2019 Mooney down - DVT

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Rgbeard

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rgbeard
Well, crap!!

https://www.azfamily.com/news/small...cle_6a31c81a-8c96-11e9-923b-83ecfd0c9a6f.html

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS5) -- One person is injured after a small plane crashed in a neighborhood in north Phoenix.

The crash happened near 31st Avenue and Deer Valley Road around 3 p.m. on Tuesday.

Phoenix fire said the pilot, a man in his 50's, was alert and talking when he was transported to the hospital. He is currently listed in critical condition with second and third degree burns.
 
Hope the guy makes a good recovery. Looks like he diverted to KDVT, not sure why he didn't make it to the runway.
 
We don’t know why he didn’t bee-line it to KDVT, but he didn’t. Well intentioned controller giving vectors? Likely made the difference. Hope he recovers quickly and fully
 

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Just by the article it sounds like that bystander saved the pilot at his peril. Not all would and I can’t say I blame the generic bystander. Good on this fellow.
 
I'm amazed he's alive. Didja see the photo of the concrete abutment wall the plane hit? It broke into pieces and flipped the plane.
 
Yes, it seems had he just gone direct to Deer Valley he would possibly made it.

I’m hoping the pilot’s injuries are few and he recovers well.
 
Wow, only ~ 1.3 nautical miles from the airport fence.
 
The track almost looks like he was thinking about Glendale first, then changed his mind.

May have been getting vectors for 7R, should have use direct to nearest. Unfortunately liveatc doesn’t have DVT feeds.
GS pull pilot out shortly before it exploded, literally seconds after crash, God bless him.


Tom
 
May have been getting vectors for 7R, should have use direct to nearest. Unfortunately liveatc doesn’t have DVT feeds.
GS pull pilot out shortly before it exploded, literally seconds after crash, God bless him.


Tom

Phoenix Approach would be the place to look on LiveATC.
 
That is one of two Mooney’s the factory has produced this year. Hoping the pilot makes a speedy recovery.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Brand new plane too. Hard to believe it had any mechanical issues.

Infant mortality of these air cooled tractor engines (POS CMI engines very much included) are a pretty established thing, religious argument and mouth-foaming dismissal as anecdotal as it may be. Hell, it's not even a unique accident for long body mooneys. Though I argue this has nothing to do with that airframe, and I'm not a Mooney owner nor do I care for brand loyalty sensitivities anyways mind you. You're only as good as your weakest link, and for these new airplanes..."it's the engine, stupid". Our powerplants are certified........certified POS, as a collective. New doesn't get you improved powerplant reliability in this cottage industry. That's a pedestrian mindset from spending too many hours of your day in your modern car, but actually getting your money's worth out of that transportation conveyance. Not an irrational expectation to have to be clear. It's just not applicable to good ol' Jonestown in here, recreational piston captive audience land. :D

If I was buying a new piston airplane today for that kind of scratch, the sales agreement would have them fly the stupid thing at their cost for the first 500 hours. For a half a dozen sales, one would figure this wouldn't be such blasphemy of an ask. I digress.
 
and I'm not a Mooney owner nor do I care for brand loyalty sensitivities anyways mind you. You're only as good as your weakest link, and for these new airplanes..."it's the engine, stupid". Our powerplants are certified........certified POS, as a collective
YES!!!!

Thank you.. but someone will come along shortly and tell us that aircraft engines are the peak of optimization and reliability.. that there's literally nothing we can do to make them better since their initial design in the 1940s..


--
Also.. Mooneys are built like tanks and the quality of construction likely saved this guy's life (in addition to other factors), but after looking at the Bo crash in NY recently these are probably pilots who also preached that real pilots don't need no stinkin' chute and they can glide it down to a landing beautifully. I don't get how people don't bring life jackets when overwater and think that BRS in general (for a plane) is stupid, or somehow makes you less of a pilot and poo poo it

When that POS up front finally quits I'd rather have every tool available to me
 
Incidentally, according to a student training at Scottsdale, fuel sales at the FBO that serviced the Mooney were suspended until the appropriate people can verify there's no contamination. Just in case.
 
