Cessna 414 down in Yorba Linda

At this point it has every hallmark of a classic VFR into IMC accident, possibly with a splash of ice mixed in. Losing control at 7,500' gives you plenty of time to accelerate to well past Vne and rip the plane apart on the way down. What may make this one a little unique is that I doubt there are many VFR into IMC accidents result in loss of control that high above the ground. Combined with it being a larger aircraft/twin, the energy involved is atypical.

I would agree. This has all the hallmarks of this type of accident. It is sad that impacted so many on the ground.

As to the pilot, his past is colorful for sure. Just the fact that he has changed his name numerous times is very unusual. Other than trying to hide from creditors, family, or business partners, I can't think of any good reason to keep changing names. I wonder how much time anyone will spend really digging into his past.
 
... I wonder how much time anyone will spend really digging into his past.

from a 'families who were impacted' perspective (the ones on the ground) they will probably want digging done. I'd be interested to see how the same families would react if the pilot was a stellar citizen, well respected in the community (not like @OkieFlyer respected but u know what I'm saying), etc....
 
At this point it has every hallmark of a classic VFR into IMC accident, possibly with a splash of ice mixed in. Losing control at 7,500' gives you plenty of time to accelerate to well past Vne and rip the plane apart on the way down. What may make this one a little unique is that I doubt there are many VFR into IMC accidents result in loss of control that high above the ground. Combined with it being a larger aircraft/twin, the energy involved is atypical.

When I was flying the 310 I was wondering about in-flight breakups (that’s when the wing spar AD was first becoming a big thing) and I found that all in-flight breakups of 310s occurred at night or in IMC/probable IMC. Several (if not most) were at similar cruise altitudes with instrument rated pilots on IFR flight plans. The NTSB seemed to believe the issue was spatial disorientation in all cases and yanking on the yoke.

Basically, I determined that a 310 was not going to come from together on me unless I induced it myself.

I never did the same study for a 414 while flying it.
 
There is the mandatory exhaust pipe change out to keep the exhaust from burning through the spar. but the over speed sound was pretty telling. I like the pilot was in witness protection theory the most. Italian restaurant far away. There used to be this Italian restaurant in Omaha. The owners seemed very out of place.
 
At this point it has every hallmark of a classic VFR into IMC accident, possibly with a splash of ice mixed in. Losing control at 7,500' gives you plenty of time to accelerate to well past Vne and rip the plane apart on the way down. What may make this one a little unique is that I doubt there are many VFR into IMC accidents result in loss of control that high above the ground. Combined with it being a larger aircraft/twin, the energy involved is atypical.
The guy's flying credentials were genuine, and should discourage that particular conclusion.
 
There is the mandatory exhaust pipe change out to keep the exhaust from burning through the spar.

I would scrutinize the exhaust AD impacting all turbocharged Twin Cessnas a bit more thoroughly as well as the history. I can tell you that leaks were common as were engine beam replacements. You also have illegal or otherwise poorly done repairs that were done, like what existed on the 414 that Cloud Nine used to have. I prefer not dying so we replaced the engine beam, but I'm sure there are more of those out there flying.

There are three ADs impacting that aircraft structurally that would be of notable scrutiny in my opinion. The exhaust AD is one, the wing spar AD is another, and lastly the elevator trim tab AD.

The guy's flying credentials were genuine, and should discourage that particular conclusion.

Maybe, but to expand on my response to @Jeff Oslick 's post above, even if the guy was experienced doesn't mean he couldn't have suffered some LOC. A real partial panel where you lose a gyro is no cake walk, even for an experienced pilot. It's a lot harder to handle misleading information than it is to handle a Post-It note that completely removes information. And of course the ever popular incapacitation option.
 
The guy's flying credentials were genuine, and should discourage that particular conclusion.

If his credentials were genuine, and he and the airplane were current and legal for instrument flight, then why was there not IFR flight plan and no communication with controllers after he departed KFUL? He was clearly intending to fly into IMC that day.
 
If his credentials were genuine, and he and the airplane were current and legal for instrument flight, then why was there not IFR flight plan and no communication with controllers after he departed KFUL? He was clearly intending to fly into IMC that day.

