Baron down... Three killed Pallos Hills, IL.

AdamZ said:
Crappy is subjective!

Regardless a very sad situation. Sounds like the PIC did a fine job of mitigating damages to those on the ground.
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I agree. Did I see 1700 over at Chicago, taking off Vfr in the evening? That's not great... If those are what I read. And for all the ppl saying fuel exhaustion is a long shot, we had a guy do that out of kc a couple weeks back. And a beech duke out if Sgf about a decade ago who thought he bought fuel just to find out he didn't on downwind departing the field. Nothing is ruled out at this point.


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cowman said:
I remember my father once accidentally poured a 5gal diesel can into a gas powered car. He filled the tank up the rest of the way with gas and it ran... smelled like diesel exhaust too. Kept topping it off with gas to dilute it but there was never a problem, continued driving it for a while after.

Has the FAA or anyone else ever done any studies on what concentrations cause the engine to die? Also how long does it take a typical GA fuel system to purge the jetA after switching back to a tank with pure gas?
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It depends on how hard you run the engine. On a car it's not as critical because you typically do not come very close to detonation much, and when it happens, it's obvious and you can instantly let off the throttle. With an airplane, especially an engine that is pulling more than .5hp/CuIn at the RPMs we turn, we are typically running very close to detonation, especially when we start getting the heads heat soaked above 390° or so, that's why there is typically a 5 minute limitation on full power.

I would guess that with a 25% dilution of 100LL with JetA, you'll cook a typical aircraft engine in about 15-20 minutes running 75% power.
 
Turningfinal said:
The registration cert for the aircraft was also issued in February of this year. He is also a fairly fresh physician. I don't know very many physicians that can afford, both time and money wise, flight training or a Baron throughout med school and two residencies (gen surg and neuro!!).

Sure, it's an assumption right now but I'm happy to hear why you'd think otherwise. This guy was still wet behind the ears for a pilot.
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I also know plenty of guys who went through college who already had a pilot's certificate in their pocket since high school.
 
Matthew said:
We had a Mooney in Kansas City end up in the ground right after takeoff last year - water contamination in his tanks is the preliminary suspect. It's been raining very heavily here all day, about 40 miles east of his intended destination. There would have been about a 4-5 hr VFR window at approx his time of arrival.
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Flush caps were notorious for that on Mooneys. I had little discs about twice he size of the fuel cap with a rubber gasket that I velcroed to the fuel caps anytime it was left outside on a trip. That was in addition to new fuel cap gaskets at annual.
 
Henning said:
It depends on how hard you run the engine. On a car it's not as critical because you typically do not come very close to detonation much, and when it happens, it's obvious and you can instantly let off the throttle. With an airplane, especially an engine that is pulling more than .5hp/CuIn at the RPMs we turn, we are typically running very close to detonation, especially when we start getting the heads heat soaked above 390° or so, that's why there is typically a 5 minute limitation on full power.

I would guess that with a 25% dilution of 100LL with JetA, you'll cook a typical aircraft engine in about 15-20 minutes running 75% power.
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Agreed 100%.......:yes:
 
Local news just released the names. Three doctors, one husband and wife, 2 from Topeka 1 from KCK.
 
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Henning said:
I also know plenty of guys who went through college who already had a pilot's certificate in their pocket since high school.
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Yup, as did I - though I'm willing to bet this guy didn't live in the states until his medical residency. He went to college and medical school in Pakistan. Not a very likely place to go (and FMGs certainly have a huge disadvantage to US med school grads) for a kid growing up in the states.

Medical was issued in 2012...chance it's also his student pilot certificate?

Anyway, not sure why I'm so interested in debating this. Curiosity is part of human nature I suppose.
 
AdamZ said:
Crappy is subjective!
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Adam, you are correct to a point. However that's not a low overcast, good visibility, light winds. I'm not seeing anything bad.

If someone said "I'm not comfortable flying in that" I wouldn't argue. Bad weather? Icing, crosswind/shifting winds in the 30s, and on an ILS runway lights at 200, runway at 100. Night. That's reasonably bad.

