Only a matter of time till its someone you know...another down in Lakeland, FL

Shawn

Shawn

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Shawn
2 Down in Lakeland, FL crash.

http://www.wfla.com/story/27912512/lakeland-firefighters-battling-large-warehouse-fire

It is one thing to hear of another plane going down...it is another when you know someone in that plane.

I trained at Tailwheels and although not my CFI and didn't know him well, knew him from being around the school. He was the CFI of a follow pilot whom I am am still friends with and know it has a hard impact on my CFI who knew him well and all those at the school.

Stay safe up there.
 
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This was all over the local news today. I don't have any information to add to the story, but I think we have some POA folks closer to KLAL than I who might know a bit more.

Condolences to those involved.
 
Such a tragic accident, I'm still coming to terms with the news, I have known Terry Butt the CFI involved for around 4 years. I've flown with him a couple of times, he was a very professional and competent pilot, something must have gone catastrophically wrong inside the plane for Terry not to have regained control and got it back to the ground with a better outcome. Sadly due to the news that the chemicals stored in the warehouse the plane hit caused such an intense fire there are no plane parts or bodies to recover we may never know the full story of what happened.

Sincere condolences to the family and friends of those involved and to all the Tailwheels family.
 
I doubt the NTSB will have much to work with in this one. Old Apache, if you keep them in shape is a pretty hard airframe to break. Stock they are shy on power, but not something that's going to drop you into a building. Somehow I don't think we'll find out much on this one.
 
Not sure about the "only a matter of time" thing.
 
No one personally
 
Everskyward said:
I find that a little amazing since I'm pretty sure you are not a very new pilot.
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I've heard of it happening to people I've seen around the airport, but no one that, say, had my phone number, or I hung out with.
 
James331 said:
No one personally
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Seriously? Wow, everybody I started Ag training with, including the instructor and his son, have all crashed and died, watched one crash in the field next to me. That's a total of 7 right there, 2 CFIs from early on, one in the C-130 that folded the wings on the fire in CA, right seat in the American Eagle Jetstreams crash at RDU. About a half a dozen others as well.
 
Henning said:
Seriously? Wow, everybody I started Ag training with, including the instructor and his son, have all crashed and died, watched one crash in the field next to me. That's a total of 7 right there, 2 CFIs from early on, one in the C-130 that folded the wings on the fire in CA, right seat in the American Eagle Jetstreams crash at RDU. About a half a dozen others as well.
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I never want to get to know you or fly with you sir. I bet you are a great man though.
 
Henning said:
Seriously? Wow, everybody I started Ag training with, including the instructor and his son, have all crashed and died, watched one crash in the field next to me. That's a total of 7 right there, 2 CFIs from early on, one in the C-130 that folded the wings on the fire in CA, right seat in the American Eagle Jetstreams crash at RDU. About a half a dozen others as well.
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2013_dec06_news1.jpg
 
rvpjuv20 said:
I never want to get to know you or fly with you sir.
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About one pilot in every 2,000 has a fatal accident each year. So if you know 500 pilots for 40 years, you'd expect about 10 fatal accidents, assuming the same average risk as for the overall pilot population.
 
Two guys I trained with died one month after graduating from USAF UPT. They rented a small plane and crashed it into a tree buzzing a farmer. This happened back in the early 90's in Oklahoma just outside Vance AFB. Ironically, there are very few trees in that area. :confused:

In regard to this accident, the only real clues may come from the maintenance logs. I'd be interested to see if there was any recent work on the aircraft.

RIP
 
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acrophile said:
About one pilot in every 2,000 has a fatal accident each year. So if you know 500 pilots for 40 years, you'd expect about 10 fatal accidents, assuming the same average risk as for the overall pilot population.
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Is that for GA spam can pilots or the entire population of the FAA airman database? I don't doubt the statistic, just interested.
 
19 years of flying before it happened to someone I knew. Really nice young CFI. He and I finished the ground part of my BFR and decided not to fly that day since he wasn't feeling well.

We rescheduled it a couple of weeks later. He texted me the day before saying that he was flying Commerical down to Florida to ferry a new plane up to Chicago the next day.

He texted me later that night, saying he would be back earlier than he originally thought.

Based on the NTSB timeline that last text would have been sent from the plane some time before he crashed. It hit me pretty hard when I found out.