SoCal is a busy place and you have some people who can't be bothered to deal with the extra hassles and delays associated with filing, waiting for your clearance, getting routed all over, and the eventual approach.

Now, the rest of us realize that is foolish for many reasons. But it does happen.
 
If his credentials were genuine, and he and the airplane were current and legal for instrument flight, then why was there not IFR flight plan and no communication with controllers after he departed KFUL? He was clearly intending to fly into IMC that day.

It is apparent from his previous license suspensions that he has a history of not obtaining IFR clearances.
 
Wierd things can happen...the guy who crashed my plane flew from Texas to Florida and almost back never talking to ATC and disabled the transponder...no flight plans...you would think an ATP that worked for the FAA would do it a little differently...
 
Wierd things can happen...the guy who crashed my plane flew from Texas to Florida and almost back never talking to ATC and disabled the transponder...no flight plans...you would think an ATP that worked for the FAA would do it a little differently...

Technically that's not illegal unless you're going through particular airspace. Not what I would do unless I was trying to avoid getting seen, but just because you work for the FAA and have an ATP doesn't mean you're paranoid about surveillance.
 
Technically that's not illegal unless you're going through particular airspace. Not what I would do unless I was trying to avoid getting seen, but just because you work for the FAA and have an ATP doesn't mean you're paranoid about surveillance.
possibly....but, not likely. :D
 
As to the pilot, his past is colorful for sure. Just the fact that he has changed his name numerous times is very unusual. Other than trying to hide from creditors, family, or business partners, I can't think of any good reason to keep changing names. I wonder how much time anyone will spend really digging into his past.

There is the mandatory exhaust pipe change out to keep the exhaust from burning through the spar. but the over speed sound was pretty telling. I like the pilot was in witness protection theory the most. Italian restaurant far away. There used to be this Italian restaurant in Omaha. The owners seemed very out of place.

If his credentials were genuine, and he and the airplane were current and legal for instrument flight, then why was there not IFR flight plan and no communication with controllers after he departed KFUL? He was clearly intending to fly into IMC that day.

I don't normally speculate about crashes, but nothing stops me from writing a fiction short story that is very loosely based on the speculation surrounding this crash.

In this fiction short story, the pilot character was in the Chicago mob all through his early life, rising from a street thug to a serious enforcer. He spent his hard-earned money on flying lessons, earning his multiengine and instrument ratings. The mob realized that his talents were being wasted on the streets, so they 'found' a 'misplaced' Chicago PD badge that he could use to infiltrate. He was able to work in the police department's airborne department, pretending to watch traffic but really being the mob's eyes in the sky.

But he decided to go straight, so he turned state's evidence. He disappeared into the witness protection service, and kept only the police badge and retirement papers that the head of Chicago PD's HR had been sworn to secrecy about as souvenirs of his life on the inside. Out in the cold, he tried his hand at running a restaurant, but unfortunately he didn't know what else to talk to his cop customers about other than his time in the Chicago PD. The mob, of course, got wind of the restaurant and tracked him down. But they got poetic with the hit.

The mob's electronics guy snuck into the airport and rewired the guy's radios to always transmit and broadcast on a frequency outside the usual band, like 138.53. They set up a ground station with a few wiseguys manning it so they could pretend to be different facilities to the guy. He called up for clearance and they gave him one. He called for taxi, takeoff, and departure, and every time got a different fake controller. And eventually, they managed to get him lost bad enough in the clouds with crazy vectors that he lost control and crashed. They knew they could get away with it, because the pilot's history of what appeared to all ATC facilities as his ignorance of the FARs would make everyone investigating the crash chalk it up to a reckless scofflaw's loss of control.

In the novel version of the story, the pilot is a secondary character. The protagonist is his long lost nephew, who was trying to repair the radios recovered from the crash site and discovered the mob's subterfuge, then began to seek vengeance on his uncle's many enemies.

That entirely fictional back story can explain why he was always in IMC without talking to ATC. It can explain why he kept changing his name. It can explain the unverifiable Chicago PD employment. It can explain everything.

Of course, "guy who makes up stories about his past and regularly flies VFR into IMC eventually runs out of luck" is an equally fitting explanation. I think that we ought to rule that explanation out before we go too far into the weeds on alternative theories.
 
