Apparent plane crash on TPC Scottsdale Golf Course

In a normal training flight where the CFI or PIC announces “we now going to do a stall “, then you proceed to slowly increase your AOA while focusing to keep the ball centered and will feel the expected buffeting, no, but....
In your rush to an attempt to make such a glib answer, you misunderstand what I was trying to say.
What I was saying was that the FAA does not REQUIRE a stall horn or light or any other indication if the design of the plane provides for a clear pre-stall buffet as the warning. For example, my Navion has no stall indicator other than the aerodynamic shuddering that precedes the stall.
 
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Are they?

So that just goes to show that those people are not in fact the experts than.
I don't follow. Obviously these two guys weren't experts at much of anything aviation-related (that particular evening, anyhow), but we've seen a bunch of weight and balance calculations in this thread, and none of them work. I'm not seeing how proving that this was a very poor idea makes an owner/pilot of one of these aircraft a non-expert.
 
So a very slight tail-wind and wings rocking on take-off. Otherwise sounds like aft cg and a stall in the turn when it couldn’t climb.
 
CFIs first trip in the plane.
 
May also have been first night takeoff at an unfamiliar airport. It will be interesting to learn if he was night current.
 
So a very slight tail-wind and wings rocking on take-off. Otherwise sounds like aft cg and a stall in the turn when it couldn’t climb.

A Comanche can carry a heck of a load. Way over the legal limit. I'm guessing they lifted off slower than they needed to at at that weight and the aft CG made a bad situation unmanageable for whoever was flying.
 
A Comanche can carry a heck of a load. Way over the legal limit. I'm guessing they lifted off slower than they needed to at at that weight and the aft CG made a bad situation unmanageable for whoever was flying.

Who cares. This isn't about comanche tribalism; all airplanes can be lifted off overweight at the expense of climb rate. This is about decision making. Being fanatical about one's airplane can be counterproductive when it comes to this "playing with the margins" business.

And it's not a matter of "aft CG", but "aft of the limit". The WB moment arms of the comanche easily bear out that attempting to treat the baggage compartment as a bona fide adult seating section can easily throw the airplane aft of the CG limit well before you exceed the max gross. I don't know why people are so defensive about the idea this airplane can't handle 6 adults in earnest. It's not a big airplane, dimensionally comparable to stuffing 6 adults in a 182. Not pretty.
 
Who cares. This isn't about comanche tribalism; all airplanes can be lifted off overweight at the expense of climb rate. This is about decision making. Being fanatical about one's airplane can be counterproductive when it comes to this "playing with the margins" business.

And it's not a matter of "aft CG", but "aft of the limit". The WB moment arms of the comanche easily bear out that attempting to treat the baggage compartment as a bona fide adult seating section can easily throw the airplane aft of the CG limit well before you exceed the max gross. I don't know why people are so defensive about the idea this airplane can't handle 6 adults in earnest. It's not a big airplane, dimensionally comparable to stuffing 6 adults in a 182. Not pretty.

I swear my Cherokee 140 can hold 4 200 lb males just fine!!!! Want to give it a shot??? Lol :p

For what it is worth...I live very close to KSDL and did my Private training there. The dirt embankment and golf course is literally a hop, skip, and a jump from the runway. They sure as heck didn’t make it far with 6 people in that plane. Surprised they didn’t abort takeoff with that long runway they had.
 
Who cares. This isn't about comanche tribalism; all airplanes can be lifted off overweight at the expense of climb rate. This is about decision making. Being fanatical about one's airplane can be counterproductive when it comes to this "playing with the margins" business.

And it's not a matter of "aft CG", but "aft of the limit". The WB moment arms of the comanche easily bear out that attempting to treat the baggage compartment as a bona fide adult seating section can easily throw the airplane aft of the CG limit well before you exceed the max gross. I don't know why people are so defensive about the idea this airplane can't handle 6 adults in earnest. It's not a big airplane, dimensionally comparable to stuffing 6 adults in a 182. Not pretty.

Who cares? I do. I wanna understand why 6 people are dead. I'd guess the other folks following this thread are interested too.

And Comanche tribalism? Where'd that come from? Lord...

Aft of the limit is somewhat arbitrary. If the limit is "X", "X+.01" isn't gonna make the airplane fall out of the air or be uncontrollable. It'll be a little less controllable. Same thing with weight - 5 pounds over gross? Rounding error. Farther out of limits is worse, but GA gross weights and CG limits are set pretty conservatively. It'll be interesting to see the NTSB's conclusions on weight and CG. That airplane would have needed to be pretty far "out" to be unflyable.
 
