Civil Air Patrol 182 fatal, Colorado, 11/23

My opinion (only substantiated by what limited stuff I’ve seen, heard, and done) is that Airmet Tangos are not taken as seriously as the other Airmets. Besides moderate turbulence, which just ain’t fun, you can have significant up and down drafts for a few thousand feet at pretty high FPM. That’s a potential culprit in this one, especially with the wind direction with regards to how terrain lined up.

I wonder if it was also a factor in the Mooney PnP flight near the Catskills (https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/com...mooney-down-in-catskills.149504/#post-3577706). Low AGL with high winds along terrain gradient.
 
MauleSkinner said:
That says she was an instructor, but doesn’t make any mention of instructor ratings she may or may not have had.

If I was going to make noise about anything in that, I’d say it appears she wasn’t qualified to fly a 182.
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considering she & husband owned a [update: 12/14->182 in the past and now owns a Bonanza], was a CAP instructor pilot, and was getting me certified to fly a CAP 182, I’d say she was qualified to fly a 182. Getting signed off as CAP IP requires FAA CFI and then the CAP process.
 
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murphey said:
considering she & husband owned a 182, was a CAP instructor pilot, and was getting me certified to fly a CAP 182, I’d say she was qualified to fly a 182. Getting signed off as CAP IP requires FAA CFI and then the CAP process.
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No argument with that, but if you’re going to argue about AOPA’s lack of attention to detail, I’d consider their lack of detail on pilot ratings to be more egregious than their lack of detail on instructor ratings.
 
MauleSkinner said:
No argument with that, but if you’re going to argue about AOPA’s lack of attention to detail, I’d consider their lack of detail on pilot ratings to be more egregious than their lack of detail on instructor ratings.
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You were looking for a 182 type rating? Or complaining about not mentioning “ASEL”?
 
MauleSkinner said:
I was noting that the absence of “CFII” isn’t significant.
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In the grand scheme of things it isnt. But I found it odd they noted the instrument rating and the cfi since that's a bit redundant. But then left out the ii. While trying to explain experience.

At the very least it's honorable to list all of the experience/accomplishments if you go as far as they did.

She also held AGI and IGI. She was an accomplished pilot. And it's sobering to realize it can happen to someone with her experience.

My condolences to @murphey
 
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Racerx said:
In the grand scheme of things it isnt. But I found it odd they noted the instrument rating and the cfi since that's a bit redundant. But then left out the ii. While trying to explain experience.

At the very least it's honorable to list the experience/accomplishments if you go as far as they did.
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AOPA making an accident video about a friend/mentor/instructor is rough, especially since accuracy and completeness will always suffer due to the nature of the beast.
Racerx said:
She also held AGI and IGI. She was an accomplished pilot. And it's sobering to realize it can happen to someone with her experience.
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Agreed…and whatever we take away, we need to keep a healthy respect for how rapidly things can deteriorate beyond our ability to cope, and head problems off when they’re small enough to do so.
Racerx said:
My condolences to @murphey
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Mine as well.
 
murphey said:
considering she & husband owned a 182, was a CAP instructor pilot, and was getting me certified to fly a CAP 182, I’d say she was qualified to fly a 182. Getting signed off as CAP IP requires FAA CFI and then the CAP process.
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Very sorry to hear this. Wishing comfort for her family in the hard months to follow, and that they are able to find peace in their lives despite this loss.
 
I used the trace of GROUND speed to run some math stats on it. There may be information here which would be useful. With 32 data points(the tops and bottoms of the psuedo-sine) entered a regression analysis and produced a modified 'line of best fit'. The red line through those data points is a declining Ogive curve. We can see some value right there.

More important though is the delta between the two upper purple data points, and the average speed of ~126MPH, and the later in time purple data points with the differential(ave) speed of only ~72MPH.

Expressed in terms of energy, or more accurately reserve energy, this is a sobering set of data points. The span of speed deltas between the two sets of purple data points indicates the amount of wind was relatively constant. There are some outliers in there which the regression had a bit of trouble with, but my R^2 for the 32 data points was 0.813, which is useful as it represents about 81% of the actual data points. The Ogive modifier is one of my own smoothing algorithms that offers change over time, or change over test points during a system external modifier. There was no external modifier present, presuming the plane was operating nominally, and the engine and prop were producing nominal thrust.

