Cessna 414 down in Yorba Linda

woodchucker said:
As an aside, I don’t really support asking/demanding that a person prove they have served in the military if they publicly claim they have in a public forum. It just seems ... weird. I served, my wife served (we met while serving on the same ship), our daughter just graduated basic training. But I’m not going to post my 214 here. That’s just stupid. For me, BFD if someone wants to be a poser. No friend of mine but I don’t give two squats to the wind what a person claims in an online forum. Grain of salt and all that.
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I don't think anybody here has asked/demanded posters to prove they served in the military. Generally folks are given the benefit of any doubt; I know I do. The issue is when, in a case like this one or the Daniel Bernath saga, a person presents himself/herself as a veteran and it is later revealed that they weren't (usually in the wake of a tragic accident). To me that's what is weird. Actually, Bernath was a Navy vet, but claimed to be of a higher rank. Why?
 
eman1200 said:
a person who claims to have served, and never served, is sick in the head. I'm not even sure why there's a discussion about it, quite frankly.
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After watching some of those “stolen valor” videos, though I don’t think real valor can be stolen, anywho, the people pretending to be all these things often really come off as not mentally all there, think pity is a better emotion to feel towards them vs anger.
 
The more I know about this accident the more it infuriates
woodchucker said:
As an aside, I don’t really support asking/demanding that a person prove they have served in the military if they publicly claim they have in a public forum.
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Under normal reasonable circumstances I totally agree.. someone tells you they are a doctor or lawyer we're not generally asking for their medical license or a law degree either.. people generally don't ask us for our pilot license either when they find out we are pilots

But, if someone is acting in such a manner as to make you doubt it, and ask for proof, then that's a whole thing in and of itself..

And military experience in my book is a particularly egregious thing to lie about since people who actually are in the military carry a very particular burden of putting their life on the line for the benefit of the country.. trying to encroach on that without the credits to back it up is particularly sleazy
 
maj75 said:
I think the tear in the fuselage was made by a telephone pole. You can clearly see the imbedded pole in the NTSB photo.

The damage to the home must have been from a wing assembly/fuel tank. The fuselage clearly didn’t burn. An engine alone probably couldn’t have caused the raging inferno shown in some of the videos.

Very sad for those poor folks on the ground.
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I don't see the utility pole in the photos I have looked at.

I'm not sure about what caused the damage, but the torn edges left in the fuselage look a lot like prop damage I've seen that was caused by a runaway plane on the ramp. But I'll take your word for it.

It's terrible that the people killed were preparing for a party and fate came calling.
 
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Spring Ford said:
I would be interested to know the function of the large cylindrical object (almost a foot across say) near the NTSB person's left hand in the image below. There is another one inside the house I believe. Looks like an alternator but it has a 2 inch diameter hose connection stub.
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Turbocharger?
 
Spring Ford said:
I would be interested to know the function of the large cylindrical object (almost a foot across say) near the NTSB person's left hand in the image below. There is another one inside the house I believe. Looks like an alternator but it has a 2 inch diameter hose connection stub.
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It’s an alternator.
 
I'd say alternator also, they have cooling requirements and in a tightly cowled nacelle might have a hose connected to it.
 
The NTSB dude has a starter armature in his right hand. Wow.
 
Stan Cooper said:
Does anyone else see an eerie similarity between the stories of Isaacson/Aaron/Pastini and Daniel Bernath?
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Except that Bernath at one point held a law license real enough for him to get disciplined. Also, I do believe he served in the Navy, just not at the final rank he claimed.

From what has come out about this character his entire 'italian cop from Chicago who runs a deli' personality was A to Z faked. Got to wonder whether he had a history that made it advisable for him to change his name and move.
 
weilke said:
Except that Bernath at one point held a law license real enough for him to get disciplined. Also, I do believe he served in the Navy, just not at the final rank he claimed.

From what has come out about this character his entire 'italian cop from Chicago who runs a deli' personality was A to Z faked. Got to wonder whether he had a history that made it advisable for him to change his name and move.
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Well yeah, the article established he had FAA violations under different names. who knows what kind of pedestrian civil litigations or penalties he was dealing with and/or running from.

What I found interesting is that they said the daughter originally backed up the claim he had worked for the Chicago PD, then upon these discoveries being made public they tried reaching out to her for rebuttal, and the lady is now nowhere to be found. Sketchy apple doesn't fall far from the sketchy tree it seems.
 
