Bad Landing At Redlands

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caltmeyer

Filing Flight Plan
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caltmeyer
http://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/n...dlands-municipal-airport-results-minor-injury

Saw this nice 2000 C172 sitting near the end of the runway on Friday. Asked what happened and was told the student pilot was on a solo cross-country out of Long Beach. Apparently he was at about 3,500 on base leg - TPA is 2,500. He also came in over the fence at about 100 knots. I know that airspeed on final in a 172 should be at 65 or so or a 172 will float all the way down the runway. That's what happened here and he simply ran out of runway. Too bad he didn't go around. Looks like it was a nice airplane but it's totaled now. Ripped the motor mounts out, nose gear, main gear, bent wings, prop strike, etc. CFI maybe has some answering to do? :confused: Too bad for the student. I wonder if he'll hang it up. Hope he had renter's insurance
 
I remember myself as a solo student well and I was just as inept as this guy. The only thing that saved me was that I never was shy about go-arounds. One day I baulked a landing twice in a row and tower controller told me "good thing you're not in a glider". I'm glad he walked away though.
 
That's a 4500 foot runway. Jeez; no excuse for overrunning that.

Rule #1 is that if you aren't going to touch down in the first third of the runway, go around.

Though if this guy had that rule, something tells me we'd be reading about a PIO.

He claimed a "wind problem?" Tailwind? No excuse for that, either.
 
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Ouch.
Get the duct tape out.
 
zaitcev said:
I remember myself as a solo student well and I was just as inept as this guy.
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Snip.

I also remember myself as a solo student. I was also inept. OTOH, I owned my airplane and I understood the value of going around as soon as a landing turned sketchy. Spend your own money on an airplane and your risk aversion goes way up.
 
Student's fault possibly. CFI's fault definitely. If he truly came in over the threshold at 100 kts, his training was clearly lacking in the basics of speed control during the landing process. The CFI has a lot of explaining to do.
 
douglas393 said:
Student's fault possibly. CFI's fault definitely. If he truly came in over the threshold at 100 kts, his training was clearly lacking in the basics of speed control during the landing process. The CFI has a lot of explaining to do.
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Yes, if the habit was shown when flying dual. Maybe, and I'm just guessing here, the student was caught up in the stress of landing and lost his focus on proper procedures.
 
Threefingeredjack said:
Yes, if the habit was shown when flying dual. Maybe, and I'm just guessing here, the student was caught up in the stress of landing and lost his focus on proper procedures.
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Maybe, but then I would suggest to you that he was not yet ready to solo. This seems to me a situation where he should have had enough training to know that he was landing long and it was time to go around. My CFI was not a "stickler" for numbers, and I learned to fly by the "feel" of the plane. Because of this I probably took longer to get my PPL than I should have, but I could also land without looking at my six pack, from the time I entered the pattern. By the time I had solo'd the decision of doing a go-around was less of a thought process more of an instinct. If the landing did not look and feel right, it was time to go-around.
 
douglas393 said:
Maybe, but then I would suggest to you that he was not yet ready to solo. This seems to me a situation where he should have had enough training to know that he was landing long and it was time to go around. My CFI was not a "stickler" for numbers, and I learned to fly by the "feel" of the plane. Because of this I probably took longer to get my PPL than I should have, but I could also land without looking at my six pack, from the time I entered the pattern. By the time I had solo'd the decision of doing a go-around was less of a thought process more of an instinct. If the landing did not look and feel right, it was time to go-around.
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Bang on point. This guy obviously dropped the ball. Without knowing the CFI I'm not ready to assign blame to anyone other than the PIC.
 
Threefingeredjack said:
Bang on point. This guy obviously dropped the ball. Without knowing the CFI I'm not ready to assign blame to anyone other than the PIC.
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I see your point, but if the story as being told is accurate, this is more than just dropping the ball, this is running down the field and touching down in the wrong endzone.
 
BTW 1, IMHO it's possible to misread the altimeter and end exactly 1000 ft off the TPA, then attempt an extremely wide pattern to keep a general sight picture. In such situation, turning base at 45 degree off numbers will get you way high. Such exact scenario did not happen to me, but I remember having significant issues judging the relative position of the airplane next to runway, so I had to rely on altimeter. I used to write TPA for all fields on my kneeboard beforehand so as not to fumble with the sectional while approaching an airport.

BTW 2, one guy posted into "Lessons Learned" once that he managed to set Kollsman off by whole 1000 ft off once. No, really.
 
zaitcev said:
BTW 1, IMHO it's possible to misread the altimeter and end exactly 1000 ft off the TPA, then attempt an extremely wide pattern to keep a general sight picture. In such situation, turning base at 45 degree off numbers will get you way high. Such exact scenario did not happen to me, but I remember having significant issues judging the relative position of the airplane next to runway, so I had to rely on altimeter. I used to write TPA for all fields on my kneeboard beforehand so as not to fumble with the sectional while approaching an airport.

BTW 2, one guy posted into "Lessons Learned" once that he managed to set Kollsman off by whole 1000 ft off once. No, really.
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I am not sure I understand your first thought, but if you are saying that it is possible to be 1000 feet higher than the TPA, based on misreading the altimeter, or setting the Kollsman wrong, I would suggest that there is something you are missing. I was taught to recognize the sight picture of what 1000 ft AGL looks like and it is much different than 2000 ft agl.
 
