ATC Audio of TNFlyGirl Fatal Accident Released

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3393RP said:
You may be correct, but if a male pilot put up a YouTube video similar to the "dumpster fire" episode, I would have been just as astonished. Flying around in circles on a clear day when a simple turn and heading would have accomplished the goal is something I can't really grasp.
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There’s already a whole host of YouTuber pilots doing clownish things for clicks. It’s only a matter of time before more auger in.
 
Doc Holliday said:
There’s already a whole host of YouTuber pilots doing clownish things for clicks. It’s only a matter of time before more auger in.
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Yup, watching a properly flown VFR or IFR flight is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Gotta do something scary or heroic to get those clicks!
 
FlightmechH3 said:
The CFI's and flight school owners are probably going to be losing sleep over this one.

Despite Jenny "Earhart" being a dumpster fire and loaded up on drugs, the surviving family might go into litigation against several parties for signing off on her knowing full well she wasn't really qualified. No excuse that "she performed the minimums that day" is laughable. When an instructor takes the controls away from Amelia during an approach with some crosswinds is not someone who should be flying at all. They were manipulated by her and her status as an aviation video star.

I hope they get attorneys very soon for advice
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I've been here. Here is how it plays out:

Flight school insurance offers 1MM payout to the bereaved, OR, they offer 1MM in lawyer power to the school to defend a suit. Plaintiff's choice.

Plaintiff then sniffs around to discover what attachable assets exist at said flight school. The answer is generally a negative number.

Then plaintiffs take the million and F off. Eventually.
 
schmookeeg said:
I've been here. Here is how it plays out:

Flight school insurance offers 1MM payout to the bereaved, OR, they offer 1MM in lawyer power to the school to defend a suit. Plaintiff's choice.

Plaintiff then sniffs around to discover what attachable assets exist at said flight school. The answer is generally a negative number.

Then plaintiffs take the million and F off. Eventually.
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Also if you have a waiver

Many of those have held up. If the CFI follows the book and the student signed a waiver, the amount of battle to get more than insurance will cough up, it’s all red ink for the would be millionaires plaintiffs

Plus she was on a bunch of bad list drugs, that case is a looser, I’d think insurance wouldn’t even pay her family out, she was clearly breaking the law when her own actions got her killed
 
MooneyDriver78 said:
Anyone know what is typical insurance limits for liability for standard CFI insurance policy?
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Not sure there is a "standard" other than "none" -- it is only us older CFIs with assets that buy these policies. It's commensurate with the premium you're willing to bear, and is secondary to the plane owners' insurance. Here is what NAFI charges:

NAFI CFI Insurance Program

If you are a NAFI member, you are eligible to receive advantages on your aviation insurance through Avemco! Call (888) 241-7891 for an instant quote.
www.avemco.com www.avemco.com
 
decalogue said:
Also if you have a waiver

Many of those have held up. If the CFI follows the book and the student signed a waiver, the amount of battle to get more than insurance will cough up, it’s all red ink for the would be millionaires plaintiffs

Plus she was on a bunch of bad list drugs, that case is a looser, I’d think insurance wouldn’t even pay her family out, she was clearly breaking the law when her own actions got her killed
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I would be surprised to learn that her family, friends, fourth-order cousins, youtube real ultimate fans, etc -- or anyone else who would self-identify as "bereaved" signed any sort of waiver, and Jenny had no power to sign away these peoples' rights.

Plus anyone in the bereaved class can file any sort of suit they wish, waiver or no. That's what the insurance is for. To defend against the nonsense that a flying-related death generates.

It's been a minute, but I think our worst was a plane of ours went and got itself mid-aired, and it generated somewhere around 17 lawsuits against us. We did not train the pilot, nor his pilot-rated passenger, but I assume a token checkout was performed. The plaintiff's lawyers were a shower of low-grade ambulance chasery and embarassment. One of them thought he was there for a boat crash. Several were there for people who had seen or heard of the crash and now were traumatized in a way that required large cash settlements to resolve.