However if the NTSB's report was correct, he put himself in a bad situation. I still feel terriblefor his family, but it makes me feel better, as I had made a similar but opposite choice years ago.
 
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James331 said:
Not sure about the "only a matter of time" thing.
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I agree. There is something on the order of 650,000 active pilots in the U.S. I personally might know as many as a few hundred. There's no way to say one of them or myself won't auger in tomorrow, but statistically, the math just doesn't support "it's only a matter of time."

My heart goes out to those lost in the accident and their families.
 
A CFI i flew with was killed in a midair at CRQ in 2002. Mooney coming into the pattern hit them. 3 people killed, the CFI and his student in the dutchess, and the pilot of the mooney. This happened just over a year after i got my private, and it hit me really hard. I still get a little choked up thinking about it.. He was one of the good eggs. This accident allowed me to teach my cfii a little something about operating in very busy airspace. The first time we flew into CRQ together, as we were getting vectored for the approach, i turned on every light the airplane had, and upon her questioning why, i relayed the story about this midair, she was unaware, and we added lights- on when coming into any busy airport.

http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/GeneratePDF.aspx?id=LAX02FA288B&rpt=fi
 
I've certainly met a handful of pilots that were later killed in a fatal accident. But I've never been close to someone in a fatal. Certainly nobody that likely had my cell phone number.
 
Know of two pilots who have died in a crash. One was a very close friend,not a pleasant experience. May they rest in peace.
 
During a break in my training a CFI and a CFI student (he was working on his CFI cert) had an oil line fail, followed by the engine and crashed attempting to land on a golf course. The CFI died and the CFI student was badly hurt. What hit close to home was it was and airplane (N9336H) that I had been using for training. The A&P (who was co-owner of the club) had to have another A&P sign off everything for the next couple of years until he got his certificate straightened out again. I Didn't know the CFI but I later met the student who went on to finish his CFI.

Jay's got video of the crash on his aviation video page because there was a news helicopter up when all this started and they videoed the whole thing.

Gave me pause for a while. It was close to me and it was maintenance issue with the club.

John
 
Not any friends but the DPE that gave me my check ride died about 14 or 15 years later in a twin accident flying the plane back from maintenance.

The crazy thing is the cause appeared to be fuel mismanagement. The left wing was destroyed in the post crash fire he apparently ran the outboard tanks (based on fuel selector position) dry the right inboard tank was intact and they drained 40 gals out of it.

2.5 minutes went by between the initial distress call and the crash. I would have thought the fuel selector would have been one of the first things to check but maybe his mind was focused (tunnel vision) on the fact the plane just had the right engine installed.
 
DFH65 said:
Not any friends but the DPE that gave me my check ride died about 14 or 15 years later in a twin accident flying the plane back from maintenance.

The crazy thing is the cause appeared to be fuel mismanagement. The left wing was destroyed in the post crash fire he apparently ran the outboard tanks (based on fuel selector position) dry the right inboard tank was intact and they drained 40 gals out of it.

2.5 minutes went by between the initial distress call and the crash. I would have thought the fuel selector would have been one of the first things to check but maybe his mind was focused (tunnel vision) on the fact the plane just had the right engine installed.
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Or maybe he HAD switched tanks but it didn't help?

I was reading someone's build thread a while back and they talked about a fuel issue they had early in their initial flights. Turns out, they eventually found a small piece of plastic floating in the fuel tank. They figured it would occasionally stick to the fuel port and interrupt fuel flow. Once the fuel flow stopped and suction removed, the plastic would float away and fuel would feed normally again.
 
DFH65 said:
Not any friends but the DPE that gave me my check ride died about 14 or 15 years later in a twin accident flying the plane back from maintenance.

The crazy thing is the cause appeared to be fuel mismanagement. The left wing was destroyed in the post crash fire he apparently ran the outboard tanks (based on fuel selector position) dry the right inboard tank was intact and they drained 40 gals out of it.

2.5 minutes went by between the initial distress call and the crash. I would have thought the fuel selector would have been one of the first things to check but maybe his mind was focused (tunnel vision) on the fact the plane just had the right engine installed.
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Wow that is interesting. Do you have a link to the NTSB report or some details that we could find that report? It just shows you that this can happen to any of us if a DPE can fall victim.
 
