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C208 first officer reported a fatigued captain's failure to maintain proper climb profile to reach safe altitude.
| Attributes | |
| ACN | 1570572 |
| Time | |
| Date | 201808 |
| Local Time Of Day | 0601-1200 |
| Place | |
| Locale Reference | BWI.Airport |
| State Reference | MD |
| Environment | |
| Flight Conditions | VMC |
| Light | Daylight |
| Aircraft 1 | |
| Make Model Name | Caravan Undifferentiated |
| Flight Phase | Climb |
| Route In Use | Vectors |
| Flight Plan | IFR |
| Person 1 | |
| Function | First Officer Pilot Not Flying |
| Qualification | Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Commercial |
| Experience | Flight Crew Last 90 Days 85 Flight Crew Total 500 Flight Crew Type 120 |
| Events | |
| Anomaly | Conflict Ground Conflict Less Severe Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT |
Narrative:
The captain was pilot flying; I was pilot monitoring. The captain began his initial climb out normally but within thirty seconds he attempted to gain more airspeed on climb most likely to achieve a shorter en route time. His airspeed was about ~140 KTS; [which is] much too far above the caravan's recommended climb speed; which slowed the vertical speed down to only about ~200-300 feet per minute. I let him know that his climb rate was too slow but he assured me that it would be ok. He attempted to correct this with a slightly higher pitch attitude; however; it wasn't a large enough correction to fix the problem and it wasn't applied quickly enough. Within a few minutes after takeoff; approach advised us that we were below the minimum safe altitude for the sector and that we were getting far too close to a tall obstacle. I called on the radio that we were going to expedite the climb. We ended up avoiding the obstacle with enough safe altitude separation. I believe my captain was tired or fatigued; as our shift began early in the morning and he seemed to act more lethargic than normal. I don't remember the specifics of the altitudes and exact location. To note; I had written the local time of the incident down; however; that may only be accurate to plus or minus one hour.
Original NASA ASRS Text
Title: C208 First Officer reported a fatigued Captain's failure to maintain proper climb profile to reach safe altitude.
Narrative: The Captain was pilot flying; I was pilot monitoring. The Captain began his initial climb out normally but within thirty seconds he attempted to gain more airspeed on climb most likely to achieve a shorter en route time. His airspeed was about ~140 KTS; [which is] much too far above the Caravan's recommended climb speed; which slowed the vertical speed down to only about ~200-300 feet per minute. I let him know that his climb rate was too slow but he assured me that it would be OK. He attempted to correct this with a slightly higher pitch attitude; however; it wasn't a large enough correction to fix the problem and it wasn't applied quickly enough. Within a few minutes after takeoff; approach advised us that we were below the minimum safe altitude for the sector and that we were getting far too close to a tall obstacle. I called on the radio that we were going to expedite the climb. We ended up avoiding the obstacle with enough safe altitude separation. I believe my Captain was tired or fatigued; as our shift began early in the morning and he seemed to act more lethargic than normal. I don't remember the specifics of the altitudes and exact location. To note; I had written the local time of the incident down; however; that may only be accurate to plus or minus one hour.
Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.