5 killed in Bloomington crash (Cessna 414)

Always a bad thing,may they rest in peace.
 
Smelling lack of Instrument Rating.

The article said he had a "regular pilot", so that along with it being a C414 Twin, I would be surprised if the pilot did not have an IR.

Very sad.
 
The IR means little if it's a newbie or someone who does not fly instruments often. Lots of accidents happen this way.
 
It doesn't say anything about the terrain where they landed. The northwest of the airport is much more populated than the north, east, and south of the airport.
 
The IR means little if it's a newbie or someone who does not fly instruments often. Lots of accidents happen this way.

Though you're not incorrect in your statement the wording of the article leads me to believe that this pilot was not a newbie and was most likely CPL. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough, but at this point making guesses like this is pointless.
 
Article updated. +2 casualties, for 7 total. Plane crashed 2 miles east of KBMI - flat, farm lands with an occasional strand of trees.

Very sad news and condolences to the families affected.
 
Night-IMC has been a continuing accident trend in GA. Very sad.
 
Last edited:
When taking passengers who put all their trust in you, the pilot making the decisions need to think twice about making these kind of flights. Killing yourself is not good but here stakes are much higher.
 
Night plus fog = death, IR nor not
 
When taking passengers who put all their trust in you, the pilot making the decisions need to think twice about making these kind of flights. Killing yourself is not good but here stakes are much higher.

I see you don't live or fly in the Midwest and how the only forecasts that are correct around here are the ones made 6 hours after the weather has already happened. I call them pastcasts. I have been screwed over by forecasts a few times in that exact area. BKN040 turned out to be OVC001 and it closed in on me in less than an hour (about 15 minutes actually), and there was NO forecast whatsoever for the ceilings to be less than 040 for the next 12 hours. But there it was - OVC001. So don't put it on the pilot if the Feds screwed up the forecast.
 
When taking passengers who put all their trust in you, the pilot making the decisions need to think twice about making these kind of flights.
This can't be stressed enough, regardless of wether this pilot is guilty of it or not. I don't make stupid decisions based on sketchy information with people in the back. It's not about how much they did or did not pay. It's about the trust.

Now, seeing how short I can land a 152 on a windy day is all about the challenge.

Night plus fog = death, IR nor not

Not really.
 
Though you're not incorrect in your statement the wording of the article leads me to believe that this pilot was not a newbie and was most likely CPL. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough, but at this point making guesses like this is pointless.

Your making an assumption that may not be true. If the pilot had been well trained with lots of hours IFR , and some current, they probably would have landed without incident. Pointing out that people outfly their IFR capabilitys quite often is hardly " pointless".
 
Very sad.
Looks like a stall on final, dropped down to 1500ft then 77kt airspeed + 390ft altitude increase + sharp turn to the left, then no more radar track. :sad:

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N789UP/history/20150407/0300Z/KIND/KBMI/tracklog

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N789UP

It often seems that when an incident like this occurs, a link to FlightAware traces are portrayed as a reliable representation of the aircraft's last moments. I don't believe the information to be that accurate.

My condolences to the many friends and family members who will suffer terribly bearing this loss.
 
Your making an assumption that may not be true. If the pilot had been well trained with lots of hours IFR , and some current, they probably would have landed without incident. Pointing out that people outfly their IFR capabilitys quite often is hardly " pointless".

You're assuming it was pilot error. A premature indictment at best. But hey, you and our other speculation queens here should Continue to pump yourself up by tearing others down. Don't let me stop you.
 
It often seems that when an incident like this occurs, a link to FlightAware traces are portrayed as a reliable representation of the aircraft's last moments. I don't believe the information to be that accurate.

It would be helpful to know what support you have for that belief. Are there known examples of FlightAware traces being wrong?
 
Maybe he had an engine failure and botched it. I've gotten the impression that twin Cessnas are a handful OEI.
 
It would be helpful to know what support you have for that belief. Are there known examples of FlightAware traces being wrong?

Absolutely. Their track logs are wrong quite often. They can show general trends but I wouldn't use them for anything that needed a detailed analysis - such as the above poster opining that it was likely a stall.
 
Truth is until we have the report we do not know what really happened here.
Maybe it was an engine failure. Prehaps the fog, perhaps the Pilot was fatigued and made an error in judgement. Regardless people have passed away and we are getting in a ****ing match over replies.

My condolences to the families of the deceased.
 
Another vote for synthetic vision and watch that temperature and dewpoint spread!

RIP
 
I just did my 1st cross-country to BMG so this thread caught my attention. Horrible thing to hear my prayers go out to the families.
 
Another vote for synthetic vision and watch that temperature and dewpoint spread!

RIP

I know we all are trained to land on the gauges, and the real full time pros do it many times every day, but it really makes you wonder if synthetic vision would have made a difference here (assuming it wasn't present). Even the one I have on my iPad (Garmin Pilot and GDL-39 3D) sure looks like a wonderful aid to situational awareness to me. Assuming, of course, that weather was a factor. It certainly was very foggy this morning at my house (about 10 miles away).
 
The pilot had a pile of ratings:

Airline Transport Pilot
Airplane Multi Engine Land
Commercial Pilot Privileges only
Airplane Single Engine Land
Flight Instructor (exp: 31-Jan-2017)
Airplane Single and Multi Engine
Instrument Airplane

Date of Medical : Feb, 2015
Class of Medical : 2
Expiration of Class 2 : Feb, 2016

http://hilemanaviation.com/home
 
Last edited:
I know we all are trained to land on the gauges, and the real full time pros do it many times every day, but it really makes you wonder if synthetic vision would have made a difference here (assuming it wasn't present). Even the one I have on my iPad (Garmin Pilot and GDL-39 3D) sure looks like a wonderful aid to situational awareness to me. Assuming, of course, that weather was a factor. It certainly was very foggy this morning at my house (about 10 miles away).



We don't know what happened, but synviz couldn't have hurt at this point ...

I had a very early version of synviz on a flight cheetah several years ago that although it was crude, it put boxes up in the sky for you to fly through. HITS (highway in the sky) was amazing as crude as it was.

Just fly through the boxes down to DA.
 
I just listened to the ATC audio from LiveATC, and there is nothing remarkable there. The pilot sounds calm and professional, and ATC clears him for the ILS approach. Nothing else is on the audio recording after that, except at some point ATC (apparently assuming the pilot has broken off the approach and is out of radio and radar contact) asks the pilot in the blind to cancel IFR when possible, in the air or on the ground. After that, just futile attempts to contact the missing aircraft (apparently no ELT was heard).
 
Don't they just pass along radar data from ATC? Could you point me to an example where their information was wrong?

FlightAware has had many incomplete tracks for me, and a couple of times has shown me going to and landing somewhere I was not. It can be fun sitting "here", wondering why FA shows me "there" instead.

I also did about half of my instrument training at night, and have hit fog in the flare a couple of times. If someone is with me, I ask them to turn off the landing light so I can see; a night go around in fog at 10' agl, flaring at idle, was not a realistic option.

Sympathy to the families, this is a horrible end to an exciting weekend.
 
The Bloomington ILS 20 and ALS are currently NOTAMed out of service. This was the approach they were on. Is this SOP when an accident occurs while a plane was on that approach? Wonder if there was a malfunction of the ILS.
 
Back
Top