be public yet.

It is interesting that this incident does not appear in the NTSB index along with a "probable cause". Perhaps it was categorized as an incident and thus excluded from these published reports. I have noticed accidents lately in which the government or its agents may have had possible culpability that were either missing from the NTSBs or the NTSB did not issue a "probable cause" but merely filed a "factual" report.

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/AccList.aspx?month=7&year=2008

Hooray for Mr. Huddleston for bringing this situation to light.

The event was classified as an "incident" and does not appear in the NTSB database, but it is on the FAA ASIAS database.

http://www.asias.faa.gov/portal/pls/portal/STAGE.AIDS_BRIEF_REPORT_PUB?EV_ID=20080713857499I&NARR_VAR=

July 13 2008 is the date of the accident

I have news for you all: the Russian GPS system is better by a factor of four. No one in the USA will accept this fact. NASA know.

Found this interesting regarding the event:

http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2010/07/17/news/doc4c411a090fd07237026928.txt

Funny that Mr. Zilka,(and I don't know either pary here and have never flown into Saratoga Springs)responds to every other comment here yet has nothing to say about mine yesterday nor Mr. Huddleston's last nite.

Richard,

Thanks for your article. I tweeted it as it is very noteworthy. I have to be dismayed that FSDO immediately assume guilty by pilot first, then with your knowledge and resources you prove your operational integrity and the error of the local public airport incompetence. Lucky no one was killed, but great information about assuming too much to an approach plate.

This biggest shame about this article is that litigation had to be completed before it could be written. The almighty dollar trumps life and limb.

This is a great story, I was there the night this lear jet flew through the trees. A great "Story"!! First lets get some facts straight. The notem in place stated no vasis runway 5. Pilot in command was Visual on descent. Now lets go from there, he descended below MDA. Upon his descent he struck trees off airport property. GPS runway 5 is a non precision approach. There were other choices for runways available at the time with vasis and GPS approach. Just prior to this event an airplane landed safely on runway 23 equiped with vasis. Funny that the piot was unawaire that he had hit the trees or said he was untill local law enforcement pointed out the limbs and leaves stuck in his wheel wells. Jim is a nice man and I'm sure a seasoned pilot. Sometimes even the most proficient make errors. It is unfortunate that he sued everyone, the FBO, the county, and the FAA.