San Francisco Plane Crash is a Lesson Learned for LU's Future Pi - abc27 WHTM

San Francisco Plane Crash is a Lesson Learned for LU's Future Pilots


Lynchburg, VA - The investigation into that Asiana flight crash landing in San Francisco, raising so many questions among pilots; how was it that their training didn't teach them to handle a landing like the one in San Francisco with more accuracy?

It's also becoming a big lesson for future fliers.

Instructors and students alike at Liberty University's School of Aeronautics said fundamental basic training should have and could have been used to avoid Saturday's terrifying, and deadly descent.

After the flames from a smoldering plane are put out, and the thick black smoke clears, it's a lesson learned for future fliers.

"It's heart wrenching for one, for the crews, for the pilots" said, Jonathan Wentworth, a Liberty University Aeronautic School Sophomore.

Wentworth wants to become a commercial airline pilot.

"Just now I was actually practicing instrument approaches" he said. Wentworth spent the day practicing landings; a critical lesson. He knows the failure to land properly can land him in a San Francisco-like situation.

"It needs to be a habit and you need to know exactly what you're doing and always be on your game. And instrument flying is all about your mental game. You've got to be awake and ready to go" said Wentworth.

"We simulate all different types of emergencies, or we'll ask them about, what are you going to do if this happens, what are you going to do if this happens" said Aaron Wilson, the Director of the school's Flight Operations.

Wilson's flown for more than 25 years. He says the number one lesson that must be learned by all future fliers, is knowing what to do when that cockpit computer crashes.

"So what we constantly do in our training is take that technology element away from the students, to where they're learning how to fly the airplane by those fundamentals" he said.

For his students, the greatest lesson of all Wilson says, is that with strong fundamentals, disasters can be diverted.

"I can just see myself in that seat and saying, oh, I was 200 feet below my minimums here and I made a mistake and it cost me a plane and it cost me lives" said Wentworth.

Wilson tells me the 200 enrolled flight students are often given case studies to evaluate. The crash landing in San Francisco he says will become their newest case.

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