Dan Gets It Right - Graphic Crash

Nasty crash of an experimental aircraft. This is hard to see but there are huge lessons to be learned. Sadly we have a person at our airport that could be following the same path ... his head is very hard and his ears ain't working. What would you do to prevent this?

 

Man that guy is hard to listen to. Also, how hard is it to get the type of aircraft right? It’s a Monnett Moni, the Mini Max is a completely different design made of wood, not composites, and it’s an ASEL, not a motorglider like the Moni. He even showed the FAA database up where it clearly lists this as a Moni.

His statement about the pilot not having a medical is also irrelevant as it’s a glider which doesn’t require a medical. Not to mention that even if it were registered as an ASEL it could be flown by a sport pilot or pilot flying under basic med.

 

No thank you.

 

I wrote this last night before anyone had replied, but I deleted it because I thought maybe I was missing something:

That guy is rather hard to watch. Is he famous? If so, how and why? I think videos of my dogs wrestling in our back yard would be more useful to pilots than that video.

Glad I’m not the only one.

 

Dan did get some stuff wrong but the point I was driving at is the arrogance that appears to be displayed by a guy that buys a plane, doesn't register it, has no license, no training, and is reportedly warned by a few folks that see him doing taxi test up and down the runway that what he is about to do will get him killed ... and it did.

Many of us have dealt with or known people like this. I have such a person I'm presently dealing with that does some amazingly stupid things and, because he has gotten away with it, continues to do so. I watched him make a skidding turn to final one day that literally took my breath because I was sure it was gonna tuck a wing and put him in eternity. He got away with it and trying to explain to him what his instructor failed to get across to him only gets a reply that maybe he's a superior pilot and knows what he's doing.

How in the world do we get across to these people? The guy in question has already received a warning letter from the FAA for being reported to be flying without a certificate. He has (or had) an instructor that did sign him off for solo but that, IIRC, was over a year ago. I don't want to be the one to ruin his dream of flying but I also don't want to stand by and see him get killed.

Ideas?

 

That’s what I got from it. It wasn’t that he wasn’t sprinkled with FAA holy water, it’s that he didn’t have training, or even education from the sound of it (didn’t understand what a CG is), and worse, ignored multiple warnings from others that he was about to do something potentially fatal, and did it anyway. I don’t know if there is anything you can do about people like that, except hope they haven’t reproduced.

 

I am not my brother’s keeper. You will drive yourself crazy trying to get a horse to drink water.

 

You need to do what you can do, but you can only do what you can do.

How’s that for a non-answer? Not intended to be disrespectful.

 

Dan has a sorted reputation that I will not delve into, but I must comment on one glaring thing from the posted video. To show the pilot’s blood on the wreckage and then emphasize its presence by pointing it out is totally atrocious and devoid of any compassion for the victim’s family, regardless of whether common sense and proper paperwork and training were employed.

 

I think I finally figured it out.

Dan’s doing with the media does - he’s driving controversy because whether or not you agree with him or like him you ARE discussing him and his videos… and driving his visibility up.

‘Nuff said.

 

"Dan Gets it Right"

I assume that's #fakenews

 

This is purely an individual thing...

To NOT say anything is the same as not chasing down cars you see speeding. I really don’t believe there’s a moral obligation to do that.

So, the question still remains, how DO you get the attention of someone like this?

Sad to say, some you simply cannot. Short of violating their rights, all you can do is nag them senseless... Unless you possess some sort of authority to actually detain them, the best you can probably do is warn the people they endanger.

Like most of life, the truth is somewhere in the middle, which probably best means doing the difficult and giving them the come to Jesus lecture, and hoping it works.

 

Once you have gotten your thoughts across to people, you have done your job. The rest is up to the person.

Might try something like ''Just trying to save your family the pain of an early funeral''...

 

I don't understand the purpose of this video. Pilots with such disregard to safety and regulations don't spend any time watching accident analysis videos on youtube. Also Dan's comment "these little airplanes are barely able to kill you" is very ametuerish coming from a pilot. This is the kind of comment the general public says about all "Cezznas".

 

Fame, "authority", views, maybe a little cash, and a bully pulpit?

 

I will have to say that the airframe held up better than I would have thought it would considering the type of impact.

 

I agree ... that was a poor choice of words.

 

You don’t. Try for sure but it won’t work. Been there and have the tshirt.

 

Yep, I would not have noticed the blood except when he pointed it out.

 

I would agree with you if these folks were flying single-seat aircraft only over their own property. But these folks have a nasty habit of crashing into houses, roadways, etc., often taking unsuspecting passengers with them along the way.

I think we have an obligation to report such behavior if one on one communication doesn’t work. Not just for the preservation of an activity that we all enjoy, but for the lives of others who aren’t in the position to effectively protect themselves from unsafe pilots (or non-pilots).

