ATC Audio of TNFlyGirl Fatal Accident Released

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Dana said:
She was 44...
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2-Bit Speed said:
It's a little weird seeing multiple people refer to her as a 'young woman.'
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SkyChaser said:
I almost made a similar post earlier. 44 isn't old, but it is decidedly middle aged.
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It's all a matter of perspective. She was probably 20 years younger than the average POA member, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn she was 20 years older than many of her CFIs. The comments about male CFIs overlooking the faults of a "hot looking girl" probably don't apply very well to a 20-year-old CFI. OTOH, if she had a 45+ year-old CFI,....

One man's vintage wine is another man's soured vinegar.
 
Jim K said:
Agreed...poorly worded. My point was, even if her cfis gave her a pass for being cute, at some point she had to get past a dpe, who (hopefully) would make her perform to the standard.

Eta: I guess what I was saying is it's hard to imagine her being so incompetent and still passing her ppl ride. I regret posting on this thread because I'm not adding anything useful. She obviously slipped through the cracks in the system, whether that was cute girl syndrome, emotional issues/ pharmaceuticals, or just getting herself in over her head.
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I don't know man. I've gotten so many passes for being cute. They just keep sending me on through.
 
SkyChaser said:
Their wallets? Once a guy came into the FBO while I was debriefing with my instructor and asked if he could buy a HP endorsement...it is unknown whether he meant take the training or quite literally buy it, as the FBO's only plane was the Archer I was renting. Or maybe all incompetent male pilots have hot sisters or friends? :goofy:
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So women pilots get by on their looks and men on their $. Yeah, not at all misogynistic.
 
Lindberg said:
So women pilots get by on their looks and men on their $. Yeah, not at all misogynistic.
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In Current Psychology a study reviewed a large body of research and finds that physical attractiveness biases social and economic decisions — and that the “beauty benefit” tends to be larger for women than for men in many published studies. Specifically, they cite prior work where women receive greater attractiveness‑related advantages...

 
DeltaCharlie172 said:
In Current Psychology a study reviewed a large body of research and finds that physical attractiveness biases social and economic decisions — and that the “beauty benefit” tends to be larger for women than for men in many published studies. Specifically, they cite prior work where women receive greater attractiveness‑related advantages...

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Obviously the researchers are misogynists......
 
Half Fast said:
It's all a matter of perspective. She was probably 20 years younger than the average POA member, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn she was 20 years older than many of her CFIs. The comments about male CFIs overlooking the faults of a "hot looking girl" probably don't apply very well to a 20-year-old CFI. OTOH, if she had a 45+ year-old CFI,....

One man's vintage wine is another man's soured vinegar.
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All cats are grey at night...
 
2-Bit Speed said:
It assumes fewer facts in my opinion. If she got signed off in the Debonair, we have ample evidence of her incompetence in that plane. We could assumed she got signed off flying a different plane, then further assume she flew that other plane better. But I don't really want to argue about whose assumption is right. I'd rather hear from some CFIs, At what point would you tell a student that they're exhibiting dangerous behaviors and a lack of skill? At what point should a competent, good, or otherwise dedicated CFI report her to the FAA for dangerous behavior?
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The facts he assumed were that the cfi's and examiner were thinking with their little head. I don't think there's evidence of that.

Anecdotally, when I got my hp endorsement my fantastic instructor said he usually does it in 2-3 flights. But he was getting a type rating and working a full time job while doing so. He thought we can do it in 1 and gave me the endorsement. It took quite a bit more hours to feel comfortable with the blue knob and frankly mixture as well.

So much flight training for ppl you're doing maneuvers full rich you're not too concerned with mixture setting. Once on the xc...lean to stumble enrichen slightly. But learning the constant speed, manifold pressure, and the mixture... I should not have gotten that endorsement in one flight.
 
DeltaCharlie172 said:
Alprazolam at 81 ng/g, alpha-hydroxyalprazolam at 4 ng/g, and trazodone at 56 ng/g.

An alprazolam concentration corresponding to 81 ng/g is within a range documented causes psychomotor impairment. Reported effects at comparable levels include slowed reaction time, impaired divided attention, reduced coordination, decreased tracking ability, and cognitive slowing. These effects directly impact rapid decision-making and complex task performance.

A trazodone concentration corresponding to 56 ng/g is associated with sedation, slowed information processing, reduced alertness, and delayed response speed. Controlled performance testing has demonstrated measurable decreases in cognitive and motor efficiency at comparable levels.

