SR22 Down in Parker, CO

SkyHog

SkyHog

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
18,431
Location
Castle Rock, CO
Display Name
Display name:
Everything Offends Me
Not much in details. Looks like an SR22 crashed into a house in Parker tonight.

Yikes.
 
Holy crap, that motor must have did some major tumbling to end up in the side of that house. :eek:
 
Just saw this. Don’t have any other info other than the media says the debris field is huge in the open area next to the house, like a high speed, low angle impact.

Weather here went down the tubes sometime this evening.

Currently:

0d687e653fd0275a6bf610de1563d52e.jpg
 
Nothing on flightaware. There are 2 schools at KAPA with Cirri, and a number of Cirrus owners based at KAPA.

I'm thinking it was takeoff from KAPA and not high enough to pull the ripcord. Hopefully more info in the next couple days.
 
Daaaaaaaaaammmmmn!

image.jpg
 
Wow! Lots of energy going into that crash. Surprisingly, the engine still looks intact.

Sad, RIP :(
 
This appears to be the ATC feed. Painful to listen to. Multiple simple Tower instructions - like "remain east of the centerline" for traffic not followed, suggesting a complete loss of situational awareness and ultimately control. Then you have ATC trying to contact the aircraf (N507TX) in vain :(

http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kapa/KAPA-May-12-2018-0200Z.mp3

Appears the aircraft was operating under VFR
 
Last edited:
Sounds like VFR into IMC at night based on the initial loss of contact call, when asking the hawker if he sees him he says "we broke out at 6,800ft." The cirrus was at 7500ish.

Sounds like he lost it.
 
Man, he had a chute, wish he had used it and if it turns out he did, wish he had used it sooner. RIP
 
PaulS said:
Man, he had a chute, wish he had used it and if it turns out he did, wish he had used it sooner. RIP
Click to expand...
What's the min altitude for pulling the chute? If the cirrus was at 7500, the area south of KAPA starts at 5800 and rises, I'm thinking the problem, or the last element of the chain of events was between 6800 and 7500.
 
murphey said:
What's the min altitude for pulling the chute? If the cirrus was at 7500, the area south of KAPA starts at 5800 and rises, I'm thinking the problem, or the last element of the chain of events was between 6800 and 7500.
Click to expand...

depending on model / year it is between 500 and 1000 AGL
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
depending on model / year it is between 500 and 1000 AGL
Click to expand...
Yeah. It varies, with "CAPS Available" being a fairly standard recommended callout when passing through 500 AGL. There is also a recommendation to pull immediately in the case of disorientation or any emergency below 2,000 AGL)

Based exclusively on the audio, there may have also been a maximum deployment airspeed issue (generally 133 KTS). But I also speculate the real issue here was enough disorientation to affect the pilot's ability to make the pull decision.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Based exclusively on the audio, there may have also been a maximum deployment airspeed issue (generally 133 KTS). But I also speculate the real issue here was enough disorientation to affect the pilot's ability to make the pull decision.
Click to expand...

That audio was disappointing to listen to. :-(
 
midlifeflyer said:
Yeah. It varies, with "CAPS Available" being a fairly standard recommended callout when passing through 500 AGL. There is also a recommendation to pull immediately in the case of disorientation or any emergency below 2,000 AGL)

Based exclusively on the audio, there may have also been a maximum deployment airspeed issue (generally 133 KTS). But I also speculate the real issue here was enough disorientation to affect the pilot's ability to make the pull decision.
Click to expand...

When it's all on the line, pull. Out of control, disoriented is a pull regardless of closeness to the ground. There have been successful pulls below 400agl. There is not a maximum deployment airspeed, there is a maximum demonstrated deployment speed, which is different. According to Cirrus the chute has worked successfully at speeds in excess of 180 knots. My belief is that the slower you are the less altitude it will take to deploy the chute, but I have been unable to get an answer as to whether this is true. But if you need to pull, forget about numbers and pull, hopefully you'll get to live rather than be a statistic.
 
