Another humdinger of an accident report (spoiler: More THC!)

Certificates? Weee don't need no steeenking certificates!
 
Guy was put on supplemental oxygen, had heart disease, and was flying at or above 12K in a plane that had probably sat for a couple of years. I can think of several ways that could go wrong.
 
Blatham489 said:
Suicide by CFIT maybe?
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I didn't see anything in there except repeated bad judgement.

Wind gusting from 25 to 40 in the area, mountain wave, moderate turbulence PIREPS. All the conditions for a very rough ride and getting shoved down into the terrain.

My personal limit for going westbound is max 20 kt reported winds over the Divide. I fly for fun. I don't need the "coffee bean in a grinder" experience. Over the decades I know of two former pilots out of my airport that made the mistake of trying to cross from the lee side under conditions they should not have, got roughed up, turned back, and frightened themselves so badly they never flew again. I bought a plane from one of them.
 
GRG55 said:
Wind gusting from 25 to 40 in the area, mountain wave, moderate turbulence PIREPS. All the conditions for a very rough ride and getting shoved down into the terrain.
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Funny thing was I was reading the report out loud to Karen... she likes shaking her head at the insane ones... and read the LXV winds. I stopped and said, “If it’s over 20 at LXV it has to be 40 on the peaks. It’s in a valley.”

Then started reading again. “There it is. Gusting 40 at Copper Mountain! Oh, and airliners reporting severe... holy...”
 
denverpilot said:
An old retired SAR buddy keeps finding the good ones and sending them to me. It’s been quite entertaining. LOL. I make sure to share them here!
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In my job at a familiar aviation administration I'm constantly in a position of working with inspectors, medical case workers, and enforcement attorneys on various issues of policy, enforcement, and rulemaking. One thing I have to remind them from time to time is that they deal with the worst of the worst and you can't efficiently regulate to the lowest common denominator. The problem is that more often than not, jokers like the guy mentioned in the OP carry a passenger or two and have a habit of crashing into people and property on the ground. As GA pilots, we'd do ourselves a favor to keep these folks from flying in whatever means possible, for our own self-preservation. Because...
...all it takes is one bad apple to ruin it for everyone else.
All it takes is one bad apple to ruin it for everyone else.
All it takes is one bad apple to ruin it for everyone else.
All it takes is one bad apple to ruin it for everyone else.
 
I find it amazing that they can do toxicology tests 3.5 months after the crash. That's incredible.
 
Brad Z said:
As GA pilots, we'd do ourselves a favor to keep these folks from flying in whatever means possible, for our own self-preservation.
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I have no idea how we’d do that in this case. There’s a point where something is “noneya”. As in “none ya business”. Seeing some old guy crank up an airplane that hasn’t flown in as couple years is on that fine line and I’d probably strike up a conversation, but beyond that ... the rest of what he did wasn’t seen by anyone.

(And for that matter as you said, no pasengers, so go crash your toy in the mountains all you like, sir. At some point other pilots can’t stop bad pilots any more than you can stop bad drivers during your commute.)

You included Dubroff ... ugh. Now that is not a good example either.

Taking off into a thunderstorm in Cheyenne could have been stopped by any pilot willing to pull the CFI aside and tell him, “You want to kill yourself or the kid on national TV?” ... and while the overall trend at the time of younger and younger kids doing it was stupid...

I wouldn’t put that misjudgment into the same category as this idiot. I wouldn’t even say most of us we the digital weather geeks we are today. They probably got their only look at that cell on a 640x480 modem equipped WSI terminal in CYS back then. They certainly weren’t watching cells in HD on their brick phones. Ha.

I believe but the details escape me, that they called Flight Service and spoke to a real controller and weather pro back then. (Yeah I said it... sorry Leidos or whatever your name is this week...)

A whole lot of people, including pilots, stood there and watched those two launch into a thunderstorm and never said a word.

But I sure wouldn’t use it as a warning to other aviators that we will lose some sort of privileges if some CFI, a kid, and their family, try to pull off a well publicized stunt and NOBODY at the time, not even the Feds, said “stop”.

