Plane Crash in CT - intentional?

We've become addicts of instant and immediate entertainment gratification over other pursuits - which is one reason a lot of things that were not unusual in the past such as reading newspapers, learning to fly a plane and even playing golf are in decline and slowly going by the wayside now. The instant entertainment rush just isn't there I suppose...
That is actually one of the joys that I'm looking forward to when I get my medical. The time and effort to learn to fly.
 
So the hub bub I got about the crash was that the AC was flying extremely low, tree top level and clipped a power line, it may have gotten hung up in the powerline which allowed the CFI to jump out to the ground and get away from the burning wreck. The CFI was apparently burned badly on the front of his torso.

So knuckle heading around, screw the pooch and blame the dead guy?
 
I have an engineer friend who works in a nuclear power plant. A long time ago, he and I decided that based upon our knowledge of how the media handles our individual areas of expertise, we couldn't trust their accuracy about ANYTHING.
At three mile island it was the employees themselves that caused the near meltdown. They tried a practice drill that went wrong, turning off the cooling water. President carter called them and told them to turn the god d ...water on NOW!( the press reported the events very carefully). Carter, having been trained as a nuclear sub operator , rushed up there, toured the place and remarked it had been a close call. At the time , it was thought 300 thousand might have died due to exposure. Would have been similar to Chernobyl. As for an airplane hitting one , if it hit the spent rod fuel section and damaged it, it would be all over. They all have these and they are mostly full due to politics and no place to put them.
 
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At three mile island it was the employees themselves that caused the near meltdown. They tried a practice drill that went wrong, turning off the cooling water. President carter called them and told them to turn the god d ...water on NOW!( the press reported the events very carefully). Carter, having been trained as a nuclear sub operator , rushed up there, toured the place and remarked it had been a close call. At the time , it was thought 300 thousand might have died due to exposure. Would have been similar to Chernobyl. As for an airplane hitting one , if it hit the spent rod fuel section and damaged it, it would be all over. They all have these and they are mostly full due to politics and no place to put them.

Huh. Impressive fiction there Jimmy. Care to cite any sources on any of that?

Considering that TMI-2 was running at 97% of capacity while TMI-1 was shut down for refueling, I'm going to take a teeny tiny little guess that nobody shut off any cooling water on purpose for any "drills".

Which of course brings your entire weird story into question considering there's book after book and page after page of logs available to read on the topic.

But the Jimmy Carter thing is just precious. Victor Gilinsky of NRC who is documented as THE individual who notified the White House staff said this in a 2009 article:

"It was five weeks later that we learned that the reactor operators had measured fuel temperatures near the melting point on that early Wednesday morning. We didn't learn for years – until the reactor vessel was physically opened – that by the time the plant operator called the NRC at about 8:00 a.m., roughly half of the uranium fuel had already melted. In a sense, the accident was over before we had even heard about it--and it had been many, many times worse than we envisioned at the time."

So... either Galinski is lying -- or there's no way the President knew of the need for coolant water or made any cutesy phone calls during the event "saving the day" like in the movies.

NRC didn't even know the severity of the accident for five weeks and didn't know the fuel had melted for YEARS, there Jimbo.

Plus, for chrissakes, most operators of nuclear power plants at the time were staffed with MANY Navy-trained nuclear operators. It was the main hiring pool of workers for decades in that business and still is.

Citing some superpower endowed only to Carter via his "Navy training" is kinda stupid, considering most of the people running the plant were also.

There was no Jimmy Carter Nuclear Operator and President Superhero moment with TMI-2.

Nor was it a drill when running the plant at 97%.

And of course you left out that Carter went around NRC leadership and was speaking directly to an on-site guy, bypassing most of his own staff, and generally messing up the entire chain of command, and posed for pictures with the plant operator who cheated on his certification tests because he decided a photo op was a good idea without talking to NRC leadership first about it, too. Probably a good idea to check in with your own regulatory staff before flying into a nuclear disaster site, if nothing else to avoid some rather embarrassing photos.

But the best, while not directly Carter's fault, was when NRC was concerned about a hydrogen bubble forming in the containment and causing an explosion, when NRC explained that no one could go near the valve to release the hydrogen due to radiation inside the containment -- a White House staff member suggested directly to Galinski that they could use terminal cancer patients to open the valve.