Last edited:
PaulS said:
When it's on the all on the line, pull. Out of control, disoriented is a pull regardless of closeness to the ground. There have been successful pulls below 400agl. There is not a maximum deployment airspeed, there is a maximum demonstrated deployment speed, which is different. According to Cirrus the chute has worked successfully at speeds in excess of 180 knots. My belief is that the slower you are the less altitude it will take to deploy the chute, but I have been unable to get an answer as to whether this is true. But if you need to pull, forget about numbers and pull, hopefully you'll get to live rather than be a statistic.
Click to expand...
Can't disagree with that, even if it were an actual limitation.
 
The audio is gruesome. Such a large debris field, lot of energy, maybe CFIT . . .maybe vis and night was such he was fooled when he broke out? Or where he was ceiling was lower. Maybe didn't realize how close the terrain was, and that's why he didn't pull. Or a dozen other scenarios. The tenor of his voice did change as the audio went on - something had him worried or engaged.
 
Another day in GA...sad.
 
Been watching this on the local news. (A fair amount of hysteria and panic, but that is a primary ingredient in most tv news.)
Just a massive crash scene - the debris field is significant. And, yes, the engine detached and bounced into the wall of a house. Had to pull it out with a tow truck. From the video, looks like the prop was some distance away, with more of the airframe.
Terrible tragedy.
 
FAA Airmen website....instrument rated with second class medical as of May 2016. So it became a 3rd class, right? and due end of this month
 
G-Man said:
Been watching this on the local news. (A fair amount of hysteria and panic, but that is a primary ingredient in most tv news.)
Click to expand...

Ugh. I haven’t bothered watching the local media coverage on this one for that reason. I did see the early interview with the South Metro Fire PAO and have met him in person.

He’s a straight shooter and does a good job handling the press but there’s only so much you can do when they want to go all “the sky is falling”. Sigh.
 
murphey said:
FAA Airmen website....instrument rated with second class medical as of May 2016. So it became a 3rd class, right? and due end of this month
Click to expand...
Yes, it was still valid for third class privileges.
 
murphey said:
FAA Airmen website....instrument rated with second class medical as of May 2016. So it became a 3rd class, right? and due end of this month
Click to expand...

Age also factors in on the duration on the 3rd class privlages

IMG_1880.jPg
 
murphey said:
Yes, I know. Duration is irrelevant to my question, rather that it converts to 3rd class.
Click to expand...
Nit pick: it’s an expired second class medical that is still valid for third class medical privileges. Oral exam question for the commercial...a medical never changes class but it can remain valid for lower class privileges. Gotta love the precision wording of regulations, it keeps airplanes flying most of the time.
 
Don’t think he needs the medical anymore anyway, so it’s a moot point. When the Sheriff says they found multiple body parts scattered across a two acre field, the medical doesn’t matter anymore. :(
 
denverpilot said:
Don’t think he needs the medical anymore anyway, so it’s a moot point. When the Sheriff says they found multiple body parts scattered across a two acre field, the medical doesn’t matter anymore. :(
Click to expand...
Ahhh, but it is another checkbox for the investigators to check off along with whether or not a flight plan was filed. It proves the investigators are doing their job!
 
Is it just me or was the towers repeated instructions to maintain "west of the center line" quite some time after takeoff a little confusing for a pilot at night?

Depending on the winds this could be a little difficult to judge, especially in a climb, at night. Yes, I understand he probably had the electronic equipment on board to judge this - if he had the time and ability to scan the instruments.

Since inbound traffic seemed to be a concern for the controller, I kept wondering, why the controller didn't give him a vector to turn to, instead of repeatedly insisting on maintaining west of the center line quite some time after takeoff.

Strangely, the last two directives from the control tower are to remain east of the center line (the earlier directives were to remain west of the center line). Using the runway center line for direction, at night in low vis just seems, well, stupid.