So that’s a really bad example. That one is more of a PR disaster with a knee jerk.

But also a knee jerk nobody cares about. It really isn’t threatening anyone’s flying as an adult. Or kid.

It’s ultra specific toward records being set.

The reality is that 7 year olds are flying airplanes nearly every day somewhere under supervision. Nothing changed for them or their parents letting them do it, while daddy or mommy watches over them as PIC. They’re just not out setting “world records” anymore.

I didn’t check the rest. After seeing Dubroff I decided this “warning” about what “we” should do, was pretty bogus. Couldn’t have stopped this guy, and everyone on the planet could have stopped Dubroff’s instructor. Totally different things.
 
Shepherd said:
Somewhere in the guys head he justified each step in the process.
That's REALLY scary.
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Somewhere after some men’s 60th birthdays the DGAF light illuminates, and won’t extinguish for some. I’ve seen that amongst aviators and non-aviators.

For this guy it seems like it illuminated long before that with the medical loss in the late 2000s and it just got worse.

I suspect that story of the daughter trying to sell the airplane many years prior was the family trying to get him to get rid of it. They knew he was in DGAF mode or worse, dementia.
 
deeruck said:
I find it amazing that they can do toxicology tests 3.5 months after the crash. That's incredible.
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I've done toxicology on exhumed cavemen; they were party animals! Depends on what you're looking for, mainly: some toxicants are short-lived, but many aren't. I can usually find a metabolite, but that's a tough one to give to a jury.
 
Definitely a Darwin Candidate. Of course, I can think of worse ways to die. Like in a hospital bed praying for death.
 
denverpilot said:
I have no idea how we’d do that in this case. There’s a point where something is “noneya”. As in “none ya business”. Seeing some old guy crank up an airplane that hasn’t flown in as couple years is on that fine line and I’d probably strike up a conversation, but beyond that ... the rest of what he did wasn’t seen by anyone.

(And for that matter as you said, no pasengers, so go crash your toy in the mountains all you like, sir. At some point other pilots can’t stop bad pilots any more than you can stop bad drivers during your commute.)

You included Dubroff ... ugh. Now that is not a good example either.

Taking off into a thunderstorm in Cheyenne could have been stopped by any pilot willing to pull the CFI aside and tell him, “You want to kill yourself or the kid on national TV?” ... and while the overall trend at the time of younger and younger kids doing it was stupid...

I wouldn’t put that misjudgment into the same category as this idiot. I wouldn’t even say most of us we the digital weather geeks we are today. They probably got their only look at that cell on a 640x480 modem equipped WSI terminal in CYS back then. They certainly weren’t watching cells in HD on their brick phones. Ha.

I believe but the details escape me, that they called Flight Service and spoke to a real controller and weather pro back then. (Yeah I said it... sorry Leidos or whatever your name is this week...)

A whole lot of people, including pilots, stood there and watched those two launch into a thunderstorm and never said a word.

But I sure wouldn’t use it as a warning to other aviators that we will lose some sort of privileges if some CFI, a kid, and their family, try to pull off a well publicized stunt and NOBODY at the time, not even the Feds, said “stop”.

So that’s a really bad example. That one is more of a PR disaster with a knee jerk.

But also a knee jerk nobody cares about. It really isn’t threatening anyone’s flying as an adult. Or kid.

It’s ultra specific toward records being set.

The reality is that 7 year olds are flying airplanes nearly every day somewhere under supervision. Nothing changed for them or their parents letting them do it, while daddy or mommy watches over them as PIC. They’re just not out setting “world records” anymore.

I didn’t check the rest. After seeing Dubroff I decided this “warning” about what “we” should do, was pretty bogus. Couldn’t have stopped this guy, and everyone on the planet could have stopped Dubroff’s instructor. Totally different things.
Click to expand...

You missed my point entirely. When planes crash, congress passes laws to restrict your freedoms.
 
denverpilot said:
Funny thing was I was reading the report out loud to Karen... she likes shaking her head at the insane ones... and read the LXV winds. I stopped and said, “If it’s over 20 at LXV it has to be 40 on the peaks. It’s in a valley.”

