Yorba Linda - 414rs down

Or wait until he was over the desert well north of the L.A. area, which would have been on his flight path.

 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-yorba-linda-plane-crash-20190207-story.html

Grieve for the innocents minding their own business on Super Bowl Sunday when this occurred. Horrific loss of lives.

 

Spiraling out of the clouds and overstressing the airplane seems like an unlikely way to commit suicide. If it was suicide, he changed his mind at the last minute-- which is what broke the airplane apart.

 

I'm not an expert on this kind of thing but seeing the gash in the upper fuselage, the absence of wings and tail, and engines scattered all over the place, leads me to think that the number two prop threw a blade , the engine departed after it failed the wing, and everything else came apart afterwards. An odd occurrence ,I think.

 

What I meant was that suicide did not make sense or he likely would have gone somewhere safe to do himself in.

 

I flew 414's for a few years Part 135 and 91. They are a capable all weather aircraft and in fact we're one of the first piston engine aircraft certified into known icing conditions. Though certified into those conditions, they are not "Pilot Friendly" in the weather as they are a very slippery airplane. Especially the "A" models. I hate to Monday Morning Quarterback any pilot but my two cents believe it was a spatial disorientation event. If this pilot was familiar with this area and was VFR below the clouds, he may have been trying to maintain VFR by shooting the 91 gap. Flying over the 91 Fwy eastbound will keep you below the hills and hopefully below the clouds until around the intersection with the 15 fwy. If he was unable to stay VMC, and went inadvertent IMC, he may have tried to climb like a homesick angel to get on top. OK, so he broke the rules in this case but, apparently he is instrument rated so climbing through the clouds shouldn't be a problem for him. Instead of slamming into a mountain, when in doubt, gas it and climb hoping for "The Big Sky Theory" to be on your side. Contact ATC, confess, get an IFR clearance, and comply. Then all you have to worry about is dialing the phone number they are about to give you when you land. If this accident was not caused by a medical event, and with all that might have been going through this pilot's mind it would be interesting to note in which position the Pitot Heat switch was. It only takes a minute amount of ice to block the tiny inlets on the pitot tube. Trying to fly by bogus instrument readings and inadvertently over correct for them, could easily cause forces strong enough to induce a structural failure. Also knowing that Terra Firma was not that far below him, he may have been trying to correct faster and harder putting even more damaging stress on the airframe. Unless you you can come out of the clouds without breaking up your airplane into VMC conditions with enough altitude to visually recover, it is almost impossible to recover with bogus instrument readings while IMC. There are ways but you need lots of altitude and quick recognition of the failure.

 

https://www.gazettextra.com/news/nation_world/pilot-lived-a-mysterious-double-life-then-a-plane-crash/article_b3ec55c1-bbfc-5393-a00e-97cf77e534ad.html

 

Man, what a weird story.