Again, the things to focus on is the total reduction in differential(ave) speed from early in the trace to later in the trace. Also, significant reduction in reserve energy(lift) as the plane moves in time.
diff speed trace 182.jpg
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
Please plainly explain what you are seeing and what one might conclude from it. I don’t understand.
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The curved red line starts at the beginning of the search pattern as the plane enters the 'holding' grid. The positive peaks are the ground speed when the plane is flying downwind, approx heading 120-ish? Moving from that, to the plane turning around and flying into the headwind, thus showing a very low ground speed. The airspeed of the plane can be estimated by performing a statistical analysis called 'linear regression'. The output of the linear regression takes into account all the high and all the low data points, and plots a 'line of best fit' for those excursions.

A basic line of best fit from the linear regression would be a straight line. I have a custom algorithm that bends the straight line of best fit to account for changes in the system during the test run(duration of flight in this case). From the red line, moving from left to right we can clearly see a declining AIRspeed from the beginning of the grid flight, to the end of the grid flight. The planes AIRspeed was moderately stable at 126MPH early in the pattern and declined to as low as 72MPH in the third to last grid flight. This are the red arrows on the far right superimposed over the speed on the Y-axis. A reduction of 54MPH(est).

That decline in airspeed with the grid pattern being relatively unchanged indicates the pilot allowed the speed to decay while focusing on something other than 'fly the plane'. Most likely they were scouring the ground for some feature. For a task like this, I would want to see the airspeed(red line) remain constant with plenty of reserve energy of 126MPH.

The purple circles on the red line are the planes airspeed as it turned perpendicular to the prevailing wind. The purple circles at the plus and minus peaks indicate the fastest point, and the slowest points during the flight, where the plane was going either downwind(high ground speed), or upwind(low ground speed). Using the span between the purple points allows us to show the prevailing wind remained nearly constant from the entry to the grid search to the end of the grid search. And, from the crossing and peak we can see the delta of the prevailing wind to be about 40MPH or 35Kts(span from the top purple to bottom purple line in both sets).

It would look better, but not be as accurate if I had simply used a straight line of best fit, and I can do that by removing my Ogive generating algorithm. It will show the same reduction in airspeed, as it decays from the start of the grid pattern to the end of the grid pattern. Note: I did not take into account the early non pitched airspeed, and did not take into account the last 2 peaks, as that may have skewed the results, and provided an R^2 value below 0.75 which is sort of a defining point for seeking reliable information from the raw data. I hope this helps.

edit to correct: speed displayed on Y-axis, not X-axis. Sorry
 
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sonopoa said:
Who was the instructor
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Probably the pilot in the right seat. CAP has requirements that must be met in order to give instruction and testing in CAP-specific types of flying, but the FAA does not.

CAP does require a check pilot to be an FAA-qualified instructor to verify that its pilots meet FAA standards, which is a separate issue.
 
Lets just look at this. The average ground speed of the last two cycles, which is just before the plane came to grief. The average ground speed at it's slowest point is about 44MPH, as shown by the two black lines from the low peak over to the scalar on the right. The average ground speed at it's fastest point is about 116MPH just in between the two upper brown lines. We can just calculate the average AIRspeed by subtracting the lowest ground speed, from the highest ground speed a few seconds apart: 116 - 44 = 72MPH.

This is how fast the plane was going through the air, as it was finishing the penultimate, and ultimate two orbits. I have zero hours in a 182, but it seems to me that this slow of a flight would be at, or just behind the point of reverse command. A condition where no matter how hard one pulls back on the yoke, the plane will not climb, or go any faster. In my Bonanza, I can reach that point about 69MPH with gear down and no flaps out. Maybe the 182 was at or near that point and had no options left, because there was no reserve energy with the plane mushing through the air, barely controllable. Even the most modest upset in elevator, rudder, or aileron could put it into an un-recoverable condition.

