SR22 fatal

The father of a friend I've known since grade school owned and flew a 310, and he had never obtained a PPL.
 
timwinters said:
I was AMAZED at how many of these "pilots" were "illegal" in one form or fashion. Some were taught to fly by their dad or a buddy but had neither a medical or license. Some couldn't get a medical, some just refused to deal with the BS. I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I said about a third were not completely legal. It was definitely 1/4 or more.

It was interesting to say the least. It may be this way everywhere, I don't know, I just got really interested in exploring the issue back then because I moved about every 4 to 8 months to a new small town and had the opportunity to get to know a new group. I became really intrigued by it and would dig into their stories. Amazingly, hardly anyone was shy about telling me. They didn't care.
Click to expand...

I have recently found the same thing and I was shocked. Like you say, they not only are they illegal, they don't mind telling everyone! I saw a guy test flying his newly built plane. He said he'd heard I had gone Basic Med. I said yes, and he said he wanted my doctor's name since his medical had expired months ago. Another guy nearby laughed and said his medical and bi-annual were out, but an instructor friend of his would sign his bi-annual off and back-date it if necessary, but he figured he should get a medical before too long. Both of them fly regularly.

I've also heard a group of guys talking about overloading a 210 by so much that they had full nose down trim and still had to push on the yoke. I'm not as surprised that people do stupid things, as I am that they openly brag about it!
 
Lowflynjack said:
I have recently found the same thing and I was shocked. Like you say, they not only are they illegal, they don't mind telling everyone! I saw a guy test flying his newly built plane. He said he'd heard I had gone Basic Med. I said yes, and he said he wanted my doctor's name since his medical had expired months ago. Another guy nearby laughed and said his medical and bi-annual were out, but an instructor friend of his would sign his bi-annual off and back-date it if necessary, but he figured he should get a medical before too long. Both of them fly regularly.
Click to expand...
I don't think that a guy who's not renewing his medical is anywhere in the same category of miscreant as the student who's too dumb to avoid a departure stall while carrying a passenger. I don't see how any of the two gentlemen you described are in any any harmful to anyone. People driving heavier iron on 2nd class have medical issues in flight regularly, and you want anyone to care about the 3rd for a guy in a homebuilt.
 
zaitcev said:
I don't think that a guy who's not renewing his medical is anywhere in the same category of miscreant as the student who's too dumb to avoid a departure stall while carrying a passenger. I don't see how any of the two gentlemen you described are in any any harmful to anyone. People driving heavier iron on 2nd class have medical issues in flight regularly, and you want anyone to care about the 3rd for a guy in a homebuilt.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but you don't get to decide what rules to follow, so it doesn't matter if you don't care.
 
Fearless Tower said:
There may be some truth to that, if he finally finished his PPL and the computer hadn’t caught up to it.......BUT medicals update in the database almost immediately. This guy didn’t even have a current medical, which makes it highly unlikely he recently passed his checkride.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Not knowing whether Basic Med would apply (he met the time limit for having a Class 3 medical, but I'm not sure whether one must be a licensed pilot at the time or not), it's possible, though unlikely, that he qualified for basic med. Don't know how that might be handled in the database. But if he's going to flaunt the rules anyway, it's unlikely that he had met the BM qualifications.
 
My worry in trying to do things under the radar is if I popped up on radar the FAA could easily fix it so I couldn't ever legally fly again. And that would truly suck.
 
Lowflynjack said:
Yeah, but you don't get to decide what rules to follow, so it doesn't matter if you don't care.
Click to expand...
Hilarious. Of course I do get to decide. I turn left through a double yellow line every day. The modern life is structured in such a way that you cannot go through it without deciding which rules to break every second. The best you can do is to make a determination as to the risk - including but not exclusively the risk of being caught.
 
zaitcev said:
Hilarious. Of course I do get to decide. I turn left through a double yellow line every day. The modern life is structured in such a way that you cannot go through it without deciding which rules to break every second. The best you can do is to make a determination as to the risk - including but not exclusively the risk of being caught.
Click to expand...

You're not supposed to turn left on a double yellow line??? It means "don't pull in the left lane to pass."
 
This is a very sad accident. I just don’t understand how a father could do that to his son.