More of an indication of the type of idiots that work in DC and surrounded Carter, than any knock on Carter himself, but what a freaking tool.

Feel free to read Galinski's article and get back to us on the new story there Jimmy. It's linked below.

I'm sure it'll be a fetching tale of a Democratic President's derring-doo and action-hero-like qualities!

Excerpt from Jimmy Cooper's new book on TMI-2:

Turn on the pumps! Yelled the President into the phone, the only man in America who could see what on-site staff who'd operated the station for years, couldn't. The man was mystical in his amazing ability to read instrument panels via psychic powers and if they'd have kept his secret, he could have run the plant remotely through telekinesis... but the world wasn't ready to know yet that he was really SuperPresident.

Not yet. Someday. Someday he would tell them through his friend Jimmy Cooper, but until that day, the secret must be kept safe!

Here's Galinski's article for ya -- widely used as source material in various books and articles on the event:

http://thebulletin.org/behind-scenes-three-mile-island-0
 
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So knuckle heading around, screw the pooch and blame the dead guy?

I suppose that's one way to look at it, but I would tend to believe the story of a struggle for control. That's a very congested area with a lot of obstacles, you would have to be a real doofus to knucklehead around there at tree top level.
 
At three mile island it was the employees themselves that caused the near meltdown. They tried a practice drill that went wrong, turning off the cooling water. President carter called them and told them to turn the god d ...water on NOW!

You can't put too much water into a nuclear reactor.
 
President carter called them and told them to turn the god d ...water on NOW!( the press reported the events very carefully). Carter, having been trained as a nuclear sub operator , rushed up there, toured the place and remarked it had been a close call.

5578416442_e7b638d523_b.jpg
 
Man, this thread has...evolved. :D

Local news reporting (for what it is worth) that the student was acting "weird" lately and was not happy to be flying. Also FBI confirms that they believe the crash was intentional.

Strange, strange story. Terrible for the CFI...bet you don't expect that showing up to work that morning.
 
We lived close to it so we were very very interested in each report and how it came down. It was a very big deal. I remember each and every major news summary. Your blind devotion to the wrong accounts are depressing. You obviously are a Fox News hick. Carter was a buddy of Rickover , knew him well. Rickover was consulted. You have the story wrong.
 
Local news reporting (for what it is worth) that the student was acting "weird" lately and was not happy to be flying.
I wonder whether the school was just trying to milk this kid even though they knew very dang well how dangerous he was. But hey, every penny counts, the plane is insured and MEIs can be replaced. (I know, I sound callous)

Strange, strange story. Terrible for the CFI...bet you don't expect that showing up to work that morning.
I also wonder whether the MEI knew and didn't want to get fired. Because I can also imagine the school telling him "we are getting money from this rich kid so if you want to keep flying and making money, you better STFU and go fly another lesson with him".
Again, that is speculation on my part (based on my limited experience with flight schools) but I just can't help but wonder.

Any update on the instructor's condition? Is he gonna be okay?
 
I wonder whether the school was just trying to milk this kid even though they knew very dang well how dangerous he was. But hey, every penny counts, the plane is insured and MEIs can be replaced. (I know, I sound callous)


I also wonder whether the MEI knew and didn't want to get fired. Because I can also imagine the school telling him "we are getting money from this rich kid so if you want to keep flying and making money, you better STFU and go fly another lesson with him".
Again, that is speculation on my part (based on my limited experience with flight schools) but I just can't help but wonder.

Any update on the instructor's condition? Is he gonna be okay?
The instructor also owns the place.
 
We lived close to it so we were very very interested in each report and how it came down. It was a very big deal. I remember each and every major news summary. Your blind devotion to the wrong accounts are depressing. You obviously are a Fox News hick. Carter was a buddy of Rickover , knew him well. Rickover was consulted. You have the story wrong.
Cites or it didn't happen.
 
Man, this thread has...evolved. :D

It sure has ... suicidal pilot to Jimmy Carter rescuing TMI. Thank god we have a serious intellectual debate going on in the political arena to keep things sane around here:confused:
 
We lived close to it so we were very very interested in each report and how it came down. It was a very big deal. I remember each and every major news summary. Your blind devotion to the wrong accounts are depressing. You obviously are a Fox News hick. Carter was a buddy of Rickover , knew him well. Rickover was consulted. You have the story wrong.

