KWVI Watsonville MId Air, Multiple Fatalities

Mongoose Aviator said:
100% Agree.

If “Final” was as blatantly obvious as some of the posters want to think then the majority of this discussion would have been moot and abbreviated.
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"Final" SHOULD be blatantly obvious. Clarification of the regs is in order.

It will be interesting to see how the NTSB final report applies the ROW reg in this instance.
 
NordicDave said:
August 18th was the 1 year anniversary. All of us on the field are still waiting for the NTSB final report.
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Ed Haywood said:
It will be interesting to see how the NTSB final report applies the ROW reg in this instance.
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I happened to browse the "recents" list and noticed 2 rows with the same number. That's never a good sign. Looks like the final report came out on Thursday:

Docket:

NTSB Docket - Docket Management System

data.ntsb.gov data.ntsb.gov
 
PaulS said:
Drugs and poor decisions.......
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Though NTSB stated “not causal”, I’m not surprised both pilots had THC use indicators. The 152 driver also using cocaine and ketamine, too was a bit surprising. The coke usage had to be fairly recent as that metabolizes out fairly quickly.
 
PaulS said:
Drugs and poor decisions.......
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But mostly poor decisions.

The toxicology report for the pilot of the single-engine airplane revealed THC, metabolites for THC, metabolites for cocaine, and ketamine; the low amounts of each drug were not considered causal to the accident. The toxicology report for the multi-engine airplane pilot revealed THC, and metabolites of THC; the low amounts of each drug were not considered causal to the accident.
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Probable Cause and Findings
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The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be: The failure of the pilot of the multi-engine airplane to see and avoid the single-engine airplane while performing a straight-in approach for landing.
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It's pretty much what was concluded here, the straight in barged the pattern, never bothered to show down or configure for landing, and ran over the plane already in the pattern.
 
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Too bad we’ll never know the actual intentions of the twin pilot. Why was he so hot, and clean, that close in? Did he think he could pull power, dirty up, and slow down that quickly, was he going to fly the break, do a fast pass, or what?
 
Lindberg said:
But mostly poor decisions.





It's pretty much what was concluded here, the straight barged the pattern, never bothered to show down or configure for landing, and ran over the plane already in the pattern.
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It's a self enforcing circle, after I understood what went on here, I couldn't for the life of me think why the 152 turned base with the twin blasting in. Now it makes sense, a very bad decision maker that likely had some residual impairment to top it off. These guys were apparently two accidents waiting to happen running into each other. I feel very sorry for the families of the deceased and the innocent who lost her life in this.



Too bad we’ll never know the actual intentions of the twin pilot. Why was he so hot, and clean, that close in? Did he think he could pull power, dirty up, and slow down that quickly, was he going to fly the break, do a fast pass, or what?
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Poor decisions, it really comes down to that. They both seemed to be aware of each other.
 
ateamer said:
Too bad we’ll never know the actual intentions of the twin pilot. Why was he so hot, and clean, that close in? Did he think he could pull power, dirty up, and slow down that quickly, was he going to fly the break, do a fast pass, or what?
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I believe there was some previous history of the twin pilot sometimes coming in hot and doing an overhead break.
 
wanttaja said:
Or he was going to "teach the Cessna pilot a lesson" for "cutting him off."

Ron Wanttaja
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I think he taught a bunch of lessons to a bunch of people. Unfortunately, the Cessna pilot didn't live long enough to appreciate them.
 
TCABM said:
And incompetence can be magnified by drug use, both short term and long term.
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weed, cocaine and ketamine........if I didn't know any better I'd ask if courtney love was flying that 152. drug-free and he may have decided to let that kamikaze twin barrel in on his own.
 
eman1200 said:
weed, cocaine and ketamine........if I didn't know any better I'd ask if courtney love was flying that 152. drug-free and he may have decided to let that kamikaze twin barrel in on his own.
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Not that the twin driver was in any better condition. Weed, BP meds, prostate meds, and allergy meds all in his system.
 
Weed, coke and ketamine is no way to aviate through life…
 
TCABM said:
Not that the twin driver was in any better condition. Weed, BP meds, prostate meds, and allergy meds all in his system.
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Atenolol, Tamsulosin, and Loratadine are generally considered as safe to fly with.
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flyingron said:
Atenolol, Tamsulosin, and Loratadine are generally considered as safe to fly with.
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Oh, I know. But interactions with THC aren’t really well documented. Claritin returns “monitor closely” for marijuana, for example.