How the runway looks depends on what you are used to. My home field is 3000 x 75; a 5000' field will not look tremendously too small if I'm high, but a 7000 x 200 field looks way too large when I'm at the right altitude.

As a student, I would print out the airport diagram, highlight the appropriate frequencies and write the pattern altitude. Since that worked so well, I often still do so. Takes about 2 minutes per trip.
 
The pilot in question apparently flew in from Long Beach. That's a huge Class D airport, and it's only not Class C because there are too many other Class C's close by. It's the former home of Douglas Aircraft Co. and has a runway to suit. They built most of the DC-10 fleet there.

I'd suggest this pilot was no stranger to long runways.
 
douglas393 said:
I am not sure I understand your first thought, but if you are saying that it is possible to be 1000 feet higher than the TPA, based on misreading the altimeter, or setting the Kollsman wrong, I would suggest that there is something you are missing. I was taught to recognize the sight picture of what 1000 ft AGL looks like and it is much different than 2000 ft agl.
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also, when you start descending and you can tell you're aiming towards the end of the runway.....
 
Geesh. 100 kts on final? I've been 5 knots faster than I wanted to when crossing the threshold and gone around. Granted this was on a 1700' runway, but still...25-30 knots faster??
 
jpower said:
Geesh. 100 kts on final? I've been 5 knots faster than I wanted to when crossing the threshold and gone around. Granted this was on a 1700' runway, but still...25-30 knots faster??
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35-40 knots faster.

172s land best after an approach at 60 KIAS with a solo pilot and full flaps. 65 on the outside.
 
caltmeyer said:
Apparently he was at about 3,500 on base leg - TPA is 2,500. He also came in over the fence at about 100 knots.
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Did those numbers came from the pilot or some witness very good at estimating them?
 
Redlands is deceiving. Little bit of a downhill runway surrounded by mountains. If he is used to long beach ( wide, long, flat, no obsticles) then he probably freeked out. I remember my solo cc. I had to land in banning with 30kt winds right down the runway. Not a big deal today, but at the time i was scared to death. Pulled it off but it wasnt pretty:redface:
 
No CFI would teach a primary student to try to salvage a landing out of such excessive speed on short final.
 
Jim Logajan said:
Did those numbers came from the pilot or some witness very good at estimating them?
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I heard the details from an A&P who is at the airport everyday and he was probably just relaying what's going around the airport. May be that the pilot told the info to the first responders. I don't think that one thinks much about what info they're divulging right after the fact or the ramifications of what that info might bring. He was probably happy to be alive at that point.

And Redland's runway does slope downhill fairly rapidly from higher terrain which is also sloping big time from base/final to the threshold. Somebody unfamiliar might easily find themselves too high on final. That's why we have altimeters and updated

Glad the pilot is OK
 
marcoseddi said:
Tpa is high that'll explain excessive speed unless extended downwind
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True, but...assuming any of the numbers quoted are valid, being 1000 above that TPA, while on base, would be his first error. It seems like he just tried to dive at the runway... looks like the flaps were up (in the picture, anyway).
It's easy (and common) to have a brain fart when reading the altimeter, but when you are still above TPA when turning final (wow), at. say, a mile from the threshold, you need to do something other than point the nose at the numbers.
Plan A would be to go around; Plan B would be to use full flaps and take all the power out; Plan C would to slip the crap out of it.
He apparently chose Plan D, as in "D'Oh!". :rolleyes:
 
REI also slopes pretty darn good as well. I've landed 1/3 down the runway @ REI coming in only 20' over the threshold 10mph over my stall speed. And still landed 1/3 down the runway and did not get it stopped until 1000' from the end. Pretty good slope.
 
Bopped over there today... the skyhawk is still sitting in a ball off of rwy 8's threshold. I'd have thought they'd put it in a hangar or something at least. :dunno:
 
schmookeeg said:
Bopped over there today... the skyhawk is still sitting in a ball off of rwy 8's threshold. I'd have thought they'd put it in a hangar or something at least. :dunno:
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Not until NTSB is done with it.

We had a flipped but otherwise intact 172 underneath short final for several weeks, a couple of years ago. Pilot forgot how much go-juice he needed and almost made it on fumes.
 
It is common knowledge that a good landing is any landing that you can walk away from, the title of this thread not withstanding.
 
I'd have thought NTSB would exercise a modicum of care to preserve the wreckage. Sitting at the end of a runway doesn't seem very considerate.

Anyone could have stripped those radios off of the plane and made a beeline to ebay by now. :D
 
My club's -172 didn't sit in the bushes more than a few hours in BFE Mississippi after it crashed (snagged power lines on final). Matter of fact, it crashed early in the morning and before dinner, they had the wings off it and trucked to a hangar.

http://kathrynaviationnews.com/?p=143391
 
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MAKG1 said:
Not until NTSB is done with it.

We had a flipped but otherwise intact 172 underneath short final for several weeks, a couple of years ago. Pilot forgot how much go-juice he needed and almost made it on fumes.
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With no loss of life or serious injury I suspect the NTSB isn't even going to take a look. In any case I doubt that they would prevent the owner from protecting the aircraft remains from further damage/theft. I have heard of insurance companies paying for a guard to stay by the carcass until it is moved to a more secure location but IIRC those cases were off airport.
 
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