Crazy, just crazy.

Okay, I feel better about my odds now.

wow, night vfr is most definitely a handful. having a lot of night hours, after reading the above, i realized while maybe my night missions have been largely safe. always knowing that one of my 3 gps units will get me down ok, and the routes are full of airports. never have pulled off a night mission in bad weather, no matter how many motors i have...some think a twin is just safer, some of us, me included, think twice, more like four times dangerous. last two night missions in my partners 425 conquest blackhawk were nice though! i think as said above, u need to know your limitations. flying at night is really peaceful, but i'm never afraid to park it at a strip or dirtroad along the way to sort out the options. have left my bird in a lot of strange places, but it's funny how things work out for the best if you are willing to park it even when u don't want to. my night stuff consists of a lot of altitude, oxygen, and a damn good auto-pilot. kind of like, to me anyway, operating a m/c or snowmobile in hostile territory, always staying in control of your surroundings and machine are paramount to a safe adventure. focus or get yourself killed, very quickly!

jomac wrote: always knowing that one of my 3 gps units will get me down ok,

Hope for your sake, you have a loran to back up that plethora of gps units.

Tim

Aircraft was in annual. This post just went through annual with the final report being posted.

Just a follow-up to this accident three years ago...

Here are the statements made by the pilots' friend as well as from the seller of the Comanche. They read like a novel of the last few hours of this man's life. Very sobering to say the least. I lost track of how many warning signs are presented but I sometimes wonder "what could have happened here to make the plane crash" and this time its all here in black and white.

http://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/docum ... mkey=73360

click on view

Comments please..

A very visual account by the friend. I felt like i was there with them throughout the trip. It's really sobering and as a student pilot just serves as a reminder to always err on the side of caution. There are so many red flags in the story and the friend could have pressed the issues more with the low time pilot but it seemed like he was trying to keep from raining on his parade. I guess excitement should always be quelled with rational thinking, and if your gut is saying something, you should listen to it. IMHO.

Sixtwo, thanks for updating this post.

That was a very detailed account of the events leading up to the crash. I am still not sure (from that story) if the crash was flight in to terrain, or fuel starvation. I thought the bit that the previos owner wrote about him calling from in flight and having questions about the fuel selector was a bit odd.

The school of thought that there is a chain of events (referred to as the accident chain) leading up to most accidents is a valuable thing to be aware of. There was several times along the way that this could have been stopped. One thing done different, one instance of catching yourself headed towards a mistake, and everything is ok. You don't catch it, everything is not ok.

I can only hope to learn from others mistakes, so I don't have to make them myself.

David

DavidB. wrote:I am still not sure (from that story) if the crash was flight in to terrain, or fuel starvation.

Maybe these will answer your question. (hint: you can use the drop-down menu on that link to see all the accident details)

The private pilot rating in the US includes night training. The accident pilot had no ratings, according to the NTSB report he was a student pilot.

Apparently, the guy was on anti anxiety meds, and also had dextromethorphan in his system. That is what's in allthe good cold medicines that makes you "loopy" i.e. nyquil, etc. So, he got turned around, freaked out, and wasn't thinking with a clear head. Maybe trying to manuver at unsafe speeds, due to panic caused the in flight breakup? Sad story.

SixTwoLeemer wrote:

DavidB. wrote:I am still not sure (from that story) if the crash was flight in to terrain, or fuel starvation.

Maybe these will answer your question. (hint: you can use the drop-down menu on that link to see all the accident details)

Wow, from confused and lot to in flight break up. I was having web trouble, and then got called out to a fire (explosion) I will go look at the report again.

I had read most of the posts before it dawned on me this morning that this was an older event being reactivated, but the thread comments were well worth reading. I didn't have time until this afternoon to read the comments of the pilot's friend and the seller of the airplane.

You know, I truly love night flying, even with its inherent risks. It's beautiful. I'm not bothered by flying a single at night, because that's all I fly, is singles. But over the years, even in my more careless earlier years, my only flights at night over the mountains were with an Interstate or other reasonably well lit highway below, or high enough that I could have glided to such a "strip". After 40 years of flying, I'm more conservative, and I won't fly in the mountains at night, even with a well lit highway below. In my earlier years, I often flew IFR at night, although never over the mountains; now night IFR is a rarity, although I've still done it relatively recently, but with a very definite "out" available. Part of that additional conservatism, I suppose, is that now I know an engine can fail--it's one thing to read about it, it's another to experience it--and I'd much rather that happened in the day time.

This particular pilot's disregard for the regs (student, solo without endorsement, night solo, no high performance or complex endorsement, etc.) and his cavalier lack of concern about the weather, etc., all point to one thing I learned early in my CFI years--you can't teach judgment. I wouldn't be surprised if his instructor warned him time and again about exactly the sorts of things which ultimately took his life. There are those who will kill themselves flying, and it will be their own fault. This was an event with many broken links in the causality chain, but the single most important one was the pilot's attitude and judgment. I feel for his family; I don't have much compassion for him. This may sound cruel, but his family probably escaped an early death themselves, because of the crash.

