Plane Crash - Colorado Ski area on I-70

Ohio Family (3), hot day, high altitude, dead-end canyon.

Flying from Denver area to Moab, along the I-70 corridor which ends with a tunnel under a very high ridge.

Tried to do a 180 when he couldn't climb out.

No-go.

Watch the video for Greg Feith interview.

AOL.com Article - 3 dead in fiery plane crash at Colorado ski area

I remember the famous Wichita State Football Team crashing in the same area years ago in a twin engined airliner.

 

Says the engine cut out on the video, so it could also have been a mechanical.

Regardless, Loveland Pass' is just about 12K.

I'm actually kind of surprised it doesn't happen more often. Flying at altitude is tricky.

CW

 

Right on. you can never be to careful or plan to much for this kind of flying.

 

High density altitude, like T said. In the winter with low density altitude, might have made it or even made it one time before. Really sad.

 

Sorry to hear about this. I have been in the same situation, not in a larger airplane but I know the feeling when you run out of power, airspeed,lift, and ideas all at the same time. I have flown the across and down the spine of the Cascades in the L-3 and some other small airplanes and got into a jam several times. I was lucky but it sounds like this guy wasn't with an engine failure at the worst time when he was making a 180. Too bad.

 

And Greg Feith said that it was effectively about 15K feet (high density alt) at the time of the crash.

 

Sad.

Flying over the mountains can be dangerous and will bite you if you do something wrong. Not speaking from experience but, my sense is, when you come out of Denver and head west to go over the mountains you need to climb, climb, climb.

And how high can a single plane climb to? 15,0000 feet doesn't sound high enough to cross the Continental Divide. Don't you need around 10,000 feet of ground clearance, maybe even more?

And don't fly up I-70 thinking it will take you through the mountains because once you reach the tunnel, you'll be reaching a mound of rock that you probably won't be able to avoid.

-F
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It depends on the single. Turbo singles can fly quite high, some with the ability to cruise in the high 20k's. Does anyone every really fly them that high? Not really, at least not for any amout of time. High teens is where most turbo piston singles fly. Rob has post some great pics of him at altitude, his plane is definitely one of the most capable singles around.

Non-pressurized planes require the occupants to be on oxygen above 12.5k if you're going to be up there more than half an a hour. It just less comfortable and a little more risky than flying where oxygen is not needed. The higher you go the less time you have to respond to any sort of malfunction in your oxygen flow, but the flying is generally better.

You definitely don't need 10k feet of clearance to pass over mountains, but you do want some clearance. Plus, you really shouldnt be flying over the peeks. There are well defined "passes" piston singles fly through/over the Rockies. There's a lot of great info out there and anyone flying the Rockies would be very well advised to get some training and study up.


Mark

 

Exactly. I remember reading somewhere about needing more clearance in the mountains than in typical situations because the winds and the thin air can suck up that clearance real quick.

Good to know. Man, you really need to know what you're doing when going over the mountains. Doing it in a single engine plane just sounds like not much room for error.

I guess single engine planes cross the Divide all the time. You just have to have a good game plane and even the veterans (like Bob Parks) can get caught in a sticky situation even if they've done everything right.

Sorry for the non-experienced interjection, I'm just an armchair aviation fan but I appreciate the technical challenges that alpine aviation pose.

To the family, RIP.

-F

 

NO I am sure that the dumbass reporter heard the aircraft "stalled" in the turn and he interpreted to believe the engine "cut out". Typical aviation "reporting".

 

I can't be classified as a veteran, those types are in Alaska and the Rockies. Having some time in sailplanes and flying around in the hills helped me to be aware of upslope winds and lee side rotors and what they can do for you and to you. A friend was killed in eastern Washington when he got caught in a rotor east of the mountains and put down. As far as the crash in Colo. I assumed that the report was correct re engine failure but the airplane is probably what " stalled"and that makes more sense. Flyers like Rob and some of the others on this forum who have taken a mountain flying course and fly high performance equipment know much more than I do. Also an airplane like Rob's can get you closer to higher density altitudes and more trouble. So, they have to be conservative and careful and obviously they are.

 

Brings back memories of my brother-in-law. Sad day for the relatives.

