I saw a report on the fatal crash of a Cirrus at KHOU Houston Hobby Field yesterday. WTF happened? Were the winds high? Nothing I saw reported seemed to indicate that this should have happened-- no fuel crisis, no on-board fire, no medical emergency. And something like four runways to choose from, all of which are 5000' or longer-- plenty long enough for a Cirrus, even if a perfect approach wasn't made.

Also, I punched up the area on Skyvector. FWIW I never realized there were so many big airports in Houston. City limits there must encompass a lot of territory. For example, here in the Puget Sound area there's a lot of airports but only two (KSEA & KBFI) actually located in Seattle- the rest are in suburbs or outlying areas.

I saw a report on the news, the pilot was having trouble identifying the correct runway to land on and was sent around more than once. Sounds like they stalled the plane on climb out......

No wish to offend the deceased or their kin, but the Cirrus appears to be the new "fork-tailed doctor killer".
Lots of what sound like avoidable crashes and/or emergency landings via parachute.

Hobby has a few more runways than most, but isn't really tricky in any way. Only thing I can think of that might be confusing is if the Cirrus driver was trying to do a sidestep from 12R to 17, a very common thing we request because of the super short taxi to Million Air, never heard it assigned though, and kinda doubt a Cirrus driver would think about taxi distance/time. Looks likes its just another case of Cirrus Pilotage to me.

hotrod180 wrote:No wish to offend the deceased or their kin

Well said: for the family this is an unimaginable tragedy. For the rest of us we must understand what happened to avoid such risks, and perhaps in this situation, try and steer the conversation towards the CFI's listening, for updated standards for training and risk management.

hotrod180 wrote:Cirrus appears to be the new "fork-tailed doctor killer".

I have the same fear.

Root cause will come in the fulness of time, however there are several elements that might bear out as relevant.

Trip distance that day 400+ miles, listening to the full 10+ minutes of ATC conversation was heartbreaking as the pilot was likely inexperienced and certainly task saturated, the wreckage didn't burn, witnesses claimed engine sound irregularities, the prop was bent backwards at impact.

If all those elements bear out as verified in the investigation that makes fuel exhaustion/stall with a late deployment of the parachute a likely combination of events.

Structural breakup with no fire


This is a screengrab I took of news video that shows the front for the plane, with the prop bent back, suggesting the engine was not making HP

Big thread on pia forum about this if someone's really curious.

- Debatably high task saturation for the 2 yr rated ppl, flying with husband and brother in law to see father (undergoing chemo at Houston hospital) (Really depends on normal flight activity for the low time pilot)
- Depending on viewpoint, 3 go-arounds due to tailwind approaches or too fast and high, subjectively due to pilot error or ATC requests.
- ATC was fitting them into airline traffic, and in some opinions, asking them to adjust rather than proper sequencing.
- Flight track on flightaware is a scrambled mess over the airport
- After 3rd missed approach, stall/spin crash at downwind to base turn, straight into parking lot.
- Security camera shows essentially vertical descent at a flat/stalled attitude and slow vertical rotation. No chance of survival.
- Altitude too low to even consider pulling BRS in timespan to impact, much less even have it deploy and open in time.

Fuel starvation may also be a factor, as subjective opinion shows either fuel at crash, or no fuel at crash.
Also unknown to me is if this was the pilot's aircraft, or a rental.

Edit : One point of noteworthy info I forgot to mention. During the communications, ATC asks the pilot if they can accept 35 for landing. (The winds were tail and cross at best. Not a runway to accept at that time) The pilot does not actively respond to the question, but appears to take the question as a statement and therefore accepts the runway as okay. Pilots that visit class airports, always listen and think before acknowledging.

I expect a Huge number of factors will be listed in NTSB final report, but the end result was the base/final stall/spin, just one turn early.
Another sad day in GA history.