5 dead in Bakersfield crash of PA32

Man, pretty horrible all around. I couldn't help but notice this comment on the mercurynews site: "The plane was almost 40 years old, definitely on its last legs. No I wouldn't drive a 40 year old car to Gilroy much less Las Vegas. Imprudent action on the part of the pilot."
 
Challenged said:
Man, pretty horrible all around. I couldn't help but notice this comment on the mercurynews site: "The plane was almost 40 years old, definitely on its last legs. No I wouldn't drive a 40 year old car to Gilroy much less Las Vegas. Imprudent action on the part of the pilot."
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Airplane accidents always bring out the wrongly opinionated uneducated ignorant bigmouths who just wants to make themselves look semi-intelligent. They always fail as did that guy.
 
Tragic. I'm not sure what went wrong, but this kind of thing is what puts the weight on my shoulders every time I fly... especially with my family on board. It's that worst-case scenario that I never speak of and scarcely want to think of but is there reminding me that I better do everything right. Damn.
 
petrolero said:
Tragic. I'm not sure what went wrong, but this kind of thing is what puts the weight on my shoulders every time I fly... especially with my family on board. It's that worst-case scenario that I never speak of and scarcely want to think of but is there reminding me that I better do everything right. Damn.
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Completely concur. The temptations that drove this pilot to fly when he did are the same temptations that tempt me. And I like to believe that I can resist them but they are present exist and will destroy.
 
My girlfriend used to get "disappointed" when I cancelled a flight. She has come to know the reasons for my decisions and now she never pressures me when I say, "not today."

I still feel that "self-imposed" pressure. But I won't succumb! :nono:
 
Sam D said:
Pretty sure you're not accepting an IFR clearance without an instrument rating.
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I didn't see anywhere that the guy didn't have an instrument rating. Is that true?

EDIT: Nevermind. I just ran his name/license. He did not have an instrument rating... unless he just obtained one and it hasn't been processed yet.

EDIT #2: Just listened to the audio. Definitely sounds like he ventured into IMC and possibly icing conditions. Probably lost control. Not sure if there was convective activity in the area, either.

Very sad. I hate to see families wiped out.
 
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zwaustin said:
Can someone post the liveATC feed?
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You can hear the kids screaming I wish I never played it. Rip to the family. Absolutely horrible this one hits me harder than any other ever has.
 
As a guy that owns a PA32 with a wife, two daughters, and a son that often fly with me I wonder how I can avoid this exact scenario... I'd like to think that I wouldn't put myself, or my family, into a situation that was questionable, but I have to imagine that this guy didn't think he ever would either...

Do I not fly in inclement weather? Do I avoid taking my family with me?
Did this guy completely lack situational awareness?

I guess it boils down to; how am I not this guy?

RIP to the family.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
FlySince9 said:
My girlfriend used to get "disappointed" when I cancelled a flight. She has come to know the reasons for my decisions and now she never pressures me when I say, "not today."

I still feel that "self-imposed" pressure. But I won't succumb! :nono:
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I'm with you. Better safe than sorry.
 
Tmcdavitt said:
As a guy that owns a PA32 with a wife, two daughters, and a son that often fly with me I wonder how I can avoid this exact scenario... I'd like to think that I wouldn't put myself, or my family, into a situation that was questionable, but I have to imagine that this guy didn't think he ever would either...

Do I not fly in inclement weather? Do I avoid taking my family with me?
Did this guy completely lack situational awareness?

I guess it boils down to; how am I not this guy?

RIP to the family.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I personally consider any VFR pilot flying cross country with his family in anything but perfect weather that's guaranteed to stay as such, asking for the same fate as this guy.
Which is not to say that IFR is a magic wand: you still need to know when to fly and when to let the airlines (or your car) do it. And of course currency and proficiency are crucial.
 
IFR or VFR XCs are plenty safe if you know your limits, the planes limits and do what's safe and prudent.


If anything IFR is less forgiving of poor decisions than VFR.
 
You can see where the crash is way off of a direct route. I wonder how he got off course so badly.

I try not to criticize dead pilots. Anyone have the recording? Im interested.
 
MotoFlier said:
You can hear the kids screaming I wish I never played it.
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I never listen to the ATC feeds on crashes unless it's a safety flight video. Doesn't set well with me, I try to learn about the event without listening to it.
 
