Six killed when plane from Houston crashes near San Antonio

GRG55 said:
The CG moves back slightly as the fuel burns off, but the plane would need to have been loaded very indiscriminately to begin with for the fuel CG shift after less than 2 hours of flight to make it uncontrollable.

I recall there is a maximum total weight limit for the rearmost pair of seats in the 6-seat Bonanzas, but I don't know if the Baron also has a similar limit
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Ok, thanks. As I said I am not familiar with the Baron, meaning I pretty much know nothing about it.

And as mentioned we don't know the total weights or seating order.
 
pigpenracing said:
This was my friend Jeffery that just bought my 140 last month. Great guy and extremely great pilot....
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I'm sorry to hear about the loss of a friend and a skilled pilot, ppr.

I'll never gain the amount of time and experience he, and a lot of other pilots, have. That factors into the choices of airplanes I make - that was my only point.
 
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BrianNC said:
Video about the occupants.

https://abc13.com/kerrville-plane-crash-what-we-know-about-the-6-victims/5265345/
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A view of the aircraft at 1:03 of the video seems to indicate the right propeller has no rotational damage. It does not appear to have been feathered.

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GRG55 said:
...but the plane would need to have been loaded very indiscriminately to begin with for the fuel CG shift after less than 2 hours of flight to make it uncontrollable.
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But that's not what I was trying to express. It wasn't simply a matter of aft CG, it could have been that combined with what from witness accounts and the aircraft itself appears to be the loss of the right engine.

Because the airplane had six passengers that appear in photos to be of above average size, it's probable the CG was aft biased. I'm not saying it was out of limit, but perhaps near it. You also mentioned fuel burn moves the CG further aft.

That condition in isolation might not create a problem. But combined with the other factors I mentioned in my earlier post acting on the airplane, along with what appears to be an unfeathered propeller, it may have resulted in elevator authority inadequate to lower the nose quickly enough to counteract yaw and drag, maintain airspeed above Vmc, and prevent loss of control.

I cannot think of any other reason why the airplane would enter what a witness described as a classic Vmc roll and spin while it had sufficient altitude to trade for airspeed.

Again, I wish to express my sorrow at the grief and sense of loss those who knew the occupants are experiencing.
 
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3393RP said:
I've been thinking about this for awhile, and after looking at the altitude loss and speed excursions during the last minutes of the flight, an odd thought occurred.

As is known, there were six people on board. The condition of the crashed aircraft and a witness description of the last moments of flight are consistent with a Vmc roll and spin.

“I looked over and watched him drop down out of the clouds,” Simmons told the Express-News. “The rear end of the plane was real low, like he was trying to stay in the air. It was like he was dragging the tail end of that plane. Like he had a lot of weight in the back or something.”

The plane flew southward into the wind, Simmons said, then “banked to the right, real hard, and just flipped on over, upside down, and nose-dived to the ground.”

Is it possible the aircraft was loaded at the aft CG limit, and that after the loss of an engine, the insufficient elevator authority coupled with a higher AOA, drag created by adverse yaw, and control surface deflections caused the aircraft to slow below Vmc and depart controlled flight?

There were five middle aged men and one woman on board, but of course I cannot make any guess regarding their weight or seating order in the aircraft.

I know the aircraft had burned off fuel weight, but I don't know how that affects CG in a Baron. Another fuel consideration is that perhaps the initial fuel load was reduced because of gross weight concerns, and fuel starvation caused the loss of one engine. The resulting loss of control could have occurred before the other engine quit. This scenario could also explain the absence of a post-crash fire.

Is this really dumb conjecture?
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"Another fuel consideration is that perhaps the initial fuel load was reduced because of gross weight concerns, and fuel starvation caused the loss of one engine. The resulting loss of control could have occurred before the other engine quit. This scenario could also explain the absence of a post-crash fire." My initial thoughts as well.
Very sad.......Condolences to the family and freinds.
 
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So much to unpack on the ADM front. "I didn't buy this twin to leave people and bags behind" not the least of which. But I'll digress.

