Cessna burning in Miami after striking car

Bonchie

Bonchie

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Bonchie
Bonchie said:
This is why the myth that tricycle gear planes will always flip in water so never land them there is dangerous. No reason to choose a crowded bridge here when you’ve got a warm expanse of water right there that will also ensure there’s no fire.
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And how do you know they weren't trying for the water but didn't have enough altitude to clear the bridge?
 
Here is a drone video before it started burning. Looks like they were able to pull at least one person out.
 
donjohnston said:
And how do you know they weren't trying for the water but didn't have enough altitude to clear the bridge?
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Because the guardrail is still up where the plane is. If it had been coming perpendicular and touched down just over the guardrail, there's no way its momentum doesn't carry it to the other side of the bridge. It's pretty clear they hit the red SUV head-on (look at the damage to it) and flipped over in the middle of the road.

Further, if you watch the drone footage, you see the backside of the bridge. It's the open ocean.

kgruber said:
No one ever gets killed in a "proper" ditching. They may drown after.
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The chances of drowning are small. I'm too lazy to go look up the thread, but the forum had this argument several years back. Someone posted the stats on landing on land or water in an engine-out. Survival rates are nearly identical, and it's reasonable to conclude that many water ditchings don't result in drownings, but rather in death via hypothermia. Where you are flying makes a difference in whether the water is the right choice or not.

There are many times when land is preferable in the absence of a runway. If you've got a field, a large median, a non-busy road, etc. but if there's any chance I'm going to land on something that's going rip the plane up and start a fire? I'm going in the water as long as it's not too cold.
 
There are plenty of boats in motion in that water. Non swimmer should have been picked up before the plane sank.

He may have been trying to save the plane, and had he cleared that SUV, he probably would have, 2 feet higher would have cleared it. Traffic was very light.

More seriously, I hope that there was only one person on board.

Properly evaluating all the options is hard to do in a tight time limit, but deploying the flaps would have lifted him over the car, and given lower touch down speed. Isn't second guessing great?
 
I think 2 got out. The second was in bad shape.
 
Looks like one got out right away, and another had to be helped. Hopefully that's it.
 
It is not unnoticed that there was a mother and two children exiting the auto. Hoping that's all. They appeared mobile but who knows; their vehicle was trashed.
 
Man… that’s a awful.. with plenty of warm water around I wonder if there were any sandbars nearby.. Regardless I hope everyone recovers.
 
Miami Herald news reports 3 in plane; 2 got out, one did not.
Also saying mother and toddlers in SUV are ok.
 
SepticTank said:
The owner's last medical was in 2008 (no BasicMed). No idea if he was the one flying or if that was the reason... That drone video was hard to watch. RIP

Looks like the deceased was ATC (cant post links yet, but search NATCA twitter) twitter.com/NATCA/status/1525607288211484672
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How do you know no basic med?
 
One of the owners (of 2) confirmed it was his plane that crashed, but he wasn't in it. Not sure if ATC was PIC.
 
Well, we know it wasn't fuel exhaustion.

I see reports of 1 person being killed, but other places that say they were just in the hospital. Apparently they flipped after hitting an oncoming car? Too early to understand it and there's probably a lot of wrong information out there.
 
i don't what to speculate about the cause or why he chose the bridge but here is a little background on that area. the bridge is on the south end of haulover county park. the park runs for about a mile to the north. directly to the south of the bridge is bal harbor nothing but tall buildings, people and traffic. the normal procedure when going down the coast VFR is 500 ft and remain off shore. if he was flying that VFR route, which is the only real way to go south without having to go a long way inland before turning south is to run the beach at 500. leaving FLL you go right in to the departures from 9, 8R, and 8L at KMIA. being a tower controller at KMIA he knew the airspace well. as we all know,loosing an engine at 500 ft gives you very little time to make a decision. it appears he had turned around and was headed north when he landed on the bridge and hit the car. just to the north of that bridge on the west side is a big area between the road and the marina that use to be a small golf course. it has trees, but a lot of open space. I am guessing that he got the plane turned around and headed for that area and just ran out of altitude and speed before getting there and did the only thing he could do and put it down on the bridge. RIP I had talked to him on the radio many times coming in to KMA.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Miami Herald news reports 3 in plane; 2 got out, one did not.
Also saying mother and toddlers in SUV are ok.
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You can see the anguish from the first guy that got out. He wasn't just upset about the crash, he lost a buddy.
 
