the Dr. Killer and his TWO fatal crashes...

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

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Not sure if this has been addressed here yet but I don't see it. If so, please feel free to delete this post.

So dr. Stephen hatch crashes a plane in 2003 killing his wife and 2 of his 3 kids.

"A 2005 federal report on the 2003 crash found that inaccurate preflight planning resulted in the plane not having enough fuel. The NTSB determined that other contributing factors included the plane hitting a utility pole during its forced landing, a low ceiling and dark conditions."

Then he crashes into a garage after not following procedures killing himself and his wife:

Hatch's failure to follow that protocol contributed to the June 24, 2011, crash of his Beechcraft Bonanza that killed Hatch, his wife, Kim, and seriously injured Hatch's 16-year-old son, Austin. pilots are instructed to climb to 3,000 feet and hold if they miss an approach. "Instead, he maneuvered the airplane in the vicinity of the airport at a low altitude," Friday's report said.
After Hatch's aircraft missed its instrument landing approach at the Charlevoix airport, he turned around and attempted a second landing on the runway from the opposite direction before crashing into a garage in a neighborhood near the airport, according to witness statements collected by the NTSB.

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/04/report_outlines_what_caused_sm.html

Hindsight is 20/20 but after the first 3 people I killed due to lack of preperation, I would probably never get in a plane again and if I did, I certainly hope I would dot every i, cross every t and play by the rules.

This is horrible.
 
This pilot was discussed at length on several aviation discussion boards after the second accident. Gives you an idea of the limits on the FAA's ability to keep fools out of the sky and prevent them from killing others.
 
Same son. Tough situation -- first dad kills the kid's mom and two sisters by his incompetence/stupidity, then the kid's stepmother and himself the same way. I predict years of counseling/therapy to get this kid past it. :(
 
Matthew said:
Wow. I'm wondering if that son survived both?
Click to expand...

Son is a college basketball player. Was all over the TV shows a couple of days ago as he is starting to talk about his experience.
 
I kept seeing stories about this basketball player that miraculously survived two plane crashes. I heard his dad was flying both times and realized this is a darker story than the news was presenting.

The guy killed 4 other people by making bad decisions. This kid is going to have a hard life.

He is alive in spite of his dad's ego, arrogance, whatever...

This is probably too harsh but my first thought was
"At least he is not around to fly anymore people into the ground"
 
Brad Z said:
I take it he probably has little interest in learning to fly.
Click to expand...

He probably has rather scathing things to say about recreational pilot's ability to be allowed up there in the first place. I wouldn't blame him one bit, I suppose.
 
Brad Z said:
I take it he probably has little interest in learning to fly.
Click to expand...

Or, could be completely the opposite. People deal with things in different ways.

Otis Redding's pilot's son, who was 4 when the crash happened is an acquaintance of mine - He learned to fly as a way to connect with his late father. Yeah, somewhat different, but somewhat the same.

Hell, I'm a pilot because of 9/11.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Hell, I'm a pilot because of 9/11.
Click to expand...

Not to derail the thread, but in a nutshell, could you elaborate? I'm genuinely curious.

I've heard of 9/11 resulting in a lot of people joining the military, and I'm sure there were other areas that drew attention, probably fire departments, etc. But I guess I never connected 9/11 to drawing people to aviation.

Back on topic...that's horrible what happened to that kid. I hope he's okay emotionally. Hopefully if he's starting to talk about it, means he's coming to terms with it, and will be okay.
 
I have felt a special attachment to this kid since I first read about the incident; although I have never met him or his family. This kid was attending the prep school that I attended. It's an extremely small school. My class had thirty people in it. Our basketball team was pretty dismal when I was there. But this kid had a scholarship offer to play for Michigan. So, this was quite unusual for my school.
 
LoneAspen said:
Not to derail the thread, but in a nutshell, could you elaborate? I'm genuinely curious.

I've heard of 9/11 resulting in a lot of people joining the military, and I'm sure there were other areas that drew attention, probably fire departments, etc. But I guess I never connected 9/11 to drawing people to aviation.
Click to expand...

Well, I always wanted to fly, and in fact one of my fraternity brothers was a pilot. I had borrowed all his books and read them, but I thought it'd be a long way off. On 9/11, I remembered something about a transponder code for hijackings... Out came the books. I think I was Googling to learn more and found AOPA. Joined, started reading the forums, and learned a lot. Once I was part of that community, I couldn't wait to do more with airplanes. Got a job as a lineman at the local GA field (where I'm now based), eventually took an intro flight there, changed my life trajectory somewhat so I'd have money to fly, learned to fly, and here I am.
 
I posted this on Student Pilot, but I will also post this here:

I also wonder what his fuel situation looked like. Maybe that played into the determination to try to get it on the ground this time. He obviously didn't have a problem diverting, given that he had done it twice already on that same trip. Why not divert again? Maybe he was now running low on fuel. Just a thought.
 
These 2 accidents are new to me. I tried to find them in the NTSB files but can't. Can anyone post a link or supply more details?

Thanks.
 