I don't normally speculate about crashes, but nothing stops me from writing a fiction short story that is very loosely based on the speculation surrounding this crash.

I think I'd watch that movie!
 
I don't normally speculate about crashes, but nothing stops me from writing a fiction short story that is very loosely based on the speculation surrounding this crash.

In this fiction short story, the pilot character was in the Chicago mob all through his early life, rising from a street thug to a serious enforcer. He spent his hard-earned money on flying lessons, earning his multiengine and instrument ratings. The mob realized that his talents were being wasted on the streets, so they 'found' a 'misplaced' Chicago PD badge that he could use to infiltrate. He was able to work in the police department's airborne department, pretending to watch traffic but really being the mob's eyes in the sky.

But he decided to go straight, so he turned state's evidence. He disappeared into the witness protection service, and kept only the police badge and retirement papers that the head of Chicago PD's HR had been sworn to secrecy about as souvenirs of his life on the inside. Out in the cold, he tried his hand at running a restaurant, but unfortunately he didn't know what else to talk to his cop customers about other than his time in the Chicago PD. The mob, of course, got wind of the restaurant and tracked him down. But they got poetic with the hit.

The mob's electronics guy snuck into the airport and rewired the guy's radios to always transmit and broadcast on a frequency outside the usual band, like 138.53. They set up a ground station with a few wiseguys manning it so they could pretend to be different facilities to the guy. He called up for clearance and they gave him one. He called for taxi, takeoff, and departure, and every time got a different fake controller. And eventually, they managed to get him lost bad enough in the clouds with crazy vectors that he lost control and crashed. They knew they could get away with it, because the pilot's history of what appeared to all ATC facilities as his ignorance of the FARs would make everyone investigating the crash chalk it up to a reckless scofflaw's loss of control.

In the novel version of the story, the pilot is a secondary character. The protagonist is his long lost nephew, who was trying to repair the radios recovered from the crash site and discovered the mob's subterfuge, then began to seek vengeance on his uncle's many enemies.

That entirely fictional back story can explain why he was always in IMC without talking to ATC. It can explain why he kept changing his name. It can explain the unverifiable Chicago PD employment. It can explain everything.

Of course, "guy who makes up stories about his past and regularly flies VFR into IMC eventually runs out of luck" is an equally fitting explanation. I think that we ought to rule that explanation out before we go too far into the weeds on alternative theories.
Fiction my ass!! Sounds like you were there... or part of the bigger mob plot..infiltrate pilot forums a few years in advance. Go on to tell the real truth under the guise of fiction...
 
I would agree. This has all the hallmarks of this type of accident. It is sad that impacted so many on the ground.

As to the pilot, his past is colorful for sure. Just the fact that he has changed his name numerous times is very unusual. Other than trying to hide from creditors, family, or business partners, I can't think of any good reason to keep changing names. I wonder how much time anyone will spend really digging into his past.
That's one of the things that struck me as odd, one name change is pretty unusual in a lifetime, but two is weird!! He seemed to be hiding from something or someone, ex wife, ex kids, something.
 
That's one of the things that struck me as odd, one name change is pretty unusual in a lifetime, but two is weird!! He seemed to be hiding from something or someone, ex wife, ex kids, something.

Or the FAA.
 
It's a lot harder to handle misleading information than it is to handle a Post-It note that completely removes information
absolutely, the post-it note method and many other fight training methods leave people grossly underprepared for real emergencies.. back when I was in my instrument training days the Piper I was on had an issue with the gyro we discovered half way back during an actual IMC flight.. vacuum pressure was good but it would show a 5-degree bank.. it took some troubleshooting to figure out between the directional gyro, the compass, the GPS track, and the attitude indicator to figure out was defective.. it was actual instrument conditions but daytime and not much turbulence with a very experienced CFII on board and we have the stratus with the ahrs for the iPad.. it was definitely a good experience though to see that firsthand..
 
We are giving this guy way too much credit thinking about wing ADs, etc

Dude was a proven "bad apple" and his luck finally caught up with him, unfortunately he took innocent people out

guy who makes up stories about his past and regularly flies VFR into IMC eventually runs out of luck
Yep!
 
every airplane needs a vacuum dump switch......so that pump failures can be simulated in a training environment.
 