I guess he just didn’t think there was a substantial risk but this was so unnecessary.
 
zaitcev said:
Hilarious. Of course I do get to decide. I turn left through a double yellow line every day. The modern life is structured in such a way that you cannot go through it without deciding which rules to break every second. The best you can do is to make a determination as to the risk - including but not exclusively the risk of being caught.
Click to expand...
An Air Force IP told me those who never break a rule are as dumb as those who constantly do so.
 
azure said:
It wasn't that way where I was based for many years in Michigan. In fact the only illegal pilot I ever met was an instrument student who bragged about filing IFR on CAVU days to get experience in the system. Of course, I wasn't based at tiny podunk fields, but public fields generally in the suburbs or where the airport owner also owned a flight school and ran a pretty tight ship. It might be different out in the real boonies, but it's defnitely not like that everywhere.
Click to expand...
My experience in Michigan is the opposite: Like @timwinters said about his area, I'd say AT LEAST 25% (I'd actually say closer to a third) of the Michigan flyers I've met are flying without a license, proper endorsement, or medical. I guess it just goes to show how you can't consider your own sampling as a definitive number...
 
tawood said:
I guess it just goes to show how you can't consider your own sampling as a definitive number...
Click to expand...
Personally I don't know or socialize with a lot of other pilots. 50% of the pilots I know fly commercially as well as for recreation. I'm sure especially here in Alaska there are folks who fly without proper credentials, I just don't know them.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
Yep the middle is the sweet spot
Click to expand...

I think the problem is where do you draw the line? Should a PPL be an optional license? Should filing a IFR flight plan and flying in IMC be allowed regardless if you are IR rated or not? Should a pilot be allowed to fly a plane for hire without a commercial rating? Or should the limit just be something in the range of flying without a medical?

Many years ago the attitude in the country was more along the lines of if you don't agree with something that the government is doing, get involved and change the law. Now it seems like from reading on this forum the attitude seems to be among SOME is if you don't agree with something in the AIM then just ignore it but don't hurt anybody.

That same principal would apply to all aspects of society. I see that same attitude every day as I drive the freeways in Dallas and Houston. Apparently, that point of view is shared by a lot of people today.
 
Where to draw the line is indeed a big part of the issue.
Slippery slopes abound: we let a passenger buy our fuel, the next guy buys fuel and lunch, the next guy buys fuel and reimburses our time, the next guy hires us outright to get him somewhere we had no intention of going.
I fully understand the need for lines to be drawn with at least the potential for enforcement - are we likely to get busted for taking fuel money?...no....but the lines need to be drawn somewhere lest we not know what’s legal.
 
Stephen Shore said:
I think the problem is where do you draw the line? Should a PPL be an optional license? Should filing a IFR flight plan and flying in IMC be allowed regardless if you are IR rated or not? Should a pilot be allowed to fly a plane for hire without a commercial rating? Or should the limit just be something in the range of flying without a medical?

Many years ago the attitude in the country was more along the lines of if you don't agree with something that the government is doing, get involved and change the law. Now it seems like from reading on this forum the attitude seems to be among SOME is if you don't agree with something in the AIM then just ignore it but don't hurt anybody.

That same principal would apply to all aspects of society. I see that same attitude every day as I drive the freeways in Dallas and Houston. Apparently, that point of view is shared by a lot of people today.
Click to expand...
My thoughts were not adequately presented apparently. What I’m saying is if you’re doing anything with an airplane that is productive and you’re doing it on a regular basis you’ll end up breaking a rule or two every now and then despite your efforts not to make mistakes.

But if you would like to infer that I don’t participate in civic due process and just do whatever I want I guess you can.
 
I’m interested to know how much the average pilot who was never certificated actually knows in comparison to Λ freshly minted PPL holder.
 
And I wonder if we removed all the blatant scofflaws accidents from the stats what would the numbers look like?
 
wrbix said:
Where to draw the line is indeed a big part of the issue.
Slippery slopes abound: we let a passenger buy our fuel, the next guy buys fuel and lunch, the next guy buys fuel and reimburses our time, the next guy hires us outright to get him somewhere we had no intention of going.
I fully understand the need for lines to be drawn with at least the potential for enforcement - are we likely to get busted for taking fuel money?...no....but the lines need to be drawn somewhere lest we not know what’s legal.
Click to expand...
I hear you, but I think those are independent events - I know I'm not likely to jump from splitting costs to flying for hire illegally - yeah, I think we should be licensed, and have the check rides. I just don't blindly believe this guy crashed and died because he didn't have a plastic card from Uncle Sam. We don't know what happened, and calling him stupid, reckless, or worse JUST because he might not have had the check ride isn't logical. Without a license, he never proved he was competent - but that's not the same as being incompetent.
 
Sundancer said:
I just don't blindly believe this guy crashed and died because he didn't have a plastic card from Uncle Sam. We don't know what happened, and calling him stupid, reckless, or worse JUST because he might not have had the check ride isn't logical. Without a license, he never proved he was competent - but that's not the same as being incompetent.
Click to expand...