Another oddity: The registry showed it as being owned by "PASTINI ANTONIO P" from December 2017, but right now there's a pending registration to "KL Managment LLC" of Klamath Falls, OR. So the plane was sold, but he was still flying it?

dtuuri said:
Then what do you guess was burning as it fell? If it was wing parts it would flutter down. If it was an engine, would it burn like that? If it was a homemade bomb, who knows what it would look like, a partial explosion?
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DutchRoller said:
A portion of the wing including fuel tank with the engine still attached might do that.
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While the 414A no longer had any nacelle tanks from the factory, there were still aftermarket nacelle tanks available. So, it could have been an engine in a nacelle with an 18.5-gallon fuel tank.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Another oddity: The registry showed it as being owned by "PASTINI ANTONIO P" from December 2017, but right now there's a pending registration to "KL Managment LLC" of Klamath Falls, OR. So the plane was sold, but he was still flying it?
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I find no such business name registered with the State of Oregon, nor any business listed under the name Antonio Pastini.
Given this guy's purported history, I'm betting it was just another sham deal, tax dodge, etc. Maybe he was in witness protection?
 
Do you think the family knew about all these shennagains or this is new to them. I feel bad for them, they will have to see him really vetted over next next few months. Plus they’ll probably get sued for a **** ton as well.
 
benyflyguy said:
Do you think the family knew about all these shennagains or this is new to them. I feel bad for them, they will have to see him really vetted over next next few months. Plus they’ll probably get sued for a **** ton as well.
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It kind of sounded like Bernath’s family didn’t know how much of a tool he was. And I mean that with full respect to the deceased.
 
I don’t think the family can be sued, but kiss the entire estate goodbye.
 
benyflyguy said:
Do you think the family knew about all these shennagains or this is new to them. I feel bad for them, they will have to see him really vetted over next next few months. Plus they’ll probably get sued for a **** ton as well.
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They likely didn't know. People generally keep those things to themselves. And even if they did know, they won't say anything for fear of being sued themselves or out of some "respect for family." I've seen many cases where the family makes no bones about the fact that their relative is a complete idiot... until someone else says it, then they rally to defend said idiot. We call these people "enablers" and I've never understood that, but maybe that's why I don't talk to most of my relatives. ;)
 
Ted DuPuis said:
They likely didn't know. People generally keep those things to themselves. And even if they did know, they won't say anything for fear of being sued themselves or out of some "respect for family." I've seen many cases where the family makes no bones about the fact that their relative is a complete idiot... until someone else says it, then they rally to defend said idiot. We call these people "enablers" and I've never understood that, but maybe that's why I don't talk to most of my relatives. ;)
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You also see this when there’s money to be made and/or fame to be had. In several high-profile police shootings in recent years, the families weren’t helping the person at all, and in one, they refused to get involved when police tried to implore them to help their relative. In one case several had restraining orders against the person. Yet as soon they were killed, they become the grieving family, clamoring for $$$ and attention.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
They likely didn't know. People generally keep those things to themselves. And even if they did know, they won't say anything for fear of being sued themselves or out of some "respect for family." I've seen many cases where the family makes no bones about the fact that their relative is a complete idiot... until someone else says it, then they rally to defend said idiot. We call these people "enablers" and I've never understood that, but maybe that's why I don't talk to most of my relatives. ;)
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They certainly knew he wasn't a Chicago cop for over 20 years and was claiming to be one. That would be kind of hard to miss.
 
Lindberg said:
They certainly knew he wasn't a Chicago cop for over 20 years and was claiming to be one. That would be kind of hard to miss.
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Agreed, I was referring specifically to the pilot aspects.
 
Hacker said:
Plenty of people that expected me to have one and would have attended, but I had my own reasons for not wanting anything.
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A wise old retired Colonel (Army) on a woodworking forum I belong to, upon reading that I didn't want anything for my Air Force retirement said this to me:

"Tim, you're an ***hole if you think the retirement ceremony is for you. It's for your family and friends that supported your selfish arse all those years you served. You need to have it and for them, not for yourself. Remember, if you don't want one and have it, it'll suck for a day, if you don't have one and later wish you had, it'll suck for the rest of your life."

I said, "yes, sir" and I had a retirement ceremony. I built my own tower-shaped shadow box and it was a wonderful ceremony. I'm glad I did it, plus other benefits hatched with a fairly successful custom shadow box building business and my wife's grandmother was so impressed with my speech, she requested that I give her eulogy at her funeral, which I did but sooner than I thought it would be unfortunately. I also gave the eulogy at my wife's grandfather's funeral as well which to me was a great honor. He was a B-24 pilot in WWII and a retired airline pilot for various airlines.
 
