Passenger Prop Strike

mryan75 said:
Stictly curiousity: why is it illegal to exit a Navion with the prop turning?
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Strictly curiosity: How is it illegal to exit a Navion with the prop turning? What code is such a law under?
 
Salty said:
Strictly curiosity: How is it illegal to exit a Navion with the prop turning? What code is such a law under?
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That's what I'm wondering - I have no idea. I said "strictly curiosity" because I'm not being argumentative, I'm truly interested.
 
mryan75 said:
That's what I'm wondering - I have no idea. I said "strictly curiosity" because I'm not being argumentative, I'm truly interested.
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My guess is placarding in the plane.
 
^yes, but why is it placarded in the plane? Is it just an effort to be safe to passages, or does the prop slipstream effect the canopy somehow?
 
This went from a minor inconvenience to near death experience in about 5 seconds.

I've been around many spinning props, OEMs had a very bad habit of putting ground power plugs within a couple feet of them, so to unplug a power cart someone had to get close.

I shutdown before passengers get off, no exceptions. Most are aware and probably wouldn't be a problem, until they got hung up or tripped on something.
 
I've done hot get off's, but with the emphatically expressed caution that the passenger deplaning is to walk toward the rear of the aircraft and away, and is not to approach the aircraft for any reason whatsoever including if said aircraft is on fire. Mostly with Mrs. Steingar, who knows the drill. Would only do it if with someone with whom I was very familiar and in whom I had utter confidence.
 
In this case, it appears that the passenger deplaned of her own volition, contrary to the pilot’s plan.
 
MauleSkinner said:
In this case, it appears that the passenger deplaned of her own volition, contrary to the pilot’s plan.
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What would’ve been the harm in shutting down the engine? Too much risk in this for too little gain.


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Fracpilot said:
What would’ve been the harm in shutting down the engine? Too much risk in this for too little gain.


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Never said that would’ve been a problem...just saying that most of the posts here are largely irrelevant to the situation.
 
mryan75 said:
Stictly curiousity: why is it illegal to exit a Navion with the prop turning?
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There's a mandatory placard on the panel that states so. 91.9 makes that obligatory.

The problem is that you board and deplane the (stock) Navion by going off the FRONT of the wing. This gives you only a few feet between the front step and the veg-o-matic.
 
flyingron said:
There's a mandatory placard on the panel that states so. 91.9 makes that obligatory.

The problem is that you board and deplane the (stock) Navion by going off the FRONT of the wing. This gives you only a few feet between the front step and the veg-o-matic.
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What’s funny is, the only time I’ve ever seen a guy pull up on the ramp, set the brakes and get out with it running, it was a Navion. Then he loaded a passenger. Stupid, and scary to watch.
 
And the Darwin Award goes to.......................


Seriously, it’s just incomprehensible for me to understand how a person could walk into an airplane propeller.
 
Ryanb said:
And the Darwin Award goes to.......................


Seriously, it’s just incomprehensible for me to understand how a person could walk into an airplane propeller.
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In many cases the prop is nearly invisible from behind (it's supposed to be!) and if one is yanking a chock from the nose wheel the proximity is rather scary. Of course, how many auto accidents fall under the "I didn't see the other car" excuse?
 
It may seem so, but it happens far to regularly, even with people who are not unfamiliar with aircraft.

I learned this early on. I was based at Jeffco when one of the mechanics from Roach walked into the prop on an MU-2 and died. You see this time and time again.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
In many cases the prop is nearly invisible from behind (it's supposed to be!) and if one is yanking a chock from the nose wheel the proximity is rather scary. Of course, how many auto accidents fall under the "I didn't see the other car" excuse?
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That’s a bad excuse. It takes a special kind of dumb to walk into running propeller. Just sayin’
 
Kenny Phillips said:
And you would be wrong. People make minor mistakes every day. Sometimes a minor mistake will kill you.
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I guess that’s why there’s Darwin Award candidates made every second. Lots of stupid people out there.
 
The stupid in this incident was many fold. The first is the pilot leaving the airplane while it is running. Add passengers into the mix and the mistakes compound.

I will not unload or load an airplane with the engine running.
 