Then started reading again. “There it is. Gusting 40 at Copper Mountain! Oh, and airliners reporting severe... holy...”
Click to expand...

This NTSB report is one of the best examples I use with pilots I run into here that don't have any mountain flying experience. It's a sobering read of the power of wind and terrain. Especially the part about the turboprop 210 pilot that first noticed the evidence of the accident plane:

The pilot from the passing airplane submitted a written statement about what he observed while circling over the accident airplane. The pilot was flying a pressurized Cessna 210, equipped with an Allison 250 turbo-propeller engine that was capable of producing 450 horse power (HP). While approaching the accident area at 19,000 feet the Cessna pilot spotted a ground fire that he believed was the accident airplane. While circling the wreckage, he realized that his airplane was descending and added engine power thinking it was poor piloting technique. After reporting the fire to air traffic control (ATC), he noticed that his airplane's altitude was now down to 18,500 feet and the engine was already at full power. The Cessna pilot informed ATC that he was in an area of downdraft and they cleared him for a block altitude of 17,000 to 19,000 feet. During this time his airplane continued an uncontrolled descent at 500 feet per minute (fpm), and the Cessna pilot estimated that the airplane should have been climbing at 1,000 fpm. The Cessna pilot elected to leave the area to the south and the rate of descent began to slow until he was able to maintain altitude. The Cessna pilot characterized the downdraft as an area of "mountain wave". ​

https://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/NTSB....ev_id=20081221X13714&ntsbno=CEN09FA097&akey=1
 
Brad Z said:
You missed my point entirely. When planes crash, congress passes laws to restrict your freedoms.
Click to expand...

Not at all.

You used a horrid example because it didn’t limit anyone’s “freedoms” other than morons setting world records with seven year olds.

Also as I recall there were TWO FAA inspectors in the crowd at the Dubroff debacle that day standing there watching them launch into a thunderstorm.

If the onus is on “all of us” to stop stupid crap, those two were on the top of the list to wall over and say “this is stupid, dumbass... wait an hour”.

Congress knee jerked, but their new law was quite limited to doofuses caught up in the “youngest pilot” frenzy going on at the time, and its actually a really sane law.

The local media had even more of a massive frenzy about that crash around here than the national media did, and the national media was already way over the top.

Take off into a thunderstorm in CYS, you’re probably going to have a very bad day.

Of course the media didn’t point out that their cameras being there en masse from all the Denver stations who wanted to get on the road back to Denver for other “important” stories was the main pressure item for the CFIs “go” decision.

That and the paycheck from mom and dad...

We see this sort of dumb child competition still today in other sports. Parents are retarded. The law stopping it in our sport is quite appropriate. Save it for gymnastics and pageants...
 
Brad Z said:
In my job at a familiar aviation administration I'm constantly in a position of working with inspectors, medical case workers, and enforcement attorneys on various issues of policy, enforcement, and rulemaking. One thing I have to remind them from time to time is that they deal with the worst of the worst and you can't efficiently regulate to the lowest common denominator. The problem is that more often than not, jokers like the guy mentioned in the OP carry a passenger or two and have a habit of crashing into people and property on the ground. As GA pilots, we'd do ourselves a favor to keep these folks from flying in whatever means possible, for our own self-preservation. Because...
...all it takes is one bad apple to ruin it for everyone else.
All it takes is one bad apple to ruin it for everyone else.
All it takes is one bad apple to ruin it for everyone else.
All it takes is one bad apple to ruin it for everyone else.
Click to expand...

The second bad apple:
From an earlier flight:
A customer, who heard about the accident and flew with the pilot on August 3, 1997, wrote that he asked the pilot if he would perform a loop or roll while they were flying. He (the Pilot) "emphatically and without hesitation" politely declined citing company policies and insurance restrictions. After boarding the airplane, they were thoroughly instructed on what not to touch. The customer wrote that "the flight was conducted in a highly professional manner by a mature and experienced pilot."