Again, this was NOT bad weather.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Again, this was NOT bad weather.
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I totally agree that it isn't bad wx, but if they really did depart VFR in that with the expectation of picking up the clearance in the air, I can see the potential for loss of control.

I'm wondering what the issue was with getting their clearance on the ground?
 
Fearless Tower said:
I totally agree that it isn't bad wx, but if they really did depart VFR in that with the expectation of picking up the clearance in the air, I can see the potential for loss of control.
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Yeah, although I said it wasn't bad weather, I also wouldn't launch into a 1000ft ceiling and scud run until I picked up the clearance.
 
Pedals2Paddles said:
Unfortunately, simply citing a witness tells us nothing. Sure they might be right, but that would be cooincidence. In every plane crash in a populated area, you can survey all the witnesses and get 20 different stories. It was sputtering. It was running fine. It was deadstick, it was on fire, it was smoking, it was upside down, it was vertical, it was too fast, it was too slow, and of course, "he was at like 500ft".
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Agreed. Eye witnesses are valueable to a point. A lot of people don't really know what it is that they're hearing or seeing, especially with all the excitement. A lot of the information witnesses give are unfamiliar, and not well coded in their memories. For instance: if youre familiar with the quiet sound of your own car engine and see and hear a twin piston crashing, you may have, and probably will misinterpret what happened (props out of phase=surging normal sounding aircraft piston sounded rough to my ears so there was something wrong etc..). Then you add the emotional inpacts of it, then yes. That Baron was inverted and on fire with a shockwave forming around the fuselage and chemtrails spewing from the wings.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Adam, you are correct to a point. However that's not a low overcast, good visibility, light winds. I'm not seeing anything bad.

If someone said "I'm not comfortable flying in that" I wouldn't argue. Bad weather? Icing, crosswind/shifting winds in the 30s, and on an ILS runway lights at 200, runway at 100. Night. That's reasonably bad.

Again, this was NOT bad weather.
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I agree with Ted. 900 foot cielings is more than enough time to make a normal landing. Especially at night when everything in lit up.
 
Danos said:
I agree with Ted. 900 foot cielings is more than enough time to make a normal landing. Especially at night when everything in lit up.
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Yes, but this wasn't an arrival. This appears to be a case of a departure while attempting to maintain VFR and pick up a clearance in flight.

I'm still trying to understand why that would ever be necessary (IR a good idea) in that particular airspace.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Yes, but this wasn't an arrival. This appears to be a case of a departure while attempting to maintain VFR and pick up a clearance in flight.

I'm still trying to understand why that would ever be necessary (IR a good idea) in that particular airspace.
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Ahh. Okay. Gocha.
 
From what I gathered from LIve ATC, and this isn't exact verbage..

Baron : Ready for clearance
CD: No IFR on file, I will need all of your information and it may be a little bit.
Baron: hmmm. Can we just depart VFR?
CD: That will certainly be easier, just give me your initial heading and aircraft type.


I assume the pilot thought he could just launch and get pop-up IFR clearance while cruising along at 2k feet SW bound toward his destination. Of course, this is not something I would try at night, and certainly not with Chicago departure.

I still do think that this is crappy weather under the circumstances.
VFR departure at night,
a newer IFR pilot
congested airspace while trying to get a pop-up clearance

It is just low enough to make VFR seem like a plausible idea, but enough workload to get you in trouble.

And yeah, it could have just been filled with JetA as well. But we won't know for a couple years until the report is out.
 
That does seems like a high-workload environment.

Maybe got him too busy to remember to fly the plane? Sometimes, that's all it is.
 
To avoid take-off-itis I think a good practice is to finish business with clearance delivery before starting the engine(s). This isn't applicable in every situation though.
 
tlglenn said:
To avoid take-off-itis I think a good practice is to finish business with clearance delivery before starting the engine(s). This isn't applicable in every situation though.
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Probably so, they didn't have his ifr on file... And I assume the 3 doctors leaving at 10:30pm would be in a hurry to make their Monday morning appointments.
 
ja_user said:
Probably so, they didn't have his ifr on file... And I assume the 3 doctors leaving at 10:30pm would be in a hurry to make their Monday morning appointments.
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Yep. But at 10:30pm, what's another 10-15 minutes waiting for your flight plan to find its way through the system? Go inside, have another coffee, and wait it out.
 
