Yesterday (Sunday) in Coeur d'Alene. Beaver and 206. Maybe eight dead.

See and avoid.

RIP

Pierre

https://cdapress.com/news/2020/jul/06/t ... s-crash-5/

Very sad.

We need to keeps our eyes outside the cockpit and this is a terrible reminder. ADS whatever doesn't make decisions, only pilots can do that.

This is personally a little extra sad.

Years ago, shortly after I moved to WA, I took my (ex) family to CDA for a long weekend. We flew in that very same flightseeing Beaver. I actually got to fly it and sit in the left seat. I'm seaplane rated and the then elderly business owner/pilot/tour operator let me fly as it was only him and my family in the plane. It was a most pleasurable flight. I have since stopped by to visit or fly with his son many times.

About 10 years ago I was visiting family in Everette WA. My daughters in laws live in Mt Vernon WA and wanted to fly over the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. They really enjoyed the sight seeing flight but it was no fun for me. Feel safer at a non controlled airport with 10 students in the pattern

Why was that?

I was not a proponent of avoidance of common heat of day conditions, but I avoided other airplanes with a passion. I was accident prone and knew I couldn't always see them. I spent precious little time above 200' or on final and always gave way. Hearing but not seeing simply did not register with me.

As many on this forum realize by now, I am a proponent of ADS-B. And of course, I am a proponent of looking outside.

We have heard plenty of discussion about the fallibility of burying your head in the cockpit looking at computer screens. However, I feel there has been less mention of the challenges of visually identifying converging traffic. Just because your eyes are looking outside, it doesn't mean you won't or can't hit someone.

Consider the three dimensional sphere around the aircraft from which another aircraft can approach. Couple this with our blind spots created by wings, fuselage, engine, etc, and we have a limited ability to survey the entirety of that sphere. The classic example of this is two planes on final descending for the runway with the low wing plane above the high wing plane. In fact, when you consider what portion of it you really can interrogate, you realize the importance of using other resources to decrease the collision risk (ATC, radio calls, clearing turns, scanning techniques, etc). Furthermore, converging traffic (that aircraft that will actually hit you) does not move across your visual field like traffic that will not actually hit you which is much more noticeable to your eye but less of an immediate threat. Converging traffic is stationary in your field of view and discretely grows larger as it nears; and, traffic can converge from any direction, not just from in front of you where we most commonly look. Be careful out there.

This was a terrible accident. Thoughts out to their family and friends.

Squash wrote:As many on this forum realize by now, I am a proponent of ADS-B. And of course, I am a proponent of looking outside.

We have heard plenty of discussion about the fallibility of burying your head in the cockpit looking at computer screens. However, I feel there has been less mention of the challenges of visually identifying converging traffic. Just because your eyes are looking outside, it doesn't mean you won't or can't hit someone.

Consider the three dimensional sphere around the aircraft from which another aircraft can approach. Couple this with our blind spots created by wings, fuselage, engine, etc, and we have a limited ability to survey the entirety of that sphere. The classic example of this is two planes on final descending for the runway with the low wing plane above the high wing plane. In fact, when you consider what portion of it you really can interrogate, you realize the importance of using other resources to decrease the collision risk (ATC, radio calls, clearing turns, scanning techniques, etc). Furthermore, converging traffic (that aircraft that will actually hit you) does not move across your visual field like traffic that will not actually hit you which is much more noticeable to your eye but less of an immediate threat. Converging traffic is stationary in your field of view and discretely grows larger as it nears; and, traffic can converge from any direction, not just from in front of you where we most commonly look. Be careful out there.

This was a terrible accident. Thoughts out to their family and friends.

Squash summed it up pefectly. I agree 100 percent!

Kurt

I'm amazed at how quickly this forum jumps to conclusions in such a tragic event. How about we keep the hyperbole and conjecture to a minimum until after the final NTSB report?

Once the report is in we can all fire away and hopefully learn where others were not as fortunate.

RIP to all.

MW

I'm sorry...where exactly are the conclusions, hyperbole and conjecture? I'm not seeing any of them.

Hammer wrote:I'm sorry...where exactly are the conclusions, hyperbole and conjecture? I'm not seeing any of them.

Please show me where anybody jumped to a conclusion. Not seeing conjecture.

qmdv wrote:

Hammer wrote:I'm sorry...where exactly are the conclusions, hyperbole and conjecture? I'm not seeing any of them.

Please show me where anybody jumped to a conclusion. Not seeing conjecture.

You're responding to his question with the same question. If this wasn't such a brutal and heartbreaking topic, it would be funny, like a dog who snaps at the wrong dog at the feed bowls.

Everyone knows the rules of this forum, and if you haven't, read the guidelines to toe the line, or I'll lock the thread. Thanks.