Aft of the limit is somewhat arbitrary. If the limit is "X", "X+.01" isn't gonna make the airplane fall out of the air or be uncontrollable...GA gross weights and CG limits are set pretty conservatively...That airplane would have needed to be pretty far "out" to be unflyable.

That kind of thinking has killed far too many pilots already.

We should not foster it here.
 
Who cares? I do. I wanna understand why 6 people are dead. I'd guess the other folks following this thread are interested too.

And Comanche tribalism? Where'd that come from? Lord...

Aft of the limit is somewhat arbitrary. If the limit is "X", "X+.01" isn't gonna make the airplane fall out of the air or be uncontrollable. It'll be a little less controllable. Same thing with weight - 5 pounds over gross? Rounding error. Farther out of limits is worse, but GA gross weights and CG limits are set pretty conservatively. It'll be interesting to see the NTSB's conclusions on weight and CG. That airplane would have needed to be pretty far "out" to be unflyable.

My "Who cares" remark referred to your compliments about the comanche performance, not about the dead people. I even bolded the part of your quote I was respondingnto, so don't obfuscate.

The comanche tribalism comment comes from you implying exceedance of the posted limits wouldn't be of consequence here because in your words: the "comanche can haul a load". As if to suggest that airplane is an exception to physics in any substantive way. It isn't. It's just another simpleton 6 banger single with a marketing department that's long dead or receiving SS payments.

Most pilots are one sigma away from average. Average pilots don't have exceptional pilot technique, flight instructors included. As such, the expectation of successful handling of aft of limit cg characteristics in an airplane with little to no prior familiarity is not an honest expectation of outcome. Add the ADM externalities associated with this particular accident, and it's not a large leap to arrive at this outcome. You want to wait for the NTSB to spell it out? Cool. I still stand by my opinion a Comanche baggage compartment ought to be treated as a baggage compartment.
 
So a very slight tail-wind and wings rocking on take-off. Otherwise sounds like aft cg and a stall in the turn when it couldn’t climb.
Actually, the sign of aft CG is pitch oscillation, which wasn't present here. Wings are rocking when airplane is close to a stall, usually. So looks like surprisingly the airplane was perfectly flyable, but someone forgot that he needed to bump all the speeds up considerably and likely was peering at instruments in a turn and let it settle {and then probably pulled instead of abandoning the turn, which started the loss of speed, approaching the stall and the overbanking}. If not for that, they would've gotten away with it.
 
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From the report it sounds like they have some video that should help understand the actual dynamics better.
 
I looked through the comments trying to find the answer but haven't seen anything yet - Does anyone know what the cause was of this crash?
 
The article mentions a small, concentrated debris field, which may suggest they were past "settle" and into "plummet."

Basics. The turn reduces your vertical component of lift (requiring a higher angle of attack to hold altitude) and also raises stall speed.

The portion of the report that says the wings were “nearly vertical” before the aircraft disappeared behind terrain from the camera, tells the tale and sets the stage for a small debris field. They never recovered from that bank most likely.

However they ended up in the bank, they either couldn’t get out of it (stall/incipient spin, aileron on the lower wing down exacerbated the stalled condition on that wing) or it got so far over there wasn’t time or altitude left to level it and recover.

Wing wagging, rapid roll, immediate crash is all classic “stall/spin on takeoff” accident terminology often seen.

Now the question is, was the CG so far aft that the pilot was trying in vain to push the nose down with full down elevator and it was still flying itself into a stalled condition?

That’s a VERY tail heavy CG condition to do that, and I’m not sure any of the numbers shown here in conjecture have been THAT far aft, but the airplane probably still would need significant forward elevator to keep the nose down for the climb.

The rest of it though, is a the classic power-on “departure/takeoff” stall/spin description.

If it won’t climb you have to push forward. If it’ll at least hold altitude you can’t add much of a turn, because losing even a small amount of the vertical component of lift means you have to trade altitude for airspeed. And you don’t have it.

If... overloaded and aft CG, they could have kept the nose just down enough to climb a little, missed all obstacles, and kept flying straight for some time, they might have been able to climb enough eventually for gentle turns, even if they had to lose a little altitude to do them, and worked their way back around for a landing. Or even flew a while to burn down some fuel.

But ... they didn’t or couldn’t. Not sure which yet.

It’s hard to believe an ATP would not know this or be able to attempt it. It might be easier to believe an ATP had the wrong climb airspeed in their head because they didn’t read the book or heed the markings on the ASI.

Even trying to stop that roll rate with a whole lot of top rudder may have ended better than letting it keep rolling. Even if he couldn’t get the nose down. Getting it to hit the ground at some lesser bank angle than letting it fall off to one side at a nearly 90 degree bank angle would have helped dissipate some energy hitting wing first. Still may not have been survivable but with some training in aerobatics or solid unusual attitude training, there may have been a slight chance to make the outcome slightly better.