I can't find any regulations related to this. I think it would fall under the general category of unsafe operation, aka "Don't do anything stupid".

Pilot fail.
 
Ryanb said:
And the Darwin Award goes to.......................


Seriously, it’s just incomprehensible for me to understand how a person could walk into an airplane propeller.
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The two I know of were both going through messy divorces. Other things on their minds. Neither survived, so the divorce proceedings went much more smoothly after that.
 
Ryanb said:
I guess that’s why there’s Darwin Award candidates made every second. Lots of stupid people out there.
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There's actually a list of qualifications to get a Darwin award, so I'm not quite walking into a prop is sufficient. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Awards). Maybe trying out your new invention to clean spinning props would though.

My favorite is the gentleman who swallowed nitroglycerin pills then tried to commit suicide by running into a wall thinking he would explode. Unfortunately, he did not accomplish his goal of exploding, dying, or winning a Darwin Award.
 
Anyone who has seen Raiders of the Lost Ark knows that props and people don't mix... unless you need to get rid of the bad guy.
 
I was trying to explain to a new flight paramedic a couple days ago how a person can walk into a spinning tail rotor. You’ve got bystanders not indoctrinated to aviation ops. It’s loud, they’re confused, and aren’t briefed properly on hazardous areas. It happens.

If YT wouldn’t have removed an Astar tail rotor strike a few days ago due to its graphic nature, I’d show you just how easily it happens.
 
Skydiving operations 'hot load' all the time. The experienced skydivers know where the props are and the inexperienced (students and tandems) are chaperoned by a instructor or jumpmaster.
 
One of the dumbest things to do it pose in a prop arc or publish a photo of someone standing in a prop arc. Its like having a Field and Stream magazine publish a photo of a hunter pointing a gun at his own head.
I have complained more than once to both EAA who sends out a brochure of a pilot hugging a prop and my Bonanza association magazine which does the same thing, but haven't made much headway.

You ought to think of a prop as like a rattlesnake, how close would you walk next to a snake just on the chance that he hadn't struck yet? There was a funny Sat Nite Live skit with John Belusi as a crazed Samari and waving a big sword around. When I look at a prop I see that image of him with a sword that might start swinging anytime.
 
^^^ must not have been a big fan of MacGyver! :)

latest
 
Ryanb said:
That’s a bad excuse. It takes a special kind of dumb to walk into running propeller. Just sayin’
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It takes a narrow mind to chalk this off as simple stupidity and it gives the critic a false immunity from having it happen to them. Years ago I presented a paper at a trauma meeting analyzing aircraft propeller injuries. I found over 250 reports at the NTSB headquarters in Washington. The bottom line of the report was that two thirds of the deaths and injuries occurred when a person was simply going from point A to point B and walked into a spinning prop. The other third involved ground operations, e.g. removing chocks, jump starting, etc.

I didn't get the impression that ANY of the victims were dumb. If you think that it only happens to dumb people then you know it can't possibly happen to you. Right?
 
It does show carelessness, but I have had a couple of diamonds imprinted on my forehead from my Cessna 172 days. And you can SEE a wing! I'm just glad my carelessness was with something that wasn't moving at almost the speed of sound.
 
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dbahn, that is exactly right, we make a big mistake when we think only dumb people can do something careless or dangerous therefore the rest of us don't have to be careful or change anything. An example is I have read many people blame the Boeing Max crashes on the foreign crews, rather than there being a critical problem with the airplane, maybe even the system that certified it,
 
JOhnH said:
It does show carelessness, but I have had a couple of diamonds imprinted on my forehead from my Cessna 172 days. And you can SEE a wing! I'm just glad my carelessness was with something that wasn't moving at almost the speed of sound.
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That’s an excellent point! It is very possible to not see things that are right there...
 
Bill Greenwood said:
One of the dumbest things to do it pose in a prop arc or publish a photo of someone standing in a prop arc. Its like having a Field and Stream magazine publish a photo of a hunter pointing a gun at his own head.
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In order to change the alternator belt, I helped remove the prop from my Lance.

It meant I had to be REALLY comfortable, being in the prop arc, and rotating it, MANY times, in the process.

It can be safely done.
 
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