Turningfinal said:
Yep. But at 10:30pm, what's another 10-15 minutes waiting for your flight plan to find its way through the system? Go inside, have another coffee, and wait it out.
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Yep, being in a hurry is no conducive to safe GA.
 
Just a couple of thoughts:

I am not sure why his flight plan wasn't in the system, but it may have (among other things) had to do with Chicago Center being down. This probably started the chain of events.

Clearance Delivery was trying to create a flight plan, but the pilot chose not to file right then.

Based on what I could hear, he was never given a departure frequency.

Right after he departed KMDW Metar was showing 1,000 broken, and 1,400 OVC with 6 SM. However KLOT which is about 19nm to the southwest (230) was reporting 500 OVC with 2SM visibility. So somewhere between KMDW and KLOT the visibility and ceiling dropped fast.

While KMDW is fairly urban, it is mainly residential to the southwest. Even on a good night, that direction is relatively dark. Reduced visibility would make that worse. Where he hit, is very residential and there are a lot of forest preserves in the area.

My guess is he was IMC before he realized it. He planned to depart IFR, so he most likely did not have a frequency ready to pick up his clearance on. He may or may not have remembered to contact FSS.

There is a good chance he was digging through his documentation trying to figure out what to do next while in IMC.

While I hate the thought of VFR into IMC, it scares me less than fuel contamination.

2014-10-12 22:38 METAR KMDW 130338Z 17009KT 6SM BR BKN010 OVC014 15/13 A2989 RMK AO2

2014-10-12 22:35 METAR KLOT 130335Z AUTO 17005KT 2SM RA OVC005 13/13 A2989 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT
 
Why do people get so turbo on this board? There are very few facts relating to the circumstances of the crash. We all know this.

This thread is merely putting forth various hypotheses which will be confirmed or refuted as more facts come in. No need to get all "pilots of America" up in this biznatch.
 
petrolero said:
Why do people get so turbo on this board? There are very few facts relating to the circumstances of the crash. We all know this.

This thread is merely putting forth various hypotheses which will be confirmed or refuted as more facts come in. No need to get all "pilots of America" up in this biznatch.
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Speculation is human nature. It doesn't help that we have to wait a year for the probable cause to come out, particularly if it's a problem everyone should know about to raise awareness (mis-fueling, procedural issues, etc.).

The facts that we do know tell us a lot about what may have happened:
  • The weather was borderline VFR and deteriorating to IFR rapidly. Other airports around MDW reporting IFR at the time of departure.
  • The pilot decided to depart VFR instead of waiting for his IFR clearance
  • Relatively new pilot according to FAA airman registry
  • Relatively new to the aircraft in question according to the registration

It doesn't take a genius to put forth a damn good hypothesis on this one. Hell, a lot of the time the same process we're using here is how the NTSB conducts their investigations in the case of GA where there may not be flight data recorded by the aircraft.
 
Turningfinal said:
Speculation is human nature. It doesn't help that we have to wait a year for the probable cause to come out, particularly if it's a problem everyone should know about to raise awareness (mis-fueling, procedural issues, etc.).

The facts that we do know tell us a lot about what may have happened:
  • The weather was borderline VFR and deteriorating to IFR rapidly. Other airports around MDW reporting IFR at the time of departure.
  • The pilot decided to depart VFR instead of waiting for his IFR clearance
  • Relatively new pilot according to FAA airman registry
  • Relatively new to the aircraft in question according to the registration

It doesn't take a genius to put forth a damn good hypothesis on this one. Hell, a lot of the time the same process we're using here is how the NTSB conducts their investigations in the case of GA where there may not be flight data recorded by the aircraft.
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Easy, cheesy. I agree! :D

That is what I said. This thread is hypothesizing. Some people on this board get so turbo about other people's hypotheses. Everyone just take a deep breath for chrissakes.
 
petrolero said:
Easy, cheesy. I agree! :D

That is what I said. This thread is hypothesizing. Some people on this board get so turbo about other people's hypotheses. Everyone just take a deep breath for chrissakes.
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Ah, my bad :D
 
I put my money on a fuel issue as well. It was by no means hard IFR, even for someone with not a ton of experience.

