Apparent plane crash on TPC Scottsdale Golf Course

Anyone know if this thing had an AP? Since we are all speculating, I won’t be surprised if they turned the AP on with GPS direct or just turned the heading to Vegas , way too early in the game?
 
WannFly said:
Anyone know if this thing had an AP? Since we are all speculating, I won’t be surprised if they turned the AP on with GPS direct or just turned the heading to Vegas , way too early in the game?
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Mmm.

Pop that puppy into V/S mode, too.

Interesting thought.
 
EdFred said:
As a Comanche owner that has taken off at full gross multiple times in high D A (or at least higher than the conditions they experienced) conditions I completely disagree with your assessment about CG and GW
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Which aspect do you disagree with? This has nothing to do with the Comanche specifically. The book Stick and Rudder explains it all pretty well.

Too often we look at the relationship between airspeed and climb in that order... set airspeed at Vx or Vy and then what is your climb rate? Generally speaking lightly loaded = greater climb rate at any given airspeed. The same fundamentals hold true in reverse. This flight required a minimum climb rate to get off the runway and climb. More weight = less airspeed to obtain that needed climb. Less airspeed = less margin for error in the piloting dept.

The video suggests this Comanche was capable of completing this flight but the margin for error was reduced to a large extent by the factors that limited the plane’s performance during departure.
 
Let's not forget that 18 seconds after he said "nah, we're good we're just training" he says "And, ah, five six poppa we'd like to--" and the transmission cuts off.

Like to...what? Return to the airport? Declare an emergency? We'll never know, but from the sounds of it, he was aware of a problem.

Convo starts around 15:45-16:00. LiveATC's timestamps seem to move every time you listen to the recordings. edit: The forum won't let me post the link, calling it "spam".
 
EdFred said:
As a Comanche owner that has taken off at full gross multiple times in high D A (or at least higher than the conditions they experienced) conditions I completely disagree with your assessment about CG and GW
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And Max Conrad flew an overloaded Comanche around the world. Doesn't mean that weight and CG didn't play a role in this accident chain.

The video supports that sequence of events. Just enough power to get into an initial shallow climb but started to lose that climb the second he started to turn. Even the controller knew that they were in trouble when he saw that they didn't get off the runway like all the other light aircraft.
 
arkvet said:
If no obstructions were straight ahead (tall towers / mountains) I think that plane would have made it to Vegas if the turn had been delayed and was made less aggressively.
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FYI - on the sectional 6NM from the end of the runway shows the terrain 2557 feet above the runway. That may be the reason for the left turn.
 
arkvet said:
Which aspect do you disagree with? This has nothing to do with the Comanche specifically. The book Stick and Rudder explains it all pretty well.

Too often we look at the relationship between airspeed and climb in that order... set airspeed at Vx or Vy and then what is your climb rate? Generally speaking lightly loaded = greater climb rate at any given airspeed. The same fundamentals hold true in reverse. This flight required a minimum climb rate to get off the runway and climb. More weight = less airspeed to obtain that needed climb. Less airspeed = less margin for error in the piloting dept.

The video suggests this Comanche was capable of completing this flight but the margin for error was reduced to a large extent by the factors that limited the plane’s performance during departure.
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I disagree that the margins are so close that they were a factor if the aircraft is trimmed and flown properly. As I stated in my 250, I have been at/over-ish gross, at a higher DA than the accident airplane, and was still getting 1000fpm. And not anywhere close to worrying about being close to Vs by flying it like I am supposed to. Even if I was 200 over gross (which I doubt they were that much over) I should still easily be getting over 500fpm.

weilke said:
And Max Conrad flew an overloaded Comanche around the world. Doesn't mean that weight and CG didn't play a role in this accident chain.

The video supports that sequence of events. Just enough power to get into an initial shallow climb but started to lose that climb the second he started to turn. Even the controller knew that they were in trouble when he saw that they didn't get off the runway like all the other light aircraft.
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So you're suggesting they were 2000lbs over gross by bringing up Conrad? As I already stated my experience with gross and high DA in my Comanche indicates something else went wrong and had nothing to do with the plane having six people in it.
 
EdFred said:
I disagree that the margins are so close that they were a factor if the aircraft is trimmed and flown properly. As I stated in my 250, I have been at/over-ish gross, at a higher DA than the accident airplane, and was still getting 1000fpm. And not anywhere close to worrying about being close to Vs by flying it like I am supposed to. Even if I was 200 over gross (which I doubt they were that much over) I should still easily be getting over 500fpm.



So you're suggesting they were 2000lbs over gross by bringing up Conrad? As I already stated my experience with gross and high DA in my Comanche indicates something else went wrong and had nothing to do with the plane having six people in it.
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I've already stated the street cam video suggests the plane was flying and could have made that trip successfully. It also show what appears to be an AGL of IDK 100-200'? well off the end of an 8000' runway. So regardless of the performance you've seen with your Comanche I think it easy to see that the climb performance in this specific accident plane was very poor. I think your theory or suggestion of possible spatial disorientation or simply being distracted is very valid and may have been the final straw in the chain of events. I simply suggest that if they left the end of the 8000' runway at 500' AGL the atmosphere in those front two seats may have been significantly different.

