Another Cirrus Down....this time a friend....

SteveinIndy

SteveinIndy

Line Up and Wait
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SteveinIndy
I live right next to Eagle Creek airport and learned this morning that one of the pilots who flies out of over here was headed back home from York, NE and failed to respond to ATC instructions and wound up with an F-16 escort until the plane went down in rural West Virginia. Sounds like a case of hypoxia based on the limit information available or maybe a medical event, but regardless of what happened it's just a really odd feeling to lose someone I knew from over at KEYE. Not the first friend I've lost in a GA crash- and sadly it probably won't be the last- but it's just not something one can get "used" to.

He wasn't a close friend but it's still a very cold and hollow feeling to know that he won't be coming home to his family. He was a nice guy and one of the more conscientious (read as: considerate of the neighborhood) Cirrus flyers from KEYE. He will be missed May God watch over Bill and his family in their time of grief.
 
Steve,

I feel for you. I know what it's like loosing a friend to an aviation accident.

Do you think the fact he was flying a Cirrus had anything to do with this tragedy?

Joe
 
sorry for your loss steve. I followed this yesterday it was all over Av Web and flight aware. Very sad. Reports said he was headed for Indiana but FA had his destination as HEF. Does sound like a medical event. Not sure of his altitude for hypoxia. Sad no matter what the cause.
 
Areeda said:
Do you think the fact he was flying a Cirrus had anything to do with this tragedy? Joe
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Not Steve- but the achilles heel for hi-perf turbo GA A/C is that when the O2 runs out, at FL 25 you vhae about 15 seconds useful brain time to recognize it and command descent. If you don't to that you are deader than a doornail.

When I became hypoxic at mid continent (Eastern NEB) in the 1993 AC Spruce, it was my 10 year younger copilot who took us down to FL 19.
 
Do you think the fact he was flying a Cirrus had anything to do with this tragedy?
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No, I don't think the fact it was a Cirrus had anything to do with the crash since there is nothing to indicate that yet. We will see what the investigation reveals.

Reports said he was headed for Indiana but FA had his destination as HEF
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From what I've heard off the record, the destination was changed after he failed to descend into KEYE. I'm not sure why they picked KHEF though.

achilles heel for hi-perf turbo GA A/C is that when the O2 runs out, at FL 25 you vhae about 15 seconds useful brain time to recognize it and command descent. If you don't to that you are deader than a doornail.
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There's another reason I don't care what the operational ceiling for a GA aircraft is, I don't like getting above 8,000 feet at most for any extended period of time. But maybe I'm just an excessively cautious chicken....
 
It does have somethign to do with the Cirrus- but it just as well be an A36. See "Flying 2.0" on the company's website.
 
Did I miss something. The Hypoxia was just speculation right? It could have been some other medical incident Stroke, MI right?
 
Adam, of course it could. However if you look at all the pilot incapacitation accidents in the past 14 years, this is ~10:1 the best best.
 
bbchien said:
Adam, of course it could. However if you look at all the pilot incapacitation accidents in the past 14 years, this is ~10:1 the best best.
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Really? Wow that is amazing Bruce. I would never have thought that as it is so preventable assuming the O2 system doesn't fail. I'd really have put my $$ on another physical problem. Learn something new every day.
 
It took a little bit of digging to get some data from the media.. Of the 7 news articles I found, only 2 mentioned that he had been cleared from 25,000 to 12,000 feet, and that after that clearance he became garbled then eventually unresponsive.

One of those went on to mention the possibility of a cabin problem that caused the oxygen pressure to drop.... :)frown2: groan...)

Your assessment sounds spot on, Doc.

Unfortunate turn of events...
 
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