Sam D said:
Pretty sure you're not accepting an IFR clearance without an instrument rating.
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Ha! You'd be surprised at people who fly IFR w/o the rating. People even fly their own airplane without a pilot certificate at all and of course no medical. I recall being up with an instrument student in IMC and heard a local call sigh returning to same airport we were flying out of. The guy flying was being vectored for a VOR approach and had only a PPL. It was about 1500' overcast but he was at 2000' and it was solid IFR. Very doubtful if he was "in the clear". When the opportunity presented itself I gave him an earful, and he was a preacher! :rolleyes2:
 
OkieAviator said:
I never listen to the ATC feeds on crashes unless it's a safety flight video. Doesn't set well with me, I try to learn about the event without listening to it.
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Some of the AOPA safety videos have audio that is sobering without being too disturbing. I find it very helpful to watch those (that may be the safety flight videos you refer to).
 
TK211X said:
You can see where the crash is way off of a direct route. I wonder how he got off course so badly.

I try not to criticize dead pilots. Anyone have the recording? Im interested.
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Maybe he wasn't flying direct? Not being on a direct route does not equate with being off one's planned course. Maybe he was trying to avoid the peaks. I have not seen any graphics showing his planned route overlaid with his actual course and the accident site. If you have that, please post.
 
F01LA said:
Some of the AOPA safety videos have audio that is sobering without being too disturbing. I find it very helpful to watch those (that may be the safety flight videos you refer to).
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Those are the ones I'm referring to.
 
SkyDog58 said:
Maybe he wasn't flying direct? Not being on a direct route does not equate with being off one's planned course. Maybe he was trying to avoid the peaks. I have not seen any graphics showing his planned route overlaid with his actual course and the accident site. If you have that, please post.
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A few seconds before the mayday call, ATC instructed him to "turn right immediately", with no mention of traffic, weather, or any other explanation. That's consistent with his being off course from his clearance.
 
acrophile said:
A few seconds before the mayday call, ATC instructed him to "turn right immediately", with no mention of traffic, weather, or any other explanation. That's consistent with his being off course from his clearance.
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But a few seconds would not account for what I was responding to:

You can see where the crash is way off of a direct route. I wonder how he got off course so badly.
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It takes more than a few seconds to get "way off" or "off course so badly".

And if ATC was instructing him to turn right in order to get him back on his clearance route that would have put his assigned route further south which would have been further away from a direct route. Correct?

So, why is anyone assuming he was way off course just because he was not on a direct route that would have taken him and his family over the tall granite including possibly Whitney? I think most pilots would have probably flown the doglegged route that he appeared to be on.
 
SkyDog58 said:
And if ATC was instructing him to turn right in order to get him back on his clearance route that would have put his assigned route further south which would have been further away from a direct route. Correct?.
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Correct.
 
I often dream of taking my family on trips in our own little plane...(someday) Things like this put a chill through me.
 
TK211X said:
You can see where the crash is way off of a direct route. I wonder how he got off course so badly.

I try not to criticize dead pilots. Anyone have the recording? Im interested.
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There's a lot of rock along the direct course and as memory serves there aren't too many low altitude airways going over it.15k barely reaches the MEA on the one route I do know. Going south is a very common and prudent routing. knowing the weather going south may have appeared safer in terms of icing conditions as well.
 
SkyDog58 said:
...
So, why is anyone assuming he was way off course just because he was not on a direct route that would have taken him and his family over the tall granite including possibly Whitney? I think most pilots would have probably flown the doglegged route that he appeared to be on.
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Yes, crossing the southern Sierra in weather at night single engine doesn't sound like something you'd normally want to do. Not to mention that if he were on a direct route from South County he'd never have been that far south to begin with, he would have crossed near Fresno.
 
labbadabba said:
I often dream of taking my family on trips in our own little plane...(someday) Things like this put a chill through me.
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Just remember, for every crash like this there are thousands of guys like me who safely flew their family coast to coast, Canada to Mexico, year 'round, for decades, all VFR.

It all comes down to knowing your limitations, and the limitations of the little airplanes (most of us here) fly.
 
Tmcdavitt said:
As a guy that owns a PA32 with a wife, two daughters, and a son that often fly with me I wonder how I can avoid this exact scenario...