Sigh. Ugly but not too unexpected when this new video data is combined with the conjecture thus far.
 
Great post Denver. You hit all the important points and is exhibit "A" as to why I think discussing accidents can be very productive. In particular, I agree with your comments about how you should handle this kind of situation. After reading the preliminary report, I was running through my own mind what I would do if I found myself in this situation and was thinking that is seems similar to losing an engine in a ME shortly after takeoff, establish a rate of climb (hopefully) with no banks until you get some altitude.
 
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I think people are forgetting that there is a rather large dirt embankment that is north of the canal. The golf course is right on the other side of this. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were pulling up to clear that dirt embankment, stalled, etc. But idk I could be completely wrong...just a guess
 
I think people are forgetting that there is a rather large dirt embankment that is north of the canal. The golf course is right on the other side of this. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were pulling up to clear that dirt embankment, stalled, etc. But idk I could be completely wrong...just a guess

Yep... if I’m reading it right that’s what they “disappeared behind” in this security camera footage. That’s not super tall, but yes, it would be a mental fight not to pull to clear it.

Pulled too much, got above it, ran out of airspeed and options all at the same time, and the summary of the video didn’t say, that I recall today, but I bet the roll was to the left... we all know why.

But he got high enough to get over into a near 90 degree bank... which hints he had already cleared the obstacle.

Better to barely clear the embankment in level flight or even hit it, than to stall and have an “uncommanded” roll above it. I put uncommanded in quotes, because the command that ultimately caused the roll was the elevator pull. It was bound to happen.

Takeoff loss of power accidents (which I don’t think this was) end similarly too often, because the natural instinct is to pull, when what will keep the aircraft under positive control is to push and accept the off field landing/crash.
 
YThat’s not super tall, but yes, it would be a mental fight not to pull to clear it.
Especially after dark, when you know it's there but can't see it.

I still think they were rushing to get out of there before the runway closed for construction ten minutes later, and higher-level thought processes went out the window. That's why whenever I feel myself starting to hurry preparation for flight, I stop and go into "Don't just do something, sit there!" mode.
 
So you're the guy that's always ahead of me for takeoff.
nopes that would be me. just ask the Tower guys at KFAR.

cleared for take off, right after a MD-90 departed - unable, I will hold for 3 mins
cleared for immediate take off, Citation on 3 mile final - unable, let him land
cleared to land, #2 behind the C-130 , caution... - 21k is extending downwind by 2 miles

these days they just ask me.. 21k are you going to hold? :D:D
 
Maybe a dumb question. Almost every plane I have flown was in knots on the ASI. I did fly one older Warrior that was in MPH. I really had to keep reminding myself that the speeds were different ( it was actually a dual marked ASI). Is the Comanche in MPH or knots? We have a person flying this plane for the second time, it is a mistake that I could see happening.

Add to that over weight and aft CG and the problem gets even worse.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 
Unless the ASI had been replaced, Comanche would be MPH.
 
Is the Comanche in MPH or knots?
Just about all light singles had mph as the primary scale until around 1976-77 when the manufacturers finally got together and agreed to standardize on knots as primary. The marketing people resisted the change; 150 mph looked a lot better in the spec sheet than 130 knots.
 
And unless it was really old the clean stall speed would also be marked on the ASI whether MPH or knots. But I forget what year that became the norm.

Great training fodder, the colored arcs.

“That airspeed indicator says we are flying in the yellow. What does that mean? Is that indicating some sort of danger?”

“Oh cool. So it’s smooth out today and we’re good. What do the rest of the colors mean?”

“Nice. They tell you a whole lot. Why isn’t there any color below 40?”

“Hey cool! Let’s test it! How about you turn right heading 180, and slow to 80 knots in a clearing turn and then whenever you’re ready, set for and show me an approach to landing base turn stall at about 30 degrees of bank and recover. You’re clear right.” :)

“Nicely done. Hey, I noticed something interesting. Why did that stall happen before that mark at 40? Seems like the buffet was around 55 or so?”

Speed tapes are no fun. You can’t play dumb instructor/passenger/evil bastard in the right seat, and see what their answers are as easily. :) :) :)

But with a standard circular ASI you can walk them right straight down the primrose path. And you got them to look right at those color markings while they were doing it.

I ain’t saying this particular airplane had a colored ASI or that it could have saved this poor bastard, but if he had an evil bastard instructor he might have flashed back to a day long long ago when someone got him to look at the color stripes and not the numbers... during a turning stall.

Getting people to take In ALL available information their instruments are showing them, is a valid play, and all part of the learning game. :)

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“Nice. They tell you a whole lot. Why isn’t there any color below 40?”

