Bo down Half Moon Bay

denverpilot said:
And needed to selfie stick it all. LOL.
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thankfully, many public places and private places in San Diego have started banning them.. there was a guy a little while ago who fell to his death leaning over the rail on the glass bridge thing out by Grand Canyon west and he had a selfie stick
 
Tantalum said:
thankfully, many public places and private places in San Diego have started banning them.. there was a guy a little while ago who fell to his death leaning over the rail on the glass bridge thing out by Grand Canyon west and he had a selfie stick
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Oh they should not do that. Let Darwin do his work. LOL.
 
I think people are ganging up on this dude because he's an insufferable present-day remake of the "Johnny Knoxvilles" of the world. Personally, I thought the whole "MTV Jackass" trend died with the 90s, but guess not.

At any rate, gunked up fuel systems, continental engines et al, are part and parcel of our crappy little piston airplane hobby, and the bad reputation they garner among the pedestrian majority that wants us out of a sky only their beloved airliners should be allowed to fly in. I'm not particularly swayed about the arguments puts forth that he exercised negligence by flying that day. Has it even been established this was the first flight immediately preceding the installation of tip tanks? Nothing in the article about it from my read.

I'm actually a bit surprised the story went towards malfeasance so quickly. A true case study in how your social persona can pre-load people to convict you in the court of public opinion. Hell, people are still accusing Henning of committing insurance fraud on here. I think it's just a reflection of our own projection in disliking those who don't march to our socio-cultural drum beat. It's a bit of a culture war really, given the social conservative slant in the pilot owner demographic. It can feel a bit hegemonic at times.

Personally, I'm on the camp this is just another case of crappy CAR3/part23 piston bites the dust. One he overpaid for imo. Give the man his insurance money.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
It was an OSH trip, but we used Mitchell in Milwaukee because that's where the rental car was. We were over the lake about a minute or two after takeoff. Stupid.
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I'd be more worried about the width of the lake. Down there by Milwaukee, it's slightly over 70nm across. In the TBM, with 850shp and a 14:1 glide ratio, we can climb fast enough to always be able to glide to shore taking off out of MKE, but we still need to be at nearly 16,000 feet at the middle of the lake to make it to shore.

unsafervguy said:
And class c starts at 1200 over my airport. Also, 5000 should never be used to break in a new engine with any density altitude the percent hp is way to low for a new engine.
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The break-in instructions I've seen and used for several engines now state you need to operate at 75% power. You can make 75% power at 7,000 feet. 5,000 is a fine place to be with a new engine.
 
hindsight2020 said:
I think it's just a reflection of our own projection in disliking those who don't march to our socio-cultural drum beat. It's a bit of a culture war really, given the social conservative slant in the pilot owner demographic. It can feel a bit hegemonic at times.
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Which socio-cultural drum beat is the one that says “let’s take an aircraft with serious fuel problems, put a PASSENGER on board, fly it out over open water... so our “photo” plane can shoot video of it, with no photographer on board”?

Sure. Sounds like it’s some conservatives fault somewhere to me. Hahahaha.

You’ve got to be kidding, right? How about...

“I’m pilot in command and I need to put the safety of my passengers above making YouTube videos.”

Can we bring back that socio-cultural drum beat?

I could care less if he acts like Johnny Knoxville on the ground. It’s when he does it in an aircraft with a passenger that he’s got a serious misunderstanding of his role as PIC.

But hey, sure, climb in the rescue basket first there, selfie-boy. LOL. Don’t worry about the passenger you could have killed, first.

Patterns. It’s patterns of behavior. He’s not a member of any special or even new culture, other than being reckless with someone else’s life.

Should that aircraft have been where it was considering the circumstances? Probably not. I wouldn’t have put it there. Would you? Asked someone alone in a Skyhawk to film it? I doubt you or I would.

Do the “Jackass” culture thing on Instagram or whatever. Fine. Just keep it out of the cockpit.
 
denverpilot said:
Which socio-cultural drum beat is the one that says “let’s take an aircraft with serious fuel problems, put a PASSENGER on board, fly it out over open water... so our “photo” plane can shoot video of it, with no photographer on board”?

