Plane crash Gillespie Field, San Diego

Rgbeard said:
Once again, @Den60 seems prone to exaggeration.

I fly in/out of SDM all the time, keep a truck there, and have zero issues with the small amount of MMTJ traffic.

I don't know what the UPS conversation has to do with anything.

The 40 minute drive is clearly a smokescreen, or times quoted intentionally during high traffic times to mislead the reader.

From keys-in-ignition to good Mexican food at Old Town San Diego shows as 23 minutes right NOW on Apple maps (4:21PM)
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UPS' main distribution center for San Diego, is in Chula Vista. In or out from here, it goes through Chula Vista first. Not sure about FedEx.

Would you consider Northbound on 4:21 PM on December 30th to be indicative of the usual traffic on the 5 or 805?
 
Den60 said:
Would you consider Northbound on 4:21 PM on December 30th to be indicative of the usual traffic on the 5 or 805?
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San Diego traffic is what it is, but I included the data so as to reflect that it was a real estimate and not an exaggeration based on zero-traffic as can be calculated by other mapping sources.

45 mins from Brown puts me up to Escondido most times.
 
Everskyward said:
The Nest camera makes it look like a pretty vertical descent, although that could be the camera angle. I'm guessing stall. I have many hours in a Lear 35. Never stall it, even up high. Also it has a pusher which will pull the yoke out of your hands. I've done this in the sim.
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What is a pusher?
 
Rgbeard said:
San Diego traffic is what it is, but I included the data so as to reflect that it was a real estimate and not an exaggeration based on zero-traffic as can be calculated by other mapping sources.

45 mins from Brown puts me up to Escondido most times.
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I'd prefer to get this thread back on tract. If you want to debate on San Diego traffic somewhere else please do so. I don't now much about traffic in this town, just have spent some 61 years living here.
 
Tantalum said:
How well is that tracked, and by whom? If I rent a 172 and do 9 touch and go's in the pattern does that count as one flight? 9 flights? is it even counted?

Some of the airports don't pass the 'sniff test' - for example I camped at Agua Caliente a few years ago for 3 nights.. according to https://skyvector.com/airport/L54/Agua-Caliente-Springs-Airport there are 3,300 GA operations per year, or about 9 per day. I tell you I did not hear or see a single plane for 3 days there.. so...
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The control tower does the traffic count. They count 'operations' (takeoffs, landings, low approaches, etc. Nine touch and go's would count as 18 operations (9 landings and 9 takeoffs).
 
Major Thread Drift here

That-drift-tho.gif
 
There are more than a few vid's on YT of aircraft on final to 27R @ SEE. Can't imagine doing that flight path in low conditions @ night.
 
Unfortunately, that would look much more difficult if you cranked up the speed flown to 140 or so, and limited bank angles to 30 degrees.

This crew seems to have done the maneuver on previous flights, but on this flight, the maneuver was initiated at a very low altitude, which makes identifying ground features much harder, with a much shorter time to confirm and react. The early turn to circle in the ground track implies they misidentified the airport environment, and made the required turn even steeper than if they went outbound the appropriate distance before turning.

There are credible reports that these pilots were highly skilled, and I am inclined to believe that. To me, it appears that the ceiling at the exact time of the arrival in the airport environment was well below the normal for the previous successful circle to lands. The very low altitude gave them little time to confirm the critical landmarks and make the necessary turns, and they may have picked the wrong ones and turned at the wrong time.

I have arrived at a familiar airport, VFR, in marginal visibility, and found identifying well known landmarks in order to arrive straight in, to be a major challenge. Houses and streets are in too much confusing detail, hills become much taller, and major divided highways become impossible to recognize before they are gone from sight. And I was flying at 70 K, not 140.

If they had a privately created procedure for that particular plane, with moving map display to show their exact location, the pilot not flying could have been giving turning points at the correct distance from the runway crossing, and monitored the rate of turn to assure that it was not too fast, they could have come out of the turn a suitable distance out, and had an relatively easy landing. Trying to achieve the same on a visual basis at that low altitude was near impossible.