The only person I've know who died in a plane crash was someone I knew from long before I got my PPL. His accident happened in Zimbabwe many years ago. I had worked with him while I was a student involved with a WWF project (World Wide Fund for Nature, not the wrestling version...) He was stationed at a research reserve called Sengwe. I'm not sure what its status is today. But anyway in the early 90's it was off limits to tourists. I spent on and off about two years in the area and one of his tasks was to do aerial surveys where he would fly a number of transects while someone counted whatever animals they were counting (elephants, buffalo, whatever). On one of his surveys he clipped a hill and crashed we don't know why this happened but it happened. He survived the crash but was terribly burned. The census counter who was with him survived too with minimal injuries luckily and managed to get back to the camp to get help and they got hold of him and transported him in the back of a pickup all the way to Harare. You need to have been there to understand what an awful trip that must have been over those roads. Once in Harare he got flown down to Johannesburg where they had the facilities to treat his burns. By the time he got to Johannesburg it had been over 24 hours and he didn't make it. It definitely had an effect on me but didn't stop me from getting my PPL almost 20 years later. I often think about Derek and he had a full life and an interesting life and I'm sure if I could ask him now he wouldn't have changed anything.
 
FlyingTiger said:
In regard to this accident, the only real clues may come from the maintenance logs. I'd be interested to see if there was any recent work on the aircraft.
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On the other hand, maybe there was NO recent work on it. It might have been a neglected airplane. Plenty of those around.
 
Dan Thomas said:
On the other hand, maybe there was NO recent work on it. It might have been a neglected airplane. Plenty of those around.
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I've personally rented aircraft from this flight school for the past four years, the one and only issue I've had is a "Mud Dauber" blocked the pitot tube once, no IAS so I aborted take off taxied back to the hanger cleaned it out and off we went...

As far as I have seen all the company aircraft go through their required 50 hour 100 hour and annual inspections as per FAA regs.
 
James331 said:
You stopped counting? :rolleyes2:
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I used to keep count. For you, I scratched my brain for about five minutes and came up with a dozen off the top of my head. I began flying in 1963, so maybe I forgot a couple. :dunno:

EDIT: Most were professional pilots. I didn't count pilots I hadn't met personally. Nor did I count two fatal crashes that occurred shortly before I arrived at the airport--both involved an engine failure on takeoff and an unsuccessful one-eighty. My first and only crash I ever witnessed was one of my earliest memories ever as a child. My parents took me to an airshow where a homebuilt was making a high speed pass and lost a wing. I still vividly recall the gasp from the crowd as the wing fluttered down in front of the parked car where I was perched on the hood. I was barely three years old. Here's an eyewitness account and picture of the plane "Estrellita" (scroll for it): http://www.airfields-freeman.com/OH/Airfields_OH_Cleveland_N.htm

dtuuri
 
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For some people I know it was two within the past month. For me, only one.
 
Bill Jennings said:
2013_dec06_news1.jpg
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Laughed pretty hard.

I've only known one who crashed on takeoff because of an overweight/CG issue.mhe was my next door neighbor. I was pretty young and don't remember too much. That's it, though.
 
DFH65 said:
http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief.aspx?ev_id=20040827X01298&key=1&queryId=6124f12e-3794-4245-b075-5db5e7cdb268&pgno=1&pgsize=50
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I used to fly a Pressurized Navajo. IIRC, the fuel burn the first hour was 50 gallons, 40 gallons per hour after. The nacelle tank was a storage locker for fuel, to use it the fuel first had to be transferred. The report doesn't say how much of the forty gallons was unavailable in the locker. I don't think maximum endurance power will get the P-Navajo to cruise at 190 knots either. Color me skeptical (my bold):
From the original distress call to the last recorded radar target, approximately 2 ½ minutes, the airplane descended from 2,500 feet to 700 feet and slowed from 190 knots to about 87 knots. ... Forty gallons of fuel were drained from the right inboard and nacelle tanks. Only trace amounts of fuel were visible in the right outboard tank. Both fuel selectors were found in the outboard tank position. Examination of flight times and ground-maintenance run times revealed that the engines were run for approximately 3 hours with the outboard tanks selected. The outboard tanks each held 40 gallons, for a total of 80 gallons. According to the pilot's operating manual, the fuel consumption rate at the maximum endurance power setting was 28 gallons per hour.​

dtuuri
 
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