from flight watch or an AFSS, once en route. It is important to recognize weather presents a hazard, which in turn can become an unmanageable risk. GA aircraft travel slowly and must fly in the weather rather than above it. Since weather is unpredictable, it is highly likely that during a flight, a pilot will encounter weather conditions different from what he or she expected. These weather conditions are not necessarily severe, like ice or thunderstorms, and analysis has shown that most VFR encounters with IMC involved low clouds and restrictions to visibility. 

## Scud Running 

Scud running, or continued VFR flight into instrument flight rules (IFR) conditions, pushes the pilot and aircraft capabilities to the limit when the pilot tries to make visual contact with the terrain. This is one of the most dangerous things a pilot can do and illustrates how poor ADM links directly to a human factor that leads to an accident. A number of instrument-rated pilots die scud running while operating VFR. Scud running is seldom successful, as can be seen in the following accident report. 

A Cessna 172C, piloted by a commercial pilot, was substantially damaged when it struck several trees during a precautionary landing on a road. Instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) prevailed at the time of the accident. The personal cross-country flight was being conducted without a flight plan. 

The pilot had purchased the airplane in Arkansas and was ferrying it to his fixed base operation (FBO) in Utah. En route stops were made and prior to departing the last stop, the pilot, in a hurry and not wanting to walk back to the FBO to call flight service, discussed the weather with a friend who told the pilot that the weather was clear to the north. Poor weather conditions prevented him from landing at his original destination, so the pilot turned around and landed at a privately owned airport with no service facilities. Shortly thereafter, the pilot took off again and looped north toward his destination. The “weather got bad” and the pilot decided to make a precautionary landing on a snow-covered road. The road came to a “T” and the airplane slid off the end. The left wing and propeller struck the ground and the right wing struck a tree. The right wing had leading edge compression damage outboard of the root, and the left wing leading edge was crushed near the wing tip fairing. Both propeller blades were bent. As discussed throughout this handbook, this accident was the result of a chain of poor decisions. The pilot himself recalled what he should have done in this situation, “I should have picked a spot to do a precautionary landing sooner before the weather got bad. Second, I should have called flight service to get a weather briefing, instead of discussing it with a friend on the ramp.” 

## Get-There-Itis 

In get-there-itis, personal or external pressure clouds the vision and impairs judgment by causing a fixation on the original goal or destination combined with a total disregard for alternative course of action. 

“I have to be in Houston by 7 o’clock.” In the previous case, the pilot was simply lazy. 

Approximately 15 minutes after departure, the pilot of a Piper PA-34-200T twin-engine airplane encountered IMC. The non-instrument-rated private pilot lost control of the airplane and impacted snow-covered terrain. Prior to the cross-country flight, the pilot obtained three standard weather briefings, of which two were obtained on the previous day and one on the morning of the accident. The briefings included IFR conditions along the planned route of flight. 

According to the briefing and a statement from a friend, the pilot intended to land the airplane prior to his destination if the weather conditions were not visual flight rules (VFR). The pilot would then “wait it out” until the weather conditions improved. According to radar data, the airplane departed from the airport and was traveling on a southeasterly heading. For the first 15 minutes of the flight, the airplane maintained a level altitude and a consistent heading. For the last minute of the flight, the airplane entered a descent of 2,500 feet per minute (fpm), a climb of 3,000 fpm, a 1,300 fpm descent, and the airplane’s heading varied in several degrees. The airplane impacted the terrain in a right wing low, nose-down attitude. 

Looking beyond the summary, get-there-itis leads to a poor aeronautical decision because this pilot repeatedly sought weather briefings for a VFR flight from Pueblo, Colorado, to Tyler, Texas. During a 17-minute briefing at 0452, he was informed of weather conditions along his planned route of flight that included IFR conditions that were moving south, moderate icing conditions for the state of Colorado, and low ceilings of visibility along the planned route of flight. His next call took place at 0505, approximately 1½ hours prior to takeoff. The pilot responded to the reported weather conditions by saying “so I’ve got a, I’ve got a little tunnel there that looks decent right now...from what that will tell me I’ve got a, I’ve got an open shot over the butte.” 

The pilot began the flight 1½ hours after his weather update, neglecting to weigh the risks created by a very volatile weather situation developing across the state. 

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the probable cause of this accident was the pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane after an inadvertent encounter with IMC, resulting in the subsequent impact with 