It ain't a fun business. But I don't worry about the school that trained her. As long as they had insurance :)
 
Pardon for butting in where I don't belong, but I don't see any liability for any of the CFI trainers. At some point, in some flight, there was an examiner who gave a flight test and decided that this person was qualified for the airplane, single engine, land certificate. And after that, some CFI decided that this pilot qualified for a HP/Complex endorsement. What happened after that is all laundry.
 
schmookeeg said:
I would be surprised to learn that her family, friends, fourth-order cousins, youtube real ultimate fans, etc -- or anyone else who would self-identify as "bereaved" signed any sort of waiver, and Jenny had no power to sign away these peoples' rights.

Plus anyone in the bereaved class can file any sort of suit they wish, waiver or no. That's what the insurance is for. To defend against the nonsense that a flying-related death generates.

It's been a minute, but I think our worst was a plane of ours went and got itself mid-aired, and it generated somewhere around 17 lawsuits against us. We did not train the pilot, nor his pilot-rated passenger, but I assume a token checkout was performed. The plaintiff's lawyers were a shower of low-grade ambulance chasery and embarassment. One of them thought he was there for a boat crash. Several were there for people who had seen or heard of the crash and now were traumatized in a way that required large cash settlements to resolve.
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If they want to pay a atty for a looser case, sure

I highly doubt anyone is going to take this on contingency

Getting oneself killed while high due to one’s own self degraded abilities, where do you think that case goes?
 
Barrett50 said:
Pardon for butting in where I don't belong, but I don't see any liability for any of the CFI trainers. At some point, in some flight, there was an examiner who gave a flight test and decided that this person was qualified for the airplane, single engine, land certificate. And after that, some CFI decided that this pilot qualified for a HP/Complex endorsement. What happened after that is all laundry.
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I agree within the confines of regs.

I also agree within the confines of common sense. :)

These incidents draw lawsuits like flies to honey. And aviation insurers control the settlement process, and they are so afraid of bad faith, they will literally send rip taylor with a bag full of cash moneys to wallpaper the people who claim to have been hurt. The noisier a crash, the more of this stuff that will get stirred up.

Was this crash in a "joint and several liability" state? because that's when the taco gets real spicy. :D
 
schmookeeg said:
Doubt away. I've seen it. there are plenty of low-rent lawyers who will spend (x hours) for a slice of (y million) in insurance cash.
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I think even a lawyer who graduated from funkylawyerz.net and advertises on bathroom stalls would know this case is a looser and the only money they’ll see they will need to fleece from the plaintiffs
 
ah, the hope of some...
 
From the 80s, there's a lot of truth to the worry over litigation. A nothingburger suit doesn't mean the great unwashed vegetables that serve on a jury won't award $10M out of the Beech, Garmin, airport, examiner, fuel kid, UPS driver, and what the hell - Trump pockets. :dunno:
 
John Denver (who wasn't legal to fly due to multiple dui's) was killed in a Long EZdue to an oddly positioned fuel selector.

The estate sued Aircraft Spruce who just so happened to be the ones that sold the selector to the builder who put the selector over the pilots shoulder.

The suit was settled.
 
Half Fast said:
The CFI's opinion of himself comes into play, too. It can be difficult to admit defeat. The instructor is almost certainly aware that the student will just go somewhere else for training, so in making such a statement the CFI must believe that no other instructor could possibly do a better job with the student than he has. That takes a bit of an ego.
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Maybe confidence is a more accurate word, if I may make the distinction. A CFI certainly needs self-confidence to be effective, and to gain the confidence of their students.
Half Fast said:
I had an instructor at my flight school express his skepticism over my lack of progress with landings. I decided to stick with it, and a few weeks later a different instructor had me ready for solo. She noticed something that I was doing which was completely missed by the first guy. She caught and corrected it on our first flight together, and I was almost instantly making good landings.
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This was not uncommon in my experience. I sometimes had students who struggled with landings, and if I couldn't help them find their A-HA moment I'd send them to another instructor. Likewise, I had success teaching some students that other instructors sent to me.

Ironically, I still haven't figured out how to land a plane myself.
 