He was Big Horn sheep scouting with two friends from a single engine in the Peters Creek Valley near the Eagle River in Alaska. The pilot, his long time friend was a Fed Ex pilot and the other freind was an air traffic controller at Anchorage International as well as a certified airline transport pilot. They got into a "box canyon", not enough power to go over, too small to bank out, they decided to set it down. Theory is, wheels sank into the ground and all three were ejected. Co-pilot died instantly ejected thorough the windshield, chair and all. Truly sad event...

That was the day I stopped getting in small planes. I know...odds, risk etc. Just my choice.

 

I remember driving over Loveland Pass on US-6 in 1968 before the Eisenhower Tunnel was built, and I remember it as a steep, windy road. (Actually, my dad was driving, since I was still a kid.) In a new Chevy station wagon, we couldn't go faster than 30 MPH, not because of the road, but because that's only as fast as the car would go!

 

Plane was a Cherokee - Piper PA 28-235.

Fixed gear, I believe.

Not going to get her over that ridge at the end of the draw, doing a 180 means an almost certain stall and it won't fit through the tunnel.

So no turbo... probably sightseeing... same old story.

It won't be the last plane to go down up there, I read somewhere that there have been more than a couple doing this at that location... following I-70 up the hill.

 

The pilot was a former U.S. Air Force pilot, as well as former AMA Superbike rider.

?R.I.P. Former AMA Pro Superbike Racer James Kerker

 

There are crashes at Tahoe frequently,....some have been attributed to loss of power due to the engine air mix issues at altitude, I had a friend in the aircraft salvage business and we would go in and pick up what was left....

 

We had a P210 (a pressurized turbocharged piston single) for several years. We routinely flew it in the low 20s. The service ceiling was supposedly 25,000, but the cabin altitude was 12,500 at a pressure altitude of 23,000 feet, so I never took it above that.

There's an IFR arrival route that goes just about right over Long's Peak, a "fourteener." Once, ATC sent me via that route on a windy day, and the mountain wave caused a scary rate of descent at 17,000 feet. After that, if they ever gave me that route, I just said, "Unable." And I planned routes that just wouldn't logically involve that arrival.

 

James was a nice guy, a customer of mine, I met him a few times and we spoke on the phone or emailed when he was racing, he was just having fun racing.

He worked for Amer Honda in Ohio.

Ohio couple, terminally ill son, 6, die after small plane crashes at Colorado's Loveland Ski Area - NY Daily News

Ohio couple, terminally ill son, 6, die after small plane crashes at Colorado's Loveland Ski Area

Little Lucas Kerker suffered from ataxia-telangiectasia, a rare genetic disease that likely would have killed him by the time he was 18. His parents, James and Amy Kerker, were flying from their Raymond, Ohio, home to Moab, Utah, to give the boy 'life experiences' before he died when the plane crashed near the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains.

 

Wow. Yeah, flying over a 14'er in a single engine plane just seems like a lot of risk loaded onto the flight plan.

And flying a single engine over the Divide at Loveland seems like a bad idea.

-F

 

Just for the record, "twin engine" versus "single engine" really had nothing to do with this.

 

Im gonna respectfully disagree. You can plan for this. Its not like the mountains just popped up. Even a basic VFR chart has topo info. IIRC they were in an archer? You can pick your way through Colorado at 12,000 feet. Some have mentioned updrafts etc. Best plan of attack is to leave at the crack of dawn to minimize mountain wave etc.

But proper preflight planning would have prevented this tragedy.

With that said, I havent touched a single engine plane for 20 years, but I did get my PPL in the mountains of Utah. Basic flying principles havent changed.

 

The weather edge can be drastic as well right at that location of the Divide. Fronts stall and slip shear there all the time, and it is not uncommon to go from Spring / Summer conditions to Winter conditions (with violent snow storms) just by passing through the Eisenhower Tunnel. The air mass from the top to about 5000 feet above can be like a washing machine.

I hate to be critical of these poor folks, but this is no place for anyone (regardless of skill / experience level) to be in a plane such as that. They should have been crossing about 100-150 miles South of this location ---- that is the corridor most frequently used, and for good reason, by small aircraft going across the Divide between Utah & Colorado.

 

If you are already at 14,000 then you are probably OK, but if your not, and try to climb over the mountain...good luck.

Bob