Condolences to the surviving families, the pedestrians in particular, since they are less accustomed to these nuances in general aviation and thus would likely continue to reinforce to their pedestrian friends the notion these things are dangerous and need to be legislated out of the hands of recreational pilots.
 
It looks, to me, like a botched forced-landing after engine failure due to fuel exhaustion (I speculate on the fuel exhaustion part, but with landable surface nearby, I think it was a botched forced). These "great pilot(s)" are super-human until they aren't. Seems like an overloaded cabin, but fuel limited to protect gross weight. Probably great work on the coupled magenta line stuff, but throw in a real emergency demanding proficient stick-and-rudder improvisation to a successful flare and (off-field) landing: it wasn't there. I think he balled-up, flared, and pancaked it in at a relatively low altitude. Remember; if there was a survivor, the pilot got the nose up. He didn't.
 
Bobanna said:
It looks, to me, like a botched forced-landing after engine failure due to fuel exhaustion
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Even the worst botched landing would have forward motion after contacting the ground. That would leave a trail. There is no trail evident in those photos. It looks like there was zero forward motion after contact with the ground. Also a forced landed would have likely had gear extended and would have likely had a mayday call. No evidence of either.
 
Bobanna said:
Agreed. But what if it was a hold-it-off at, let's say, 100 feet --- and then the bottom fell out: limited forward motion, but lots of down. That the gear was retracted amplifies my suggestion of a "botched forced;" if the pilot anticipated and prepared for a forced, the gear would have been extended. Blessings to the grieving families.
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i thought in most R planes its better not to extend the gear until the runway is made and in field, its better to land on belly than gear
 
Landing in unimproved surfaces with the gear retracted is an oft uttered guidance based on an overestimated concern for flipping the aircraft. The fact of the matter remains that maintaining plane of motion separation with hard obstacles is preferred to having the aircraft crunched into you by said low lying objects. The gear also grabs and rips, depleting ground roll energy. On touchdown, the gear also helps deplete energy aligned with your spine (conventional seating),as most off field landings invariably end up with people hesitating to varying degrees and having high sink rates.

Mark me in the camp of gear down for forced landings.
 
WannFly said:
i thought in most R planes its better not to extend the gear until the runway is made and in field, its better to land on belly than gear
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Sure. Gear extension heralds a commitment to land in OEI emergencies, But, in a forced-landing (regardless of cause), put your gear out once you've picked a touchdown area and commit to it! Indecision will kill you and all on board. Sorry if I sound harsh, but this is deeply serious stuff.

Blessings
 
Unless I'm landing in the water or treetops, I'm probably going to put my gear down.
 
Coupled with the recent DC-3 crash, also in TX, I believe, my takeaway is that even the best pilots...

Be safe out there.

R.I.P.
 
Bobanna said:
Agreed. But what if it was a hold-it-off at, let's say, 100 feet --- and then the bottom fell out: limited forward motion, but lots of down. That the gear was retracted amplifies my suggestion of a "botched forced;" if the pilot anticipated and prepared for a forced, the gear would have been extended. Blessings to the grieving families.
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So you're saying it was a botched landing attempt with the pilot holding it off at 100' but not extending the gear because the pilot wasn't actually landing. How do you have a botched landing attempt while not actually trying to land?
 
I met Jeff a few times and he was a solid person. He is well known in the flying community in Houston and it is a deviating loss. I know he has helped many in their time of need and he was one of a kind.

This accident is bothering me quite a bit given his reputation for how sharp and safety oriented he was.

For what it is worth, I have the POH for the Baron and based on my guessing of weights of the passengers and the minimal levels of stuff in baggage, the Baron would have had roughly 42 gallons of fuel on board to be within weight and balance. The total avg fuel burn from KIWS to KERV is 37 gallons. So that leaves about 5 gallons left to burn in if a problem. I tried re running the numbers with lighter people, but it all comes out with a low remaining fuel number. I was driving from Houston to Austin at the same time Jeff was flying over my head and the winds were up but not too powerful and the cloud deck was low but not hard IFR.