Sure. Sounds like it’s some conservatives fault somewhere to me. Hahahaha.

You’ve got to be kidding, right? How about...

“I’m pilot in command and I need to put the safety of my passengers above making YouTube videos.”

Can we bring back that socio-cultural drum beat?

I could care less if he acts like Johnny Knoxville on the ground. It’s when he does it in an aircraft with a passenger that he’s got a serious misunderstanding of his role as PIC.

But hey, sure, climb in the rescue basket first there, selfie-boy. LOL. Don’t worry about the passenger you could have killed, first.

Patterns. It’s patterns of behavior. He’s not a member of any special or even new culture, other than being reckless with someone else’s life.

Should that aircraft have been where it was considering the circumstances? Probably not. I wouldn’t have put it there. Would you? Asked someone alone in a Skyhawk to film it? I doubt you or I would.

Do the “Jackass” culture thing on Instagram or whatever. Fine. Just keep it out of the cockpit.
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i hear ya, i dont care for the johnny knoxville shtick either, but i dont think the guy purposely dunked an airplane into the pacific ocean for youtube clicks. He s just presumed to do so because he doesnt behave like the stereotypical american airplane owner in pedestrian life. we can of course disagree on that.

is the filming of the egress extraneous? i dont personally care either way, nor do i attribute malice to it just because it falls outside of how i would behave. If the rescue diver had thought so, he would have knocked that camera off his hand or refused to hoist him. ive done my fair share of egress/SERE training and anybody familiar with those ops recognizes how serious the rescue folks take that protocol. They have no compunction leaving your -ss behind if you re combative enough to put the diver at risk. As to the " Lord take my eyes, but save the sexually marketable female first!", i dont suffer from that socio-cultural hangup either ;)
 
denverpilot said:
Can we bring back that socio-cultural drum beat?
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Can we bring back? Can we bring back? I know what those words mean, but I don't think I understand them in this context. To bring them back suggests that they were once here and now they're gone. But that's just not the case. Obviously, you're not going to make the kinds of choices, so you still have whatever it is you think needs to be brought back which means its not gone.

So perhaps you're suggesting instead that there was once a time when no one made reckless choices in airplanes. I'm afraid you would lose that bet too. A long line of individuals met their demise in flying machines before Orville and Wilbur ever thought to put their minds to the task. Many of them did so because they invented and build machines that would in fact get off the ground and fly just fine. But lacked adequate means for the pilot to control their modes of flight and the thought never occurred to the individuals in question that maybe they should invent a way to test the controllability of their craft before they strapped their butt in it and gave it a go.

Which is a long-winded way of saying people have been doing idiotic things in airplanes since before airplanes existed. Granted most didn't bring along a cute girl in tight jeans back then but that's beside the point. There have always been those who make conservative choices when it comes to safety, and those who make less conservative choices. That has always been the case and it still is. There is nothing that needs to be brought back because it was always here and still is.
 
And it was also always here that there are those of us who dislike shameless self-promoters in aviation. Those of us who have watched better pilots than ourselves perish over the years believe that humility in aviation is an asset, including even just for the optics given the unfair microscope that non-aviators apply to our kind, if not for the merit of trying to avoid killing passengers or oneself. I, for one, dislike most of the behavior that I saw in this video. That dislike and admitted bias makes it is easy to make the emotional leap into believing that his intent was more nefarious than just a shameless and careless self promoter. To be fair, I don’t have enough information to conclude that this was intentional and I hope that the investigative conclusion is that there was no such intent. I do, however, have enough information to know that I don’t like his “look at me” at all cost (even in the middle of a single-engine aviator’s worst case emergency) ways.
 
According to Matt’s video, the swimmer assessed their conditions and chose to hoist him first. Was he supposed to insist she be hoisted first, even though she’s saying she’s fine and the trained swimmer wants to hoist him first? That’s just stupid machismo.
 