This is something I 100% agree with. Let’s say we had person Λ and B. Both own Λ C172 and both passed Λ groundschool online.

Person Λ shells out money and receives training from Λ CFI and goes on to pass Λ Checkride.

Person B flies to his hearts content while learning his own way with Λ experienced pilot helping him along the way.

At the end of the day person B may very well feel more comfortable behind the controls and be more expirienced than person Λ at the time he passed his Checkride.

For whatever reason person B decided not to become certificated doesn’t mean he may not be as competent as person Λ who is in the system.
 
TK211X said:
This is something I 100% agree with. Let’s say we had person Λ and B. Both own Λ C172 and both passed Λ groundschool online.

Person Λ shells out money and receives training from Λ CFI and goes on to pass Λ Checkride.

Person B flies to his hearts content while learning his own way with Λ experienced pilot helping him along the way.

At the end of the day person B may very well feel more comfortable behind the controls and be more expirienced than person Λ at the time he passed his Checkride.

For whatever reason person B decided not to become certificated doesn’t mean he may not be as competent as person Λ who is in the system.
Click to expand...

This may be true, but it's a circumstantial pointer at their character that they chose not to go through the process. This guy bought an SR22...he had means. He was spending time flying. He could have been spending that time flying to train, but he chose not to. Is that a 100% good indicator that he was not a competent pilot? Well, no, he may have been a fine pilot and something unpredictable and unavoidable happened that day. However, I'll take pretty good odds that that is not what happened and that you had a classic personality profile that believed that the rules did not apply to him. That he didn't need training. That he could make his way out of every situation. And it appears he wrote a check he couldn't cash.

There's another aspect to this and the fact that his son went with him points to it, too. What he did didn't just affect him and his son. Or just his family. It affected us. It affected me. Each one of these incidents cements a perception with the public that recreational pilots are undue risk-takers. Rich bastards with more money than sense. When we're arguing to not close the local airport, this guy is the oppositions' winning argument. This guy is the one driving our insurance rates up. This is the guy that sues the airplane manufacturer and drives up plane and parts prices when he manages to survive his negligence. This guy is one of the biggest threats to my continued ability to fly because he's unable to see how selfish he's being.

I'm also a motorcyclist, and that community has the same issue. Straight-pipe Harleys and stunters on the freeway are doing the same thing. They're being insanely selfish while hurting everyone else they share a hobby with. I love a stunt or a rumbly motor as much as the next guy, but, damn, pick your venue. The freeway isn't it.
 
Stephen Shore said:
I think the problem is where do you draw the line? Should a PPL be an optional license? Should filing a IFR flight plan and flying in IMC be allowed regardless if you are IR rated or not? Should a pilot be allowed to fly a plane for hire without a commercial rating? Or should the limit just be something in the range of flying without a medical?

Many years ago the attitude in the country was more along the lines of if you don't agree with something that the government is doing, get involved and change the law. Now it seems like from reading on this forum the attitude seems to be among SOME is if you don't agree with something in the AIM then just ignore it but don't hurt anybody.

That same principal would apply to all aspects of society. I see that same attitude every day as I drive the freeways in Dallas and Houston. Apparently, that point of view is shared by a lot of people today.
Click to expand...

So you never exceed the speed limit?
 
arnoha said:
However, I'll take pretty good odds that that is not what happened and that you had a classic personality profile that believed that the rules did not apply to him. That he didn't need training. That he could make his way out of every situation. And it appears he wrote a check he couldn't cash.

.
Click to expand...

Bingo!
 
arnoha said:
This may be true, but it's a circumstantial pointer at their character that they chose not to go through the process. This guy bought an SR22...he had means. He was spending time flying. He could have been spending that time flying to train, but he chose not to. Is that a 100% good indicator that he was not a competent pilot? Well, no, he may have been a fine pilot and something unpredictable and unavoidable happened that day. However, I'll take pretty good odds that that is not what happened and that you had a classic personality profile that believed that the rules did not apply to him. That he didn't need training. That he could make his way out of every situation. And it appears he wrote a check he couldn't cash.

There's another aspect to this and the fact that his son went with him points to it, too. What he did didn't just affect him and his son. Or just his family. It affected us. It affected me. Each one of these incidents cements a perception with the public that recreational pilots are undue risk-takers. Rich bastards with more money than sense. When we're arguing to not close the local airport, this guy is the oppositions' winning argument. This guy is the one driving our insurance rates up. This is the guy that sues the airplane manufacturer and drives up plane and parts prices when he manages to survive his negligence. This guy is one of the biggest threats to my continued ability to fly because he's unable to see how selfish he's being.