Bill Watson said:
These 2 accidents are new to me. I tried to find them in the NTSB files but can't. Can anyone post a link or supply more details?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

That's the second one: CEN11FA417

I believe this was the first one: CHI03FA291
 
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SixPapaCharlie said:
So dr. Stephen hatch crashes a plane in 2003 killing his wife and 2 of his 3 kids.

Then he crashes into a garage after not following procedures killing himself and his wife:
Click to expand...

Wait a minute, he killed his wife TWICE in two plane crashes??

That doesn't make sense at all.
 
I'm surprised at the lack of empathy here... you all must be such damn fine pilots... only a coward kicks a man when he's down. Repugnant to read the responses of 'pilots of america'.
rip Frank Waller (UK).
 
Unregistered said:
I'm surprised at the lack of empathy here... you all must be such damn fine pilots... only a coward kicks a man when he's down. Repugnant to read the responses of 'pilots of america'.
rip Frank Waller (UK).
Click to expand...

Meh. Skewering dead pilots is a defense mechanism for those insecure in their mortality. Don't let it bother ya
 
Don't worry, we aren't just picking on this guy, if it was me that balled up two airplanes, I'd expect the group to discuss it in the same manner. ;)
By the way, when you post as unregistered, you probably shouldn't use the term coward. ;)


Unregistered said:
I'm surprised at the lack of empathy here... you all must be such damn fine pilots... only a coward kicks a man when he's down. Repugnant to read the responses of 'pilots of america'.
rip Frank Waller (UK).
Click to expand...
 
I feel terrible for his family.

He is probably a better pilot than me but his poor planning killed people. He got a 2nd chance and did it again.

Sometimes it is okay to have negative thoughts about people who die.
Ya know that dude that crashed the B52 in Fairchild?

He was likely a better pilot than me but hey! guess what. He was a Effing Idiot and got what he deserved. Unfortunate that he took others out with him.

Dying doesn't make you a better person. And it doesn't make us better pilots than the ones who have died. The fact is this man killed people and it had nothing to do with lack of skill but rather choices he made that he knew better than to make.
 
Unregistered said:
I'm surprised at the lack of empathy here... you all must be such damn fine pilots... only a coward kicks a man when he's down. Repugnant to read the responses of 'pilots of america'.
rip Frank Waller (UK).
Click to expand...

Did you look up why he crashed both times ?
 
By the way, when you post as unregistered, you probably shouldn't use the term coward. ;)[/QUOTE]

My post was made under my own name.
 
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Unregistered said:
I'm surprised at the lack of empathy here... you all must be such damn fine pilots... only a coward kicks a man when he's down. Repugnant to read the responses of 'pilots of america'.
rip Frank Waller (UK).
Click to expand...
I have been involved in 2 fatal aircraft incidents. In one of them I shared a substantial amount of the fault. Does that qualify me to say this guy is a moron, mr self righteous ?
 
JHW said:
I have been involved in 2 fatal aircraft incidents. In one of them I shared a substantial amount of the fault. Does that qualify me to say this guy is a moron, mr self righteous ?
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Read the reports on both of this pilot's accidents -- they were both the result of really bad judgment, and the second was a virtual repeat of the decision-making that led to the first.
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20030905X01478&key=1
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20110624X20211&key=1
 
I wonder how many pilots along the way expressed their discomfort with his decisionmaking.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Well, I always wanted to fly, and in fact one of my fraternity brothers was a pilot. I had borrowed all his books and read them, but I thought it'd be a long way off. On 9/11, I remembered something about a transponder code for hijackings... Out came the books. I think I was Googling to learn more and found AOPA. Joined, started reading the forums, and learned a lot. Once I was part of that community, I couldn't wait to do more with airplanes. Got a job as a lineman at the local GA field (where I'm now based), eventually took an intro flight there, changed my life trajectory somewhat so I'd have money to fly, learned to fly, and here I am.
Click to expand...

Your story is kinda like the reverse of Goose's in Top Gun. He was part of a flight crew talking about going to truck driving school. You were a truck driver talking about becoming a pilot.:D:D:D
 
Ron Levy said:
Read the reports on both of this pilot's accidents -- they were both the result of really bad judgment, and the second was a virtual repeat of the decision-making that led to the first.
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20030905X01478&key=1
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20110624X20211&key=1
Click to expand...

I don't understand that statement, Ron. In the first crash he ran out of fuel. In the second he stalled the plane during the downwind to base turn and punched it in.

How are those virtual repeats? Both really dumb, yeah, but fairly distinct from each other.
 
ClimbnSink said:
Meh. Skewering dead pilots is a defense mechanism for those insecure in their mortality. Don't let it bother ya
Click to expand...

:yes:

You'll come to find that POA is laden with "Walter Mittys" masquerading as "Waldo Pepper."
 
timwinters said:
I don't understand that statement, Ron. In the first crash he ran out of fuel. In the second he stalled the plane during the downwind to base turn and punched it in.

How are those virtual repeats? Both really dumb, yeah, but fairly distinct from each other.
Click to expand...

In the second, he was doing a circle to land, and chose not to go missed even though the ceiling was below the minimums. My guess is that he made this decision because he was low on fuel. He had already diverted once to an alternate, and then diverted again. Maybe he felt he couldn't make it to a fourth airport, so he had to make this one work.
 
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