But, now we are getting too far into speculation as I don't know about the flaps, or the engine, or prop operating nominally. However, in an earlier post one asked what can be made of the data presented. To emphasize, I have almost no time in a 182, so take that into consideration when viewing my stat analysis.

ground speed trace 182 decay.jpg
 
The flight was not training another pilot, but the person in the back for air photography (AP). As a rule in CAP flights like this, the pilot - left seat - is flying the plane and watching left side for traffic. Right seater handles communications and watches right side. One in the back is Scanner/AP.

An update: If this were a training flight or checkout for a pilot, then the evaluator (CAP Check Pilot CP) would have been in the right seat and the pilot being checked out, in the left seat. That wasn't the situation here.

Another note - it's not required for the mission pilot (MP) to also be a mission operator (the MO, usually in the right seat, handling com & nav) in Colorado, most of the MPs are already MOs because of cadet orientation rides - the MP and 2 cadets. However there's a growing realization that the MO should also be a qualified CAP pilot in the event of an emergency. There are multiple steps to the various CAP positions:

Mission Scanner (MS) - sits in the back, runs the mission because it's usually photo or looking for something/someone. Tells the pilot where to go.
Note: I'm trained and an evaluator for MS and AP; MO and VFR Pilot trainee.
Mission Observer (MO) - really, really good with all the nav & com equipment, including stuff specific to CAP.
VFR Pilot - FAA pilot, gone thru the CAP pilot onboarding procedure (which includes an intolerable number of videos and policy documents and locally, get trained on the G1000 because all CAP aircraft are going that direction) but not necessarily the other com equipment in the aircraft.
TMP - VFR pilot and certain number of hours to qualify to move aircraft from one airport to another or carry CAP members (and other authorized) from one airport to another
ORide - VFR pilot and certain number of hours to qualify to conduct cadet orientation rides. Every cadet is entitled to 5 orides in order to motivate them to get their PPL.
Mission Pilot (MP) - VFR pilot and more hours and qualifications.
Mission Pilot with Mountain Fury checkout - an MP that's gone thru a full-day ground class then training in high-altitude (welcome to colorado!) operations
Instructor pilot (IP) FAA certified CFI (or more) AND knows all the CAP stuff
Check Pilot (CP) an IP and even more! You think it difficult to find a DPE these days? Try to find a CP in Colorado.

www.gocivilairpatrol.com

Pilot Onboarding

www.gocivilairpatrol.com www.gocivilairpatrol.com

With all this, the pilot of this flight was IP and qualified IP for MF in CAP, and a mountain instructor for Colorado Pilots Assoc.
The CPA and Colorado CAP classes were developed by the same people. The actual flying is slightly different, due to the variety of aircraft used by those taking the CPA class.

Even with an commercial or even an ATP, you don't get to walk in and become a CAP pilot. A few people in Colorado have made it in 3 months (one recently was retired USAF pilot and USAFA grad who spent days in front of the G1000 sim at the office). But for people who have full-time jobs, it's usually 8-12 months.

GA in Colorado is very incestuous. Everyone belongs to 2, 3 or more aviation organizations. Makes holiday parties somewhat boring, because it's the same people all the time.
 
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Barrett50 said:
Lets just look at this. The average ground speed of the last two cycles, which is just before the plane came to grief. The average ground speed at it's slowest point is about 44MPH, as shown by the two black lines from the low peak over to the scalar on the right. The average ground speed at it's fastest point is about 116MPH just in between the two upper brown lines. We can just calculate the average AIRspeed by subtracting the lowest ground speed, from the highest ground speed a few seconds apart: 116 - 44 = 72MPH.

This is how fast the plane was going through the air, as it was finishing the penultimate, and ultimate two orbits. I have zero hours in a 182, but it seems to me that this slow of a flight would be at, or just behind the point of reverse command. A condition where no matter how hard one pulls back on the yoke, the plane will not climb, or go any faster. In my Bonanza, I can reach that point about 69MPH with gear down and no flaps out. Maybe the 182 was at or near that point and had no options left, because there was no reserve energy with the plane mushing through the air, barely controllable. Even the most modest upset in elevator, rudder, or aileron could put it into an un-recoverable condition.