In the end this probably made no difference to the outcome but it did seem a little strange to me. Still, I don't think the controller did this pilot any favors with his attempts at providing guidance to this pilot.
 
I was wondering about that transmission. I thought I heard both "west" and "east" of the centerline mentioned.

Also... if a pilot announces they're turning around and coming back to the airport, is there any protocol for the controller asking why? Or is it solely up to the pilot to announce if there's some kind of trouble, malfunction, emergency, etc?
 
Lndwarrior said:
Is it just me or was the towers repeated instructions to maintain "west of the center line" quite some time after takeoff a little confusing for a pilot at night?

Depending on the winds this could be a little difficult to judge, especially in a climb, at night. Yes, I understand he probably had the electronic equipment on board to judge this - if he had the time and ability to scan the instruments.

Since inbound traffic seemed to be a concern for the controller, I kept wondering, why the controller didn't give him a vector to turn to, instead of repeatedly insisting on maintaining west of the center line quite some time after takeoff.

Strangely, the last two directives from the control tower are to remain east of the center line (the earlier directives were to remain west of the center line). Using the runway center line for direction, at night in low vis just seems, well, stupid.

In the end this probably made no difference to the outcome but it did seem a little strange to me. Still, I don't think the controller did this pilot any favors with his attempts at providing guidance to this pilot.
Click to expand...
APA isn’t too bad at night for VFR traffic. I-25 gives pretty good guidance if ya wanna remain west of the field.

I didn’t keep track of whether that was a tower guy or approach. I’ve never heard KAPA tower give vectors to VFR traffic that wasn’t on a practice approach. Denver approach is usually pretty good with priority given to IFR traffic for the most part. Things can get a little congested south of KAPA with rising terrain, VFR traffic wandering about and IFR traffic on the 35R ILS...and DEN traffic immediately overhead. I had that joy on my instrument check ride about ten years ago. Gotta have yer big boy pants on. Anyway, I think the controller was focused on the IFR traffic and bothered by the VFR guy who didn’t follow instructions. Instead of asking the VFR guy if he needed assistance he lectured him. It happens. Sometimes it’s deserved (sometimes pilots do weird stuff) other times not so much.
 
LoneAspen said:
I was wondering about that transmission. I thought I heard both "west" and "east" of the centerline mentioned.

Also... if a pilot announces they're turning around and coming back to the airport, is there any protocol for the controller asking why? Or is it solely up to the pilot to announce if there's some kind of trouble, malfunction, emergency, etc?
Click to expand...
I think the Cirrus was wandering around a bit. Left downwind departure from 35R put him west of the centerline initially so the restriction to remain west made sense. I’m guessing once he was south of the field he wandered out to the east a bit. Evidently he flew back north then became a problem when he turned west.

Sometimes a controller will ask if assistance is required, sometimes they won’t. I’ve been asked on an immediate turn back or a turn back from on course. If I’ve been maneuvering the return to the field gets no attention.
 
Lndwarrior said:
Is it just me or was the towers repeated instructions to maintain "west of the center line" quite some time after takeoff a little confusing for a pilot at night?

Depending on the winds this could be a little difficult to judge, especially in a climb, at night. Yes, I understand he probably had the electronic equipment on board to judge this - if he had the time and ability to scan the instruments.

Since inbound traffic seemed to be a concern for the controller, I kept wondering, why the controller didn't give him a vector to turn to, instead of repeatedly insisting on maintaining west of the center line quite some time after takeoff.

Strangely, the last two directives from the control tower are to remain east of the center line (the earlier directives were to remain west of the center line). Using the runway center line for direction, at night in low vis just seems, well, stupid.

In the end this probably made no difference to the outcome but it did seem a little strange to me. Still, I don't think the controller did this pilot any favors with his attempts at providing guidance to this pilot.
Click to expand...

Normally the instruction is “remain West of I-25” which is quite visible day or night, and the modification is likely because the tower knew practice approaches were breaking out around 6800’ from the Army aircraft and other Cirrus shooting multiple approaches. So they watched some guy take off VFR and climb into an increasingly foggy mess and modified the instruction.