So you're saying the Carter Administration has covered up the story their own people in interviews and entire books written on the topic wrote?

Since that's the only logical conclusion possible when I quoted his own NRC staff member's account in 2009, I suspect you're just delusional, but like I said, feel free to cite a reputable source.

37 years, multiple studies, multiple books (many of which are excellent reads, by the way), and no shortage of "Navy trained" and others working the problem for decades, and your version is SuperPresident saved the day with a single phone call.

And not a single source that claims that happened -- amongst nuclear professionals of both his political bent, and his enemies -- in nearly four decades of documentation and public records.

Well, other than you. And you've shown a tendency toward political party worship here for years.

Guess who's not buying it. Me. And anyone else reading along who's read anything about the accident and the industry.

Sorry Jimbo, you lost all credibility in the first sentence when you said it was a test being done by the operator while the unit was running at a well-documented 97% output. Nobody does that.

They were doing unplanned but not unexpected maintenance in a not only dangerous but illegal way, per the NRC report, just to keep TMI-2 operating while TMI-1 was completely shut down for refueling... you know, trying to keep folk's lights on and the grid load handled... but even that method had appropriate safeguards if they weren't confused by a valve failure and a crappy indicator design for the valve position that didn't actually read position, it simply read whether or not the valve solenoid had power or not.

There's zero documentation that SuperPresident even knew the core had started to melt for days after it had already happened. NRC says they didn't know for five weeks. All they knew was the production of hydrogen inside the containment meant at least some damage to the cladding on the rods, since that's the only way you get hydrogen gas in that quantity.

If you want to believe a Hollywood-esque version you made up, that's fine. Just don't expect anyone who's read the reports to believe you. Unless you're claiming Carter's own people and every politician and NRC staffer for forty years has covered up that SuperPresident put on his cape and saved the day when every nuclear technician and engineer on site didn't. LOL.
 
Anyway, now that we've dealt with Jimmy's delusions...

Back to the accident.

Someone said the scenario is a CFIs worst nightmare.

I thought about that for a while and as a CFI candidate I decided no, it's not.

Don't know about other CFIs, but my nightmares, at least, will be surrounding wondering whether I forgot to teach a student something critical to their survival in aircraft, and reading on the news someday that they didn't make it.

Being attacked by a student in an aircraft or them using the aircraft as a weapon against me and others, is pretty low on my worry list.

But I think it does lead to a reminder that it's a good idea to have at least some idea why students are training and their goals and keeping an eye out for circumstances where they might act out, if their goals aren't going to be met. Hard to keep up on every possible culture and circumstance, but a student who goes from happy to be training and flying, as evidenced in most of that kid's photos in singles that have been floating around, to someone brooding and moody and not happy to be flying... should at least prompt some, "How are you?" And, "What's going on?" questions. If nothing else, just as a human being checking on their emotional state, and also as it relates to their preparedness to learn. Grumpy people don't usually learn too much during flights when they're distracted by something.

This is going to be some sort of problem the kid ran into. Ran out of money (or was cut off by whoever was supporting him), thought his job prospects had died for some reason, was failing to grasp some concept and had a higher opinion of his skills and performance than was actually occurring, personal problems outside of flying, something... especially if folks noticed he wasn't happy to go flying as compared to those earlier photos.

Big mood swings in students are something to be gently prodded for hints or details. Have to keep it professional, of course, his drama isn't the CFIs drama... well, until it suddenly is. A student getting angry at themselves and then coping with it during learning plateaus, is pretty normal for some. But when the happy student doesn't return and they start brooding, something else is really wrong.

All that said, if you're paying attention, you'll see that happening. And my worries are far more based in, "I really don't want to screw up and forget to teach this guy or gal something really important..." than worrying about them deciding today would be a good day to turn the airplane into a lawn dart on purpose.
 