But, now we are getting too far into speculation as I don't know about the flaps, or the engine, or prop operating nominally. However, in an earlier post one asked what can be made of the data presented. To emphasize, I have almost no time in a 182, so take that into consideration when viewing my stat analysis.

View attachment 135772
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That's all fine and dandy. But the orbit concluded well before the incident occured. So analyzing the orbit other than to maybe extrapolate wind speed is a probably an exercise in futility

They stopped circling. Flew south. Flew Ridgeline to east ~1000agl. Turned to the north and crossed the ridge then turned back to the west towards a smaller ridge that ran north south. All in a 255@34kt wind.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the altitude they flew west was about 700' higher than when they were coming back. Perhaps it was for the photographer. But damn, there's better days for a picture
 
Racerx said:
That's all fine and dandy. But the orbit concluded well before the incident occured. So analyzing the orbit other than to maybe extrapolate wind speed is a probably an exercise in futility

They stopped circling. Flew south. Flew Ridgeline to east ~1000agl. Turned to the north and crossed the ridge then turned back to the west towards a smaller ridge that ran north south. All in a 255@34kt wind.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the altitude they flew west was about 700' higher than when they were coming back. Perhaps it was for the photographer. But damn, there's better days for a picture
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I was going into Reno once and it was honking out of the west, over 35kts on the ground, close to 60 at 10k. I heard center talking to a CAP plane who wasn’t able to maintain his altitude because he was in such bad turbulence. I couldn’t believe they were out there that day.
 
Racerx said:
That's all fine and dandy. But the orbit concluded well before the incident occured. So analyzing the orbit other than to maybe extrapolate wind speed is a probably an exercise in futility

They stopped circling. Flew south. Flew Ridgeline to east ~1000agl. Turned to the north and crossed the ridge then turned back to the west towards a smaller ridge that ran north south. All in a 255@34kt wind.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the altitude they flew west was about 700' higher than when they were coming back. Perhaps it was for the photographer. But damn, there's better days for a picture
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I will respectfully disagree with you. The decay in ground speed continued into the turn back into the wind shows a loss of SA. This is also evident by the slower speeds beyond the recording I've analyzed. Energy management was lacking both during the orbits, and after - just prior to the impact.
 
Barrett50 said:
...= 72MPH.

This is how fast the plane was going through the air, as it was finishing the penultimate, and ultimate two orbits. I have zero hours in a 182, but it seems to me that this slow of a flight would be at, or just behind the point of reverse command. A condition where no matter how hard one pulls back on the yoke, the plane will not climb, or go any faster. In my Bonanza, I can reach that point about 69MPH with gear down and no flaps out. Maybe the 182 was at or near that point and had no options left, because there was no reserve energy with the plane mushing through the air, barely controllable. Even the most modest upset in elevator, rudder, or aileron could put it into an un-recoverable condition.
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A 182 would climb OK at 72 mph CAS. Your estimate of 72 mph TAS would need to be reduced to account for DA in the conditions which existed at the time. With that under consideration, it might have been awfully close to clean stall speed. Any turbulence/downdrafts would have complicated things.
 
kyleb said:
A 182 would climb OK at 72 mph CAS. Your estimate of 72 mph TAS would need to be reduced to account for DA in the conditions which existed at the time. With that under consideration, it might have been awfully close to clean stall speed. Any turbulence/downdrafts would have complicated things.
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Thanks for the added info. I didn't want to clutter the info with the DA and also the loading of the plane. I don't know how much the pax and any bags weighed. From my mtn flying experience living in Evergreen CO for years and going over the passes, it's a situation where erring on the side of conservative flight params becomes critical.

I've flown in that area, and over the pass to the west a few times. With the wind swirling, and steady state > 35kts, there are a lot of micro-wind currents doing all kinds of things on the lee side of that big rock. Airspeed of 72MPH seems marginal, or becoming critical lack of reserve energy to me.
 