RockClmbr said:
And it was also always here that there are those of us who dislike shameless self-promoters in aviation. Those of us who have watched better pilots than ourselves perish over the years believe that humility in aviation is an asset, including even just for the optics given the unfair microscope that non-aviators apply to our kind, if not for the merit of trying to avoid killing passengers or oneself. I, for one, dislike most of the behavior that I saw in this video. That dislike and admitted bias makes it is easy to make the emotional leap into believing that his intent was more nefarious than just a shameless and careless self promoter. To be fair, I don’t have enough information to conclude that this was intentional and I hope that the investigative conclusion is that there was no such intent. I do, however, have enough information to know that I don’t like his “look at me” at all cost (even in the middle of a single-engine aviator’s worst case emergency) ways.
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Maybe I'm just getting old, but the old barnstormers and people like Chuck Yeager were shameless self-promoters but they never bothered me, but these guys that have to video everything they do irritate me.
 
Salty said:
Maybe I'm just getting old, but the old barnstormers and people like Chuck Yeager were shameless self-promoters but they never bothered me, but these guys that have to video everything they do irritate me.
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I think most of these guys doing aviation videos are great ambassadors for general aviation. And let's face it, we need all the help we can get. The dare devil, stupid crap I can do with out.
 
Heftiger said:
According to Matt’s video, the swimmer assessed their conditions and chose to hoist him first. Was he supposed to insist she be hoisted first, even though she’s saying she’s fine and the trained swimmer wants to hoist him first? That’s just stupid machismo.
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The optics of it certainly don't look good for his cause.. and whatever happened to chivalry and women and children first. I know it's 2019, but come on
 
dtuuri said:
Hey, could he have been unable to get the guy to drop the camera and decided to rescue the one-armed dog paddler first?
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In the video he says the swimmer assessed their conditions, and decided he was doing worse so he hoisted him first.
Granted, you have to consider the source. He may be trying to save face. Who knows.

But if it’s true and the swimmer saw that he was shivering and having trouble staying afloat, where she was doing just fine. I don’t see any issue with the order it happened in. What if the swimmer had hoisted her and when he came back down he had succumbed to the hypothermia and went under? In an emergency situation you assess and triage the most injured patient first.
 
Heftiger said:
In the video he says the swimmer assessed their conditions, and decided he was doing worse so he hoisted him first.
Granted, you have to consider the source. He may be trying to save face. Who knows.

But if it’s true and the swimmer saw that he was shivering and having trouble staying afloat, where she was doing just fine. I don’t see any issue with the order it happened in. What if the swimmer had hoisted her and when he came back down he had succumbed to the hypothermia and went under? In an emergency situation you assess and triage the most injured patient first.
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Was he holding the selfie stick the whole time? I wonder how hyperthermic and shivering he could have been if that were the case..
 
Tantalum said:
Was he holding the selfie stick the whole time? I wonder how hyperthermic and shivering he could have been if that were the case..
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This was after about 30 minutes in water temperature in the 50s.

Are those selfie sticks real heavy? ;)
 
Palmpilot said:
This was after about 30 minutes in water temperature in the 50s.

Are those selfie sticks real heavy? ;)
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at least from the photo, that girl he was with doesn't seem to have an ounce of body fat on her..
 
Tantalum said:
The optics of it certainly don't look good for his cause.. and whatever happened to chivalry and women and children first. I know it's 2019, but come on
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I think chivalry is fine. I suspect its more a case of a coast guard swimmer knowing they've both been floating in cold water for almost an hour and not knowing when either of them were going to lose leg and arm function and then doing the math on which of the two of them he would rather have to lift into the basket as dead weight. The big guy still has legs? He goes first is how that math would probably work for me if I was doing it.
 
RockClmbr said:
And it was also always here that there are those of us who dislike shameless self-promoters in aviation.
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I've got no problem with shameless self-promotion in aviation or anywhere else so long as you're genuine and you have something interesting to say. I think the problem is when you combine the youtube type social platforms with cheap and easy access to good video equipment, a lot of people who think they're way more interesting than they are start to believe they have something to say that matters when they actually don't much of anything to say.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
He goes first is how that math would probably work for me if I was doing it.
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Interesting.. that makes sense.. I hadn't thought of that mortality aspect. Assuming you have to haul one of them unconscious.. probably easier to do so with the female
 
Heftiger said:
In the video he says the swimmer assessed their conditions, and decided he was doing worse so he hoisted him first.
Granted, you have to consider the source. He may be trying to save face. Who knows.