Bottoms of the arcs are incorrect for the airplane that is overgross. One needs to get new ones from the section of POH that lists stall speeds for various bank angles, by re-calculating the bank angles into g loads, then multiplying the gross by the factor to get the desired overgross.

BTW, I once departed ABQ to the pass in a Cherokee with a guy named Brian. The performance was marginal. Brian didn't have the experience flying low and as we were passing the cement plant, he became anxious about us not making the pass (such as it is, heh). He said, "we should circle". I thought that circling wasn't going to do squat, but just for the heck of it I made a circle gingerly, using the width of the pass at that point for our advantage. We didn't gain a foot! The loss of climb performance from us banking exactly matched all the climb rate that we had available. After we completed the circle, I assured Brian that we'll be fine and we proceeded to clear the pass at a few hundred feet. Winds were very light, so... We proceeded below the tops of the Iron Hills, towards LVS, and eventually gained enough to cross the Raton Pass. Okay, I'm kidding -- but only just. The point of the story is, banking really does have an observable effect on a climb rate.
 
Bottoms of the arcs are incorrect for the airplane that is overgross. One needs to get new ones from the section of POH that lists stall speeds for various bank angles, by re-calculating the bank angles into g loads, then multiplying the gross by the factor to get the desired overgross.

BTW, I once departed ABQ to the pass in a Cherokee with a guy named Brian. The performance was marginal. Brian didn't have the experience flying low and as we were passing the cement plant, he became anxious about us not making the pass (such as it is, heh). He said, "we should circle". I thought that circling wasn't going to do squat, but just for the heck of it I made a circle gingerly, using the width of the pass at that point for our advantage. We didn't gain a foot! The loss of climb performance from us banking exactly matched all the climb rate that we had available. After we completed the circle, I assured Brian that we'll be fine and we proceeded to clear the pass at a few hundred feet. Winds were very light, so... We proceeded below the tops of the Iron Hills, towards LVS, and eventually gained enough to cross the Raton Pass. Okay, I'm kidding -- but only just. The point of the story is, banking really does have an observable effect on a climb rate.

See? You’d be the student who knew why the instructor was asking for a turning stall after pointing out the bottom of the white arc and asking what it meant.

(Many students will just blurt out “stall speed”.)

You may have noticed that every one of those questions was open-ended and intended to check depth of knowledge.

If you get no answer, the student didn’t read the assigned reading. They don’t know what the colors are for. Warning! :)

If you get the simple defining answers about the colors, they read it but didn’t remember to apply other factors. They’re about to learn something in the turning stall.

If they look over at you and say, “You already know this crap, why are you asking me?, you say it’s checkride prep. Answer the question. I’m your DPE today.

If they look over and say, “You already know this crap and it’s going to stall ten knots faster than the bottom of the white arc in this turn. Hold my beer. Watch this....”

... You know you can move on to checking other topics. :)

The electronic speed tapes hide all of that. Which is a bummer. ;)
 
My ASI doesn't have any numbers or marks or colors or anything at all below 40 mph . . . .

And I despise both speed and altitude tapes. Too hard to judge the rate of change, too hard to tell the value at a glance. In cruise, the altimeter needle should point straight up for IFR, straight down for VFR. With a tape, you can't tell at a glance if you've drifted any, it takes a longer look to read the number and a second's thought to tell if it's right, and if not which way to correct.
 
Too hard to judge the rate of change, too hard to tell the value at a glance. In cruise, the altimeter needle should point straight up for IFR, straight down for VFR. With a tape, you can't tell at a glance if you've drifted any, it takes a longer look to read the number and a second's thought to tell if it's right, and if not which way to correct.
The rate complaint is rejected - rate is shown as the magenta bar. As for the drift, yes, it's not obvious at a glance. So just set a bug. It should be one button on a decent equipment.
 
See? You’d be the student who knew why the instructor was asking for a turning stall after pointing out the bottom of the white arc and asking what it meant.

(Many students will just blurt out “stall speed”.)

You may have noticed that every one of those questions was open-ended and intended to check depth of knowledge.

If you get no answer, the student didn’t read the assigned reading. They don’t know what the colors are for. Warning! :)

If you get the simple defining answers about the colors, they read it but didn’t remember to apply other factors. They’re about to learn something in the turning stall.

If they look over at you and say, “You already know this crap, why are you asking me?, you say it’s checkride prep. Answer the question. I’m your DPE today.

If they look over and say, “You already know this crap and it’s going to stall ten knots faster than the bottom of the white arc in this turn. Hold my beer. Watch this....”

... You know you can move on to checking other topics. :)

The electronic speed tapes hide all of that. Which is a bummer. ;)

Do your students ever ask how you got all those yellow stripes on your shoulders? ;)
 
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