Actually, there was a man named Ronald Natalie who was the chief counsel on the president's commission to investigate TMI. Not me, but my father. I gave him a book I found in a bookstore called "Everything We Learned from Three Mile Island." Inside were 200 blank pages. My father left the commission before the report came out as he felt they were getting nowhere (not so much an issue with the commission itself, but the other agencies it had to deal with particularly Congress and Justice/FBI weren't really playing well).

The Carter stories above, however, are a lot of folklore. Carter was not involved in the initial emergency. He did use his nuclear experience to determine what course to take in some of the actions after the crisis (mostly the fears of whether the hydrogen bubble was going to explode). Carter did do an exemplary job getting the lines of communications open between all the players at an early stage. In actuality, once they figured out what was going on in an the immediate crisis, most of it boiled down to how to deal with the mess that was left: radioactive water, steam, and gasses.

The report from the commission is available here. http://www.threemileisland.org/downloads/188.pdf
Scroll ahead to about page 90 where the appendix details the actual sequence of events in the accident.
 
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In actuality, once they figured out what was going on in an the immediate crisis, most of it boiled down to how to deal with the mess that was left: radioactive water, steam, and gasses.

"Boiled down"... I see what you did there. ;)

Essentially the timeline of the accident was so fast, it makes Jimmy's story just ludicrous. The plant went from normal ops to core uncovered in just a few hours.

By the time they even tried to restart high pressure injection, they kept getting scared off of it by the cavitation of the steam in the pumps that wasn't supposed to be there, and the resulting vibrations.

Opening new lines of communication is both a blessing and a curse in those sorts of events. As the NRC on site guy wrote, it bypasses a lot of the planned chain of command and causes as much confusion as it does move information around to new and possibly needed places. NRC head was cut out of a number of conversations he probably should have been involved in, which led to a mangled story coming out in press conferences and the press not trusting what they were getting because it was inconsistent.

Didn't help that NRC was wrong about "the bubble". Just flat wrong. Arguing over it five minutes before Carter's arrival on the site probably helped get folks to focus and figure it out, but they still didn't know for sure until 3PM that afternoon.

Do so love the SuperPresident story though. Good for a belly laugh.

There's a photo of the guy who's article I quoted on page 108 of yours. It kinda looks like the photographer told him to duck for the shot. Haha. He's awkwardly kneeling down, at the end of a desk, putting his head at desk level.
 
It cools it down so it is easier to restart. You just need a real big hose. Just common horse sense. :D

You missed the point. The line above is a paradox. Does it mean "there is a limit to how much water you can add" or that "there is no limit to how much water you can add."
It was also a Saturday Night Live skit which ends with "You can't stare too long at a nuclear explosion."
 
Local news reporting (for what it is worth) that the student was acting "weird" lately and was not happy to be flying. Also FBI confirms that they believe the crash was intentional.

Friends of the deceased claim he was happy and looking forward to his forthcoming "final exams". I wouldn't call this a closed case just yet.
 
It's not uncommon for friends and family to say nothing was wrong with someone before they go over the edge and do something terrible.
 
It's not uncommon for friends and family to say nothing was wrong with someone before they go over the edge and do something terrible.

Sometimes when a person decides to commit suicide, they are happy knowing their pain or problems, whether real or imagined, will soon be gone.

Just a general statement, not saying this was the case here.
 
Someone said the scenario is a CFIs worst nightmare.

I thought about that for a while and as a CFI candidate I decided no, it's not.

Don't know about other CFIs, but my nightmares, at least, will be surrounding wondering whether I forgot to teach a student something critical to their survival in aircraft, and reading on the news someday that they didn't make it.

Being attacked by a student in an aircraft or them using the aircraft as a weapon against me and others, is pretty low on my worry list.
I might have been that "someone" before I deleted my post.

My main fear wouldn't be the (apparent) present scenario, being attacked by a suicidal student because I agree that's exceedingly rare. But a freaked-out student freezing up while gripping the yoke, unable to relinquish the controls out of sheer terror? Especially if that student is a big strapping 250 lb male? Heck yes. I've heard enough first-hand accounts from CFIs that I don't think it's all that uncommon at all.

Maybe if it were 30 years ago and my aikido was fresh in my memory, I could confidently 4th control him into at least weakening his grip, but today I'm pretty sure I couldn't even find his radial nerve. I'd certainly never be able to overpower a man who weighs twice as much as I do. Your calculus is probably a lot different from mine, and that might even be true for most men. But it's a big part of why I have zero interest in becoming a CFI, even though I teach for a living and enjoy it.