Of course his Baron may have had some upgrades or other items to change the weight and balance. NTSB will let us know that.

We lost a great aviator and I guess I am trying to find answers to this, and it hits home. I want his accident to teach us all how to be better pilots and his legacy to continue to save other lives.
 
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SundownKing said:
I met Jeff a few times and he was a solid person. He is well known in the flying community in Houston and it is a deviating loss. I know he has helped many in their time of need and he was one of a kind.

This accident is bothering me quite a bit given his reputation for how sharp and safety oriented he was.

For what it is worth, I have the POH for the Baron and based on my guessing of weights of the passengers and the minimal levels of stuff in baggage, the Baron would have had roughly 42 gallons of fuel on board to be within weight and balance. The total avg fuel burn from KIWS to KERV is 37 gallons. So that leaves about 5 gallons left to burn in if a problem. I tried re running the numbers with lighter people, but it all comes out with a low remaining fuel number. I was driving from Houston to Austin at the same time Jeff was flying over my head and the winds were up but not too powerful and the cloud deck was low but not hard IFR.

Of course his Baron may have had some upgrades or other items to change the weight and balance. NTSB will let us know that.

We lost a great aviator and I guess I am trying to find answers to this, and it hits home. I want his accident to teach us all how to be better pilots and his legacy to continue to save other lives.
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That’s rather disconcerting if so. What’s 5 gallons reserve in that aircraft? 10 minutes tops? With a couple of knots of extra headwind less? I have a hard time believing an aviator with that much flying experience would make such an attempt.
 
This quote by a local resident made me look at the FlightAware track.

Local resident and former pilot Robert Hurt said he was puzzled why the plane was so far out on its final approach to the airport. He said weather conditions were good.

"No need for instruments, that I could tell," he said. "I am puzzled why they were this far out. You would not need to come this far out," a reference to the final approach.


The FlightAware track shows the aircraft overflew Kerrville to the NW about 20 miles before making a 540° circling turn and descending from 3,900' to 2,100' and slowing from 170 kts to less than 70 kts (GS) before the tracker ended.

The aircraft was still about 15 miles from the airport when it crashed.

News reports have said the married couple in the plane owned property in the area they intended to expand and renovate. Two of the other passengers were an architect and a landscape architect.

A search I made of Kerr County tax records show a property owned by a person with the same last name as the married victims located 15 or 20 miles NW of Kerrville. It appears the aircraft overflew the couple's property prior to the crash.
 
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Seems it would be fairly easy to ascertain fuel was or was not flowing to that engine(right) with the undamaged prop. Why do engines quit? Most quit because no fuel is flowing to them, just going by percentages. I have no idea what happened on this tragic flight.
 
Bobanna said:
Yes. I'm not saying it was 100 feet, or 50, or whatever. The failure (it could be a decision) not to extend the gear as ground contact was imminent could be construed as a highly stressed pilot with inadequate ass in his pants to pull-off a proper forced. The lack of gear extension does not prove not "trying to land."
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This is looking at pictures on the internet. There can be no proving of anything in that scenario. Could well have been a botched landing but I have my doubts. And those doubts are because I cannot recall reading an NTSB report where there plane had no forward motion after contacting the ground and the determination was the accident happened during landing phase. I haven't read every single NTSB report that exists so I can't say such a determination doesn't exist, but I can say I've never seen it.
 
I flew to the Houston area Friday to pick up a family member who was leaving his Baron for some extensive work. I talked to a person who knew Weiss very well and had flown with him often. He was visibly shaken about it all and that was several days after the accident. From his account it appears that he agrees with most of the speculation here that it was fuel exhaustion. It appears that he flew with minimal fuel maybe because of the heavy load. It was said by people familiar.with the BE58, that if he would have gone with full fuel it would have flown with no problems.

Apparently when he banked for the turn, it uncovered the fuel pick up killing one engine.