I guess it boils down to; how am I not this guy?
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Icing should rarely come as a complete surprise. If you're in it with your family on board, you've already made a pretty serious mistake. If you don't have a way to very quickly get out of it, then your planning was likely lacking.

I know this is a brutal assessment, but this stuff is not up to the Gods. You can avoid situations like this.

I do many 600nm+ legs with my airplane, the briefings for which sometimes take over an hour when the weather is complex because of the potential for cases like this. (The video I posted from MHT to CDW recently in the IFR forum is an example of a case where the briefing took ~75mins).

Take some comfort in knowing that it's possible to avoid icing related accidents. And yes, sometimes that will mean occasionally canceling/delaying flights.
 
Don't jump to conclusions. We have no idea if icing was a factor. It might have been, but there are several other possibilities.

The source of that assumption seems to be some unrelated pilot who was hanging around Bakersfield at the time and spoke to reporters. That's not very different from speculating on this board. He wasn't there, and didn't even fly that day. You can't see icing conditions from the ground, especially above multiple cloud layers.

You can't avoid situations if you don't know what they are. For all you know, his elevator might have broken in a nose down position.
 
Over Thanksgiving I got stuck in Dallas when that cold front moved through and also there was a tropical system that was pumping moisture up over the top of it. I wasn't going anywhere. I knew by Friday that Sunday wasn't looking good so I bought my family tix on Southwest and sent them home. Monday looked better so I planned to stay until then and check it out. I had a refundable ticket on SW that I didn't release until I had made my decision to fly my own plane back - and the prop was spinning.

I decided to launch through non-freezing clouds around Dallas and fly back at 8000 since winds aloft were ****ty. But I knew I'd be at freezing level by the time I reached Childress. I knew it cleared up there also and that cloud tops were pretty low. My plan was west is best so that when I did land for fuel (lovely 20 to 40kt headwind) it would not be through freezing clouds. I also would not be in freezing clouds at altitude. But if I was then I'd fly further west to get away from the deck - I could see the clear line on satellite before I left. Turned out the deck ended sooner than I expected.

The plan worked and I was above a non-freezing deck for most of the flight then, just before the OAT reached 32 F the deck was gone. I landed later in Guymon for fuel (bucket list item, that :D ).

The point is that I was absolutely NOT going to fly myself or my family into ice. I left for Dallas a week before I was to return so I knew a front was coming but wasn't really sure how long it would hang around. So I had to leave with the thought in mind that I might be sending the family back via airline. That's just the price you have to be willing to pay to do this thing sometimes. I say that if you absolutely have to be someplace at a certain time, don't fly your own. At least that way when you're late you can blame the airline. :D
 
Jay Honeck said:
Just remember, for every crash like this there are thousands of guys like me who safely flew their family coast to coast, Canada to Mexico, year 'round, for decades, all VFR.
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Sadly, that made-up statistic is exaggerated by more than an order of magnitude.

Roughly 1% of the US GA pilot population is killed in crashes every two decades (~300 per year out of ~600,000 pilots). So for each pilot killed in a 20-year period, there are merely dozens--not hundreds, and certainly not thousands--who survive.
 
acrophile said:
Sadly, that made-up statistic is exaggerated by more than an order of magnitude.

Roughly 1% of the US GA pilot population is killed in crashes every two decades (~300 per year out of ~600,000 pilots). So for each pilot killed in a 20-year period, there are merely dozens--not hundreds, and certainly not thousands--who survive.
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Yeah, but why do think the same three hundred guys crash EVERY YEAR? What, are they the luckiest guys in aviation?
 
acrophile said:
Sadly, that made-up statistic is exaggerated by more than an order of magnitude.

Roughly 1% of the US GA pilot population is killed in crashes every two decades (~300 per year out of ~600,000 pilots). So for each pilot killed in a 20-year period, there are merely dozens--not hundreds, and certainly not thousands--who survive.
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Going by your stats, it'd actually be around 100 survive for every one that dies (300x20=600, 600,000/6000=100)

I'm not so sure 300 pilots are dying a year though. A sizable percent of the ~340ish fatals we see a year are going to be passengers and another sizable percent of those will be in crashes where 6+ were killed at once (i.e. when a twin or biz jet goes down). And about 1 in 7 of those total fatalities will occur in Alaska.

If anything, given the type of flying he's doing (VFR, lower 48, single engine), he's probably right that for every death, hundreds do what he does with no crashes.
 
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