I don't buy the "hot dogging" idea at all. Spatial disorientation or some premature and unwarranted panic of the rising terrain that was still several miles off may have played a big role here. You remove some weight from the plane and improve the climb performance and that chain of events never occurs.

So if you're still thinking I am saying they WERE over gross or out of C/G and that sealed their fate before TO then please reread my post(s).
 
arkvet said:
I've already stated the street cam video suggests the plane was flying and could have made that trip successfully. It also show what appears to be an AGL of IDK 100-200'? well off the end of an 8000' runway. So regardless of the performance you've seen with your Comanche I think it easy to see that the climb performance in this specific accident plane was very poor. I think your theory or suggestion of possible spatial disorientation or simply being distracted is very valid and may have been the final straw in the chain of events. I simply suggest that if they left the end of the 8000' runway at 500' AGL the atmosphere in those front two seats may have been significantly different.

I don't buy the "hot dogging" idea at all. Spatial disorientation or some premature and unwarranted panic of the rising terrain that was still several miles off may have played a big role here. You remove some weight from the plane and improve the climb performance and that chain of events never occurs.

So if you're still thinking I am saying they WERE over gross or out of C/G and that sealed their fate before TO then please reread my post(s).
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I did think you were saying that. If you weren't my apologies. As far as the altitude off the runway, it is low, and there's no reason it should be low if they were flying properly - which they weren't. You can be well under gross, completely within CG, making power, and still not get off the ground when you don't do things right. I don't know what they were doing but at a grass strip fly in I witnessed an under loaded, within CG 182 almost not make it off the ground because of improper technique. How? The pilot made the incorrect assumption that grass field = soft field. They had the yoke yanked all the way back like they had been told in private training, and there was so much induced drag the plane would not fly. Only after 60% of the runway was used, and they let the nose down did it finally climb - barely. I doubt that was exactly what happened here, but I would put my money on them botching it that way than it being the WB/CG issue.

I *think* all the Comanches had only a stall warning light, and none of them had horns. If that stall warning light was burned out, the instructor was distracted by the girls, the trim wasn't reset for takeoff, they didn't use flaps when heavy, and they were on the wrong side of the induced drag curve, all of that puts them right where they are in the video.
 
arkvet said:
I've already stated the street cam video suggests the plane was flying and could have made that trip successfully. It also show what appears to be an AGL of IDK 100-200'? well off the end of an 8000' runway. So regardless of the performance you've seen with your Comanche I think it easy to see that the climb performance in this specific accident plane was very poor.
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I have picked through the pieces left after another commercial pilot ran a Comanche off the end of a runway with 6 adults on board. I have flown another 260C with 4 adults and tools on board on a 10F day and it was still a fat pig. There seem to be differences in performance among different examples of the same breed and Eds Comanche seems to have another 50hp at the prop that others dont. But yes, if you are still in the field of view of a traffic cam after takeoff from a 8000ft runway, something didn't go right.

People at the airport were watching this takeoff because they could see things weren't going well. The fact that he took off with wing wobble suggests that he horsed in the air before it was ready to fly (very easy to do if you are near aft CG). Then he was climbing at a rate much less than experienced observers would expect for a light aircraft at that airport. The video shows that he started to lose altitude the moment he initiated a shallow turn. Rather than leveling out and trying to nurse it into cooler air straight ahead, he continued the turn until one wing stopped flying. A skilled comanche pilot could have completed this flight but would have probably sworn to never ever do THAT again.
 
weilke said:
The video supports that sequence of events. Just enough power to get into an initial shallow climb but started to lose that climb the second he started to turn. Even the controller knew that they were in trouble when he saw that they didn't get off the runway like all the other light aircraft.
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Except you have no idea when the controller spoke or what he saw.
 
3393RP said:
Except you have no idea when the controller spoke or what he saw.
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Anybody who's listened to the audio knows what she spoke. What she saw is a legitimate question.
 
MFE said:
Anybody who's listened to the audio knows what she spoke. What she saw is a legitimate question.
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I said when, not what. The query to the pilot could have come before the aircraft was rolling.

Thanks for the pronoun correction. Using bold type really shows you are on the ball. How could I be so stupid?
 
Sigh. Dumb way to kill a bunch of people.

Civil suit should appreciate the tox report. That’ll make things easy for whatever assets are left to be gone. Buh-bye.
 
Reported today

Maricopa County medical examiners released autopsy and toxicology reports on Tuesday. According to the report, 28-year-old James Pedroza tested positive for cocaine. Pedroza was a student pilot from Las Vegas who owned the 6-seater plane, a Scottsdale police report said. He was flying the aircraft along with 32-year-old airline transport pilot Erik Valente, who was also from Las Vegas, according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board.
 
But wasn't the CFI the PIC, since the owner was a student pilot?
 
kyleb said:
Being a CFI, and therefore (?) PIC, doesn't that hang him with the bulk of the responsibility?
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That would be true, especially since the pilot said something about "training" on the radio. However, being a young CFI, there is not likely to be any estate left to sue.
 
kyleb said:
Being a CFI, and therefore (?) PIC, doesn't that hang him with the bulk of the responsibility?
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He paid with his life for his lack of vigilance overseeing a flight with a student pilot carrying passengers in an unfamiliar aircraft.

But yes.
 
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