Cessna 414 down in Yorba Linda

IFR loss of controlled flight, dove in from 7100 feet. NTSB is conducting the press briefing on KTLA right now. May peace with all. Cloud base was 2-3K. Tail apparently broke first and then left wing. It came out of the cloud in one piece and then broke apart. The audio has no throttle back. Press conference just ended.
 
Holy cow there is a video out from someone’s Nest camera. Can hear it really good and can actually see something (empennage, wing, idk?) fall into a backyard.
 
James_Dean said:
I think the pop at the 23 second mark in that video is when something on that airframe let go.
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very possible/likely, however it's roughly 5 seconds after that pop before I hear any noticeable change in engine noise/rpm. I would 'think' if a wing came off, tail piece, anything like that it would be an almost immediate change in attitude accompanied by some sound change. but what do I know. there clearly is some kind of pop like you mentioned.
 
Terrible if it involves Innocents on the ground. And 4 at a time, ugh.
 
you can see it happen in the reflection on the brick path to the right in the nest video.
 
In that original audio-only video you can hear that pop sound at 23 seconds. Not sure what that was but it clearly was the beginning of the end for 5 souls.

RIP
 
Shepherd said:
A 75 year old retired police officer.
Heart attack, maybe?
It's a chilling audio.
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I had the same thoughts. It's possible he had some medical event that rendered him unable to fly. Based on one of the things posted above, it sounded like he was a very capable pilot.
 
Tantalum said:
How does someone lose control of an airplane that bad in IMC? Good God
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Once you flip the plane upsidedown (or knife edge it) it's pretty much over. Someone who's gotten that far gone isn't going to get out of it.

The heart attack is a possibility, and then he grabbed the yoke too hard as a last ditch effort causing the plane to come apart.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Once you flip the plane upsidedown (or knife edge it) it's pretty much over. Someone who's gotten that far gone isn't going to get out of it.

The heart attack is a possibility, and then he grabbed the yoke too hard as a last ditch effort causing the plane to come apart.
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Assuming no medical problems, would aerobatic training increase a pilot's odds of recovering from a knife edge or upside down attitude? I know altitude would have a lot to do with that. Or is your typical GA aircraft just not going to be able to recover from those?
 
I don't know, but the one video sure looks like a loss of control then an inflight breakup. I guess the investigation will figure it out.
 
Fallsrider said:
Assuming no medical problems, would aerobatic training increase a pilot's odds of recovering from a knife edge or upside down attitude? I know altitude would have a lot to do with that. Or is your typical GA aircraft just not going to be able to recover from those?
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To clarify I was referring specifically to the pilot and not so much the plane. At some point the airplane will have a structural failure due to speed, but in general it seems that if the pilot attempts recovery, it's common to pull too hard and thus rip the wings/tail off (in this case both happened at some point, of course we don't know whether there was a LOC first or second). I certainly believe that upset recovery training/aerobatic training would help and that's something I've been wanting to do. If you look at when Wayne Bower's partner crashed their 340 in the late 80s, the plane impacted the ground intact at something around an 85 degree nose down angle. The pilot just got completely disoriented (according to the ATC audio he stated a gyro failure) and whether or not he tried to get out of it, he didn't succeed. But he also didn't rip any of the control surfaces off like what we saw happen in this 414 crash.

The additional problem you have IMC is that if you've gotten disoriented and flipped over/upsidedown and you have steam gauges, you may also be at a point where your gyros have tumbled and are now misleading/useless. That makes matters worse because now you're in the clouds, in an unusual attitude, your AI is useless, and you're basically looking at your altimeter to try to figure out which way is up.

One possible scenario is that he lost control, end up in a steep dive, and then pulled too hard once he got into VMC and realized what was going on. By that point it would've been too late.

I've always liked this video, showing a stall test for a Boeing 717:


If you look, you can see that they lost a lot of altitude, went WAY overspeed, but managed to recover without ripping the airplane apart from what was essentially a straight nose down attitude. They were also in VMC, with instruments that did not tumble, and remained calm, cool, and collected, following the procedures. Note they didn't move too quickly on the controls, specifically to make sure not to rip anything apart.
 
There was a dashcam video somewhere that I saw last night. Showed pretty clearly the explosion just prior to impacting the ground.
 
The 717 video was interesting, you noticed there was a sigh of relief, the pilot was particularly happy the engines were still working.


Tom
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I've always liked this video, showing a stall test for a Boeing 717
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That was nuts..! they went WAYYY overspeed. Impressive. You could tell the left seat guy was nervous, the right seater kept his hand close to keep the control movements light. I wonder how many Gs they actually pulled on that

Why was he so worried about the engines?
 
