Golden Eagle 421
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT
ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings; Human Factors; Aircraft
A C421 checked on requesting the Runway 14 ILS Approach via RADAR vectors from the south. I issued appropriate vectors from a downwind to base.  Once the aircraft was in position for a turn to final I issued an appropriate vector to final and an appropriate altitude to maintain until established. The aircraft was slow to take it and requested me to repeat the assigned heading to join. I reissued the heading at which point it looked as though he may blow through the localizer. I instructed the pilot to make an appropriate turn from his position to join the localizer from the other side. The aircraft began his right turn and continued through the localizer again and kept turning right at which point he said something that I couldn't understand to the effect that he was having trouble capturing the localizer. I asked him to say present heading. He said 280; which was never issued; and which also put him heading into a 6;000 FT MVA at an assigned altitude of 5;300. I immediately instructed him to climb to 6;000. I then tried to figure out what difficulty he was having and what we needed to do to get him on the ground but RADIO communications were spotty and he was having difficulty following instructions. At this point he was heading for another higher MVA 6;700. He was close to 8 miles away from the higher MVA when I issued him a turn away from and climb to 7;000. He did not respond verbally or take the turn or climb. I reiterated the control instruction and had him verify he had received it. He said roger and began his turn away from the MVA and climbed but he had already entered the 6;700 FT at around 6;100. We then got him on a good heading and altitude out of and away from the MVA. Radio coverage was spotty the entire time which did not help the situation. This is a common problem in the Medford area due to poor radio coverage in the area. Also the pilot was not following instructions and was slow to react to the ones he followed. There is not much that can be done about the radio coverage due to the terrain; nor can we do anything about a sub-par pilot.
EUG Controller described a MVA event when IFR traffic being vectored for an ILS Approach entered a higher MVA and failed to respond to ATC direction; RADIO coverage and pilot error were listed as causal factors.