Folks, please don't drink and fly, especially with passengers on board! He was lucky.

http://www.ktvb.com/news/225037012.html

http://www.bonnercountydailybee.com/new ... f887a.html

I have seen that airplane at the St Maries Idaho airport at least three times in the last year or so. One time I talked to a young guy, maybe in his late 20's, that said he was the pilot for the owner.

Wow that's going to be expensive! Must been a fun flight if they go hammered at 6am...they had a REALLY fun night the night before.

They were all lucky. From my understanding, an Aerostar isn't a very forgiving airplane for a sober pilot to fly.

There's a certain silliness about the comments about the instrument landing system damage, though, and its effect on arrivals at Sandpoint. Sandpoint had 2 instrument approaches, a LOC/DME which required ADF and an RNAV/GPS. While the LOC/DME had a lower circling minimums (1000' AGL) than the RNAV (1600' AGL), since few airplanes these days have ADFs aboard, the vast majority of instrument landings there would be most likely using the RNAV approach, anyway.

Cary

I appreciate the fact that the there has not been rampant accusations or assumptions on this post. I have to hand it to the whole community here that we don't jump on a post so much any more without knowing all the facts involved in the incident. I say this because the pilot who crashed the plane is a long time (20+ years) friend of our family. He lives literally across the street from my parents. I know the news story posted quoted that he was drunk or under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the crash. I won't rule those out because you never know for sure, but I have never known him to even take a drink or use drugs. I'm not saying the cops were wrong or that he wasn't impaired, I just want to wait to form my conclusions as to what happened until I can get the whole story, or as much of the whole story as possible. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries.

Unfortunately, the only thing I can reasonably conclude from this incident is that if you are my friend and you fly planes, your likelihood of having a serious crash goes way up. This crash makes #5 this year, and 3 of them included fatalities. Please be safe out there. And it might not hurt to un-friend me on facebook.

Good grief, Allen. I'm really sorry for loss or your friend.

Fortunately in this one no one was seriously injured that I know about. But I have lost a friend this month already, and I don't want to lose any more.

Cary wrote:There's a certain silliness about the comments about the instrument landing system damage, though, and its effect on arrivals at Sandpoint. Sandpoint had 2 instrument approaches, a LOC/DME which required ADF and an RNAV/GPS. While the LOC/DME had a lower circling minimums (1000' AGL) than the RNAV (1600' AGL), since few airplanes these days have ADFs aboard, the vast majority of instrument landings there would be most likely using the RNAV approach, anyway.

Cary

Cary, an IFR approved GPS is an acceptable substitute for an ADF.

MTV

I was just thinking


"No one was hurt after an airplane crashed off the Sandpoint Airport runway and into a chain link perimeter fence at 7:30 a.m. However, pilot Donald Muirhead, 55, was arrested on charges of operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs", Sandpoint Police Chief Corey Coon said.

"took off from Provo, Utah, at 6:30 a.m. with Sandpoint as their final destination". Drunk?

“This is a very complex, high-performance airplane,” he said. “It’s pressurized, and that alone really complicates repairs.”

Maybe this plane depressurized and the pilot got hypoxia looked or acted drunk

Sorry I'm speculating

Glidergeek wrote:I was just thinking


"No one was hurt after an airplane crashed off the Sandpoint Airport runway and into a chain link perimeter fence at 7:30 a.m. However, pilot Donald Muirhead, 55, was arrested on charges of operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs", Sandpoint Police Chief Corey Coon said.

"took off from Provo, Utah, at 6:30 a.m. with Sandpoint as their final destination". Drunk?

“This is a very complex, high-performance airplane,” he said. “It’s pressurized, and that alone really complicates repairs.”

Maybe this plane depressurized and the pilot got hypoxia looked or acted drunk

Sorry I'm speculating

At risk of more blind speculation, I'm going with diabetic emergency.

-DP

denalipilot wrote:

Glidergeek wrote:I was just thinking


"No one was hurt after an airplane crashed off the Sandpoint Airport runway and into a chain link perimeter fence at 7:30 a.m. However, pilot Donald Muirhead, 55, was arrested on charges of operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs", Sandpoint Police Chief Corey Coon said.

"took off from Provo, Utah, at 6:30 a.m. with Sandpoint as their final destination". Drunk?

“This is a very complex, high-performance airplane,” he said. “It’s pressurized, and that alone really complicates repairs.”

Maybe this plane depressurized and the pilot got hypoxia looked or acted drunk

Sorry I'm speculating

At risk of more blind speculation, I'm going with diabetic emergency.

-DP

How about that gas heater??!!

we should have a speculation contest, $10 per speculation, winner takes all. Z puts money in a fishbowl and decides who comes closest to most accurate match of speculation to fact Press cannot enter
For the sake of respect no contest for death or injury accidents.

Alan, I'm sorry you're knowing the victims of those accidents, I've known several myself that have died flying gliders and a few flying power, The closer they are the longer it takes to feel comfortable getting back on the horse.

Here is a VERY long shot explanation :

Dietary carbohydrates in his stomach spontaneously turn into ethyl alcohol (ethanol):

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/0 ... n-your-gut

Are we going to work the occurrence "odds" into this pool?
If so, I should only have to contribute a penny to the pool......


lc

Come on, man! I'm sure more facts will be coming soon. It was an IFR flight. So I'm sure the FAA/NTSB will examine the recordings well to hear if there was sleard speech from the pilot or any other indication he was under any type of influence of controlled substance. I looked at the flight track log on Flightaware.com and it looked normal to me. Even the climb and descent. But, autopilot can help make the worse pilot look good on a track log. But also, the pilot had to communicate with ATC. Time will tell the facts.

I didn't want to be a speculator on this one neither. But I was thinking about this all day Wednesday.

But did anybody think about the effects of prescription or over the counter drugs? Heck, I've been dumb enough in the past to take a heavy dose of cold medicine (which most contains alcohol) and drive the big rig down the road just to find myself driving like a zombie then pulling over for an hour or two nap.

It's too bad the authorities didn't explain what substance they believe the pilot was under when they made the press release. If they didn't know for a fact and are waiting for more tests to be concluded. Then they should have waited!

Littlecub wrote:Here is a VERY long shot explanation :

Dietary carbohydrates in his stomach spontaneously turn into ethyl alcohol (ethanol):

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/0 ... n-your-gut

Are we going to work the occurrence "odds" into this pool?
If so, I should only have to contribute a penny to the pool......


lc

Holy cow, that article is wild!