When both substances are present, reaction time slowing, further reduces cognitive processing speed, and decreases the ability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously.

Agree here... She simply she not have been flying whatsoever as she obviously had something going on to be on that concoction of drugs.
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In what matrix, blood? The numbers I saw noted here on POA seemed to be liver samples. How do they compare?

Did you use AI for this response or are you familiar with this field?
 
Racerx said:
The facts he assumed were that the cfi's and examiner were thinking with their little head. I don't think there's evidence of that.

Anecdotally, when I got my hp endorsement my fantastic instructor said he usually does it in 2-3 flights. But he was getting a type rating and working a full time job while doing so. He thought we can do it in 1 and gave me the endorsement. It took quite a bit more hours to feel comfortable with the blue knob and frankly mixture as well.

So much flight training for ppl you're doing maneuvers full rich you're not too concerned with mixture setting. Once on the xc...lean to stumble enrichen slightly. But learning the constant speed, manifold pressure, and the mixture... I should not have gotten that endorsement in one flight.
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2-Bit Speed said:
But I don't really want to argue about whose assumption is right.
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Barrett50 said:
I would say a low possibility of a roll upset. Keeping the wings level in CAVU conditions isn't hard, and the roll yoke forces don't build anything like the elevator forces with speed. Yes, there is a greater yoke force needed as speed increases to roll, but it's nothing like the change in elevator forces with the power of the prop slipstream over the elevator(or ruddervator). Adding in the 'however' with a young woman fighting the autopilot, the trim, and the plane in general, a roll moment could have been introduced unwittingly, but I don't see that being too much of a probability.
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My Mooney, especially slick planes (including a Bo) pick up speed quickly when the nose is lowered. Speed increases generating more lift, and the aircraft naturally climbs. The higher the airspeed, the more lift is created and the plane continues to climb, unless leveled off and re-trimmed to a higher airspeed.

Down trim can be added to help reduce or eliminate the arm muscle needed to push on the yoke and keep the plane going down. This may explain the climb and descent cycles the accident aircraft experienced before the last down cycle. Following the increase in airspeed during the descents, the plane climbed, then slowed in the climb before starting down once again. She may not have understood what was happening, and fiddled around with the autopilot, making things even worse.

Flip the plane upside down (or nearly so), and it's a whole new ballgame. Feels like (to me) riding in a high-rise buildings' elevator and the cable breaks... down you go, faster and faster.

As the planes' airspeed dramatically increases the wings generate more and more lift. Way to fast to for trim or the autopilot to help. Once completely inverted, the increased lift is now helping pull the plane faster and faster towards the ground.

Many (probably most) LOC accidents are initiated by the wings not being near level. It's difficult to understand how any pilot in clear VMC conditions can accidentally allow a plane to roll off into an upset. In this particular accident, with what we do know, nothing would surprise me.
 
Her CFII said another CFI told him that "she struggled with the radios, and it was one reason why it took her so long to get her private. It took over 180 hours to get her private." What's more, he further stated that "he would take over the radios so she could focus on the flying." This was among many other deficiencies. Considering that he trained with her AFTER she received her private pilot certificate and in the same accident aircraft, one can assume that he provided the high performance/complex training and logically the endorsements.

I can't help to read this over and over and still left with so many questions... Flight Instructor Interview: https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket/Document/docBLOB?ID=19961280&FileExtension=pdf&FileName=MOR Flight Instructor Interview_Redacted-Rel-Rel.pdf

While I believe whole-heatedly this fatal accident was TNFlyGirl's fault without question, I also think about how any CFI could sleep at night having signed off on anyone with such deficiencies.
 
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Lindberg said:
So women pilots get by on their looks and men on their $. Yeah, not at all misogynistic.
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Uh, it’s right there on the interweb… google “crazy hot matrix”. This makes it factual. Just sayin…

Food for thought, if this were about anyone else, we’d say idiot and move on. Yet here we are.

I do believe the NTSB chickened out on this, a much more interesting issue given their charge is to provide useful info for it to NOT happen again.
 
Quote from the CFII interview:

If an experienced instructor or pilot were not there in the right seat, she would likely not do to well between the radios, communication and managing the aircraft; I imagine she would get behind or lose situational awareness quickly.​

Sounds like that’s likely what happened.
 