Who the hell knows what actual state the guy was in.
 
TCABM said:
Oh, I know. But interactions with THC aren’t really well documented. Claritin returns “monitor closely” for marijuana, for example.

Who the hell knows what actual state the guy was in.
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No one knows for sure, but the NTSB was confident enough to say intoxication wasn't a factor. No reason for them to say that if there was any concern. Obviously pilots shouldn't be doing drugs, but a pilot could have a detectable BAC and have it not be a factor too
 
Lindberg said:
No one knows for sure, but the NTSB was confident enough to say intoxication wasn't a factor. No reason for them to say that if there was any concern. Obviously pilots shouldn't be doing drugs, but a pilot could have a detectable BAC and have it not be a factor too
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The distinction is I’m not stating impairment, I’m saying if your dumb enough to fly with all that stuff flowing through your system, you’ve already demonstrated a compromised decision making process. It’s not that far a leap for me to make between age, lifestyle choices, and outcomes here.

But heh, feel free to smoke it while you got it; it can’t be bad in the long run, right?

ETA: i’d say the same thing if each pilot was riding dirty solely with a .03BAC.
 
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TCABM said:
The distinction is I’m not stating impairment, I’m saying if your dumb enough to fly with all that stuff flowing through your system, you’ve already demonstrated a compromised decision making process. It’s not that far a leap for me to make between age, lifestyle choices, and outcomes here
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Yep, two dull tools met up with terrible timing.
 
TCABM said:
Who the hell knows what actual state the guy was in.
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That NTSB report was helpful in determining the facts of the collision. It seemed very odd that the twin’s pilot did not perform the rudiments of his landing checklist. But, a few weeks after the accident, my brother woke up with a paralyzed right arm. Being a surgeon (retired), he diagnosed his problem as a mini-stroke. He called a neurologist colleague, who gave him generic advice (Yeah, probably a stroke; these things happen to older guys; don’t panic, it’ll clear up in a bit; come in, we’ll check you out.). Turns out, things cleared up, the neurologist found some other circulation issues, no lasting damage.
But if my brother had been piloting a twin 10 miles from Watsonville, he would have spent the last few minutes of his life completely conscious, speaking normally, willing his body to do the right things, and completely unable to configure his gear, throttle, prop, and flaps for a landing. So, maybe the twin guy was a thoughtless jerk; and maybe he performed none of right pilot duties because he couldn’t.
 
t3chiman said:
That NTSB report was helpful in determining the facts of the collision. It seemed very odd that the twin’s pilot did not perform the rudiments of his landing checklist. But, a few weeks after the accident, my brother woke up with a paralyzed right arm. Being a surgeon (retired), he diagnosed his problem as a mini-stroke. He called a neurologist colleague, who gave him generic advice (Yeah, probably a stroke; these things happen to older guys; don’t panic, it’ll clear up in a bit; come in, we’ll check you out.). Turns out, things cleared up, the neurologist found some other circulation issues, no lasting damage.
But if my brother had been piloting a twin 10 miles from Watsonville, he would have spent the last few minutes of his life completely conscious, speaking normally, willing his body to do the right things, and completely unable to configure his gear, throttle, prop, and flaps for a landing. So, maybe the twin guy was a thoughtless jerk; and maybe he performed none of right pilot duties because he couldn’t.
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After this happened, I looked at the guys previous flights. I found a number of flights where he flew into WVI doing a low approach at high speeds and then coming around to land. So this event does not appear to be isolated.

So I guess it's possible he had a mini-stroke on a number of previous flights.
 
donjohnston said:
After this happened, I looked at the guys previous flights. I found a number of flights where he flew into WVI doing a low approach at high speeds and then coming around to land. So this event does not appear to be isolated.

So I guess it's possible he had a mini-stroke on a number of previous flights.
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And never once declared Emergency during those medical events.
 
donjohnston said:
After this happened, I looked at the guys previous flights. I found a number of flights where he flew into WVI doing a low approach at high speeds and then coming around to land. So this event does not appear to be isolated.
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Assumed this was the twin driver's crafty trick to quickly get down on the ground when the pattern was busy.