The time before turning is a function of the speed of the aircraft, and must be verified in good VFR conditions. This cannot be "rolled out on the site when needed", but well prepared before hand, and no deviation done at the last minute. Any unexpected variation from what you expected, full throttle, climb, and go back IFR, to an alternate, and call it a day. Ground transportation is always an good alternate,

The pilots that I have flown with who had such procedures never flew them at altitudes as low as the Lear at KSEE, and the planes they flew were much smaller and more forgiving in stall warning and recovery.
 
geezer said:
I have arrived at a familiar airport, VFR, in marginal visibility, and found identifying well known landmarks in order to arrive straight in, to be a major challenge. Houses and streets are in too much confusing detail, hills become much taller, and major divided highways become impossible to recognize before they are gone from sight. And I was flying at 70 K, not 140.
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Yep. Your clues to provide SA at night, in low visibility, and low altitude suck. You may be in an area you've flown over 1000 times before, but you can't identify your normal visual clues. Not a good thing.
 
Mxfarm said:
There are more than a few vid's on YT of aircraft on final to 27R @ SEE. Can't imagine doing that flight path in low conditions @ night.
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At pattern height? Perhaps though I have watched these guys do it at daytime in jets and felt it was a bit risky. At half patter height, at night and in bad weather, well that is asking a lot of the plane and your skills.
 
Mxfarm said:
There are more than a few vid's on YT of aircraft on final to 27R @ SEE. Can't imagine doing that flight path in low conditions @ night.
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Den60 said:
At pattern height? Perhaps though I have watched these guys do it at daytime in jets and felt it was a bit risky. At half patter height, at night and in bad weather, well that is asking a lot of the plane and your skills.
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Correct, video’s @ pattern height, hence also the reference to “low conditions”.
 
Dan Gryder had an excellent video on this crash. Sadly, he had to take it down due to ‘complaints’. Being Dan, I suspect he got a little to personal in some of his commentary. And he played the full audio, which I’m sure upset some viewers.

He says he is going to edit it and upload it again. When he does I recommend you watch it. It is very technically accurate, and he didn’t actually throw his shoulder out of joint patting himself on the back.
 
JimNtexas said:
Dan Gryder had an excellent video on this crash. Sadly, he had to take it down due to ‘complaints’. Being Dan, I suspect he got a little to personal in some of his commentary. And he played the full audio, which I’m sure upset some viewers.
He says he is going to edit it and upload it again. When he does I recommend you watch it. It is very technically accurate, and he didn’t actually throw his shoulder out of joint patting himself on the back.
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I saw the video and speculating here, I suspect Flight Safety had something to say about him using their logo without permission (similar to another recent incident of his using someone else's Intellectual Property) and for his blaming of FSI for inadequate training regarding speeds and just "checking boxes" in their Lear training.
 
JimNtexas said:
Dan Gryder had an excellent video on this crash. Sadly, he had to take it down due to ‘complaints’. Being Dan, I suspect he got a little to personal in some of his commentary. And he played the full audio, which I’m sure upset some viewers.

He says he is going to edit it and upload it again. When he does I recommend you watch it. It is very technically accurate, and he didn’t actually throw his shoulder out of joint patting himself on the back.
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He really is a jerk.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
He's actually smart and thoughtful. With no "bedside manner" whatsoever.
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I don't think taunting and making fun of people for dying in a plane crash because you disagree with their religious convictions is thoughtful at all. The stuff about the jet crash with the Christian group was appalling. And I'd be saying the same thing if he'd posted something similar about any other religious group. Just truly inhumane.
 
What I want to know is how the pilot managed to keep from slamming into houses in and around Bostonia; in the video and stills I’ve seen, the wreckage is literally eight feet from the front door.

ARFlyer said:
NSFW Accident Site Footage:

The residents around the site are extremely lucky. The jet impacted at the street and left a sizable crater.
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It’s starting to look more and more like an accelerated stall followed by departure from flight.

Grum.Man said:
Looks like they were really booking it to be in the terminal area even for a jet. Looks to me like they were behind the airplane, couldn't get configured for 17 in time so chose the cancel IFR to make 27. Low, fast, increasing bank angle and headed right for a mountain.
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pmkaiser said:
What I want to know is how the pilot managed to keep from slamming into houses in and around Bostonia; in the video and stills I’ve seen, the wreckage is literally eight feet from the front door.
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The pilot was a passenger at the point of the crash. Unfortunately, the only thing he managed, was losing control of the airplane.
 