I'm also a motorcyclist, and that community has the same issue. Straight-pipe Harleys and stunters on the freeway are doing the same thing. They're being insanely selfish while hurting everyone else they share a hobby with. I love a stunt or a rumbly motor as much as the next guy, but, damn, pick your venue. The freeway isn't it.
Click to expand...
A circumstantial pointer, and I don't disagree with you - if he wasn't licensed, then he was cavalier about the FAA rules; but it's a real stretch to extrapolate that to being causal in the accident; and drawing a character conclusion isn't logical - we don't all adhere to the same code, and his character may have been sterling by most lights. You don't know he wasn't "training" as he flew, apparently since 2013, and I've had pets that could pass the PPL check ride.

There has to be some room for the eccentric and unconventional - this guy may have been neither, I admit - maybe just a jerk; sure, what we do impacts everyone else, but tough toenails. Fatty foods? No exercise? Check your health insurance premiums, we're all paying for those decisions, too. But too bad, because self-determination has a price. Unless we want to go "Chicago" and ban liver pate, or "New York" and ban large cups of soda. I know, this is farther beyond the pale, and analogy is always suspect. If your local herd is too stupid or ignorant to draw a distinction between the occasional reckless azzhat and the large majority of rules-followers, that's just humanity . . .
 
Dumb Question: Is it possible that this guy's 3rd class expired and then he very recently renewed with Basic Med instead and then took his check ride immediately afterwards? So could it then possible (although unlikely) that he was a fully licensed private pilot? Or do you specifically have to have a 3rd class medical (or 1st or 2nd) to actually do the checkride?

Forgetting about light sport stuff, I know you have to at least get a 3rd class medical the first time and after that Basic Med should cover his licensing requirements for personal use of his SR22.
 
Sinistar said:
Dumb Question: Is it possible that this guy's 3rd class expired and then he very recently renewed with Basic Med instead and then took his check ride immediately afterwards? So could it then possible (although unlikely) that he was a fully licensed private pilot? Or do you specifically have to have a 3rd class medical (or 1st or 2nd) to actually do the checkride?
Click to expand...
I guess it is possible. No way to check now, as John Mark Cooper is no longer in the FAA's airmen database. One would think Kathryn's would have uncovered that information though, if it were true, as someone who knew the family would almost certainly have volunteered it to counter the rumors. A visit to the JMC Ranches, LLC FB page shows that the guy was well known and (apparently) well liked.

Very sad case. RIP. :(
 
Sinistar said:
Dumb Question: Is it possible that this guy's 3rd class expired and then he very recently renewed with Basic Med instead and then took his check ride immediately afterwards? So could it then possible (although unlikely) that he was a fully licensed private pilot? Or do you specifically have to have a 3rd class medical (or 1st or 2nd) to actually do the checkride?
Click to expand...

 
Sundancer said:
I hear you, but I think those are independent events - I know I'm not likely to jump from splitting costs to flying for hire illegally - yeah, I think we should be licensed, and have the check rides. I just don't blindly believe this guy crashed and died because he didn't have a plastic card from Uncle Sam. We don't know what happened, and calling him stupid, reckless, or worse JUST because he might not have had the check ride isn't logical. Without a license, he never proved he was competent - but that's not the same as being incompetent.
Click to expand...

You are correct. Just because he was only a student pilot, does not mean he was incompetent. In fact, as a 5-year student pilot, he might've had more hours than many of the folks on POA.

HOWEVER, assuming he was still a student pilot as the NTSB preliminary report states, then there is a 100% certainty that if he followed the rules that his son would not have been in the plane when it crashed. Even if this was something completely unavoidable by the best certificated pilot out there, this guy wasn't supposed to carry passengers -- he did, and now that boy is dead. It truly is a tragedy because at least one of those deaths was 100% preventable. It didn't have to happen.
 
Sundancer said:
A circumstantial pointer, and I don't disagree with you - if he wasn't licensed, then he was cavalier about the FAA rules; but it's a real stretch to extrapolate that to being causal in the accident; and drawing a character conclusion isn't logical - we don't all adhere to the same code, and his character may have been sterling by most lights. You don't know he wasn't "training" as he flew, apparently since 2013, and I've had pets that could pass the PPL check ride.