Barrett50 said:
With the wind swirling, and steady state > 35kts, there are a lot of micro-wind currents doing all kinds of things on the lee side of that big rock. Airspeed of 72MPH seems marginal, or becoming critical lack of reserve energy to me.
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See that's the thing. We're trying to extrapolate airspeed from groundspeed in the mountains with wind swirling. Peculiar perhaps. But we cant know what the ias was. The closest awos was reporting 280@41g49. A good bit different than the 255@34

I think we're focusing on the wrong thing. Why were they so low when they crossed the ridge with stiff winds and turbulence?
 
I think that Barrett's calculations for local wind speed and direction are valid as well as the actual airspeed.

The important point he has made is that the TAS is slowly decreasing to a critically low value, and when they turned toward the up wind ridge, 70 knots was inadequate to initiate a climb of any useful amount.

It would seem that the pilot flying was not scanning properly, and did not notice the gradual change. Searching, both front seaters spend much of their time looking out the front and sides.

What caused that slow decrease in airspeed will be the big question, and hard to find after the crash. Carb ice is rare in that climate, but possible. Throttle slowly vibrating closed? Maybe the TSB investigation will find data to prove the cause.

Barrett's math is good.
 
Racerx said:
See that's the thing. We're trying to extrapolate airspeed from groundspeed in the mountains with wind swirling. Peculiar perhaps. But we cant know what the ias was. The closest awos was reporting 280@41g49. A good bit different than the 255@34

I think we're focusing on the wrong thing. Why were they so low when they crossed the ridge with stiff winds and turbulence?
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They are not mutually exclusive 'things'. I focused on one aspect of the accident "chain", because when I looked at the plot of speeds on the chart I saw something that hit me in the linear regression head. I used to work in an area where I could determine with decent accuracy future breakpoints or thresholds which are important for operation of large systems(not the stock market, so don't ask). In this case, the regression lead clearly to an event. Maybe this is too clinical for a fatal accident analysis but when I plotted the first line of best fit, it was obvious to me that the trend was going to factor into the accident chain.

I have not addressed things that usually ask 'why' mainly because the human factors is not an area where I have much expertise. I'm sure there are other factors than the decaying speed that contributed. All I say at this point is the lack of reserve energy leading up to the accident will factor in to the event analysis.
 
You say decling airspeed was clearly a casual factor. I have a feeling the NTSB will say its lack of altitude led to riding a mountain wave down draft to cfit.

The declining ground speed is nothing more than interesting without more data.

I'm giving the very experienced cfii the benefit of the doubt that she wasn't hovering just above vso for 45 minutes while jumping mountain ridges.
 
Racerx said:
You say decling airspeed was clearly a casual factor. I have a feeling the NTSB will say its lack of altitude led to riding a mountain wave down draft to cfit.

The declining ground speed is nothing more than interesting without more data.

I'm giving the very experienced cfii the benefit of the doubt that she wasn't hovering just above vso for 45 minutes while jumping mountain ridges.
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If you're referring to me, I didn't mention declining ground speed except as a collection of data points for the regression analysis. The results of the output does indicate a declining airspeed up to just prior to the accident. And not a 'casual' factor, but a contributing factor. Please try not to erroneously refer to terms in the posts.
 
Racerx said:
Forgive me for thinking you thought the regression was causal.
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Now I think you're being disingenuous.

Or, did you intend to mislead by changing "casual" to "causal"?

"...casual factor"; post #69

A regression cannot 'cause'(sic, proper tense of causal) the event.
 
Barrett50 said:
Now I think you're being disingenuous.

Or, did you intend to mislead by changing "casual" to "causal"?

"...casual factor"; post #69

A regression cannot 'cause'(sic, proper tense of causal) the event.
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Dude, you're not making many friends with this approach. You're on the fast track to ignore if you don't take the edge off...
 
kyleb said:
Dude, you're not making many friends with this approach. You're on the fast track to ignore if you don't take the edge off...
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I encourage you to use the ignore feature. I don't want anyone to be troubled by my posts. However, I'm not sure what your problem is with my posts. If you have some specifics besides 'edge' I'd welcome corrections.
 
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