Bill said:
Yup, watching a properly flown VFR or IFR flight is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Gotta do something scary or heroic to get those clicks!
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I agree, somewhat. One of my biggest peeves about YT pilots is a profound misconception that many seem to hold in which they fantasize that the public enjoys watching a video selfie of them sitting in a chair. Even worse if they're wearing a helmet, face shield, and O2 mask.

However, some videos are worth watching. The secret sauce that makes a routine flight enjoyable to watch is compelling storytelling and/or meaningful educational value. But I digress...

I hadn't watched any of TnTFlyGirl's videos until after the crash, and wouldn't have been aware of her existence at all were it not for PoA. I might have found them completely unremarkable if she had been a competent pilot--in that case her videos would merely have consisted of footage of her sitting in a chair, occasionally fiddling with something connected to an airplane. But instead, we have a pilot who seems to revel in shamelessly documenting, for the entire world, flights notable for the serial commission of inexplicable, embarrassing blunders and humilitiating demonstrations of incompetence. Any premise that she was faking incompetence to generate views seems disproven by the crash, so I have to believe that she was, as astounding as it may be, entirely unaware of just how bad she was as a pilot. And that leads me to wonder just what personality trait (I want to say disorder) could be responsible for her badly distorted state of self-awareness.
 
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Racerx said:
John Denver (who wasn't legal to fly due to multiple dui's) was killed in a Long EZdue to an oddly positioned fuel selector.

The estate sued Aircraft Spruce who just so happened to be the ones that sold the selector to the builder who put the selector over the pilots shoulder.

The suit was settled.
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John Denver…
 
While not a Debonair, Bud Holland was known to be extremely dangerous and pulled off a few stunts. The command did nothing to ground him and put him in CZAR 52 for an airshow at Fairchild. He ignored the rules, like Jenny, and splashed in next to the nuke storage area.

While not a 1:1 example, a dangerous pilot was not grounded. Jenny gave GA a bad name with her bad decisions.
 

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Barrett50 said:
Ah! I love a Czar 52 reference.

Here's a brilliant case study of that flight and the driver involved. It's a clean download link, no worries about bad stuff.


I go back and read it every few years as a touchstone on how not to be such an arrogant ass. It doesn't always take.
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My uncle knew him (CMSGT at Fairchild) and said a few unkind words about him based on his own personal interactions with Bud.

What is mind boggling is the C17 crash in AK was almost identical. The USAF didn't learn again I suppose.
 
Half Fast said:
It’s quite possible she wasn’t taking all the meds during training.
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Possible... Certainly. On the other hand, you don't get prescribed that many drugs on a single visit to the doctor... IMO 2-3 doctors involved over a period of time; PCP, specialist, mental health.
 
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Barrett50 said:
Ah! I love a Czar 52 reference.

Here's a brilliant case study of that flight and the driver involved. It's a clean download link, no worries about bad stuff.


I go back and read it every few years as a touchstone on how not to be such an arrogant ass. It doesn't always take.
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Pg 18 bothered me a lot. The kids were saying he was going to barrel roll a 52. I knew about Bud's plan to do this directly from my uncle the evening of the crash that day.
 
FlightmechH3 said:
While not a Debonair, Bud Holland was known to be extremely dangerous and pulled off a few stunts. The command did nothing to ground him and put him in CZAR 52 for an airshow at Fairchild. He ignored the rules, like Jenny, and splashed in next to the nuke storage area.

While not a 1:1 example, a dangerous pilot was not grounded. Jenny gave GA a bad name with her bad decisions.
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At the risk of reviving a long dormant thread, in 2022 I submitted this post to a discussion that had some commonality with TnTFlyGirl, CZAR 52, and my earlier post to this thread. In the 2022 thread several members expressed strong disagreement with my post, but that may have been due to my clumsy rhetoric.
 
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decalogue said:
John Denver…
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You think no lawyer would touch this...I give you an absurd lawsuit proving otherwise. If she had her autopilot worked on, that shop better watch out.

You don't have to like it but that's the unfortunate world we live in.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
But that guy is smokin hot so it goes without saying.
I will go out on a limb and say inspite of his goofy act, he kinda has some chops.

