Cessna 172 crash land Santa Monica beach

Well he really did not touch down on “wet sand”. His wheels clearly hit the water.
 
FPK1 said:
Always wondered if it was better to land on wet sand or just ditch into water.
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Looks like it landed in between the wet sand and ditchable water, the worst of both worlds.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
Very tough decision, since there were many people on the sand.
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That’s what I was thinking watching the video. He got over the pier and past the big crowd. Maybe flaps up was intentional to get the most glide. Certainly not the worst job getting it down.
 
LA Media reporting that the pilot was a former mayor of Santa Monica, 95 years old (??) and didn’t make it.
 
Tough not much of a choice RIP
 
frfly172 said:
Tough not much of a choice RIP
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He made a reasonable choice. It just didn't work out. The passenger's age/health was probably a factor in turning this into a fatal accident.
 
Did he have zero flaps in? That probably would have slowed the GS and impact forces. I can’t believe (actually I can) that those people didn’t move an inch while the plane flipped over 20 yards away from them.
 
Not using flaps once you know you can clear an obstacle is leaving 6 knots of extra energy in the equation. Not great. This is also why practicing soft field stuff on a regular basis is good. Too many pilots let that nosewheel slam down too soon on Cessnas.
 
Looks to me like he was trying to cross the pier at the narrowest, lowest point and then head back towards the beach and just didn't make it.

It doesn't look like that... violent of an impact. I wonder if shoulder harnesses were worn or installed?
 
Any idea if shoulder harnesses were involved? Survivable unless blunt-force trauma to the head vs glare shield, panel, and yoke.
 
There is really no excuse not to have shoulder harnesses in every airplane. There is no lack of STC'd kits for them.
 
What a shame, gliding onto a beach in a plane with a low stall speed should (or rather, could) be survivable

Just goes to show all the people out there who think how easy it is to land dead stick there's a big difference in theoretical vs practical

Kudos to avoiding the beach goers. Disgraceful that they seemed to just stand around
 
Take it with due suspicion, but in the Los Angelis Reddit forum a purported witness posted that one occupant was unresponsive, with CPR beginning immediately. The other appeared in shock, but responders had him sitting on the back of a truck.

Not sure where the “two killed” in the above-posted web address comes from, but I sure hope this isn’t what a fatal crash looks like. It’s not much worse than some of my landings.
 
The web address for the Avweb story says “two-killed-in…” but the story says the former mayor died, other occupant taken to hospital.
 
RyanShort1 said:
Money can be a factor.
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Yes. Unfortunately. But the stats show that many, many accidents kill people that would have survived if they'd been wearing a shoulder harness. The sudden stop hurls your head against the panel, good and hard.

I lost a friend that way. He didn't wear the harness that was installed. Just the lap belt. The head injuries cost him his life. The accident was perfectly survivable otherwise.

The objection to costs also affects aircraft maintenance. It's the biggest reason why we see so many stories of alternator/magneto/vacuum pump failures. Regular inspections are "too expensive." But when that component fails some night and makes life real difficult, those inspections suddenly don't seem so expensive. The lack of a decent, functioning ELT after being forced down into some dense bush is another instance in which you realize you might have bought the farm as you watch the SAR airplanes fly past.
 
Unexpected circumstances can put you in n a financial bind. I’m all for shoulder harnesses but as a CFI I can think of several clients who are doing well just to pay for gas and the hangar. I’ve flown in plenty of those planes. Whether or not you have harnesses, practicing emergency procedures and things like soft field landings would go a long way towards preventing the need for the harnesses. In this case it certainly looks like deploying the flaps and holding the tail back strenuously would have at least reduced the impact forces on that flip. If money is tight, take care of your engine first, maintain emergency procedure proficiency second, shoulder harnesses an urgent third.

Edited to add that apparently Beechtalk folks have heard that this plane did have shoulder harnesses.
 
RyanShort1 said:
shoulder harnesses an urgent third.
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Personal safety should always be #1. The FAA even issued a policy letter to make this as easy as possible to the point it allowed shoulder harness installs that didn't meet the regulatory requirement. The reason, anything was better than nothing. I personally don't fly in small aircraft without shoulder harnesses..
 
If you carry insurance on your plane and it’s paid off, but you can’t afford shoulder harnesses because you’re barely able to pay fuel, hangar, and maintenance, it’s ok because your head is hard enough to survive the impact, I’m sure of it.
 
A lot of times with a stall/spin or CFIT accident the press seems to report it as "pilot avoided harming people on the ground".

Well, this one looks like the pilot did just that. No idea if they had shoulder harnesses or not, or if he was in a position to use flaps, but seems like one of the last decisions he made was to put it in the shallow water vs into an area with people, and that's a good legacy to leave in my opinion. It's a sad outcome.
 
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