As I wrote in my post initially, at least my students aren't in a position to try to kill me on a daily basis.
 
Your calculus is probably a lot different from mine, and that might even be true for most men. But it's a big part of why I have zero interest in becoming a CFI, even though I teach for a living and enjoy it.

I could see that being a concern. As far as a student overpowering a bigger person goes, it probably all depends on what phase of flight they froze during.

There's critical times where a freeze would result in a crash no matter how well someone could normally beat them off the controls, since there simply wouldn't be enough time to fix it. Just a risk that's inherent in flight training overall, I suppose.

There's also the reality that one instructors aren't Spring chickens. Haha. I know I won't be. LOL. If I ever had to have a physical confrontation in a cockpit I might do okay or not, but I'd probably need a lot of ibuprofen afterward and for a while. Hahaha.

If you like to teach though, there's always sticking to students who are well past the primary student phase and doing stuff like instrument training. The chances one of those is going to freeze are *relatively* lower than someone learning new motor skills. Just don't let 'em get too low on the glideslope... ;)

I've noticed some of the more "famous" CFIs tend to stick to teaching in high dollar aircraft with high dollar students. The instructors with books and fancy websites and all that. Ha. Always writing about the fancy glass toys and what not. They have that "niche" that keeps them in some pretty nicely maintained stuff. The rest of us schmucks probably fly with whoever and whatever we can. Of course the famous old timers started there once, too.

But if someone wanted to specialize in the high end stuff, there seems to be a few instructors in every geographic region who manage to do that.

There's also the instructors like mine who own and operate their entire fleet so they aren't dealing with the rental fleet. He seems to enjoy it but man he puts in lots of hours handing the maintenance. Helps him a lot to have an A&P/AI.
 
Friends of the deceased claim he was happy and looking forward to his forthcoming "final exams". I wouldn't call this a closed case just yet.

I believe the guy was passionate about aviation... one look at his Facebook page says as much. But the sad truth is that we never really know the people we think we know, and often times the people who seem the happiest are the ones struggling the hardest.

But, you are right - this isn't a closed case. Definitely interested in what the FBI and NTSB conclude.
 
Sometimes when a person decides to commit suicide, they are happy knowing their pain or problems, whether real or imagined, will soon be gone.

Just a general statement, not saying this was the case here.

Does not apply to ME countries and Arab culture. Suicide brings great shame to everyone around the deceased. That is why it is such a taboo and generally it is not discussed. (EgyptAir 990 is a good example how high the avoidance of subject can go)
 
I believe the guy was passionate about aviation... one look at his Facebook page says as much. But the sad truth is that we never really know the people we think we know, and often times the people who seem the happiest are the ones struggling the hardest.

But, you are right - this isn't a closed case. Definitely interested in what the FBI and NTSB conclude.

NTSB already bailed. Wasn't a safety of flight issue. They punted to law enforcement once they knew it was deliberate. Don't think they have much more to say about it. They were the first agency to say, "Not it!" Haha.
 
Does not apply to ME countries and Arab culture. Suicide brings great shame to everyone around the deceased. That is why it is such a taboo and generally it is not discussed. (EgyptAir 990 is a good example how high the avoidance of subject can go)

Is that why all of his friends are "forgiving" him online? Makes more sense that way. Interesting. Forgiving him for shaming them?
 
You missed the point. The line above is a paradox. Does it mean "there is a limit to how much water you can add" or that "there is no limit to how much water you can add."
It was also a Saturday Night Live skit which ends with "You can't stare too long at a nuclear explosion."
Most people could care less.
 
You missed the point. The line above is a paradox. Does it mean "there is a limit to how much water you can add" or that "there is no limit to how much water you can add."
It was also a Saturday Night Live skit which ends with "You can't stare too long at a nuclear explosion."
Actually, it is an equivocation. Not a paradox.:)
 
Amazing how quick folks are to believe someone offer them self.

I've joked with my friends and family about that, if you ever hear I committed suicide, grab a shot gun and find the SOB that killed me lol
 
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