http://www.cbs8.com/story/37438514/small-plane-crashes-in-santee http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2018/02/cessna-182t-skylane-n3525t-fatal.html I'd like to hear from experienced pilots on this. Spacial disorientation? Then stall? I think the report indicates he flew into IFR. Is this what it looks like when you fall out of cloud or fog? I guess so. So sad for them and their families.
Turned back towards the airfield, not enough airspeed, stalled and crashed. Classic mistake that has killed dozens (thousands?) of pilots, many of them very experienced. Happened to Major James McCudden, English ace with 57 victories in WW-I. Engine failure, turned towards the airfield in his SE-5a, stalled and crashed fatally.
Where did you see anything about spatial disorientation or clouds? It looks to me like the engine quit, and they stalled/spun trying to get back to the runway, or at least to a flat spot where they could land. I don't know that area. but it doesn't look like they had a lot of good options. RIP.
The other thing that is suspect is having two large dogs in the plane. It does not appear the dogs were wearing any kind of seat belt, given the description of the crash site. It is possible one of the dogs jumped into the front seat area and was causing a distraction or perhaps interfering with the flight controls. Dog seat belt connectors only cost about $10 and attach to the dog's harness. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Go to around 57 sec in the video, engine sounds ok but what do I know. Alexis Hill was driving when she and her brother watched the plane come out of the fog. The plane appeared to be having trouble. "The plane was swerving and started coming down toward our car," she said. "It swerved over to the construction site and went head down." There was dense fog in the area at the time of the crash, a witness told FOX 5. Then this: Witnesses reported hearing some kind of throttling after the single-engine plane took off and headed west, indicating a mechanical issue. and these two comments: Anonymous said... In the video is sure does not look or sound like engine failure, it was pulling power all the way to the ground. I'm not sure what the printed statement that someone heard the engine "throttling" is supposed to mean. MOST people have no clue about aviation. The video shows the airplane first coming into view while in a descending fairly steep left hand turn and engine RPM was increasing because of the decent. This would be typical of a pilot who has experienced spatial disorientation and is loosing control of the aircraft. The weather conditions were not VFR, visibility was obviously quite low. The in-flight view would definitely not have had an outside view of the horizon. Possibly the vacuum system / pump failed which would render the attitude indicator and directional gyro inop. I'm sure the feds will be looking very closely at that. The electrically driven turn coordinator would have been the only trustworthy gyro available if the vacuum system failed. I agree the airplane was in an aerodynamic stall (which has NOTHING to do with the engine) at the end of the video. For whatever reason, the pilot appeared to be unable to control the airplane strictly by reference to instruments. Very sad that it happened, but the decision to depart in such low visibility, probably below landing minimums, was not a good one. Thursday, February 8, 2018 at 10:08:00 AM EST Anonymous said... After seeing this tragic video, this pilot did NOT have an engine failure but lost control due to spatial disorientation. What caused it will have to be determined. Checking on-line, this Skylane only had 1,237 TTAF & boasted a low-time 195 SFRM engine but was equipped with steam gauges. I wonder if the vacuum pump was re-built at that time of engine overhaul? Being that he was a fairly new instrument pilot, I agree with the above comment that it wasn't a wise decision to launch into such conditions. Maybe he got distracted switching radio frequencies and lost control? I can't believe that someone actually got this on video as it should help the NTSB greatly in solving this crash. I'll be following the updates closely.
Fog? What fog? You could clearly see the airplane in the video. You could also see it pitch up and appear to stall at the very end. He was probably trying to make it to a landing spot, or as mentioned earlier, the runway (I don't know the geography there). As for the dogs, I suppose that's possible, but I've flown a lot of dogs and I've never seen them do anything other than lie down and go to sleep. And there was someone other than the pilot to deal with the dogs, if necessary (I wouldn't suggest flying with a dog without having someone along just in case).
Agreed, I don't see the fog either but I was reading from the comments, they said it just came out of the fog? Don't know, hate it happend, don't want it to happen to us. What can we learn?
This one confuses me. He had power before and briefly into the turn and then it quit. No power and still trying to make it fly. No nose down and turning into a stall is what it looks like to me. I have seen people try to do this twice and have been told about two more in the area. All four were fatal. I was always taught to put the nose down first, go straight ahead, stay in control of the airplane, and pick the best spot that you can. Better chance of survival than a stall spin. Two of my flying buddies used this rule and survived a hard arrival but they did escape serious injury. The airplanes were repairable, also. Both were experienced airline pilots.
That is not 'dense fog' and the engine us running. They crashed literally less than 2 blocks from the end of the runway... but he did stall.
Gillespie is surrounded by hills. Visibility can go below VFR very easily, either by fog or haze. Depending on direction of travel, i.e. position of sun, it can seem a lot worse. Also static visibility from the ground in these conditions is not the same as being in an airplane at 500agl, or even 200agl, going 100MPH. None of this changes the pilots responsibility to fly the airplane, just trying to add some context.
Very poor video but at right about 58 or 59 second mark you can just see aircraft emerging from what I'd call low cloud cover and become visible but can clearly hear an engine making power. I'm no pilot but it looks to me like when he did regain visibility he never got his eyes out of the cockpit. Even just as a model pilot, when he could see the ground no effort was made to put it nose down. Sounds to me like he was transfixed on a panel that was making no sense.
