170B hits skydiver's chute during touch-and-go at X49; everyone survives

pmanton said:
Notice the yellow X on the ground adjacent to the final resting place of the plane. Isn't that the Skydiver's target? It was when I was jumping. Perhaps not much thought was put into separation of skydivers and aircraft.

Paul
Salome, AZ

PS If some of you young whippersnappers want to come to Salome I'll kick your butt. :)

Age 76 with 60 years of aviation behind me.
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60 years repeating the same hour?
 
jenkins said:
Nope. Look at the background, the camera was not stationary while taking these pictures.
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When you click the link, it shows the already posted stills.

further down the page is a video with a PLAY icon in the middle.
 
flyingron said:
I'm not sure I'd be so quick to judge this pilot. It appears the skydiver landed well away from the normal landing area and traveling perpendicular to the runway.
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I agree! High wing airplane , I'll bet he never saw the parachutist until he got out of the airplane. He certainly was not looking for him. Why would he?! I've watched this often at a local airport and sooner or later something will happen. Oftentimes they land right beside the runway or cross it just feet above the ground. It's the same attitude used by some bicyclists on busy roads. I've almost hit geese in the air twice and several times have not seen another aircraft close to me. It happens very fast, no time to do anything, although in hindsight there are many experts.
 
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jenkins said:
So tell me if you arrived at your local airport and you became aware that there was a skydiving operation going on (because you read NOTAMs and you listen to your radio etc), would you go ahead and decide to do a bunch of T&G's? I wouldn't. I would take off and fly somewhere else to do my T&G's. If he came from elsewhere still no excuse he should have listened up and opened his eyes.
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Whoa hold on there. My airport has an active skydiving operation and they have a published drop zone. Do you think that every time a load of skydivers goes up the rest of us are supposed to just fly away and go somewhere else or cease operations? It's a public airport, it doesn't belong to the skydivers and if they had an attitude like that we'd tell them to take their operation away from the airport and use a shuttle bus. I've been flying in and out of airports with skydive ops for 40 years and not a single one of them has ever had a drop zone on an active runway and not a single one of them has ever had the priority to tell anyone that they can't use the airport due to their operations. They want to share the facilities fine but keep the parachutes out of the traffic pattern and off the runway. That's just plain, simple common sense.
 
jenkins said:
There should not be an absolute cut off age wise because as you point out there are indeed some 80+ pilots who are excellent. However there are plenty more who are NOT. There should be a rule IMHO where after a certain age you need to do your BFR with a DPE or someone other than some tame CFI who is terribly impressed with your vast experience and age, and that BFR needs to terminate your privileges if you are not safe.

I've had too many experience flying into local airport with older pilots who are past their prime and not safe.
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Your thinking is as screwed up as yesterdays soup sandwich, I'm old, I developed safe practices before your daddy was over ****ting his pants.
Those practices will carry me threw the end of my flying, while you are trying to get a grip on what flying is all about.
 
Study the pictures, the meat bomb flew that sport wing right across the active runway trying to make the "X" on the other side.

Now who is at fault?
 
Tom-D said:
Study the pictures, the meat bomb flew that sport wing right across the active runway trying to make the "X" on the other side.

Now who is at fault?
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The guy flying illegally is always at fault. Where is the integrity man? :D
 
From the FARs, 105.13:

(ii) Radio communications have been established between the aircraft and the air traffic control facility having jurisdiction over the affected airspace of the first intended exit altitude at least 5 minutes before the parachute operation begins. The pilot in command must establish radio communications to receive information regarding air traffic activity in the vicinity of the parachute operation.

Emphasis mine.

How does this reg apply to the situation at hand, if at all? I'm not familliar with the airport or surrounding airspace.
 
fiveoboy01 said:
...How does this reg apply to the situation at hand, if at all? I'm not familliar with the airport or surrounding airspace.
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At an uncontrolled field the jump plane is going to be talking to the local area traffic control and they are going to advise him of any traffic talking to them or on their radar. He's also going to be making announcements on the Unicom or traffic advisory frequency for that airfield that jumpers are going out at whatever position relative to the field they are jumping at but at no time (ever in my experience) is he going to announce that you can't land on the active runway because skydivers are going to use it as their drop zone.

That's not what a runway is for.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
I agree! High wing airplane , I'll bet he never saw the parachutist until he got out of the airplane.
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He did see the chute just before they hit. He was actually landing at the time. What you see in the video is the pilot pulling up in an attempt to avoid the skydiver.