Agreed. Once the plane departed controlled flight, all he could do was say “Oh ****!” three or four times and then scream.
 
mryan75 said:
I don't think taunting and making fun of people for dying in a plane crash because you disagree with their religious convictions is thoughtful at all. The stuff about the jet crash with the Christian group was appalling. And I'd be saying the same thing if he'd posted something similar about any other religious group. Just truly inhumane.
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Well, he is who he is - it is increasingly rare skill these days but ultimately people can just ignore stuff they find disagreeable - it works wonders.
 
1) the FCC should prohibit recordings of people's last moments - it's beyond vulgar - it's snuff
2) I don't think anyone disagrees that DG is a jerk, or worse. The only question is "does any of his content have merit?" and his avalanche of drek makes that a pretty straightforward question to answer
 
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mryan75 said:
Human decency is an increasingly rare skill these days.
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Human decency isn’t a skill, it’s a characteristic.
The skill is pretending to exhibit human decency when you don’t have it.

But both are increasingly rare.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Human decency isn’t a skill, it’s a characteristic.
The skill is pretending to exhibit human decency when you don’t have it.

But both are increasingly rare.
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agreed on the first, but not the latter. People have been spitting in one another’s soup since time immemorial. We have no monopoly on #%@&$-ery. This particular troll is another in a long line of trolls, stretching back as far as Thag, the caveman who famously said, “Saber toothed tigers are easy to avoid. Grog dumb for getting eaten.”
 
Twenty years ago, a friend of mine said "You know, it used to be you could be an ass*^*) and be a computer guy. Now, pretty much you can't." Meaning, very few people are so special or talented that you can't find someone else equally good who is pleasant.

Sometimes you need a medical specialist, or an attorney, or a plumber in a bad way, and you'll put up with a jerk. But there's nothing special about anyone on the Internet, or the TV, that warrants putting up with any extra noise. Just my 2 cents.
 
Albany Tom said:
Twenty years ago, a friend of mine said "You know, it used to be you could be an ass*^*) and be a computer guy. Now, pretty much you can't." Meaning, very few people are so special or talented that you can't find someone else equally good who is pleasant.

Sometimes you need a medical specialist, or an attorney, or a plumber in a bad way, and you'll put up with a jerk. But there's nothing special about anyone on the Internet, or the TV, that warrants putting up with any extra noise. Just my 2 cents.
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Another quote springs to mind (Napoleon) “The cemeteries are filled with irreplaceable men.”

Nobody is that special. Don’t suffer jerks, the world is wide and there are plenty of pleasant people. Most days, eight billion people live their lives with goodwill toward one another; that story doesn’t sell a lot of newspapers.
 
FlyingTiger said:
Air Safety Institute has put out an early analysis...
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Interesting theory of the lights at the higher elevations and the airport elevation lights creating a false horizon.
 
Re: ASI video—

Yeah, pretty much what I've been thinking too: Speed looked good (~Vref+10) and altitude (although not legal) might be pretty close to a legal one if this had played out at a different airport. So, the take-away lesson for us at this point is either the bank angle was over 30° or the flaps were not fully extended. The 35 uses spoilers in conjunction with ailerons at slow speeds, IIRC, and I knew of at least one Lear pilot who survived a crash while maneuvering a 23/24 model at night in a check-hauling operation (Allentown, Morristown, other town?) and blamed the crash on a spoiler actuator malfunction. Mechanical issues, then, also need to be ruled out.
 
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dtuuri said:
altitude (although not legal)
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Just to parse this at the level of canceling IFR to be technically legal to “not circle”, if the reason they were that low was to maintain legal cloud separation, and of course height above whatever is N/A because it’s “for the purpose of landing”, what actually makes the altitude not legal?
 
MauleSkinner said:
Just to parse this at the level of canceling IFR to be technically legal to “not circle”, if the reason they were that low was to maintain legal cloud separation, and of course height above whatever is N/A because it’s “for the purpose of landing”, what actually makes the altitude not legal?
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They were below circling minimums (by a lot) and I was trying to say that similar altitudes to what they were flying might have been legit at another airport. In other words, we can't just blow it off as not complying with the approach chart — there are real lessons here even for pilots who go by the book, i.e., bank angle and proper configuration for speed. But I'm not saying that caused the accident, just a reminder that it "could" have, so don't let it happen to us.
 
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