Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT)

CFIT describes an accident in which the aircraft was working. There is no engine failure, no structural break-up and no loss of control: the crew are flying the aeroplane normally, and it arrives at terrain because their picture of where they are, or how high they are, was wrong.

The classic ingredients are night or cloud, a non-precision approach, an altitude misread or a step-down missed, and a distraction on the flight deck at the moment it mattered. Investigators typically look at the approach chart, the altitude callouts on the cockpit voice recorder, and whether the terrain warning sounded and how the crew responded to it.

CFIT was the largest single killer in commercial aviation until Ground Proximity Warning Systems, and later Enhanced GPWS with its terrain database, became mandatory. It has not disappeared. It persists in terrain-heavy regions, on approaches without vertical guidance, and in general aviation.

CFIT and 'pilot error' are not the same thing, though they often overlap. CFIT is a description of what happened: an airworthy aircraft, under control, struck terrain. Pilot error is a claim about why: it says that a crew action or omission was a causal factor. A CFIT may involve crew error, such as misreading an altitude or missing a warning, but it can also result from unclear procedures, faulty charts, or a terrain warning that failed. Modern reports usually treat 'pilot error' as a starting point for further questions rather than a final conclusion.