From the accident flight:
The owner reported that the pilot of the other airplane radioed him with the comment that "he had two female passengers onboard who wanted a thrill."

Hmmmm I wonder what was different about these two flights?
 
denverpilot said:
Not at all.

You used a horrid example because it didn’t limit anyone’s “freedoms” other than morons setting world records with seven year olds.

Also as I recall there were TWO FAA inspectors in the crowd at the Dubroff debacle that day standing there watching them launch into a thunderstorm.

If the onus is on “all of us” to stop stupid crap, those two were on the top of the list to wall over and say “this is stupid, dumbass... wait an hour”.

Congress knee jerked, but their new law was quite limited to doofuses caught up in the “youngest pilot” frenzy going on at the time, and its actually a really sane law.

The local media had even more of a massive frenzy about that crash around here than the national media did, and the national media was already way over the top.

Take off into a thunderstorm in CYS, you’re probably going to have a very bad day.

Of course the media didn’t point out that their cameras being there en masse from all the Denver stations who wanted to get on the road back to Denver for other “important” stories was the main pressure item for the CFIs “go” decision.

That and the paycheck from mom and dad...

We see this sort of dumb child competition still today in other sports. Parents are retarded. The law stopping it in our sport is quite appropriate. Save it for gymnastics and pageants...
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Limited? 49 U.S.C. 44724 doesn’t say anything about age. If you, as PIC, invited me to join you on a poker run and let me take the controls in flight, you’ve just broken the law (literally) with a single sanction punishment of REVOCATION of you pilot certificate. No counseling, no suspension, but hand your ticket in and start from scratch. Yep, I don’t have a medical certificate, I fly under BasicMed.

The thing about the Dubroff accident wasn’t about setting records or seven year olds sitting in the front seat playing with the controls. The accident was about get-there-itis, and happens for many other reasons other than kids setting records. In this case poor airmanship resulted in horrific consequences, with Congress in turn virtually criminalizing an activity that isn’t inherently unsafe.

Side note: I can’t confirm that there were two FAA inspectors at the accident scene in 1996 but I agree that if there were, they had an obligation to challenge the pilot.

Some guy who wants to take off without a recent medical or annual and CFIT himself into the boonies probably isn’t going to raise many eyebrows in Congress, but will inevitably leave behind a trail of friends and family that will attribute his death to “those dangerous little airplanes.” Every accident with insurance coverage results in a claim that raises all of our rates. Every accident near an airport drums up factions calling for the closure of the airport. Let’s face it, there is no acceptable numbers of fatal accidents. If you want to kill yourself, be real man and eat a tub full of beans in one sitting; don’t do it in an airplane...you’re ruining it for the rest of us.
 
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Brad Z said:
Limited? 49 U.S.C. 44724 doesn’t say anything about age. If you, as PIC, invited me to join you on a poker run and let me take the controls in flight, you’ve just broken the law (literally) with a single sanction punishment of REVOCATION of you pilot certificate.
Click to expand...

No I haven’t.

“... to manipulate the controls of an aircraft if the pilot knows or should have known that the individual is attempting to set a record or engage in an aeronautical competition or aeronautical feat, as defined by the Administrator.”

Nothing about flying to five airports and picking up a piece of cardboard at is an aeronautical competition or feat. Comparing the cardboard pieces on the ground later isn’t either.

And unless you’re attempting to set a record for boredom, which I wouldn’t know about anyway... LOL.

Now you want to say you’ll go yank pilot certificates if they let a passenger touch the controls in an air race or something, go for it, but a poker run doesn’t look, smell, or quack like the kind of duck this law was written for.

Granted, a particular ALJ might be a dumbass, and think so, if some even bigger inspector jackass pushed it, but that’d be fun to put in the aviation press. Bring on the Hoover medical idiots again.

Go revoke Sean Tucker’s ticket for letting someone else hold the controls in a loop and call it an aeronautical feat, I dare ya.

Nobody’s doing this. If they started they’d have a PR **** storm in their hands. They’re not that stupid. They know what this was written for. An it ain’t poker runs.
 
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