But if it’s true and the swimmer saw that he was shivering and having trouble staying afloat, where she was doing just fine. I don’t see any issue with the order it happened in. What if the swimmer had hoisted her and when he came back down he had succumbed to the hypothermia and went under? In an emergency situation you assess and triage the most injured patient first.
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In that situation you also have to consider that one fool in the water is not focusing on his survival. Maybe it's better to get that moron out of the water first.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
I think the problem is when you combine the youtube type social platforms with cheap and easy access to good video equipment, a lot of people who think they're way more interesting than they are start to believe they have something to say that matters when they actually don't much of anything to say.
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IMNSHO, that sounds a lot like the talking heads (commentators, experts, politicians or whoever) on any tv or cable “news program”, much less YouTube.

Cheers
 
To be, the guy seems like a bit of a D-Bro who engaged in some questionable ADM, but I don't think he did this intentionally.

Palmpilot said:
Here's what the pilot had to say about those suspicions:

"If you think I bought a $220k airplane, spent 2.5 months putting $50k of upgrades into it, and then purposely sunk it in the Pacific, you need your head examined."
​
https://www.beechtalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2457434#p2457434 (Requires login.)
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Oh man, I didn't even see that over at BT. He makes a good point. Also, where did he get the money from?

Bacho said:
He mentioned the tip tanks were newly installed in the video above. He seemed fo think that caused the failure.
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schmookeeg said:
I can't think of how a botched tip tank install would rob the main tanks of needed fuel. Unless they were the very old style with the 5-position fuel selector and the mechanic left something very loose. I'd expect the main sump and ground under it to be as blue as a smurf in that scenario.

I'm also surprised the pilot didn't draw more "benefit of the doubt", and the denizens are busy arguing online virtue with one another and calling each other DBags, instead of fruitful speculation about what brought the plane down.
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It sounds like he suspects metal or other foreign particle contamination in the fuel.

Tantalum said:
Illuminati

I interpreted his remark that he knew the Coast guard would be there practicing that day. Not that the Coast guard would be in on it

personally, I think it was just very unlucky that he lost his engine over the water and very lucky that they were rescued so quick

you can see in the photo how tiny the people in the water look, you can imagine if the plane had sunk and they would have drifted for a few hours before rescue came looking for them this would have been hopeless

honestly, a personal locator beacon, a little inflatable life jacket, and a set of flares are fairly inexpensive and could very likely be the difference in life or death
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Yeah, I think he just made a foolish decision given the state of the aircraft. He should have had a raft, PLB and jackets, given that he wouldn't have had a bunch of weight on board.

Tantalum said:
How is it possible that there is that much sediment in a tank that you have to sump it four or five times?!
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Ever sump a plane that was based in AZ? They get lots of grit.

denverpilot said:
Something noted elsewhere... photo mission with no photographer aboard the photo ship?

Someone else posted a massive list of questions like this elsewhere.

He says he didn’t sink it on purpose but ... definitely something not right or not bright about this thing.

Also wonder why Guthmiller is anywhere near this dude or posting videos of him on his channel. He seems too straight laced to taint himself with this doofus.

You know how hard and how long you’d have to chase a moose before the CO Div of Wildlife would even notice? LOL. What a loon.

Got a $220K mistake that you can’t get the sediment out of the fuel tanks... much as he says he wouldn’t do that. A check is coming his way to replace it with something that’s not a lemon.

Who knows. I wouldn’t be putting anything he did on any YT channel with my name or brand on it.
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1) Guthmiller is a staunch right winger who stamps "Bonanza Bro" on t-shirts that he sells. He's been nice to me in our conversations, but "straight-laced" is a bit of a stretch. He seems like a decent guy, but I've also seen him do some questionable stuff and sometimes exhibit a certain attitude that makes me think twice. Maybe it is just cause he's young.

