Skyhawk 172/Cutlass 172
Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 200; Flight Crew Total 1550
Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness; Training / Qualification
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Exited Penetrated Airspace; Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport
Human Factors; Weather
The flight started out with the preflight briefing. My student filed his flight plan using his iPad; which should have been my first red flag. When a flight plan is filed using ForeFlight on the iPad there is no way to get a verbal weather briefing from a real person; this can be a real problem for some students.I asked the student to show me the weather he looked at; and tell me what he thought. The student replied with 'Looks like we will be IMC but should be a good flight to get some actual IMC time and get over the mountain range to The Dalles.' I responded with 'Okay; go ahead and finish pre-flighting the aircraft and I will be out in a moment.' While the student was out overlooking the aircraft I looked at the weather and got my own weather briefing from the aviationweather.gov site. When I looked at the Winds Aloft chart for freezing levels; I made my second mistake. I looked at our destination's winds and temps aloft which said the freezing level was at 080... this was a location in Central OR. I then looked at what I thought to have been PDX's winds report but must have mistakenly looked at the incorrect line. I saw what I thought to be freezing levels at 080; but in actuality it said 060; I found this error after the flight was over. We departed on our way to The Dalles and after departing BTG on V112; we were just getting into the Gorge area. Upon reaching 070 I noticed small amounts of trace ice were beginning to accumulate. I am not a stranger to small amounts of unforeseen icing; and I have always been able to combat it with no consequence by simply asking for a lower altitude. But in this case I could not as the MEA was 070. I asked for lower from Portland Approach regardless; and I was told I could not be issued that because of terrain. I looked at the wings again and noticed it was beginning to build much faster. Approach told us we could climb to 090 to get out of it; but that would have required us to build more until we got there and continue flying into the icing. Plus there was no guarantee it would come off once we got to 090.At this point I was under the impression that we had flown into unforeseen icing conditions. When I turned to my student I asked him if he had checked the winds aloft for the freezing level; he said 'yes; its 060.' I was shocked at this because I thought I had read 080. I said to my student 'if you knew the freezing level was below the MEA why didn't you say something to me about it?!' There was no response. I said 'we are turning back NOW!' I was unwilling to conduct the flight any longer and jeopardize the safety and positive outcome of the flight. I announced to PDX Approach Control that we were diverting back to base and we would like a lower altitude ASAP. They gave us a direct vector to the airport and a lower altitude. The ice did not begin to effectively depart the aircraft until reaching 050 and lower. My frustration with my student's lack of situational awareness; and my own; called for a very long debriefing after the flight where we talked about what we had both learned. [We had both erred; but the fault was] 100% mine. As the flight instructor it was my job and responsibility to ensure the safe and legal outcome of the flight. Flight into known icing conditions without de-icing or anti-icing equipment is unsafe and illegal. I; in the future; will take much greater care to ensure this does not happen again; and will always pay closer attention to where my students are getting their weather briefings.
When both the instructor and IFR student pilot failed to note and brief that the freezing level was below their filed altitude--as well as below the MEA over the mountainous enroute terrain--they departed and began accumulating ice early in their journey. They wisely abandoned their training cross country and; with an assist from ATC; descended while returning to their departure airport.