There has to be some room for the eccentric and unconventional - this guy may have been neither, I admit - maybe just a jerk; sure, what we do impacts everyone else, but tough toenails. Fatty foods? No exercise? Check your health insurance premiums, we're all paying for those decisions, too. But too bad, because self-determination has a price. Unless we want to go "Chicago" and ban liver pate, or "New York" and ban large cups of soda. I know, this is farther beyond the pale, and analogy is always suspect. If your local herd is too stupid or ignorant to draw a distinction between the occasional reckless azzhat and the large majority of rules-followers, that's just humanity . . .
Click to expand...

Not causal. You're right, that's a quite a stretch. Instead, I'm suggesting both are likely to point back to a common cause, and that's the attitude he took with him about "rules". I will fully admit I didn't know the fellow and I may very well be talking out my butt about this specific case. And also just because he may have been reckless here doesn't make him a horrible human being in general. I have my share of blind spots and I've done my share of stupid stuff. I hope that that doesn't make me unworthy of any respect. That's not at all what I'm trying to say. My anger is on this is pretty tightly focused.

There's always a balance. Utterly laissez-faire and we have anarchy. Control everything and you're looking at fascism. Theoretically, this being a democracy, we're picking what rules we wish to abide by. (Yeah, there's much to discuss about how true that is, but...this isn't supposed to get political.) Where we are on the spectrum or if it's the ideal spot isn't really my point. My point is that just saying "too bad" isn't really an argument unless you want to argue for pure anarchy. We make a choice (or the choice is made for us), but there it is. If you think it's in the wrong place, let's argue about PPL requirements (or even its existence).
 
WTF, if he was a student pilot he shouldn't have been flying unless his instructor knew about it and he definitely shouldn't have had a passenger, period.
 
PaulS said:
WTF, if he was a student pilot he shouldn't have been flying unless his instructor knew about it...
Click to expand...

Huh...I flew all the time without my instructor knowing about it when I was a student pilot. Solo of course.

An instructor can sign you off to fly at your local airport and also to fly short cross country flights to airports no farther than 24 nm (iirc).
 
Seems like we should be careful rushing to judgement here. He could have been flying as a student up until that 3rd class medical expired. If he renewed under basic med and then very recently took his checkride this could have been his first legal passenger flight too. And maybe he had 150 hrs and was a competent pilot who just made a unfortunate mistake.
 
timwinters said:
Huh...I flew all the time without my instructor knowing about it when I was a student pilot. Solo of course.

An instructor can sign you off to fly at your local airport and also to fly short cross country flights to airports no farther than 24 nm (iirc).
Click to expand...

Your instructor did know about it, he cleared you to fly, under certain conditions, to certain airports, with certain weather conditions, he may not have tracked every flight, but if yours was like mine, he knew when you scheduled the airplane and flew. I had the same freedom when I was a student and competent to do so. It wasn't a free card to fly where ever or when ever I wanted, it was part of training to get my license. And taking a passenger on those flights was strictly forbidden as it is now for students. If he was PP and had a current medical, then fine, but many of these accidents seem to have circumstances where the pilot wasn't legal to fly but did it anyway and it is sad that they kill themselves, never mind the tragedy of killing someone else.

The signs are pretty strong that this guy was a student pilot screwing around with an airplane that shouldn't be screwed with, I would think that if a DPE had signed him off, that would be known by now.
 
PaulS said:
he knew when you scheduled the airplane and flew.
Click to expand...

Ummmm...nope. I owned my plane so I'd just go out to the airport and fly.

PaulS said:
It wasn't a free card to fly where ever or when ever
Click to expand...

Actually, yes it was, as long as the weather/wind was within the limits he established and it was local flight or to one (or more) of the airports he signed me off to fly to.

He wasn't even based at the same airport as I so, once I soloed, I'd fly to his airport for lessons.

Edit: in fact, I used to beat myself up for having 108.4 hours in my logbook when I took the checkride. I thought I was a slow learnin', short bus to the airport kinda guy.

Until one day when I sat down and added up the hours I flew by myself just playing around. 61.8.
 
Last edited:
Certainly in the write-up for his obituary the pilot does not sound like a scofflaw.
 
timwinters said:
Ummmm...nope. I owned my plane so I'd just go out to the airport and fly.



Actually, yes it was, as long as the weather/wind was within the limits he established and it was local flight or to one (or more) of the airports he signed me off to fly to.

He wasn't even based at the same airport as I so, once I soloed, I'd fly to his airport for lessons.

Edit: in fact, I used to beat myself up for having 108.4 hours in my logbook when I took the checkride. I thought I was a slow learnin', short bus kinda guy.

Until one day when I sat down and added up the hours I flew by myself just playing around. 61.8.
Click to expand...

Ah, we just both wrote basically the same thing except I think you are saying being signed off to a limited amount of airports and conditions is a "free card", not worth quibbling about.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top