Daleandee said:
Here's some good info from Paul B.

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Good piece. I always like Paul's common-sense fact driven take.

One part of the psychology of the decision I think he glosses over. A water landing has a near 100% probability of the aircraft being a total loss. Many pilots, faced with the choice of water or a road, will try to save the plane. The old saw about the insurance company owning the airplane is never more relevant than in that situation.
 
Ed Haywood said:
The old saw about the insurance company owning the airplane is never more relevant than in that situation.
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Agreed. The Air Safety\y Video touches on the water landing aspect also. The pilot may have chose the bridge because of people that would be near the shore if he went towards the ocean and there's also the consideration of who could swim and whether they were prepared to ditch in the water (flotation devices).

The ASI video also points out the the pilot still had the flaps retracted as he was flaring the aircraft to land on the bridge. No one (yet) knows why he would have done that unless it was something he simply overlooked in the heat of the moment.
 
Not that it would have changed the outcome, but I wasn't impressed that it took the first engine crew that arrived nearly two minutes to start knocking down the fire. It looks like there was some confusing charging the line...
 
Daleandee said:
Agreed. The Air Safety\y Video touches on the water landing aspect also. The pilot may have chose the bridge because of people that would be near the shore if he went towards the ocean and there's also the consideration of who could swim and whether they were prepared to ditch in the water (flotation devices).

The ASI video also points out the the pilot still had the flaps retracted as he was flaring the aircraft to land on the bridge. No one (yet) knows why he would have done that unless it was something he simply overlooked in the heat of the moment.
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Purely speculation...but if I were contemplating ditching and knew I had someone on board that couldn't swim I could see it affecting the decision. I can see it seeming to be "silly" to have life vests for passengers when you're only barely out past the shoreline, but I'm thinking it's not a bad idea.
 
Albany Tom said:
I can see it seeming to be "silly" to have life vests for passengers when you're only barely out past the shoreline, but I'm thinking it's not a bad idea.
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May not be as silly as you suspect. I don't swim very well ... and as I get older I don't swim very far either! :D
 
I think I would be quite hesitant to ditch into the water with someone in the backseat. It’s concerning enough for the people in the front to get out.
 
I don't think the choice was solely ditch vs, bridge. I personally would have gone for the beach. It looked like an empty and long runway...
 
Mtns2Skies said:
I don't think the choice was solely ditch vs, bridge. I personally would have gone for the beach. It looked like an empty and long runway...
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McSpadden mentioned that in the AOPA video. It was a warm, sunny Saturday, so the beach was probably packed with people. Otherwise the beach would be the first choice, followed by the shallow water just off the beach, with a sidestep to deeper water an option if there were swimmers.

I would guess that he didn't choose the beach because were just flying over it and knew exactly how many people were on it. It's hard to choose to go in the water as that means totaling the plane, but in hindsight that might've been the better choice. I don't feel like we can fault the pilot too much here. I think I would've ended up in the water simply because I wouldn't have been brave enough to dodge the light poles.
 
Yeah, I'm not going to second guess this pilot. Not the 500 AGL flight path, either. I've flown the Hudson River corridor, and it's not all that much different, except you'd not have any options to land except the water. It is making me give some thought to vests if I make a habit of flying in either type of situation.
 
couple of points. as a somewhat local, I can tell you that haulover beach is one of the most used beaches in the area. especially on a weekend. also, the sandbar on the inter-coastal side is a total zoo on the weekends, so that really would not be an option. the other thing is that area of haulover cut has some of the most nasty chop in the area. just google haulover cut boat fails to see how bad the wave action in that area is, I don't know the conditions of the surf that day, but a ditch in that chop on some days would be very dicey.
 