You should call them out on it...relatively easy to prove most all are presented with a shadow box at their retirement.
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No shadow box or retirement ceremony for me. Actually had to get my brigade commander (O6) to sign me a waiver not to attend the ceremony. Incredibly lucky I caught him on a good day and he was in a good mood but he still showed resistance. “You came into the Army with pageantry and celebrations, you should go out the same.” He really couldn’t believe that I didn’t want to attend but finally gave in and signed my waiver.

Never really cared much for military customs, especially those that are showy. I remember as a Lcpl standing in the hot South Carolina sun during a retirement parade for a GySgt :rolleyes:thinking, if I happen to make it another 20 years, I’m not having a ceremony. Not gonna make some poor enlisted schmuck who doesn’t even know me stand at attention for an hour while people give speeches and the band plays The Marine’s Hymn.:D Also, after 20 years I had a bit of a disdain for the whole bureaucracy of it all. Was definitely proud of my service but there was enough non war fighting, politically correct BS to put a bad taste in my mouth on my exit.

Kept all my uniforms, ribbons and coins though. Strange, seems like 90 % of us have an MSM and Air Medal as the first 2.

3F85DB85-69DF-4080-A025-2530459172B2.jpeg 97AB0CC4-C7AE-45E1-9B04-FBE1045F28A3.jpeg
 
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There’s one in particular that I think at minimum is exaggerating his service if not outright lying about it.

Who? JWJ? That guy is the real deal! :D Of course he’s been gone for over a year so it’s probably not him.

Honestly, I haven’t seen any of the content of current posters that I would consider lying about their service. I know who “DOC” is referring to but that person was still a vet...just maybe not in the capacity that he claimed.
 
If this guy was in witsec, he probably wouldn't be appearing in newspaper articles about his restaurant.
 
^but it is one more thing to check, and one more thing that may fail... a checklist with 100 things is more likely to get forgotten than a checklist with 5 things.. plus, a full vacuum failure is going to look different than a partial vacuum failure anyway

The most insidious is when you have requisite vacuum pressure but the AI starts acting wonky due to something wrong with the AI itself. That's what happened on my flight (PA28).. the vac showed 5 exactly but the AI was indicating a left bank.. fluctuating from about 3-7 degrees (slow fluctuation though.. 5-10 minutes). When attempting to follow the AI the turn coordinator and DG would show a right turn, confirmed by the track on the GPS.. rest of flight we followed turn coordinator and DG for heading and VS / alt for altitude

Our theory was the self erecting (giggity) vanes inside the AI were to blame..

PS.. in most (mostly) level flight phases anyway a traditional AI is not going to be moving much anyway, so this was good practice to flying the plane by altimeter, heading, etc
 
I don't normally speculate about crashes, but nothing stops me from writing a fiction short story that is very loosely based on the speculation surrounding this crash.

In this fiction short story, the pilot character was in the Chicago mob all through his early life, rising from a street thug to a serious enforcer. He spent his hard-earned money on flying lessons, earning his multiengine and instrument ratings. The mob realized that his talents were being wasted on the streets, so they 'found' a 'misplaced' Chicago PD badge that he could use to infiltrate. He was able to work in the police department's airborne department, pretending to watch traffic but really being the mob's eyes in the sky.

But he decided to go straight, so he turned state's evidence. He disappeared into the witness protection service, and kept only the police badge and retirement papers that the head of Chicago PD's HR had been sworn to secrecy about as souvenirs of his life on the inside. Out in the cold, he tried his hand at running a restaurant, but unfortunately he didn't know what else to talk to his cop customers about other than his time in the Chicago PD. The mob, of course, got wind of the restaurant and tracked him down. But they got poetic with the hit.

The mob's electronics guy snuck into the airport and rewired the guy's radios to always transmit and broadcast on a frequency outside the usual band, like 138.53. They set up a ground station with a few wiseguys manning it so they could pretend to be different facilities to the guy. He called up for clearance and they gave him one. He called for taxi, takeoff, and departure, and every time got a different fake controller. And eventually, they managed to get him lost bad enough in the clouds with crazy vectors that he lost control and crashed. They knew they could get away with it, because the pilot's history of what appeared to all ATC facilities as his ignorance of the FARs would make everyone investigating the crash chalk it up to a reckless scofflaw's loss of control.

