Florida plane crash into Gulf PA-28

Ed Haywood said:
Increased difficulty seeing and avoiding clouds. Hence the Canadian requirement for additional instrument training.
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I wonder if it’s the clouds or because much of Canada is sparsely populated to the point that you may as well be over the open ocean at night.
 
Heard a piece on a local radio station this morning, apparently the plane dropped from radar at 130' or so AGL immediately after takeoff.
Both runway 23 and 31 end at 1/4 and 1/2 mile from the beach respectively. They interviewed some pilot that said he'd flown out of there at night once before, and "he was lucky he survived". I get the spatial disorientation, but both the hyperbolic pilot interviewed- as well as the poor soul that was piloting the mishap plane- knew what they were going to be encountering literally seconds after takeoff. So why not eyes on instruments, when you know in advance that there's nothing to reference outside? Seems it would be simple enough to tell the individual in the other seat to keep eyes outside for any traffic.

I don't know about the conditions that evening, but this time of year winds are usually calm after sunset- so I'm also wondering why the pilot would've made the choice to immediately fly out over water instead of utilizing the opposite runway. Was that the first mistake? Since he would've needed to turn north, perhaps he was looking for a non-existent horizon for bank angle and pitch references, and over-banked and/or exceeded AOA and just rolled over with no time to recover?

Utilizing runway 05 would've put him right over I-75 to follow north for the short trip back to St. Pete- wouldn't that have been the preferred route?
 
I wonder if avionics with syn vis (like the G3000) have fewer occurrences of this incidents like this?

Then again, it may be somewhat self selecting, because pilots of aircraft like that likely have more experience and more training too.
 
tobnpr said:
Heard a piece on a local radio station this morning, apparently the plane dropped from radar at 130' or so AGL immediately after takeoff.
Both runway 23 and 31 end at 1/4 and 1/2 mile from the beach respectively. They interviewed some pilot that said he'd flown out of there at night once before, and "he was lucky he survived". I get the spatial disorientation, but both the hyperbolic pilot interviewed- as well as the poor soul that was piloting the mishap plane- knew what they were going to be encountering literally seconds after takeoff. So why not eyes on instruments, when you know in advance that there's nothing to reference outside? Seems it would be simple enough to tell the individual in the other seat to keep eyes outside for any traffic.

I don't know about the conditions that evening, but this time of year winds are usually calm after sunset- so I'm also wondering why the pilot would've made the choice to immediately fly out over water instead of utilizing the opposite runway. Was that the first mistake? Since he would've needed to turn north, perhaps he was looking for a non-existent horizon for bank angle and pitch references, and over-banked and/or exceeded AOA and just rolled over with no time to recover?

Utilizing runway 05 would've put him right over I-75 to follow north for the short trip back to St. Pete- wouldn't that have been the preferred route?
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Over confidence in ability or under estimating the impact of the black hole and spatial disorientation. Or perhaps there was an aircraft problem.
 
Tom Wells said:
Night flying... Peaceful, less traffic, smoother air. What's not to like? Add in city skyline flights with scenic city lights and it makes for pretty memorable experiences.
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...except the pilot in this accident didn't have the benefit of "skyline flights with scenic city lights."

If you're on a RWY 23 departure at VNC, once you leave the runway you're in pure darkness. No reference for a horizon. There's a golf course immediately SW of the airfield, nature parks surrounding that, and the Gulf of Mexico all around you. None of that is lit at night. If you're not prepared/trained for it, spatial disorientation is practically guaranteed.

Also, since Hurricane Ian, much (most?) of the outdoor lighting in these parts of Florida isn't functional, so it's even darker out there than usual. Many of the usual landmarks I used to use aren't there/or aren't lit at night. Many navaids are also out of service.
 
dans2992 said:
I wonder if avionics with syn vis (like the G3000) have fewer occurrences of this incidents like this?
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I doubt it. For the purposes of this crash, a steam-gauge attitude indicator would give you the exact same information. You're taking off directly over the Gulf of Mexico. There's no terrain nor obstacles to clear. If anything, putting something like a G3000 in the hands of a low-time private pilot might be more of a distraction. Remember, Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. Take-off isn't a time to be pushing buttons, especially for a beginner.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Over confidence in ability or under estimating the impact of the black hole and spatial disorientation. Or perhaps there was an aircraft problem.
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I'm instrument rated and I got startled when I first encountered a black hole situation.
 
