ATC guides VFR Cherokee in IMC through storm into Austin

He said he wasn't worried, therein lies a problem...

The guy got in trouble.. Asked for help, help was given... All is ok... I remember along time ago on a solo flight where my instructor and the FAA said there was no chance of weather. It was a beautiful day... I was making a 5 hour solo... On the last leg back home, I got boxed in with thunderstorms while flying a Beech Sundowner (IFR Equipped, and I knew the equipment, but not certified). I asked the Radar Controller and he got me in... I am glad he was there to help, as I am glad this guy did the same... No Harm, No Fowl, and better yet, No Deaths.

I think he was responsible when he called uncle and asked for help rather than getting further into trouble like so many pilots end up doing!!

My favorite part of the story is "Cartwright, who was returning home from a business trip, said he wasn't worried about his safety thanks to the controllers' directions."

We are all armchair critics when we comment at our desks. He should, could and would have. He at least swallowed his pride and asked, rather than put another hole in the ground.

"gethomeitis". Take a look at his track and you can see plenty of opportunity to put the aircraft down before putting himself into a situation where he has to be saved. Meanwhile, in a different part of the same sky, other aircraft are forced to eat into their reserves holding for this guy. Best part of the article was he didn't seem worried about the predicament he got himself into. This guy emptied his bucket of luck and poured it into his bucket of stupid. To the brim. With over 23000 hours and 44 years behind me, I have no sympathy. He got lucky.

ATC recording : http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kaus/KAUS2-Mar-02-2014-1800Z.mp3

There's a little bit more info about the aircraft and the flight conditions here: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news%2Fstate&id=9452293

Everyone needs to be responsible about checking the weather forecasts and avoiding flight in conditions beyond their abilities.

Bravo Zulu to these two controllers! I think we know where one of this year's Archies is going.

This is why we can't be lowering the standards for ATC. Read up on what the FAA did for this most recent batch of hiring. They lowered the score you need on the aptitude test to get to OKC.

A look at any weather map for Sunday in Texas would have shown that there was a slow moving front crossing the area of this person's flight path. An easy way to determine that would just to look at the temperature at any of the airports along the path. There was a good 30 degree temperature drop once the front passed. KCLL would have been a good one to look at. Several GA planes in Texas have gone down in fronts in the last couple of years. If he was trying to fly in behind the front, then he should have headed north as an alternate, but he asked for alternates (Lockhart) That were south of Austin. If he had waited a couple more hours to leave Baton Rouge, it would have been all VFR with pretty flying weather.

On top of all that, regardless of what he told the press, he was probably griping under his breath because the vectored him into KAUS instead of KEDC where he was planning to go.

I live near Lakeway airport and near the landing path to runway 34. When I heard a single engine airplane flying low near us, I told my wife that flying in the weather that we were having (thunderstorms in icy conditions) was the definition of insanity. I'm a low time PPL ASEL and you couldn't pay me enough to fly in that, even if it were legal. Kudos to ATC for helping out and I'm so glad that things worked out. The forecast was pretty ominous, so this must've been a case of get-home-itis...

Just a good decision to ask for an assist when unsure, whatever the reasson. It saves lives in the air and un the ground.

Everybody is a monday morning quarterback and has all the answers. Like the Indian expression goes, till you walked a mile in someone else's moccasins, don't comment on their path. On a simple ferry flight from Tampa into Jacksonville, two things went wrong that were unpredictable and thats what training is for.

Three quarters of the way there we had a unique and unpredictable weather scenario. A late day sundown temperature inversion like flying in dust, nothing in the briefings, not too common, and visibility went dark grey. To add to the fun two loose screws our mechanic had not properly tightened loosed even further. They were the screws that affixed the bus bar for the electronics. Just never tightened right and vibration did the rest. Everything went dead.

I am in the soup, nothing is working, and I had to call for help on my portable (I am a big fan of redundancy and love my portable radios and even had a backup antenna and cable installed). Worked perfect and back to primary instruments.

I had been on with Jacksonville, flight following, stated my situation, they could still tag or follow me, and happy to lend assistance even with the transponder failing. Very professional, I had to do a procedural 2 min turn to keep me tracked, I received headings, speed and altitude changes, and as he said slow descents, slow turns, and finally saw the rabbit. I thanked the controllers, luckily it was a slow period and they appreciated the chance to practice a blind approach.

When something is written for an experience that has a happy ending we praise those who helped us and maybe some of what he had to say is really extra praise for the controllers and the system that gets misinterpreted as arrogance or bravado. The bad endings don't matter as usually someone else is telling the story.

Those are the shoes you don't want to wear.... happy ending is a lesson in learning, the other kind is failure...

All of the airliners that were forced to hold for this guy - they should send him their fuel bill for digging into their reserve fuel. Not to mention all of the delayed flights, missed connections, missed business meetings, passenger issues, etc.