It looks like he was landing on 32 which means he was doing left traffic. Unless he was flying a really wide pattern with a long final, there is no way he could have seen the skydiver earlier than he did.

As far as age goes, those that know him in the 170 Association say you would never guess he was anywhere near that old if you met him in person.
 
Fearless Tower said:
As far as age goes, those that know him in the 170 Association say you would never guess he was anywhere near that old if you met him in person.
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That's absolutely true, I had a conversation with Sharon at a Florida Pilots Association meeting last November, he is a very articulate and fit guy in full possession of all his faculties. I had no idea he is in his late eighties.
chatting to him about his military flying days, I figured he must have been flying fighters at age 10 ! :)
 
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jenkins said:
Really old pilots should not be allowed to fly. This old fella is clearly in the wrong. I hope the outcome is one more old incompetent pilot off the circuit and a full recovery otherwise.
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In the wrong?:confused: How was he in the wrong? It sounds as if you know something about this accident than I don't.

Unless there was some rule against landing where he landed, I would say that the jumper was EXTREMELY fortunate to have an experienced, high time pilot at the controls of that airplane. I am afraid that if the pilot would have been me, the jumper would have been chewed up in the prop.

Can you explain?
 
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jenkins said:
There should not be an absolute cut off age wise because as you point out there are indeed some 80+ pilots who are excellent. However there are plenty more who are NOT. There should be a rule IMHO where after a certain age you need to do your BFR with a DPE or someone other than some tame CFI who is terribly impressed with your vast experience and age, and that BFR needs to terminate your privileges if you are not safe.

I've had too many experience flying into local airport with older pilots who are past their prime and not safe.
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I've had plenty of experience seeing pilots of ALL ages who are unsafe. As stated by others, people are different, there are some old pilots who are unsafe, and plenty of them that could fly circles around you or almost anyone. The same could be said for young pilots.
 
kgruber said:
With that kind of vast experience dealing with "old" pilots, it points out a more likely scenario that you are the one with poor operating practices.
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Well said! A BIG part of flying safely is attitude. The poster claiming that old people should not fly JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE OLD, is displaying a bad one.
 
Having the sequential pictures and Google Maps I did a bit of investigating and evaluation of the incident from my computer chair. The airport is X49 and the coordinates are 27.9333581 -82.0439739 which you can paste into Google Maps to get to.

The pilot was landing on runway 32, the photographer was standing at the southeast corner of the airport where there are three buildings and a triangular shaped open area south of the row hangars. This is across the runway adjacent to the intersection of Coronet Rd and Adams Rd. Google Maps Street View approximate address is 7511 - 7525 Coronet Rd Mulberry FL 33860

I assume the triangle shaped open area is the landing zone for skydivers as I can't see any other suitable spot at that field. I also assume that the skydiver was doing a high speed swooping flare landing which is something that skydivers often do and due to the layout this would require him to both cross the runway and have almost undivided attention on his landing spot since over shooting would put him into the buildings. I'm sure he must have looked to see if any airplane was on final approach but from the map it appears as though there is a lot of ground clutter all around that field so it would probably be easy to miss and of course he has no radio.

From the pilot's perspective, same sort of situation as he is on short final, the runway is clear and the parachute is either in a spot that can't bee seen or at the very least in a spot that a pilot on short final isn't going to be paying much attention to.

So in my opinion it was an accident, plain and simple. Due to the general layout maybe you could call it an accident waiting to happen but an accident none the less and everybody is alive so other than the poor airplane not such a bad outcome. Maybe there are some lessons to be learned here. I'm all for sharing an airport for all of our recreational activities but you gotta admit this is a pretty sketchy setup for skydiving operations.
 
Pretty sketchy setup for a 87 year old pilot without a medical.
Your assumptions are off for one that parachute was not swooping.
 
ClimbnSink said:
...Your assumptions are off for one that parachute was not swooping.
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Sure he was, look at the map. The landing zone is on the East side of the runway. Why would he be ten feet directly over the runway if he wasn't - which from my observational experience is the way experienced sky divers land 90% of the time. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, it's one of the thrills of sky diving just like spinning down from 100 feet. What I'm saying is that it isn't a particularly great setup for skydiving there. If there was any wind he'd have been coming in the same direction as the plane but there's no open ground to the south to accommodate that.