2) I'm pretty sure the guy in the Cessna had cameras. They even showed film from it. This wasn't some professional photo thing either.

Geosync said:
Now it looks like he got his pilot license last year. I wonder how much Bo time and time in general he has. Insurance companies don't like low timers flying Bos. Another wrinkle is the fuel source. He said he got bad fuel from one the local airports, so the NTSB will be sweeping through there to verify. If I were the FBO, and I did not have bad fuel, you better believe I'm calling my attack lawyers to go after this guy for slander. If it is worth it to those lawyers, that is, if they think there is a good chance of proving 100% that the fuel wasn't contaminated, and thus get a 7 figure case brought against Lesh, they may offer to pitch in some money to help retrieve the airplane. But that's quite a long shot.
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1) He's not necessarily saying he had bad fuel, but instead particulate in his tanks. Most ramps have cameras, so it would be fairly easy to see if he was sumping a lot.

2) Contamination will be something the NTSB can check for.

3) The date of his certificate would correspond to the last rating he got. He has PPL/ASEL/IR/ASES. He may well have taken a seaplane checkride last year and that reset his date.

Palmpilot said:
To me, the flight doesn't fit the profile I would expect for insurance fraud. For example, if it was intentional:

1. Why ditch beyond swimming distance from land?

2. Why no life jackets?

3. Why no PLB?

4. Why bring along witnesses, endangering a passenger in the process?

5. Why travel so far to do it? Am I remembering rightly that he started the trip from another state? Aren't there suitable bodies of water closer to where he started out?

6. Why put $50,000 worth of upgrades in it in the past few months if he was just going to to destroy it?

7. I am aware of some wild stuff he is said to have done, but has anyone found a past record of insurance fraud on his part, and evidence that the plane was over-insured? Absent those, extrapolating from his past activities to intentional destruction of the aircraft for insurance purposes is more of a leap than I'm willing to make.
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Well, other than the suitable bodies of water around Denver, the driest place in the world, I think you hit the nail on the head. What if she died? That would have been murder. He didn't do this on purpose.

Tantalum said:
I think he was just dumb, reckless, but got lucky
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Yup.

flyingcheesehead said:
The break-in instructions I've seen and used for several engines now state you need to operate at 75% power. You can make 75% power at 7,000 feet. 5,000 is a fine place to be with a new engine.
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Yeah, 5000' is almost ideal for break in.

Heftiger said:
According to Matt’s video, the swimmer assessed their conditions and chose to hoist him first. Was he supposed to insist she be hoisted first, even though she’s saying she’s fine and the trained swimmer wants to hoist him first? That’s just stupid machismo.
Click to expand...

Tantalum said:
The optics of it certainly don't look good for his cause.. and whatever happened to chivalry and women and children first. I know it's 2019, but come on
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If I'm in the water like that, I'm probably going to be the last one out? Why? Because I'm a former competitive swimmer, with lots of ocean swimming experience, who handles cold temperatures well. We don't know if she was the better swimmer or what - I don't think his being hoisted up first was an issue.
 
N1120A said:
Well, other than the suitable bodies of water around Denver, the driest place in the world, I think you hit the nail on the head.
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A moment of lucidity on my part, I guess! ;)

By the way, Salt Lake is a lot closer to Denver than the Pacific Ocean is!
If I'm in the water like that, I'm probably going to be the last one out? Why? Because I'm a former competitive swimmer, with lots of ocean swimming experience, who handles cold temperatures well. We don't know if she was the better swimmer or what - I don't think his being hoisted up first was an issue.
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I believe it was mentioned that she is a lifeguard.
 
Here’s one someone can go check.

Does the guy have other flying videos? Are there $1000 worth of GoPros on mounts all over the cockpit on all the others, but magically only a selfie stick on board for this flight?

Have fun. I’m not going to check.

“It was just a quick photo flight, I didn’t have time to set them all up...” lol.
 