I saw on a Facebook post that he very recently got his Private. Condolences to their family and friends.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Probably did not have the slightest idea what the black hole was.
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I’m pretty amazed his instructor didn’t cover this/warn him about the black hole effect. It’s important. Especially when you fly near bodies of water.
 
Not sure about his instruction, but black holes and spatial disorientation with night flying is covered and emphasized in the ppl syllabus,, at least it was when I trained. I trained in the local area and flew to Venice a few times during my training. It is a deceiving simple appearing airport but given its location on the island and it being on the gulf on one side and the intercostals on the otherside it can become challenging quite quickly. Not sure of his familiarity with the airport, but given his low time my guess it was not a lot. We all make mistakes, everyday, and mistakes in flying a plane occur all the time. I have about 1000 hrs under my belt, and the next perfect flight I have will be my first perfect flight. Fortunately, nearly all of our flying mistakes do not end up with a bad outcome, unfortunately they occasionally do. Likely, this was a black hole event, sadly it cost him and his family dearly. All we can hope is we can learn from his mistake and not find ourselves in the same predicament. Many a times I have heard no one takes off in a plane with the plan of crashing. Except for a small number of you tube characters I would suspect that is mostly true. I am sure this was not in his plans.
 
Do we have any radar or adsb tracking that would support spatial disorienting, such as the typical spiral dive?

Or are we wildly speculating at this point? He just as well could have had an engine failure and was focusing on ditching the plane safely and not worrying about radios, especially at night over water maybe just intent on keeping it straight and level. It sounds like at least one of the passengers *maybe* survive the initial ditching?
 
douglas393 said:
Not sure about his instruction, but black holes and spatial disorientation with night flying is covered and emphasized in the ppl syllabus
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There's a huge difference between discussing something in training vs. experiencing the real thing.

Case in point: stall-spins. The gentle, docile training stalls most students are exposed to are nothing like the real thing. One of my CFIs did me a huge favor early in my training. We went up in a Citabria for a change instead of the C172 and DA40 I've been training in. We did some basics, then slowed up the plane. Unannounced, he pulls back the stick into a power-off stall, then kicks it into a full nose-dive spin and yells "YOUR AIRCRAFT!" Absolutely terrifying. I recovered that then we repeated the process multiple times until it became just another maneuver. I've had other CFIs say this was absolutely cruel and they'd never do that...but I disagree. I'd never want to experience that without a CFI first.
 
AirHare said:
There's a huge difference between discussing something in training vs. experiencing the real thing.

Case in point: stall-spins. The gentle, docile training stalls most students are exposed to are nothing like the real thing. One of my CFIs did me a huge favor early in my training. We went up in a Citabria for a change instead of the C172 and DA40 I've been training in. We did some basics, then slowed up the plane. Unannounced, he pulls back the stick into a power-off stall, then kicks it into a full nose-dive spin and yells "YOUR AIRCRAFT!" Absolutely terrifying. I recovered that then we repeated the process multiple times until it became just another maneuver. I've had other CFIs say this was absolutely cruel and they'd never do that...but I disagree. I'd never want to experience that without a CFI first.
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Do not disagree that experiencing something and discussing it are completely different entities I was commenting on the suggestion that the pilot was not exposed to the concept. I think it is unlikely he was not taught about black holes. As for your case in point, I do agree like I said before, however it is not feasible nor likely that you will be able to experience every possible adverse event that could occur during a flight, and even if you could the adverse event happening in real life and unexpected is often very different from experiencing in training. Case in point, last weekend my right main tire blew just after I landed. Never experienced this before, but it was a nonevent as i was trained in such a way I was able to maintain directional control.
 
Tantalum said:
Do we have any radar or adsb tracking that would support spatial disorienting, such as the typical spiral dive?

Or are we wildly speculating at this point? He just as well could have had an engine failure and was focusing on ditching the plane safely and not worrying about radios, especially at night over water maybe just intent on keeping it straight and level. It sounds like at least one of the passengers *maybe* survive the initial ditching?
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I think the fact that he was a new pilot and this airport is such a good example of the effect that instructors bring students from hundreds of miles away to experience it there makes it a good bet. The fact that there was a pretty bright moon and it wasn’t very late yet does give me some doubt however.
 
tobnpr said:
Both runway 23 and 31 end at 1/4 and 1/2 mile from the beach respectively. They interviewed some pilot that said he'd flown out of there at night once before, and "he was lucky he survived". I get the spatial disorientation, but both the hyperbolic pilot interviewed- as well as the poor soul that was piloting the mishap plane- knew what they were going to be encountering literally seconds after takeoff. So why not eyes on instruments, when you know in advance that there's nothing to reference outside? Seems it would be simple enough to tell the individual in the other seat to keep eyes outside for any traffic.