Why do you have a hair up you're but over the pilot and his age? Do you personally know either of these guys or were you there when it happened? :dunno:
 

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ClimbnSink said:
Pretty sketchy setup for a 87 year old pilot without a medical.
Your assumptions are off for one that parachute was not swooping.
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Who said he did not have a medical?
 
Tom-D said:
Who said he did not have a medical?
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[SIZE=12pt]Medical[/SIZE] Medical Class: Third, Medical Date: 2/2010
MUST WEAR CORRECTIVE LENSES.
Certificates PRIVATE PILOT
Date of Issue: 5/5/2008
Certificate: PRIVATE PILOT Print
Ratings:
PRIVATE PILOT
AIRPLANE SINGLE ENGINE LAND

Limits:
ENGLISH PROFICIENT.
 
I was just at a meeting with the pilot. He is very sharp and able. Has been flying 70 years.He did have a physical. The skydiver was hotdogging and landing in middle of runway. 500 ft off his target area which was in front of hangers. He was landing on his final round of 3 t&g's. he added another flap and pulled elevator back to avoid hitting diver at his waist. Diver had crossed the pattern and landed on active runway. Photos were by a professional photographer with very good equipment who was there to film the divers. Hence hot dogging and landing on runway in my opinion. The divers insurance is buying a airplane which should say bunch. By the way he said the six numbers for lottery didn't work he picked after.
 
Theboys said:
I was just at a meeting with the pilot. He is very sharp and able. Has been flying 70 years.He did have a physical. The skydiver was hotdogging and landing in middle of runway. 500 ft off his target area which was in front of hangers. He was landing on his final round of 3 t&g's. he added another flap and pulled elevator back to avoid hitting diver at his waist. Diver had crossed the pattern and landed on active runway. Photos were by a professional photographer with very good equipment who was there to film the divers. Hence hot dogging and landing on runway in my opinion. The divers insurance is buying a airplane which should say bunch. By the way he said the six numbers for lottery didn't work he picked after.
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If that is what he told you he is delusional.
 
Tom-D said:
why ? ?
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First of all that jumper is not hotdogging, he might be short of where he intended to land, but he ain't hotdogging. Old skydivers like that aren't showing off, and you don't show off for a camera by landing at the other end of a runway. No way is USPA insurance buying a new airplane. If he had time to add flaps and elevator why not just turn? Go read the quote from the pilot in when he was in the hospital saying he had no idea what happened. Post accident making stuff up to feel better. If he has a medical why isn't it in the system? I'll change my opinion if the NTSB blames the jumper.
 
ClimbnSink said:
First of all that jumper is not hotdogging, he might be short of where he intended to land, but he ain't hotdogging. Old skydivers like that aren't showing off, and you don't show off for a camera by landing at the other end of a runway. No way is USPA insurance buying a new airplane. If he had time to add flaps and elevator why not just turn? Go read the quote from the pilot in when he was in the hospital saying he had no idea what happened. Post accident making stuff up to feel better. If he has a medical why isn't it in the system? I'll change my opinion if the NTSB blames the jumper.
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You got a dog in this hunt or what? Did that pilot steal your first born?

I'm not followin' you here pal....:dunno:
 
ClimbnSink said:
First of all that jumper is not hotdogging, he might be short of where he intended to land, but he ain't hotdogging. Old skydivers like that aren't showing off, and you don't show off for a camera by landing at the other end of a runway. No way is USPA insurance buying a new airplane. If he had time to add flaps and elevator why not just turn? Go read the quote from the pilot in when he was in the hospital saying he had no idea what happened. Post accident making stuff up to feel better. If he has a medical why isn't it in the system? I'll change my opinion if the NTSB blames the jumper.
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Why was the meat bomb coming directly at the camera if he was not hot dogging ? (first few pictures) he was swooping to get across the active with no respect to the active runway.

1 notch of flaps is a pretty normal 170 B take off setting they were probably in prior to lift off. and a second or two they would have been retracted.

The rest, you are simply guessing like those you criticize
 
Tom-D said:
Swooping

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug5ieEGVh0Y
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The skydiver was not swooping. Airplane pilots know less about parachutes then non pilots know about airplanes. You single category guys need to stick to the category you know. The NTSB in the past has held pilots responsible, I'll go with what they say. Curious about the medical, thought the FAA's database was usually accurate anyone know otherwise.
 
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