DeltaCharlie172 said:
Her CFII said another CFI told him that "she struggled with the radios, and it was one reason why it took her so long to get her private. It took over 180 hours to get her private." What's more, he further stated that "he would take over the radios so she could focus on the flying." This was among many other deficiencies. Considering that he trained with her AFTER she received her private pilot certificate and in the same accident aircraft, one can assume that he provided the high performance/complex training and logically the endorsements.

I can't help to read this over and over and still left with so many questions... Flight Instructor Interview: https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket/Document/docBLOB?ID=19961280&FileExtension=pdf&FileName=MOR Flight Instructor Interview_Redacted-Rel-Rel.pdf

While I believe whole-heatedly this fatal accident was TNFlyGirl's fault without question, I also think about how any CFI could sleep at night having signed off on anyone with such deficiencies.

I once had to fire a CFII during my private training. He was eager to fly, but I had said it was a no-go due to the weather. He insisted, explaining that the airfield was Class E and that we could fly on top of the clouds to another airfield to do pattern work. Since I was new at the time, I agreed—after all, he was a CFII. Once we got on top, there was no visible hole in the clouds, though maybe 20 miles away there might have been one. We pressed on. An hour later, he decided it was time to head back. He circled the airfield for nearly 20 minutes, burning time while waiting for a break in the clouds. Eventually, he found a hole, dove through it, and landed. If we had needed to go around, there was no way we could have done it without going through clouds. After landing, we debriefed, and I excused myself to use the restroom. While there, I found the chief, explained the situation, and told him I would never fly with that instructor again. I never saw that CFI at the flight school after that.
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AA is not the one who gave her type specific training and hp/comp endorsements. That was already done when she started flying with him for ifr training.
 
dmspilot said:
AA is not the one who gave her type specific training and hp/comp endorsements. That was already done when she started flying with him for ifr training.
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Good to know. He obviously was well aware of her skill deficiencies at the same time.
 
Radio comms. We have others here who teach, and having that background helped a lot with radio comms. Like most other skills, repetition and exposure helps. I take a kind of lackadaisical attitude to radio procedure. I don't WANT to sound like a 8000 pilot driving a bus for AA. I expect to sound like a wknd warrior that has a fair idea of where he is, and where he's planning to go, and how ATC can get the process done with minimal trouble. I used to fly in SoCal on wknds, and that was a radio challenge.

This leads to one of the most hilarious times I've ever had in a plane, when I overheard a newbie trainee and an older CFI flying a C150, coming in to Gillespie field. The student voice was clear, but the CFI was in the background obviously using a handheld old style mic in hand:

Stu; "Ah, Gillespie field..."
CFI; tell them who you are
Stu; "Cessna , ah wait, ah 5524Lima"
CFI: tell them where you are
Stu: "15 miles east..."
CFI: give the altitude
Stu: "at 4000, no 3000 800..."
CFI: where are you going
Stu: "coming in to land..."
CFI: with the ATIS info
Stu: "with the atis info..."
CFI: NO, give the ATIS letter!
Stu: "With ATIS info D, I mean dog, Delta?..."
CFI: OK, release he mic
Stu: "OK release the mic..."
CFI: No, no let go of the button, let go!

The tower came back on freq and commended him for a good job, and gave them simple, slow directions for a straight in for runway 27 left if that was ok? I was laughing so hard I was crying. He made it down fine, and became a good pilot. One semester I taught Speech 101 in college. It was a challenge for me to get them all to relax, open up, and try to be sincere. Because - once you can fake sincerity, the rest is easy. :biggrin:
 
Her previous videos demonstrated that both her and her father could get lost in the air while attempting to fly directly east in the morning.

On a clear day with no clouds.

Not knowing that the sun is in the east in the morning and the sun is in the west in the afternoon.

With a major east/west interstate below them.

With a modern Iphone and all kind of devices to indicate direction and location.

But she bossed it right into the ground at 300 mph
 
AV8R_87 said:
Excellent summary on how she ended up being a "young woman".
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I was probably the first person to refer to her like that. I did not watch the video or look at her pictures or personal info. I just assumed she was in her 20's because that's the norm with "influencers." I apologize for this heinous error. You may now return to speculating on the sexual motives of CFI's and debating who is misogynist. Because, in the words of the OP, this is "such an important case study."
 