The family member who has a Barron and has given this accident lots of thought. We learn from other people’s accidents and that is the only good that comes from them.

You don’t have to fly a twin to learn from this. We all know that the law requires 30 minutes VFR and 45 minutes IFR extra fuel on board. I personally like much more fuel than that, but at the very least OBEY THAT LAW.

My thoughts and prayers are with those families.
 
MBDiagMan said:
Apparently when he banked for the turn, it uncovered the fuel pick up killing one engine.

The family member who has a Barron and has given this accident lots of thought.
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Not trying to be harsh, but unless it's normal to make uncoordinated turns, more thinking is in order.
 
MBDiagMan said:
We all know that the law requires 30 minutes VFR and 45 minutes IFR extra fuel on board.
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FARs require taking off with the fuel reserves, but you don't have to land with it.

I do know what you mean though, I like to land with at least 30 or 45 minutes of fuel.
 
dtuuri said:
Not trying to be harsh, but unless it's normal to make uncoordinated turns, more thinking is in order.
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Okay, I’ll give you that, but it seems pretty clear that it was fuel exhaustion. The turn may not have been a factor.
 
Zeldman said:
FARs require taking off with the fuel reserves, but you don't have to land with it.

I do know what you mean though, I like to land with at least 30 or 45 minutes of fuel.
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On a flight that quick, don’t you think if he would have had forty five minutes reserve it would have been enough even though he used a lot to climb out with the heavy load?
 
MBDiagMan said:
Okay, I’ll give you that, but it seems pretty clear that it was fuel exhaustion. The turn may not have been a factor.
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Reminds me of a time I was a Flight Engineer for a major airline (the majorest). The Captain said his wife wouldn't fly with him anymore in his Cessna 170. I'm thinking it's too small, no bathroom, etc. Nope. After the second time he ran it out of gas she laid down the law. "But I knew I was almost dry, that's why I kept enough altitude so I could glide into Kissimmee." Which he successfully did. Taught me why airlines have dispatchers and flight releases.
 
The crash happened several miles away from the property, after they had circled it.

I, too, thought about the idea that an over the MGTW departure would have been possible, and preferable to fuel exhaustion. But I doubt the pilot felt he was cutting it that close.
 
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MBDiagMan said:
On a flight that quick, don’t you think if he would have had forty five minutes reserve it would have been enough even though he used a lot to climb out with the heavy load?
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Which takes us back to the unknown. Was the plan to fly direct airport to airport than drive to look at the property.? And then while en route someone says, ''Hey, since we are already in the air let's look at it from the air first.''.??

I agree, if there had been 45 more minutes of fuel onboard we would not be discussing this accident. But why wasn't there enough fuel.?? (assuming fuel exhaustion was the cause) Was fuel left behind to add one more person to the plane.??

Sadly that information was lost in the crash.
 
The flightaware track does not support the “detour to fly over the real estate” theory. They flew direct to the northwest approach initial fix.
 
Please see the Air Safety Institute video covering this accident, published April 30, 2021. Not sure if I can include the link but here's my attempt.


If that doesn't work (b/c I don't have 5 posts) please just google "Air Safety Institute" and look for the recent videos.

EDITED date of publication.
 
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3393RP said:
I've been thinking about this for awhile, and after looking at the altitude loss and speed excursions during the last minutes of the flight, an odd thought occurred.

As is known, there were six people on board. The condition of the crashed aircraft and a witness description of the last moments of flight are consistent with a Vmc roll and spin.

“I looked over and watched him drop down out of the clouds,” Simmons told the Express-News. “The rear end of the plane was real low, like he was trying to stay in the air. It was like he was dragging the tail end of that plane. Like he had a lot of weight in the back or something.”

The plane flew southward into the wind, Simmons said, then “banked to the right, real hard, and just flipped on over, upside down, and nose-dived to the ground.”

Is it possible the aircraft was loaded at the aft CG limit, and that after the loss of an engine, the insufficient elevator authority coupled with a higher AOA, drag created by adverse yaw, and control surface deflections caused the aircraft to slow below Vmc and depart controlled flight?