Incidentally, according to a student training at Scottsdale, fuel sales at the FBO that serviced the Mooney were suspended until the appropriate people can verify there's no contamination. Just in case.
We have the same standards. If we fuel an aircraft and it goes down, we suspend all fueling until we're cleared. It's not just an FBO thing but also a requirement from our fuel provider.
 
Incidentally, according to a student training at Scottsdale, fuel sales at the FBO that serviced the Mooney were suspended until the appropriate people can verify there's no contamination. Just in case.

I think that is pretty much SOP everywhere.
 
Years ago I was involved in a similar situation that did not end well.

I witnessed a PA-28 lose the engine on takeoff from the now just a memory Andreau Airpark in West Houston. The pilot tried to stretch his glide over a wide and deep flood control ditch to reach a large athletic field adjacent to a middle school. As I pulled to the side of the road next to the ditch, the plane impacted the embankment. He missed making the field by the smallest of margins.

I exited my car and ran as fast as I could to reach the aircraft, because I could see the beginnings of a post crash fire. I could see the pilot, he was unconcious.

The wing had been displaced by the impact, and was blocking the door. I tried with all my strength to get the door open, but I couldn't do it. The fire began engulfing the cabin, and I had to give up. I was overcome with tears of rage and sorrow. I was so close, but couldn't help him.

The autopsy indicated the pilot was alive after the crash, he had combustion products in his lungs. He had been knocked unconcious when he hit the panel; the plane wasn't fitted with shoulder harnesses.

I commend the guy that pulled the pilot out of the Mooney. There's no way to tell if the plane is going to blow up, and it's truly a situation where the rescuer could die trying to help. I hope the pilot recovers with no lasting damage to his health.
 
Infant mortality of these air cooled tractor engines (POS CMI engines very much included) are a pretty established thing, religious argument and mouth-foaming dismissal as anecdotal as it may be. Hell, it's not even a unique accident for long body mooneys. Though I argue this has nothing to do with that airframe, and I'm not a Mooney owner nor do I care for brand loyalty sensitivities anyways mind you. You're only as good as your weakest link, and for these new airplanes..."it's the engine, stupid". Our powerplants are certified........certified POS, as a collective. New doesn't get you improved powerplant reliability in this cottage industry. That's a pedestrian mindset from spending too many hours of your day in your modern car, but actually getting your money's worth out of that transportation conveyance. Not an irrational expectation to have to be clear. It's just not applicable to good ol' Jonestown in here, recreational piston captive audience land. :D

If I was buying a new piston airplane today for that kind of scratch, the sales agreement would have them fly the stupid thing at their cost for the first 500 hours. For a half a dozen sales, one would figure this wouldn't be such blasphemy of an ask. I digress.

This is why manufacturers and consumers alike are realizing that parachutes for the whole plane are a good idea. I guess we have no idea what really went wrong here, but I wonder if this buyer might be second guessing his decision to pass on a Cirrus. I know I would.
 
There's no doubt that the fact that he was flying a Mooney contributed heavily in saving his life. The 2 door versions have an even stronger cage than the 1 door ones.

I do wonder why he wouldn't have gone straight into the closest field, wherever that was.

Incidentally, according to a student training at Scottsdale, fuel sales at the FBO that serviced the Mooney were suspended until the appropriate people can verify there's no contamination. Just in case.

This sure as hell sounds like it might have been contamination.

This is why manufacturers and consumers alike are realizing that parachutes for the whole plane are a good idea. I guess we have no idea what really went wrong here, but I wonder if this buyer might be second guessing his decision to pass on a Cirrus. I know I would.

I wouldn't. I'd rather own a Mooney. They are better aircraft and their construction is such that survivability for pilots who have the good sense and skill to crash them in a roughly normal attitude is going to be no different than in a plane with a chute.
 
There's no doubt that the fact that he was flying a Mooney contributed heavily in saving his life. The 2 door versions have an even stronger cage than the 1 door ones.

I do wonder why he wouldn't have gone straight into the closest field, wherever that was.



This sure as hell sounds like it might have been contamination.



I wouldn't. I'd rather own a Mooney. They are better aircraft and their construction is such that survivability for pilots who have the good sense and skill to crash them in a roughly normal attitude is going to be no different than in a plane with a chute.