I don't know about the conditions that evening, but this time of year winds are usually calm after sunset- so I'm also wondering why the pilot would've made the choice to immediately fly out over water instead of utilizing the opposite runway. Was that the first mistake? Since he would've needed to turn north, perhaps he was looking for a non-existent horizon for bank angle and pitch references, and over-banked and/or exceeded AOA and just rolled over with no time to recover?

Utilizing runway 05 would've put him right over I-75 to follow north for the short trip back to St. Pete- wouldn't that have been the preferred route?
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Well, it’s easy to say ‘eyes on the instruments’ it’s another thing to do it & believe in them as required for safe flight.

Taking off over land with calm winds would of been a better option. Better yet, keep this flight day, VMC, new pilot & all.
 
sourdough44 said:
Well, it’s easy to say ‘eyes on the instruments’ it’s another thing to do it & believe in them as required for safe flight.

Taking off over land with calm winds would of been a better option. Better yet, keep this flight day, VMC, new pilot & all.
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The hard part is recognizing you have lost visual reference and spatial awareness. If you fly into clouds during the day, it is really obvious, and the decision to switch to instruments takes half a second tops. BTDT. Night brings all kinds of illusions, and you may think you still have spatial awareness when you have in fact lost it.

Ambient lighting is a tricky part of this case. The air in this area is usually extremely clear this time of year, low humidity and no haze, typically CAVU. With a full moon the surface of the Gulf is lit up very nicely. BUT ... the position of the moon affects that. Could be that when the moon is shining from the east, the area to the west of the viewer is less illuminated. Dunno, I have not specifically looked at that.
 
Putting faces to this accident: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...over-when-family-died-in-us-light-plane-crash

As a CFI (I'm not), how do you balance fear with confidence in such a manner that your student and soon to be licensed pilot doesn't overfly his or her abilities? You can talk all you want about cruel CFIs, but needless death of a beautiful family is far more cruel. Is there a better way to keep pilots from flying into water, terrain, and powerlines? Rhetorical question.
 
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Piperonca said:
Putting faces to this accident: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...over-when-family-died-in-us-light-plane-crash
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That's awful.

I served 20 in the military, half during wartime, so death doesn't phase me much. Have also lost several pilot friends, mostly to aerobatics, so got used to shrugging that off. But it always hits me hard to see a pilot kill his family. That wife and daughter completely trusted their father with their lives, and he let them down. Dammit.
 
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Thought I had some in-flight pictures of the moon over the Gulf. But best I can do is this shot of the lake in our neighborhood. But it does illustrate the principle.

PXL_20220516_004827047.jpg
 
Ed Haywood said:
That's awful.

I served 20 in the military, half during wartime, so death doesn't phase me much. Have also lost several pilot friends, mostly to aerobatics, so got used to shrugging that off. But it always hits me hard to see a pilot kill his family. That wife and daughter completely trusted their father with their lives, and he let them down. Dammit.
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Woah. That’s a bit harsh imo. We do not know if the accident was preventable by the pilot.
 
Salty said:
Woah. That’s a bit harsh imo. We do not know if the accident was preventable by the pilot.
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There is always the possibility of mechanical failure. To me, though, it's a question of risk. And how to assume risk commensurate with one's abilities. In my personal view, this pilot had no business departing single piston rental at night over water with his family. Others may think differently.
 
So we all know a Warrior is pretty docile but when you get disoriented you can get things screwed up pretty fast. I've never owned and flow anything other than a Warrior - same one for over 2000 hours. I know 2000 hours in a Warrior......

Anyhow, back before my IR when I had no sense and like 100 hours I thought I would fly it for dinner to the airport restaurant in Charleston Illinois one winter evening - used to be great place to get steaks. I remember diligently checking the weather and thinking 6000 overcast no big deal. Middle of February and when I left at 7pm to head home it was darker than dark - overcast, no moon, - I'm starting to learn things here. So I go roaring down the runway and pull back on the yoke and have this sensation like I'm falling over backwards in the pilot seat even though its very much attached to the floor of the plane.