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Ed Haywood said:
Because in the words of the OP, this is "such an important case study."
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Yeah.. Not sure I agreed w/OP on that...
Unfortunate situation for sure. But if anything I think it's among the least helpful case studies, because there was such a wide array of nightmare issues that the outcome was fairly predictable. Hard to learn from that.
I'm not sure what the takeaway here is for folks aside from don't do a bunch of heavy-hitting drugs and then go fly a plane you don't know how to fly with your non-pilot dad onboard all while paying more attention to the cameras than your altitude and ground track.

... Harsh, but true.
 
Just some random thought swirling around in my noggin. The new(well not that new) attention that social media plays in how our ideas and interests are shaped might be interesting reading. TNflygirl had an outsized media presence. Not sure if it was monetized but there's something about the whole media essence that leaves me kind of blah. Now, I watch some media info about things that I need. Like when I wanted to do rigging on a small plane, there's a great video about it, and really helped. Influencers - well, to me if I happen to run across one in some media access what they influence me toward is typically the opposite of what they are attempting to influence.

www.clrn.org

How many deaths are caused by social media? - California Learning Resource Network

Social media platforms, ubiquitous digital infrastructures supporting global-scale communication and content dissemination, have fundamentally reshaped human interaction. Beyond the widely acknowledged benefits, a growing body of research suggests a correlation, albeit complex, between social...
www.clrn.org www.clrn.org

How to quantify something like social media deaths? Weird. She was part of that world, and I don't think it's always a good things for our country, but I have no interest in any kind of regulation against it.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
Yeah.. Not sure I agreed w/OP on that...
Unfortunate situation for sure. But if anything I think it's among the least helpful case studies, because there was such a wide array of nightmare issues that the outcome was fairly predictable. Hard to learn from that.
I'm not sure what the takeaway here is for folks aside from don't do a bunch of heavy-hitting drugs and then go fly a plane you don't know how to fly with your non-pilot dad onboard all while paying more attention to the cameras than your altitude and ground track.

... Harsh, but true.
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With so many red flags why didn't one person speak up? CFIs to her followers. This is maybe the best example of legal versus proficiency. The kicker: she likely wasn't legal and certainly not proficient. Show me a better case study.
 
DeltaCharlie172 said:
With so many red flags why didn't one person speak up? CFIs to her followers. This is maybe the best example of legal versus proficiency. The kicker: she likely wasn't legal and certainly not proficient. Show me a better case study.
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People did comment on her failings in her videos and she ignored or blocked them. Her bull headedness personality got her killed and her father. Her videos were like going down to the boat launch to watch people backing their trailers down the ramp.
 
Barrett50 said:
The tower came back on freq and commended him for a good job, and gave them simple, slow directions for a straight in for runway 27 left
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Well done. Everyone has to learn at some point.

My confession: First CC after getting my ticket I was over the great plains, probably Nebraska, but it's been a long time. I managed to have to go around after being so high on approach into a 10,000 ft runway that I couldn't get a 172 slowed down. You can bet I learned a lesson that day and didn't make that mistake again. It's crazy how the visual picture on a runway that big can look totally fine until you realize you've floated halfway already, have only made it down to 750ft and are still at 115kt as you keep trading altitude for airspeed.
 
The CFI's and flight school owners are probably going to be losing sleep over this one.

Despite Jenny "Earhart" being a dumpster fire and loaded up on drugs, the surviving family might go into litigation against several parties for signing off on her knowing full well she wasn't really qualified. No excuse that "she performed the minimums that day" is laughable. When an instructor takes the controls away from Amelia during an approach with some crosswinds is not someone who should be flying at all. They were manipulated by her and her status as an aviation video star.

I hope they get attorneys very soon for advice
 
Honestly my strong opinion is that the buck stops with the DPE. If you fail a check ride you can complain about your instructors, but otherwise after the certificate is granted, the DPE feels like the bulwark.
 
Hengelo said:
Honestly my strong opinion is that the buck stops with the DPE. If you fail a check ride you can complain about your instructors, but otherwise after the certificate is granted, the DPE feels like the bulwark.looo DPE didn’t fly with her in the Deb.
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Given the difference in how she flew the Cherokee vs the Debonair, I don’t see how the DPE could have headed this off.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Given the difference in how she flew the Cherokee vs the Debonair, I don’t see how the DPE could have headed this off.
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Maybe the part where he reviewed her logbook? They would have seen over 180 hours with only 10.6 being solo. I wonder if she maybe the holder of most dual hours to PPL. 180 hours is roughly 4x the minimum (part 61) and 2x the average (part 61).
 
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