In the novel version of the story, the pilot is a secondary character. The protagonist is his long lost nephew, who was trying to repair the radios recovered from the crash site and discovered the mob's subterfuge, then began to seek vengeance on his uncle's many enemies.

That entirely fictional back story can explain why he was always in IMC without talking to ATC. It can explain why he kept changing his name. It can explain the unverifiable Chicago PD employment. It can explain everything.

Of course, "guy who makes up stories about his past and regularly flies VFR into IMC eventually runs out of luck" is an equally fitting explanation. I think that we ought to rule that explanation out before we go too far into the weeds on alternative theories.

With Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone as the fake Air Traffic Controllers.....And Paul Reubens as the long lost nephew.... I think you may have something here.!!
 
He could be Steven Seagal’s stand-in...paunchy dude past his prime, plays an Italian cop from Chicago, cowboys around with the rules...
 
The nephew could work his way all the way up the FAA ranks and it all finally culminates when he is able to deny the paperwork for an STC for a Rosen sunvisor competitor that's financially backed by the Chicago mob.
 
wow....
The nephew could work his way all the way up the FAA ranks and it all finally culminates when he is able to deny the paperwork for an STC for a Rosen sunvisor competitor that's financially backed by the Chicago mob.
that's quite some story....blinding I tell ya, just blinding.:confused:
 
When I was flying the 310 I was wondering about in-flight breakups (that’s when the wing spar AD was first becoming a big thing) and I found that all in-flight breakups of 310s occurred at night or in IMC/probable IMC. Several (if not most) were at similar cruise altitudes with instrument rated pilots on IFR flight plans. The NTSB seemed to believe the issue was spatial disorientation in all cases and yanking on the yoke.

Basically, I determined that a 310 was not going to come from together on me unless I induced it myself.

I never did the same study for a 414 while flying it.

Looks like you nailed it according to that report.
 

LA Times said:
He recounted to the Reno Gazette-Journal in 1997 a rollicking adolescence in Chicago, marked by rumbles between his Italian clan and the neighborhood Germans. They were all, in his own words, “bad kids.”

“We were a pretty well-organized, greased little group of thugs,” he said.

He attributed the success of his first restaurant — a Chicago-style deli in Reno — to his law enforcement background.

“A couple of cops came by and found out I used to be a cop too, and it became a cop hangout,” Pastini said. “It was good food. Great food.”

When the deli opened in 1991, the Reno Gazette-Journal published a story with the headline, “Ex-cop brings piece of Chicago with him.”

“Rather than nab criminals,” it begins, “former Chicago police officer Tony Pastini has turned in his badge and opened a Reno delicatessen.”

Dang, this guy was really full of it.

I've been around a lot of older Chicagoans. No one has ever described growing up in Chicago like that. This guy sounds like he watched one too many Martin Scorsese movies, and substituted Chicago for NYC.

Also, spent a lot of time in Chicago, eaten a lot of Chicago-style pizza, and many Chicago-style hot dogs. I have no idea what a "Chicago-style deli" is supposed to be.
 
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In the preliminary report, a witness states it was the left outboard wing section which separated first and the fuel contained in the tank then ignited while it was still in the air. This was visible in the dashcam video shown on news media.

The report then says:

Within the house, fragments of the outboard right wing (which also contained the fuel tank) were located.

This explains why the house burned so fiercely. What a terrible thing that those innocent people lost their lives.
 
Dang, this guy was really full of it.

I've been around a lot of older Chicagoans. No one has ever described growing up in Chicago like that. This guy sounds like he watched one too many Martin Scorsese movies, and substituted Chicago for NYC.
...

Chicago native here. This guy, to be charitable (and polite), was a blowhard, spinning yarns to credulous reporters, just for the sake of seeing them go to print with his stories. The Italians in my old neighborhood were perfectly fine folks. They joked that you could tell they weren't Irish, because the "o" came at the end of their names, not the beginning. As for "rumbles" between Italians and Germans, that's an outrageous fabrication.

Personally, I think this "colorful" character had a sketchy past, filled with angry former business partners, creditors, and spouses--all of whom had issued their share of threats. A recent one was particularly credible, so he chose a dramatic exit. Tough luck for those on the ground.
 
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