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Lindberg said:
They certainly knew he wasn't a Chicago cop for over 20 years and was claiming to be one. That would be kind of hard to miss.
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It sounds like he had this con going for a long time. His family now may well be wife #2 and children #2A etc. Wouldn't be entirely unbelievable that they only knew him in NV and with his ex-cop persona.

What I find humorous is that he managed to con other cops and retirees and that nobody ever used his connections at CPD or the Chicago police union to check him out. I am around lots of older DC firemen, if someone showed up and claimed to have worked for the department, it would take them about 3 minutes to drill down to whether they are real or not.
 
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Timbeck2 said:
A wise old retired Colonel (Army) on a woodworking forum I belong to, upon reading that I didn't want anything for my Air Force retirement said this to me:

"Tim, you're an ***hole if you think the retirement ceremony is for you. It's for your family and friends that supported your selfish arse all those years you served.
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My family wanted less to do with the Air Force than I did, hehe.
 
Hacker said:
My family wanted less to do with the Air Force than I did, hehe.
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Glad you responded. I didn't post that to make you look bad. I posted it because at the time of my retirement, I felt like you for most likely similar reasons. I joined the Air Force for 4 years and that was all I was going to give them. When my first enlistment was up I was in Okinawa and it was problematic to find a job, so I reenlisted. After that one was up, I thought, "well, I'm almost halfway there so I may as well do the 20. I did 24.

I was never "blue" as they say about AF members that just love the Air Force and all it stands for. I never once told anyone to get a haircut or get their hands out of their pockets. That stuff never bothered me and it seemed that those whom it bothered were on some sort of power trip. Those people were one of the major reasons I never really liked wearing the uniform and one of the reasons why I didn't want a retirement ceremony because I didn't want to be like them.
 
weilke said:
What I find humorous is that he managed to con other cops and retirees and that nobody ever used his connections at CPD or the Chicago police union to check him out
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And what's with that whole Italian persona? Is that from the Calabrian Isaacsons? You gotta wonder...
 
Timbeck2 said:
Glad you responded. I didn't post that to make you look bad. I posted it because at the time of my retirement, I felt like you for most likely similar reasons. I joined the Air Force for 4 years and that was all I was going to give them. When my first enlistment was up I was in Okinawa and it was problematic to find a job, so I reenlisted. After that one was up, I thought, "well, I'm almost halfway there so I may as well do the 20. I did 24.
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Careers are funny things like that. My career has essentially been the opposite. My first two jobs out of college I went into more expecting to spend my career at the company, and for various reasons left. Now I'm in a position where I could completely see myself spending my career, but know better than to make any such assumptions. Difference being we like where we are enough that even if things went south at my job, we'd want to stay where we are.

None of us know what the future holds.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
They likely didn't know. People generally keep those things to themselves. And even if they did know, they won't say anything for fear of being sued themselves or out of some "respect for family." I've seen many cases where the family makes no bones about the fact that their relative is a complete idiot... until someone else says it, then they rally to defend said idiot. We call these people "enablers" and I've never understood that, but maybe that's why I don't talk to most of my relatives. ;)
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Wait a minute. Doesn't that make you the idiot? :rofl: J/K
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Wait a minute. Doesn't that make you the idiot? :rofl: J/K
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They've never rushed to my defense when someone has called me an idiot, although they've been quick to rush to eachothers' defense for [insert any number of grievances].

As you know, I don't sugar coat anything. So I call them out and, when necessary, go on the attack. I have no tolerance for ********.
 
t3chiman said:
And what's with that whole Italian persona? Is that from the Calabrian Isaacsons? You gotta wonder...
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He must have figured that 'Tony Pastini from Chicago' made a better story than 'Jacob Isaacson from Skokie' for his plan to run a restaurant in Nevada.
And there I thought the phrase was 'Florida, a sunny place for shady people', not Nevada.
 
Lachlan said:
This crash is weird on several fronts. It will be interesting to see what details emerge.
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At this point it has every hallmark of a classic VFR into IMC accident, possibly with a splash of ice mixed in. Losing control at 7,500' gives you plenty of time to accelerate to well past Vne and rip the plane apart on the way down. What may make this one a little unique is that I doubt there are many VFR into IMC accidents result in loss of control that high above the ground. Combined with it being a larger aircraft/twin, the energy involved is atypical.
 
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