MooneyDriver78 said:
The 717 video was interesting, you noticed there was a sigh of relief, the pilot was particularly happy the engines were still working.
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Tantalum said:
That was nuts..! they went WAYYY overspeed. Impressive. You could tell the left seat guy was nervous, the right seater kept his hand close to keep the control movements light. I wonder how many Gs they actually pulled on that

Why was he so worried about the engines?
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Not knowing what sort of Gs that thing experienced and what sort of forces they may have had, but the oil sumps aren't intended to work in negative G environments, nor are the fuel tanks on the aircraft.

Big point - they remained calm (albeit I'm sure a bit shaken once it was all over) and didn't rip the wings or tail off.

Check out the other video I posted about unusual attitude recoveries in the big jets that AA published for their pilots.
 
dreyna14 said:
I wouldn't refer to that as an "explosion" but a mist of fuel igniting as the wings ripped off the fuselage.
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Yeah, no "uncontrolled release of pressure", so no explosion. The fuel/vapor mist did ignite in flash, though.
 
Peter Anderson said:
That video is chilling. You clearly hear the plane break up after the engines are running hard. Engines stop but the sounds of the plane falling you can clearly hear. Then the debris. Insane.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
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If you look on the lower right, in the reflection in the water on the sidewalk, it appears to break up explosively midair.
 
This is too close to home. I just can't bring myself to watch any of these videos or listen to the audio yet.
 
And the plot thickens...

Joking aside, humans are sketchy. Doesn't necessarily mean it has anything to do with his handling of the airplane and the crash. Makes for good ratings for the news though. We ll see.
 
This particular crash will not be good for GA in Cali where people already want GA gone.
 
The audio is chilling. That neighborhood will have ptsd.
 
CC268 said:
This particular crash will not be good for GA in Cali where people already want GA gone.
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Yeah we've had a rough spat of accidents the last few years.. but for all the "anti GA" sentiment there is around here I think it's a fairly vocal minority, and SMO makes it seem like everyone hates it. But there's a surprisingly rich GA environment here.. SEE, MYF, CRQ, even RNM stay thoroughly busy.. often splitting tower frequencies, etc. Plus One has a fleet of something like 75 planes.. site has 83 listed but I think a few are actually sims.. at any rate, if you don't book your plane a few days early you won't have one... especially on weekends

I do also believe that most of these accidents tend to be "skill based" - IE, they're not planes falling apart by themselves.. there's a lesson to be learned here that flying must always be approached with vigilance and care

But you are right, it doesn't help people think of "small planes" as something safe..
 
Rein Hart said:
The audio is chilling. That neighborhood will have ptsd.
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I have some kick butt Bose speakers hooked up to my little laptop. They really shake the house. I turned up the volume while my wife was in the next room. The sound of the engines at super high rpm followed by the sound of everything hitting the ground rattled me and my wife came in crying.
 
 
Pilawt said:
Gotta outlaw cars and trucks, too
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People are idiots.

What sucks about this crash is that people on the ground were killed... I'm of the mindset that if some moron hates GA then that's fine.. they don't have to get their PPL, they can stay on the ground and watch Oprah all day.. just let me do it in peace. However once a genuine bystander is taken out that suddenly brings them into the conversation

Sucks either way

Zeldman said:
The sound of the engines at super high rpm
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Reminded me of the Jericho Trumpets on the Stuka dive bombers.. the Junkers twin engine bombers were nuts too.. they could hit something like 600 km/h in a dive, in a relatively big plane. But I digress, those engines on that poor Cessna must have been at 6K rippims if not more. I'm amazed those big bore low RPM pistons could even stay together.. I'd have thought they'd start blowing themselves apart somewhere around 4K RPM. So much for a constant speed prop.. everything has its limits!
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Big point - they remained calm (albeit I'm sure a bit shaken once it was all over) and didn't rip the wings or tail off.
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True, they remained calm, but they were test pilots and probably expecting the stall behavior. Would be curious how a typical line pilot might react in a similar situation not expecting a stall. Cool video, thanks for posting.
 
idahoflier said:
True, they remained calm, but they were test pilots and probably expecting the stall behavior. Would be curious how a typical line pilot might react in a similar situation not expecting a stall. Cool video, thanks for posting.
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The did a frickin split S. Everything I've ever seen about an upset incident like that is that you don't pull through, you roll back to wings level, then arrest the descent. I'm just glad it didn't come apart around them.
 
kyleb said:
The did a frickin split S. Everything I've ever seen about an upset incident like that is that you don't pull through, you roll back to wings level, then arrest the descent. I'm just glad it didn't come apart around them.
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That was NOT a split S.
 
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