I've flown our Bonanza out of Midway, late in the evening, coming back home to Little Rock 6-7 times in the last couple of years. The place is probably 70-80/30 jets to pistons. It's loud all the time since the runways are right next to the FBO (100 yards). It's a fairly busy place with Southwest and everyone else coming in. There's at least one regional carrier that also picks-up and lets-off at the FBO. etc...

Point being: lots going on, loud, busy, using Jet-A 4 out of 5 fill-ups, the potential for low-experienced linemen, etc... I could see it being filled with Jet-A.

One other thing to consider: On my last trip up there in August, I was greeted with $9.21 100LL (I see it's an affordable $8.44 now). It really makes you consider taking less / none. Yet, every time I've done the math of losing the ramp charge instead of buying at least 10 gallons, factoring in the extra fuel to stop somewhere, taxi, climb back up, and lose 45-60 mins doing so, I just pay the $9.00/gal and go home. It's about $50-75 more expensive, but I get home in one leg and don't risk landing some place cheap, at dark, hitting a deer, finding their fuel is empty (happened twice in last year), contaminant in the fuel, getting too cute cutting it close on fuel, etc...

My take-away from this thread: I will start watching the fuel truck put fuel in my plane (or at least start putting fuel in my plane) to make sure it is actually 100LL -- regardless if that's the cause here or not...
 
Martymccasland said:
I put my money on a fuel issue as well. It was by no means hard IFR, even for someone with not a ton of experience.
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This fails to consider that he departed VFR in what was essentially IMC at night.

Hard IFR or not, we all here know how VFR into IMC, even as an instrument rated pilot, usually turns out.
 
He could have just re-filed from his iPhone/Smartphone. In my experience, they get the flight plan within 1-2 mins.
 
A portion of the NTSB Preliminary report:

"Preliminary radar track information showed that the airplane departed runway 22L at MDW and began climbing on runway heading (220 degrees). When the airplane had reached an altitude of about 2,200 feet above mean sea level (msl), it turned about 30 degrees to the left to a heading of about 190 degrees and began descending. During the descent, the airplane then turned to the right to a heading of about 260 degrees. During the right turn the airplane descended to about 1500 feet msl and then started to climb. During this period, the airplane entered a left turn which continued for about 360 degrees before radar contact was lost. The final recorded altitude was about 2,000 feet msl.

At 2238, the weather conditions at MDW were: wind 170 degrees at 9 knots; 6 statute miles visibility; mist; a broken ceiling at 1,000 feet above ground level (agl); an overcast ceiling at 1,400 feet agl; temperature 15 degrees Celsius; dew point 13 degrees Celsius; altimeter setting 29.89 inches of mercury. The field elevation at MDW was 620 feet msl.

The accident location was in a residential area about 6 nautical miles southwest of MDW. The initial impact point was within a group of trees. Broken limbs and the condition of the wreckage was consistent with a near vertical attitude at impact. The majority of the wreckage remained at the initial impact point while smaller pieces of wreckage were spread in a fan shaped pattern to the southeast. All major airframe components were located and identified within the wreckage debris path. The entire airplane exhibited severe crushing and fragmentation of all components. The wreckage was removed from the accident site for further examination."
 
mikea said:
How is 900 feet overcast pretty good for VFR flying?
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For VFR, it's not good weather. But it is by no means truly bad weather, especially for an instrument rated pilot.

The fact that he chose to depart VFR in those conditions shows stupidity, and that's probably why he crashed when he ended up in IMC.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
For VFR, it's not good weather. But it is by no means truly bad weather, especially for an instrument rated pilot.

The fact that he chose to depart VFR in those conditions shows stupidity, and that's probably why he crashed when he ended up in IMC.
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It's always struck me how many of the VFR->IMC accidents involve IR pilots in capable planes, for some reason they don't switch to the instruments.:dunno:
 
I am trying to understand what would possess someoene to take off with a 1400ft ceiling at night without an instrument clearance.
 
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