Daniel Bernath again

3393RP

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3393RP
Peter Garrison discusses Bernath and his death in the September issue of Flying's Aftermath column.

I don't have access to the online version.
 
Peter Garrison discusses Bernath and his death in the September issue of Flying's Aftermath column.

I don't have access to the online version.
Let the dead rest. There’s little to be learned from his story that hasn’t been drummed into the head of every pilot since his or her first day of training. If they don’t get it yet, they never will.
 
Let the dead rest. There’s little to be learned from his story that hasn’t been drummed into the head of every pilot since his or her first day of training.

I disagree. Most of the dangers of the Five Hazardous Attitudes remain theoretical. It takes incidents such as this to cement the fact that the dangers are very real - and predictable.
 
In an effort to make this thread better related to his last flight and not rehash things, this is the ATC transcript and Garrison's comments about what the NTSB said.


Departure controller: “Two-six-two Whiskey Sierra, Fort Meyers, are you up?”

Pilot of 262WS: “Two-six-two Whiskey Sierra.”

Departure: “Two-six-two Whiskey Sierra, radar contact, turn right heading one-seven-zero vector, climb, maintain VFR 2,500.”

Pilot: “Continue my climb to—say again?”

Departure: “Two-six-two Whiskey Sierra, maintain VFR at 2,500.”

Pilot: “Maintain 2,500. Course is now what?

Departure: “Two-six-two Whiskey Sierra, turn right heading one-seven-zero, maintain VFR at 2,500, vector to get you south of RSW.”

Pilot: “Course one-two-zero, stay at 2,500.”

Departure: “November two-six-two Whiskey Sierra, I don’t have time to talk to you four times per control instruction ’cause there’s a lot going on. Please listen up. Fly heading one-seven-zero, maintain VFR 2,500, over.

Pilot: “All right, one-seven—ah, stay at 2,500.”

Departure: “I need a call sign with a control instruction please, two Whiskey Sierra. Verify one-seven-zero heading, 2,500.

Pilot: “Two-six-two Whiskey Sierra, two-five-zero-zero at one-seven.”

Departure: “Two Whiskey Sierra, sixth time now, heading one-seven-zero.”

Pilot: “Heading is one-seven-zero, Whiskey Sierra, two-six-two Whiskey Sierra.”

Departure: “November two-six-two Whiskey Sierra, your altitude indicates two thousand niner hundred, and you’re restricted to 2,500.”

Pilot: “I’ll [sic] pulling back the power and going down to 2,500.”

Departure: “November two Whiskey Sierra, please use your call sign when you give me the altitude read-back.” Twenty seconds pass. “November two Whiskey Sierra, I need your call sign when you read back the altitude. Verify maintain 2,500.”

Pilot: “I’m at 2,500, two-six-two Whiskey Sierra, one-seven-zero.”

Departure: “Thank you.”

This distracted, fumbling exchange might have passed for an episode of stage fright between a novice pilot and a testy, by-the-book controller. The pilot was not a novice, however. He had been flying for years and had reported 530 hours on his most recent insurance application.

The pilot checked in with approach control. After a few minutes, the controller issued a warning for opposite-direction traffic at 6 miles, and the pilot acknowledged. Six seconds later, he transmitted: “Mayday, mayday!”

The RV went down in a densely wooded area. The wreckage path, through tall trees, was 700 feet long and 100 feet wide, oriented about 60 degrees to the right of course. The first items in the debris field were the left wing and fragments of the cockpit canopy; the wing had folded upward from overstress and shattered the canopy. The rest of the wreckage was fragmented from plowing through numerous trees. The pilot was wearing a five-point safety harness, which separated from the airframe.

A Dynon EFIS recorded several parameters of flight data. It told a strange tale.

For several minutes, the pilot had been gradually descending. When the traffic warning came, he was at 1,700 feet. He acknowledged. There was a slight pitch up, followed by a negative 3-G push over to a 45-degree dive. Manifold pressure dropped toward idle at the moment the pilot called mayday, then returned to full throttle. The airplane rolled inverted, its descent rate approaching 10,000 fpm. The left wing failed two seconds before the end of the recording.

“His unreported psychiatric disease,” the Board wrote, “if not well-controlled, could have led to intentionally unsafe maneuvering.” Exactly what sort of “intention” the Board meant, it did not say.

Intentionally Unsafe... An airplane accident is occasionally the final event of an unraveling life. Pilots have flown out to sea, never to return—flown into cliffs, lakes, buildings, even a grain silo. Their motives have been varied: legal trouble, disease, divorce, exposure of past misdeeds, business failure, rage—the whole gamut of troubles that may seem to drain promise from the future. In a number of instances, the fatal crash has followed a sudden maneuver, as if the pilot, like a person plunging into icy water, feared that he would balk if he acted slowly. One pilot looped a 172 before allowing it to plunge into the ocean; another did a series of touch-and-goes, as if reliving the early days of flight training, before suddenly pulling straight up, stalling, and crashing on the runway. Another, flying over a runway, pushed over into a vertical dive. Most likely, that is what “intentionally unsafe maneuvering” means.



 
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