Works every time, right up until it doesn't.
 
fasteddie said:
Assumed this was the twin driver's crafty trick to quickly get down on the ground when the pattern was busy.

Works every time, right up until it doesn't.
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I'm not sure how spending more time in the pattern doing a low pass first is a trick to get down quicker, but perhaps he was an ex-military pilot and just liked to do low passes and overhead breaks and expected everyone else to give the big twin space.
 
fasteddie said:
Works every time, right up until it doesn't.
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Spot on. It’s worse when you get away with something “a little stupid” once or twice, because you think you always can, and then “a big stupid” kills you.
 
Salty said:
I'm not sure how spending more time in the pattern doing a low pass first is a trick to get down quicker, but perhaps he was an ex-military pilot and just liked to do low passes and overhead breaks and expected everyone else to give the big twin space.
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check your sarcastometer. I'm detecting a hint of sarcasm in the post you quoted.
 
fasteddie said:
Assumed this was the twin driver's crafty trick to quickly get down on the ground when the pattern was busy.
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It's illogical. The quickest (and often the rudest) "trick" is to just fly a straight-in pattern, which gives you the ROW whether other people like it or not, then keep your eyes open for people who think they have the ROW. In this situation the twin driver sees the C150 as an imminent conflict and simply flies the upwind and crosses back into the pattern at a normal approach speed, avoiding a collision "caused" by the C150.

But there's no excuse for doing that at high speed, and it's rude to do it at normal approach speed in a busy pattern.

("Twin xxx, going around to avoid hitting the Cessna who illegally cut me off on final". Then you have a discussion on the ground, not in pieces scattered over it. And just to be clear, I'm not a fan of a straight-in if there's anyone in the pattern, even though it's legal.)
 
t3chiman said:
That NTSB report was helpful in determining the facts of the collision. It seemed very odd that the twin’s pilot did not perform the rudiments of his landing checklist. But, a few weeks after the accident, my brother woke up with a paralyzed right arm. Being a surgeon (retired), he diagnosed his problem as a mini-stroke. He called a neurologist colleague, who gave him generic advice (Yeah, probably a stroke; these things happen to older guys; don’t panic, it’ll clear up in a bit; come in, we’ll check you out.). Turns out, things cleared up, the neurologist found some other circulation issues, no lasting damage.
But if my brother had been piloting a twin 10 miles from Watsonville, he would have spent the last few minutes of his life completely conscious, speaking normally, willing his body to do the right things, and completely unable to configure his gear, throttle, prop, and flaps for a landing. So, maybe the twin guy was a thoughtless jerk; and maybe he performed none of right pilot duties because he couldn’t.
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The trouble is, the conditions you're describing are extremely rare. There were about 4200 homebuilt accidents from 1998 through 2018, and the NTSB found medical incapacitation was a factor in only 25 of them. And the majority were cardiac events, not strokes.
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*Possible*? Certainly. But with this being a repeat of previous patterns of behavior, I think we can dismiss the likelihood.

Ron Wanttaja
 
dbahn said:
It's illogical. The quickest (and often the rudest) "trick" is to just fly a straight-in pattern, which gives you the ROW whether other people like it or not, then keep your eyes open for people who think they have the ROW. In this situation the twin driver sees the C150 as an imminent conflict and simply flies the upwind and crosses back into the pattern at a normal approach speed, avoiding a collision "caused" by the C150.
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Conversely, the C150 driver could have simply extended his downwind a bit before turning base into a plane he knew was on final. I've done this myself countless times. Not condoning the Twin's behavior as IMO they both screwed the pooch on this.
 
tsts4 said:
Conversely, the C150 driver could have simply extended his downwind a bit before turning base into a plane he knew was on final. I've done this myself countless times. Not condoning the Twin's behavior as IMO they both screwed the pooch on this.
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I agree, but this was complicated by the irrationally high speed of the twin appearing to catch the C150 unexpectedly, and at a time when it was too late to extend his downwind. Thinking a collision might be imminent, it would have been more prudent for the C150 to go around on the pattern side and leave the runway and the upwind side to the twin to do a normal go around and side-step.

General principle: If you think there's any chance of an air to air conflict, go where any other planes are NOT.
 
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