There were five middle aged men and one woman on board, but of course I cannot make any guess regarding their weight or seating order in the aircraft.

I know the aircraft had burned off fuel weight, but I don't know how that affects CG in a Baron. Another fuel consideration is that perhaps the initial fuel load was reduced because of gross weight concerns, and fuel starvation caused the loss of one engine. The resulting loss of control could have occurred before the other engine quit. This scenario could also explain the absence of a post-crash fire.

Is this really dumb conjecture?
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3393RP said:
A view of the aircraft at 1:03 of the video seems to indicate the right propeller has no rotational damage. It does not appear to have been feathered.

But that's not what I was trying to express. It wasn't simply a matter of aft CG, it could have been that combined with what from witness accounts and the aircraft itself appears to be the loss of the right engine.

Because the airplane had six passengers that appear in photos to be of above average size, it's probable the CG was aft biased. I'm not saying it was out of limit, but perhaps near it. You also mentioned fuel burn moves the CG further aft.

That condition in isolation might not create a problem. But combined with the other factors I mentioned in my earlier post acting on the airplane, along with what appears to be an unfeathered propeller, it may have resulted in elevator authority inadequate to lower the nose quickly enough to counteract yaw and drag, maintain airspeed above Vmc, and prevent loss of control.

I cannot think of any other reason why the airplane would enter what a witness described as a classic Vmc roll and spin while it had sufficient altitude to trade for airspeed.

Again, I wish to express my sorrow at the grief and sense of loss those who knew the occupants are experiencing.
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My speculation about the cause of the crash was accurate. I don't find pleasure in that, the loss of life was terrible.
 
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GenAv said:
Please see the Air Safety Institute video covering this accident, published April 30, 2019. Not sure if I can include the link but here's my attempt.


If that doesn't work (b/c I don't have 5 posts) please just google "Air Safety Institute" and look for the recent videos.
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Just a correction that the video was posted April 30, 2021. Thanks for connecting it with our thread on the incident. I watched the video this spring but didn't recall a discussion here.
 
iamtheari said:
Just a correction that the video was posted April 30, 2021. Thanks for connecting it with our thread on the incident. I watched the video this spring but didn't recall a discussion here.
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Thank you. Edited my post to correct.
 
Wow, what a needless tragedy. An ATP with 2400 hrs in the type. Really sad.
 
It's inexcusable

42 gallons in a twin for an IFR / IMC flight where a prudent pilot would budget at least 2 hrs of gas is crazy.. never mind the failure to raise the flaps - or feather the dead engine - or push the nose down and stay above VMC
 
..but hey, he stayed
Tarheelpilot said:
They paid the price.
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Those poor passengers.. those of us in aviation are aware of the risks. Obviously the pilot did not want to die that day. But the passengers.. damn
 
Tantalum said:
..but hey, he stayed

Those poor passengers.. those of us in aviation are aware of the risks. Obviously the pilot did not want to die that day. But the passengers.. damn
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I don’t know. I guess. When those guys from Air France rode their bus all the way to impact in a deep stall with opposite control inputs I doubt any of those passengers figured it was their last day either. ATP or private pilot. It doesn’t matter. The people riding with us are trusting us with their lives.
 
I have to imagine there was a sense of urgency to get on the ground if you thought you would only have a ~12 gallon reserve (incorrect calculation), assuming a straight line flight plan. Then you realize you have to do an approach - now you're eating into your 12 gallon reserve (or 16 or whatever he thought he had). The winds favored RWY 12 - they were 170 at 11g17. I wonder why he didn't fly the RNAV 30. Even circling mins should have gotten him below the reported 2400' MSL bases (reported to the accident aircraft from the controller). THe AWOS reported ceiling of 1200' AGL. I wonder if there was a reason the RNAV/GPS 30 was off the table as an option? Circling should have allowed him to have both - shorter approach and circle to favorable landing rwy. Or worst case, land with a ~9 knot tailwind (component).
 
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