There’s no indication he picked up an IFR clearance (yet), but APA does have a CD frequency and he may have done it there. But it sounded like Tower/Ground/CD were combined which is pretty common late in the evening and overnight and whenever weather goes down, because the number of operations falls dramatically.

Another hint number of ops was low and weather was going to crap was the Tower instruction to make a LEFT downwind departing 35R. That puts you over 35L and even in Marginal VFR there’s usually someone doing T&G work on the short runway. At 8:15 in spring twilight the T&G pattern is usually three to four students and instructors going round and round waiting for it to get to one hour after sunset for night work and seeing the transition hour.

Official sunset tonight was 20:05. It’s not dark at 20:15 right now by a long shot. It’s not truly dark until about 20:50 right now and only because the mountains to the west mess with the sun angle. It’d be closer to 21:05 for full dark if it was a flat horizon to the west.

I think what you’re hearing there in the change in instruction from the controller is he wanted him to stay west of I-25 and then he went a-wandering across the final while the other Cirrus was on a five mile final (that high low tone in the background of his exasperated “you need to follow my instructions” transmission is the traffic collision warning, and he’s only working three aircraft and obviously annoyed at the now deceased pilot). He completely cut off the other instrument approach which were breaking out in the beginnings of fog that eventually went to 300 OVC in fog/mist not long after the accident. (You can see the fog in the background in the street lights in the neighborhood shots of the house that got hit by the engine.)

I think if a) the pilot would have ‘fessed up that he was disoriented and asked for a specific vector he MIGHT have gotten it, but remember he never left the Delta. He’s not talking to Denver Approach in the recording. So technically the tower usually won’t give you a vector that takes you out of the Delta if you’re saying you’re not leaving.

(Approach is in that recording because that’s a LiveATC scanner that’s got all the APA frequencies in it. When I lived close enough to APA I fed a Tower/Ground only feed as a secondary feed because on a busy day that other guy’s feed jumps to Approach and gets a bunch of non-APA radio traffic so I wanted a way to listen only to APA and Dave Pascoe approved a second feed for APA from my old house...)

Or b) The controller realized the pilot wasn’t responding well and prompted him asking if he was having a situational awareness or control issue instead of scolding... might have jolted that pilot into realizing he was in more trouble than he thought he was.

This thing may have worked out better.

Obviously b) is not truly the controller’s job when he has an aircraft crossing the ILS and someone cleared for the approach.

Terrain climbs to the south of the airport. If that pilot was scud running trying to stay below a lowering fog/cloud bank after his announcement he was returning, and looking for landmarks in twilight, he was likely just horribly disoriented.

We almost never see fog like that here. And he was from Grand Junction which also rarely sees it. That was also likely a factor.

He needed to climb, confess, and comply... really that’s it. If it was a typical SR22 and everything was working, the autopilot could have taken him up and brought him back down if he knew how to use it.

I think he launched looking for a VFR hole to climb on top and go west with the turbo to home. And then temp/dew point merged 15 minutes after sunset.

There was also something wrong on the ground. The ATIS says you notify ground if you need a run up and he gave that information late to ground. They never taxied him to a run up area. Normally that would have made APA mad to allow him to “do a run up right here” but with only three aircraft moving on a spring night anywhere on the airport, that’s a huge sign the WX had already gone to crap.

Friday night is usually multiple inbound bizjets and three to five in the pattern minimum. Folks knew the weather was closing down and the place was empty.

Bunch of hints in that recording to an APA pilot that may not be obvious to someone listening from elsewhere. Omitting I-25. Not caring where he did the run up. (Took him ten minutes, did anyone notice that? What was he doing??) Asking the other aircraft for bases. Asking the accident aircraft essentially “now what do you want to do?” and him never leaving the Delta... unless I’m mis-hearing that... it all sounds to me like an ill-advised launch into weather that hit temp/dewpoint spread of zero at around the time he launched.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top