Amen

You might want to check a chart. Oklahoma is flat…in the NW portion of the state. With seven mountain ranges in the rest of the state, most on the eastern portion, the state as a whole is far from flat, although hollywood seems to like to depict it as such. The pariticular tower this man hit is on a hill top almost straight north of RVS, and just west of downtown, which he would have also hit had he gone to the east. RVS is in fact surrounded by hills on three sides but the airport itself is in the river valley created by the Arkansas river.
Years ago a fatal airline accident happened when they were trying to divert around thunderstorms. This was in the far southeast portion of the state. One of the final cockpit conversations was the pilot telling the co-pilot he need not check elevations as “everyone knows Oklahoma is flat”. They flew right into a 2000′ plus mountain seconds later (mountain is defined as a verticle rise of 2000′ or more from the surrounding terrain. Poteau, OK thus claims to have the “world’s highest hill” as just to the east of Poteau rises a 1998′ foot hill.) This is all in an area of the Sans Bois, Kiamichi and Quachita Mountians, all in SE Oklahoma. NE Oklahoma, where Tulsa is located is basically the edge of the Ozarks, more specifically where the Boston Mountains and the Ozarks converge, mostly to the east of Tulsa. Please don’t tell anyone though, as eastern Oklahoma is a wonderful, unspoiled, very green area. Once people come here we cannot get rid of them….hence the saying “the thing Oklahomans fear most?….a yankee with a U-haul.” Although I find the texass people with U-hauls almost as annoying.

As for the comments regarding obtaining instrument clearance, I regularly fly from airports in Class B airspace – Charlotte Douglass, Tampa International, Las Vegas McCarran as well as towered airports beneath the Class B and I have never had to wait for a clearance longer than the time that it took the controller to pull it up. I have had to wait as long as 10 minutes at the hold short line for landing and departing traffic from CLT and TPA, but this is certainly no more excessive a wait than the airlines have to endure.

Not as uncommon as you might think. A BE55 departed my last assigned airport, IFR. He unfortunately took off without ever calling tower. No big deal. However, in doing a records check, prior to issuing a letter of warning, FSDO found that he had only a PPL, no instrument rating, no multi engine rating. The letter of warning of course resulted in a more serious penalty.

How many IFR pilots file VFR altitudes?