But mostly its his looks.
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Bro was a silver fox before he went corporate and clean shaven.
 
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RE, John Denver, lawsuits, and GARA. I mentioned prev the 80s' and crazy lawsuits that basically put GA mfg out of business for good. FF to 1994, and the congress acted and passed the GARA act; GA Revitalization Act. The theory was, that mfgs would be sheltered from lawsuits after 18 years in service for planes, and parts. It was far too little, far too late. By 1994 no one in the GA community was building many planes. Even the upstart Mooney that was on a roll before that shuttered its doors for a while.

The fuel valve in Denver's plane was unlikely to have failed. That valve in several incantations and part numbers had been avail as a repl part for about 20 years prior to him splashing down in 1997, three years after GARA was supposed to fix the lawsuit problem. The vendor, and the seller of the valve spoke with their lawyers and the lawyers told them, nope - no GARA protection for you, that lawsuit is going to the jury. So the mfg and seller rolled over on a perfectly good valve(the NTSB report tested it and found it working, even after being submerged in sea water for a while).

As how this applies to the TNflygirl tragedy, we'll have to see. Beech/Textron is supposedly off the hook vis-a-vis the GARA rule. Not that it's going to stop an ambulance chaser from finding some kind of loophole. Maybe the gear bushings were installed 12 years ago and as it was less than 18 years - ergo, the plane doesn''t qualify for protection. Who knows. Garmin, and the A/P mfg are likely in a world of hurt.

In another brilliant world of judicial perfidy anyone with even a sliver of knowledge of GA is never going to be near the jury pool. The first interrogatories will have 'are you a pilot, or have you flown a small plane before?' type of wording. The great unwashed consider an autopilot like that big red 'EASY' button. Set and forget, then the pilot can play Angry Birds or check their stock portfolio while the A/P does all the work. It HAD to be the machinery, it couldn't be the nut behind the yoke. Sigh,,,
 
I would expect they would sue the deepest pockets…YouTube (Google), since they pay influencers for their content, they can be held responsible.
 
IMHO there is so much evidence (logbook, prior flights, and prior instructors) that legal action in this case against any party will be extremely challenging. Just because the vids don't show for us doesn't mean they are gone.
 
GLMS_NC said:
IMHO there is so much evidence (logbook, prior flights, and prior instructors) that legal action in this case against any party will be extremely challenging. Just because the vids don't show for us doesn't mean they are gone.
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Most lawsuits never see the courtroom, bring case against big pockets company for millions, walk away with a couple hundred thousand. If you have a weak case, even less. You have to weigh the negative publicity, your legal fees against the potential of losing the case. Remember the case where a guy flew into a mountain, they sued Lycoming and WON, without any evidence there was a problem with the engine.
 
MooneyDriver78 said:
Most lawsuits never see the courtroom, bring case against big pockets company for millions, walk away with a couple hundred thousand. If you have a weak case, even less. You have to weigh the negative publicity, your legal fees against the potential of losing the case. Remember the case where a guy flew into a mountain, they sued Lycoming and WON, without any evidence there was a problem with the engine.
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She was high while she was flying, most likely outcome is the plaintiffs will end up paying legal expenses if they go that route

Unless you’re a giant corporation / government the courts don’t let you get money for breaking the law
 
172andyou said:
Well done. Everyone has to learn at some point.
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In a former occupation I used to say to customers when relieving a... struggling... colleague: "Everyone has a first day on this job, even me. But you only get one."
 
decalogue said:
She was high while she was flying, most likely outcome is the plaintiffs will end up paying legal expenses if they go that route

Unless you’re a giant corporation / government the courts don’t let you get money for breaking the law
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Can you prove she was high?

Isn’t there a law that prevents NTSB findings being used in court?
 
decalogue said:
She was high while she was flying, most likely outcome is the plaintiffs will end up paying legal expenses if they go that route

Unless you’re a giant corporation / government the courts don’t let you get money for breaking the law
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Who are the plaintiffs, who are they suing, and whose legal expenses are they winding up paying in this scenario?
 
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