I wondered about ADS-B and if was providing any assistance to the pilots involved here. It’s plausible that the Beaver wasn’t equipped. I’m guessing it seldom travelled far from home, and had no need to access class A or B airspace or fly over 10,000’.

Very sad, and there are many wishing there was something that could have prevented this. Vigilance, technology, or better luck. We’d all accept a dose of any of those options if it could result in a better outcome in this instance.

Very concerning situation. We fly in marginal vis on more than one occasion, not to say that was contributing in this case. Used to never worry about it. Now that’s all I do.

This is a VERY sad story. I seriously doubt that the NTSB will ever figure out exactly what happened with no survivors, but what we need to know to fly safer is that two airplanes collided.

Look out the windows, folks, and if you've got ADS-B In, try to use it judiciously and carefully.

In the meantime, all we can really do is grieve the loss of eight human beings.

MTV

Indeed MTV.

MW

My fam and I were in CDA over the weekend, taking our daughter there for the first time. One our way to dinner, walking around downtown, my daughter wanted to stop and watch the Beaver take off as she's never seen a seaplane before. My wife and I remarked about our scenic flight in that very plane roughly 5 year prior. Absolutely horrible news to receive when we got home. RIP to all. I'm very interested to read the NTSB's findings on this one.

185Midwest wrote:I'm amazed at how quickly this forum jumps to conclusions in such a tragic event. How about we keep the hyperbole and conjecture to a minimum until after the final NTSB report?

Once the report is in we can all fire away and hopefully learn where others were not as fortunate.

RIP to all.

MW

As an active pilot VERY interested in safety (including MAC-avoidance) I appreciate and learn from reading speculative posts. FWIW, I knew several pilots who died in an aviation related pile of twisted airplane parts. The first was in '75, and the most recent personal friend was in just five years ago.

As I read of their passings or talked with others about them I realized that their last gift to me (and to anyone else who might give a hoot) was the opportunity and motivation to treat their deaths as teachable moments. FWIW, the NTSB takes YEARS! to sift the evidence, give the pile a good bureaucratic review, test political winds, and then may or may NOT offer a useful view of what happened. I read enough accident reports, dockets, and news reports to wonder how the investigators might have missed that Paul Harvey moment when we discover "the rest of the story". So, please do speculate. Use what you know about aviation, people, the setting aerodynamics, MAC events & risks... and offer a thoughtful comment, opinion, or theory. Help the departed really RIP as we discuss what might have occurred. Offer your theory of what happened and why. The fruit of a thoughtful discussion could be a future fatal accident avoided ... maybe MINE ... or maybe YOURS.

John

"Why Planes Crash," by David Soucie, ex FAA accident investigator, gives pilots a reason to speculate in order to mitigate future accidents. According to Soucie, the FAA prioritizes looking good over education and mitigation. He lived 17 years with making FAA look good number one priority followed by finding fault and leaving education and mitigation a stepchild for less senior agents.

If we are to educate and mitigate in this environment, it is up to us and courageous agents like Soucie. There were very good pilots near the top at the FAA who I have flown with in the Guard . To make retirement, Soucie didn't, they kept their head down. The good that they did was mostly work around.

I am not a rebel. In Vietnam, Germany, and later the Guard, I was fine with "ours not the reason why, ours but to do and die. That doesn't mean we can't question our highers and put suggestions forward. As for any Commander in Chief who does not immediately and continuously take responsibility for everything that happens or fails to happen on their watch, We the People must take responsibility.

contactflying wrote:"Why Planes Crash," by David Soucie, ex FAA accident investigator, gives pilots a reason to speculate in order to mitigate future accidents. According to Soucie, the FAA prioritizes looking good over education and mitigation. He lived 17 years with making FAA look good number one priority followed by finding fault and leaving education and mitigation a stepchild for less senior agents.

If we are to educate and mitigate in this environment, it is up to us and courageous agents like Soucie. There were very good pilots near the top at the FAA who I have flown with in the Guard . To make retirement, Soucie didn't, they kept their head down. The good that they did was mostly work around.

I am not a rebel. In Vietnam, Germany, and later the Guard, I was fine with "ours not the reason why, ours but to do and die. That doesn't mean we can't question our highers and put suggestions forward. As for any Commander in Chief who does not immediately and continuously take responsibility for everything that happens or fails to happen on their watch, We the People must take responsibility.

Jim, is this the book?

https://amzn.to/3gOGZfS

Looks like it's been revised, want to make sure I purchase the one you mentioned.

Merrymonks,

That must be a revision. The original is Why Planes Crash and the Cover is a crash with an investigator standing in the debree.

I read the original ten or so years ago. I will order the revised.

Thanks,

Jim