I know I pushed forward on the yoke quite aggressively - however, fortunately - not to much as I am still here many years and hours later. Still remember that feeling of tumbling backwards. Like Richard Collins described, my plane talks to me and occasionally it will ask -why'd you ever to kill us that night?

There for the grace of God go I - RIP
 
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MPB said:
So we all know a Warrior is pretty docile but when you get disoriented you can get things screwed up pretty fast. I've never owned and flow anything other than a Warrior - same one for over 2000 hours. I know 2000 hours in a Warrior......

Anyhow, back before my IR when I had no sense and like 100 hours I thought I would fly it for dinner to the airport restaurant in Charleston Illinois one winter evening - used to be great place to get steaks. I remember diligently checking the weather and thinking 6000 overcast no big deal. Middle of February and when I left at 7pm to head home it was darker than dark - overcast, no moon, - I'm starting to learn things here. So I go roaring down the runway and pull back on the yoke and have this sensation like I'm falling over backwards in the pilot seat even though its very much attached to the floor of the plane.

I know I pushed forward on the yoke quite aggressively - however, fortunately - not to much as I am still here many years and hours later. Still remember that feeling of tumbling backwards. Like Richard Collins described, my plane talks to me and occasionally it will ask -why'd you ever to kill us that night?

There for the grace of God go I - RIP
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Vestibular illusion can kill the best of us.
 

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Live about 40 miles south of Venice. It is now 1930 about time he took off. Moon is to the east and would have been behind him. From my vantage point, 3rd story overlooking Charlotte harbor about 5 miles from the inlet to the gulf the gulf is pretty dark, and though you can see the horizon it is indistinct. Black hole seems at least to me the most likely cause.
 
douglas393 said:
Live about 40 miles south of Venice. It is now 1930 about time he took off. Moon is to the east and would have been behind him. From my vantage point, 3rd story overlooking Charlotte harbor about 5 miles from the inlet to the gulf the gulf is pretty dark, and though you can see the horizon it is indistinct. Black hole seems at least to me the most likely cause.
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The moon would have been almost directly overhead last Saturday at 2330z.
 
Flying Keys said:
The moon would have been almost directly overhead last Saturday at 2330z.
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Almost but not quite. Meridian passing (directly overhead) was at 9:13 pm. Accident happened at approx 7:30. I would think there would be plenty of shimmer on the water with that much moon that high though.
 
What are the chances of recovering enough of the aircraft to see if the engine was running?
 
Piperonca said:
What are the chances of recovering enough of the aircraft to see if the engine was running?
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I don't know, but I'd be really interested to know if the engine was running and in operable condition. The likely explanation is disorientation, but since there's no real evidence for that theory or any other theory, I'd love to get some more information about what happened.
 
Piperonca said:
What are the chances of recovering enough of the aircraft to see if the engine was running?
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Very high. They can usually tell from deformation of the prop. That is how it works for a crash on land. I assume water is similar, though perhaps less pronounced.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Very high. They can usually tell from deformation of the prop. That is how it works for a crash on land. I assume water is similar, though perhaps less pronounced.
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I've always heard if you hit water fast enough, it's like hitting concrete.
 
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Ed Haywood said:
Almost but not quite. Meridian passing (directly overhead) was at 9:13 pm. Accident happened at approx 7:30. I would think there would be plenty of shimmer on the water with that much moon that high though.
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You would think, but it is actually pretty dark and the moon doesn't shimmer much if at all. My picture is probably what he saw when he took off, though you can never be sure I guess.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Another one, same location, possibly exact same scenario. Wx was CAVU, full moon to the east.

https://www.fox4now.com/news/local-...fter-a-plane-crashes-near-venice-fishing-pier
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Crap. So sorry to hear this.

And I guess this just a personal pet peeve, but why do all the news sites run photos that have NOTHING to do with the story? Here’s the caption from the photo:

A plane sits on the tarmac behind rain drops on a window at Logan International Airport in Boston, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2014. Rain and snow rolled into the Northeast on Wednesday as millions of Americans made the big Thanksgiving getaway, grounding hundreds of flights and turning highways sloppy along the congested Washington-to-Boston corridor. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)​
 
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