Cary

I just read the entire NTSB file and all I can say is ............ WOW.............................

If I were the one flying with him ,The very second I realized he had gone to Twin Falls, did a 180 and went back to Boise and did another 180 and headed back SouthEast I would have told Craig to LAND his plane at the very first airport he came to and I would fly back there to meet him and get a couple of hotel rooms and head home in daylight........ Talking about blind trust in a fellow that is not a rated pilot..

The blame has to be placed squarely on the unfortunate and over confident student pilot but im fairly confident saying i would have been more assertive in heading off this disaster. Don't more experienced pilots have a responsibility to keep the rookies out of trouble?

Hell yeah.

Experienced guy... They know the ropes. But a 60 some hour student? You have a duty to be the brains of the outfit.

Gump

But it's a little like trying to take the keys away from a friend who has had a little too much to drink at a party, not enough that he's falling-down-drunk, but enough that you don't think he should drive, but he thinks he's OK to drive. What do you do? How far do you go? Do you cold-cock him, if he won't listen to your concern? Do you disable his car? Do you block it so it can't be moved? Move that to the airplane scenario, without the alcohol but with the over-active bravado, self-confidence, poor judgment. Same questions. I certainly would try to talk him out of it, but how far, really, can you go?

The closest example I've encountered occurred a few years ago one evening, just before Fort Collins Downtown was closed. I had just put my airplane in her hangar around 9:30 p.m. when a Cherokee 160 buzzed the strip--and then buzzed it again--and then finally landed, taking up most of the length of the 4800' strip before getting stopped. He taxied in, he and his wife got out, and by then I had driven to where they were, so he asked me how he could get some gas--he was a "little low" and "needed" to get to Boulder, where the airplane was based. They had flown in from Jackson, WY, his handheld GPS had failed just after take off, he couldn't remember how to work the VORs, and so they had followed highways after it got dark. He had thought they had just landed at Cheyenne and was surprised when I told him where he really was.

There was no fuel immediately available--the airport staff closed up at 6 p.m. He asked how far it was to Fort Collins-Loveland, and I told him 7 miles. He then wondered if they'd be open, so I called them on my cell phone, and they were open. But as he and his wife prepared to get back in the airplane, I looked into his tanks. All I could see with my flashlight was dry tank, both sides. I told him that I didn't think he could make it even 7 miles, but he kept saying he was sure he could. I told him to look in the tanks, but he refused--the gauges weren't quite on empty, so he was sure there was enough. I asked him when they'd left Jackson, and he wasn't sure--sometime around 4 p.m., he thought. I told him that I used to do single engine charters in an Archer, and 4 1/2 hours in the air would have drained the tanks, leaving less than a legal reserve. I offered to lend them my truck, so that they could drive to Boulder and return it the next day--I could easily call for a ride home. But I was getting nowhere, and his wife was no help--she must have said several times, "But he's an excellent pilot--I'm sure he's right."

Just about then, one of the airport rampies landed from a cross country he'd just taken as part of his commercial requirements, and he had a key and could refill the Cherokee. I stuck around to see how much gas it took--almost exactly 50 gallons, the total that they hold, more than "usable".

I waited to watch them take off. The next day, I told my IPC/BFR instructor, who is an FAA Safety Advisor. Turned out he knew the couple, and he said he'd have a discussion with him. I don't know if anything further happened. And frankly I don't know what I would have done, had the rampy not showed up when he did. But I'm fairly certain that if they'd tried to make it only that 7 miles, they would have crashed.

Cary

Sorry, you just can't fix stupid! Sorry also, people die because of stupid. I wonder if some people just don't just don't think things through..and it can happen to any of us.
HC

Thanks for the story about the Cherokee Cary. Scary stuff.

Cary.... That low on fuel probably was not enough to taxi to the end of the airstrip for takeoff.... Still scary though...

Cary wrote:This particular pilot's disregard for the regs (student, solo without endorsement, night solo, no high performance or complex endorsement, etc.) and his cavalier lack of concern about the weather, etc., all point to one thing I learned early in my CFI years--you can't teach judgment. I wouldn't be surprised if his instructor warned him time and again about exactly the sorts of things which ultimately took his life. There are those who will kill themselves flying, and it will be their own fault. This was an event with many broken links in the causality chain, but the single most important one was the pilot's attitude and judgment. I feel for his family; I don't have much compassion for him. This may sound cruel, but his family probably escaped an early death themselves, because of the crash.

Thats it in a nutshell Cary..well said. I think the Pilot's friend Warren had some time to think about how he would write his statement. He starts off saying that all parameters must be met, paperwork and all.. he must be satisfied before they execute the "plan". And by the end he cannot say "how the keys left my hand?". I think theres more to this story.

Oh well, you said it best. He likely saved the lives of his family that night.