Jim K said:
McSpadden mentioned that in the AOPA video. It was a warm, sunny Saturday, so the beach was probably packed with people. Otherwise the beach would be the first choice, followed by the shallow water just off the beach, with a sidestep to deeper water an option if there were swimmers.

I would guess that he didn't choose the beach because were just flying over it and knew exactly how many people were on it. It's hard to choose to go in the water as that means totaling the plane, but in hindsight that might've been the better choice. I don't feel like we can fault the pilot too much here. I think I would've ended up in the water simply because I wouldn't have been brave enough to dodge the light poles.
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Brave or talented? I'm probably neither. So by default my option would probably have been water. There's lots of thoughts that I'm sure go through ones head in an engine out. I hope salvaging the plane isnt in my top 5.
 
At this point, we don't know how the engine problem was playing out. Partial loss of power? Gradual loss of power or sudden loss of power? If it was a sudden loss of power, there were two golf courses available just to his left, soon after he completed his north bound turn. Notwithstanding Paul Bertorelli's statistics, I would have been reluctant to head for the water, especially if there were non swimmer(s) aboard. Although I accept Paul's numbers and analysis I just have this "thing" about ditching a fixed gear aircraft, even though I'm a swimmer and comfortable in the water. It's all speculation and Monday-morning quarterbacking on my part, but, of course, speculation is all we have until the NTSB has its say.

I find it interesting that the audio recordings of the communications haven't yet been made available, because they are usually released fairly soon after an accident.

Whatever went wrong that day, it's a tragedy for all involved.
 
NTSB initial report says fuel selector lever was out of position, part way between L and R. Unknown whether it was set that way in anticipation of a forced landing, but the report did say there was fuel in the line to the carb.

What is the purpose of having a tank selector in a gravity fed high wing aircraft? My Decathlon, like all 7/8 series aircraft, just has a two position lever: on and off. Tank leveling is accomplished by gravity at the fuel line manifold behind the cabin. It would be virtually impossible to accidentally shut off fuel in flight, and it is impossible to run dry on one tank while fuel remains in the other (unless I suppose you are in sustained knife edge flight). In fact I would be willing to bet there has NEVER been a fatal accident due to improper position of a Champ/Citabria/Decathlon fuel shutoff lever.
 
Ed Haywood said:
What is the purpose of having a tank selector in a gravity fed high wing aircraft?
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I flew a 172 in Alaska that was so out of rig that if the selector was on both and one tank was below 1/8 tank ( I don't remember which tank) and you took your feet off the pedals it would unport the fuel and the engine would quit running.
 
Ed Haywood said:
NTSB initial report says fuel selector lever was out of position, part way between L and R. Unknown whether it was set that way in anticipation of a forced landing, but the report did say there was fuel in the line to the carb.

What is the purpose of having a tank selector in a gravity fed high wing aircraft? My Decathlon, like all 7/8 series aircraft, just has a two position lever: on and off. Tank leveling is accomplished by gravity at the fuel line manifold behind the cabin. It would be virtually impossible to accidentally shut off fuel in flight, and it is impossible to run dry on one tank while fuel remains in the other (unless I suppose you are in sustained knife edge flight). In fact I would be willing to bet there has NEVER been a fatal accident due to improper position of a Champ/Citabria/Decathlon fuel shutoff lever.
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If you fly larger aircraft you’ll find they get out of balance if both tanks are on, caravans and other 200 and larger 100 series Cessnas this very apparent.

In smaller planes like cubs and 8 and 8 series citabrias this isn’t really a problem, I agree.
 
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