Still a Mooney with a chute is objectively a safer plane than one without it - of course this being a relic design being sold at single digit numbers, it makes no sense to invest any money into it.
 
I do wonder why he wouldn't have gone straight into the closest field, wherever that was.

Just a SWAG here..... initially the plane might have just been running ruff, and the pilot thought he might make it to the field without any problem and took a vector, so possibly no emergency was declared until it was too late.

Pure speculation, but it has happened.
 
Still a Mooney with a chute is objectively a safer plane than one without it - of course this being a relic design being sold at single digit numbers, it makes no sense to invest any money into it.

A "relic" that is still a FAR superior aircraft to the Cirrus
 
I think the Meyers 200 has never had a fatal accident...also built like a tank and possibly superior to the Mooney...so much for that business plan..
 
Must be some kind of best kept secret since they only managed to sell ,what ...2 planes last year ?

Oh yeah, I forgot that marketing is a factor in aircraft performance and quality...and also makes up for the poor quality pilots who dominate the Cirrus ranks too.
 
Oh yeah, I forgot that marketing is a factor in aircraft performance and quality...and also makes up for the poor quality pilots who dominate the Cirrus ranks too.

I don’t know any so I wouldn’t know ... you on the other hand must know hundreds of them to opine like that ...or , maybe you are just talking out of your ass.
 
I'd rather own a Mooney. They are better aircraft and their construction is such that survivability for pilots who have the good sense and skill to crash them in a roughly normal attitude is going to be no different than in a plane with a chute.

I almost guarantee this guy said exactly the same thing before the crash. I'd be curious to get his opinion after the crash. I also seriously question your assertion that as long as you crash a Mooney in a "normal" attitude, it will be the same as the chute. The chute's record is pretty impressive. The normal attitude crash... not so much.
 
Must be some kind of best kept secret since they only managed to sell ,what ...2 planes last year ?

Mooney sold 14 planes last year, double the number in each of the previous two years. And that was the most number of annual sales for Mooney since the 19 airplanes it sold in 2009.

The whole piston aircraft market took a shellacking during the financial crisis, and hasn't recovered in terms of volume of aircraft manufactured and sold in the decade since. Total new piston aircraft industry sales numbers are half what they were in 2006/07. Cirrus is exactly on the industry trend - selling only half the number of airplanes it flogged in 2006/07. So nobody has been immune. Interestingly the industry is making as much revenue today, selling half the number of planes, as it did in 2006.

No illusions about where light GA is heading.
 
I almost guarantee this guy said exactly the same thing before the crash. I'd be curious to get his opinion after the crash. I also seriously question your assertion that as long as you crash a Mooney in a "normal" attitude, it will be the same as the chute. The chute's record is pretty impressive. The normal attitude crash... not so much.

Mooney's record is pretty impressive
 
Cirrus or not, when your engine quits I can't imagine a situation where you'd be thankful that you don't have a parachute.. sure ideally you can easily glide it into a beautiful field and walk away, but more likely than not as we've seen with all the accidents that happen not on Cirrus planes, some dude ends up in a crater somewhere.. if it wasn't for the good samaritan this guy would be dead too

Far superior is subjective.. I will take a plane that offers me both air conditioning and TKS and a much wider cabin that's actually comfortable to sit in for 5 hours (and almost guaranteed survival).. that's more valuable to me over a couple knots in the flight levels of speed and a couple of gallons per hour

To each their own though, there are also people out there who think the 210 is the best airplane ever made even though it's slower and a high wing.. and others who will say that about the Bonanza, the Lance, and the list goes on.. each of those airplanes though are objectively safer with a BRS
 
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I think the Meyers 200 has never had a fatal accident...also built like a tank and possibly superior to the Mooney...so much for that business plan..

This is a knowable fact thanks to the internet. According to the NTSB, 9 people have died in a Meyers 200. It sounds like a pretty good stat until you realize how many were made and how many are actually flying. I see these birds from time to time in my travels, but when was the last time you saw one that was actually active and flying? Most are ramp queens and have been for years. Too bad because they really are cool.
 
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