Palmpilot said:
I believe it was mentioned that she is a lifeguard.
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Which would make total sense. He's a skier, not a swimmer.

denverpilot said:
Here’s one someone can go check.

Does the guy have other flying videos? Are there $1000 worth of GoPros on mounts all over the cockpit on all the others, but magically only a selfie stick on board for this flight?

Have fun. I’m not going to check.

“It was just a quick photo flight, I didn’t have time to set them all up...” lol.
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Did he even have a selfie stick, or was he holding his phone with his arm?
 
denverpilot said:
Here’s one someone can go check.

Does the guy have other flying videos? Are there $1000 worth of GoPros on mounts all over the cockpit on all the others, but magically only a selfie stick on board for this flight?

Have fun. I’m not going to check.

“It was just a quick photo flight, I didn’t have time to set them all up...” lol.
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I was under the impression that the photography was mainly going to be done from the other airplane.
 
Palmpilot said:
I was under the impression that the photography was mainly going to be done from the other airplane.
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Exactly, and that is what they were saying. I mean, who brings along witnesses for an insurance fraud job, as you said? And not just the woman who could have been killed, but guys in another plane too.
 
denverpilot said:
Here’s one someone can go check.

Does the guy have other flying videos? Are there $1000 worth of GoPros on mounts all over the cockpit on all the others, but magically only a selfie stick on board for this flight?

Have fun. I’m not going to check.

“It was just a quick photo flight, I didn’t have time to set them all up...” lol.
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So you're in a plane and you've got two or more gopros rigged up and running. And then the plane goes in the water either for unintentional reasons or otherwise. You're telling me that in the one to two minutes you've got to get yourself out and grab whatever you can cobble together for survival gear, you would also think to pull your gopros out of their mounts and figure out a place to stow them on your person while you're going to be floating in the water for an unknown amount of time? You're a better pilot than me if that's the case.

In fact I would argue that if he did have gopros going AND he pulled them and brought them with him, it would probably make more suspicious that the ditching was premeditated, not less.

No one here has any knowledge of why the engine stopped making power. Speculation is fun, but its just speculation. That being said, I see no reason to suspect the ditching was intentional.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
You're telling me that in the one to two minutes you've got to get yourself out and grab whatever you can cobble together for survival gear, you would also think to pull your gopros out of their mounts...
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I'm pretty sure he's saying he may have left the usual expensive hardware at home if he knew he was going swimming (or pontooning sans pontoons, since he had a seaplane rating).
 
dtuuri said:
I'm pretty sure he's saying he may have left the usual expensive hardware at home if he knew he was going swimming (or pontooning sans pontoons, since he had a seaplane rating).
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Ah that makes sense. I heard of a guy locally that was upside down on his house and struggling to make ends meet. One day the house caught fire and burned to the ground. Don't remember what started the fire but it wasn't suspicious and wasn't ruled arson by the authorities.

Then the insurance adjuster came out and did his thing. While he was there, he walked by the pole barn and noticed that lots of things from the house like big screen TVs and computers and trophy deer heads had been removed from the house and put in the barn before the fire broke out. Claim was denied.
 
Still waiting to hear whether the plane was over-insured, and whether the guy has any previous history of insurance fraud. Everything else is just plausibility arguments mixed with confirmation bias, IMO.
 
Palmpilot said:
Everything else is just plausibility arguments mixed with confirmation bias, IMO.
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As for me, I just like to consider all the possibilities before I have an opinion. If someone were to stage a skip on the water for Y/T purposes, a lot of reported facts here are accounted for. On the other hand, on-board life preservers would have been a good backup plan for a "calculating" stunter, I would think. Then again, it may be even more calculating to not have them, IDK.
 
Palmpilot said:
Still waiting to hear whether the plane was over-insured, and whether the guy has any previous history of insurance fraud. Everything else is just plausibility arguments mixed with confirmation bias, IMO.
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According to him it's underinsured. He didnt mention a number but it looks like he spent 40k on upgrades. Probably didn't increase coverage to account for the imcreased replacement cost.
 
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