I had a situation a couple years ago when I was working the booth at Oshkosh. A low-time private pilot comes up to me and asks me about a situation that happened to him on the way to the airshow. Apparently he caught a ride with another pilot in the other pilot’s war bird. He describes the flight, which I will only summarize with, wow, I can’t believe he survived the trip (VFR->IFR, got lost, busted altitudes, airspace, etc.) It sounded like the pilot in question suffered from cognitive decline, in addition to a penchant for ignoring most of Title 14. He was concerned and wanted to know what he should do about this pilot.

I encouraged him to report his observations and let the FAA follow up. I followed up with the FSDO manager later on in the show to see if he’d followed up. He hadn’t. I shared the information I received from the conversation, but as third hand information there was much for them to go on.

About four months later the warbird crashed, killing a passenger. I checked my notes…same tail number, same pilot.

 

Dan Gryder talking about hazardous attitudes is the most ironic thing I’ve heard today.

 

I have actually made the call on a very mentally disturbed part 121 pilot. No action.

I know someone who has on a part 121 pilot who expressed suicidal ideation. No action.

Both of these cases had documentation and corroboration.

I’m not sure what it takes for THAT method to actually make the world safer...

Both of these pilots work for the same airline from whence came the director of the FAA. Does that matter, I have no idea... Good for you for trying, but I’m not sure it was the third hand info that was the limiting factor.

I believe for “the call” method to actually work, you need to be a AME, DPE, something. Perhaps the answer is to convince one of those folks...

Notice I did mention the notion of notifying those whom they endanger... again, really helping? I dunno...

This is NOT an easy situation.

 

If notifying the FAA is an anonymous process that opens it up to abuse, people using it for revenge by falsely reporting others. Maybe that’s why the FAA has a high bar to act on such reports?

 

These reports were not anonymous.

 

Clicks, likes, subscriptions ---> beer money

Other YouTubers mention him. So he must be famous.

 

Neither were the reports that pilots were flying too low to houses at 5C1 8 years ago. Thankfully I had NFlightcam proof that the lady was lying and the FAA thanked me for cooperating and giving the geotagged footage. People that hate aviation regularly lie and complain about pilots and aircraft and we need a balance. I’d rather err on the side of innocent until proven guilty.

 

He doesn't monetize his channel. Maybe he does it for notoriety.. He does push the GA AQP pretty hard.

 

Someone is. I have to click through ads to see his drivel.

 

It's youtube... Google.. Greedy big tech. Once you go above five million minutes watched in a 28 day cycle, YT starts injecting ADs and keeps the cash.

 

@Daleandee first, thanks for including a description with the video. Appreciate the non-drive-by posting. If it was anyone else except this blowhard, unqualified, amateur-crash-investigator... I may have watched.

Serious question - what gives this guy the credentials to make conclusions on aircraft accidents? (I think I know the answer, but maybe he has some kind of background I don't know about).

I have seen a couple of his videos and they are... not good. I won't give him any more clicks/views.

 

I mean... he’s not my favorite YouTuber... but what’s up with all the hate?

 

I gave up on him after watching the video in which he makes up a new definition for “maneuvering speed” and berates basically all private pilots for thinking it means what every curriculum says it means.

Later, I learned about his experience with the law. I ask myself what he’d done to distinguish himself as someone who should be listened to.

 

The funny thing is that "maneuver speed" video is the only one he did that I thought had any merit. He's right, as an big airplane guy, the first thing I'll think of when you ask me about "maneuver speed" is "minimum maneuvering speed," i.e. the slowest speed I can go and still "maneuver" without stalling. It's constantly displayed on my PFD and is more important to me than maximum maneuvering speed.

Now, I'd have to watch the video again, but if he's berating PPs for not knowing it, that's wrong. They weren't taught that. But maybe they should be.

 

Same here. The maneuvering speed video was the first one I saw, and at first I thought it was good, not because of him but because the main participant was the flight chops guy. I even gave it a good review. After thinking about it some more, I started to realize his fallacy. During an engine failure, he is teaching pilots to agressive push down on the yoke until you feel negative g's.

 

I fly an RJ, still never heard of maneuvering speed in that sense. We use it the same way it's used for small airplanes. Here is an excerpt from our aircraft operating manual:

 

I’ve always known maneuvering speed as Va. A maximum speed above which you may bend the plane with an abrupt maneuver. The minimum speed you talk of I’ve known as Minimum Controllable Airspeed. I don’t think it’s an official V speed though, like Vmc. I think it best not to use the same word, ‘maneuvering’, to describe two very different things.

 

That's odd. I would have thought you had a PFD that showed MMS. On ours it's depicted by the amber "foot." We also get MMS for each flap setting if they're extended.

 

Minimum Maneuver Speed and Minimum Controllable Airspeed aren't the same concept though. Your Vmc is one where "any increase in load factor or AoA or reduction in power will cause a stall" (I'm paraphrasing). That's not what we consider MMS. Our MMS will be the slowest speed that we have 1.3 G stall protection (i.e. can maneuver and still fly without stalling).

 

I would agree with that. So who out there practices slow flight other than on a FR?