Commanche down in San Antonio, Dec 1, 2019

hindsight2020 said:
Interesting, I thought only the comanche 180s came in the main tank only variant. I thought all 250s and higher had the 4 tank setup. In any event, it certainly would have been prudent to bring in 2 hours of endurance at whatever fuel flow the deceased liked to fly, considering the higher than average headwinds yesterday.
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I asked my FIL, he confirmed 2 30g tanks with rubber bladders.
 
I listened to the live ATC radio calls and looked at flightaware ground track He sounded remarkably composed when he announced his emergency. KSAT approach cleared him to land any runway and he initially said he'd circle to the runway in use, 04, but later changed his mind and said he'd be landing 13R. His ground track ended after what appeared was a 360 off 13R. Winds were 330 at 4. I suspect he ran out of gas (no fire after crash), declared an emergency, and lost control doing a dead stick 360. What's it take to lower the gear on a PA24 with an engine out? Maybe he did the 360 thinking it would give him time to extend the gear if it wasn't out yet. He wasn't all that high and the runway is 8500 ft long. This is why the commercial requires proficiency in the power off 180. Sad day all around.
 
NavAir said:
Photo shows engine in the wreckage. Just the usual ignorance of the press when reporting aviation stories: "He lost his engine"
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I understand the lay person aspect of having to report technical details one not may be exposed to day to day. But rank and file writers in that business just seem incredibly anti-intellectual as a collective. The acute dilution in writing ability and nuance, even below that of cursory level thought comprehension expected of a high school drop out working retail or manual unskilled labor, is just beyond the pale for people supposedly paid to write with a modicum of coherence.

Might as well write these stories in instagram memes ffs.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Interesting, I thought only the comanche 180s came in the main tank only variant. I thought all 250s and higher had the 4 tank setup. In any event, it certainly would have been prudent to bring in 2 hours of endurance at whatever fuel flow the deceased liked to fly, considering the higher than average headwinds yesterday.
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The first 2-3 years the 250 shared the 2-30 gallon tank wing with the 180. It became a common upgrade to add tip tanks to regain the 6 hour endurance. Piper added integral 15 gallon tanks in 61-62 I think.
 
Witmo said:
I listened to the live ATC radio calls and looked at flightaware ground track He sounded remarkably composed when he announced his emergency. KSAT approach cleared him to land any runway and he initially said he'd circle to the runway in use, 04, but later changed his mind and said he'd be landing 13R. His ground track ended after what appeared was a 360 off 13R. Winds were 330 at 4. I suspect he ran out of gas (no fire after crash), declared an emergency, and lost control doing a dead stick 360. What's it take to lower the gear on a PA24 with an engine out? Maybe he did the 360 thinking it would give him time to extend the gear if it wasn't out yet. He wasn't all that high and the runway is 8500 ft long. This is why the commercial requires proficiency in the power off 180. Sad day all around.
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Gear extension is electric with manual Johnson bar for backup. Normal extension is about 9 seconds if I recall.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Gear extension is electric with manual Johnson bar for backup. Normal extension is about 9 seconds if I recall.
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Then he shouldn't have needed extra time to get the gear down. Here's a situation where some glider experience might have been beneficial. I don't think he'd have pulled a chute if he had one since he was close to a long runway and should have been able to land.
 
Witmo said:
Then he shouldn't have needed extra time to get the gear down. Here's a situation where some glider experience might have been beneficial. I don't think he'd have pulled a chute if he had one since he was close to a long runway and should have been able to land.
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I'd guess he didn't properly account for the awful glide of a CS propped airplane with the prop stopped and possibly the gear down, so he simply undershot. In that situation, plan your landing halfway down the runway. Even if you misjudge it by a half mile, you probably don't end up in the obits.
 
If I'm not mistaken, he was off the end of 13R. There's also a 13L that would have been marginally closer. There's also Twin Oaks, short runway, that they would have flown over to get to where they were.
 
NavAir said:
Photo shows engine in the wreckage. Just the usual ignorance of the press when reporting aviation stories: "He lost his engine"
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this is one time I’ll cut a reporter some slack. Was just relating the information given from first responders.

The SA fire chief held a press briefing and he said “what we have done so far is do a 20 block scan in every direction to make sure we didn’t have an engine piece or airplane fall off...”. He probably meant to say ‘an engine piece or an airplane piece fall off..’
 
Witmo said:
I listened to the live ATC radio calls and looked at flightaware ground track He sounded remarkably composed when he announced his emergency. KSAT approach cleared him to land any runway and he initially said he'd circle to the runway in use, 04, but later changed his mind and said he'd be landing 13R. His ground track ended after what appeared was a 360 off 13R. Winds were 330 at 4. I suspect he ran out of gas (no fire after crash), declared an emergency, and lost control doing a dead stick 360. What's it take to lower the gear on a PA24 with an engine out? Maybe he did the 360 thinking it would give him time to extend the gear if it wasn't out yet. He wasn't all that high and the runway is 8500 ft long. This is why the commercial requires proficiency in the power off 180. Sad day all around.
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i have a PA24 and I have flown that route a few times (Sugarland to Boerne). My plane has mains and auxiliary tanks. The mains hold 30 gal each but only good for 28. At low altitude, 16 gals/hr is normal but I have a 260. A previous owner claims no Aux on this plane so he had 56 gals of useable fuel.

Normally, to stay clear of KSAT class C airspace, coming from the Houston area, u fly directly over New Braunfels airport (KBAZ) about 30 miles east of KSAT. This guy was south of New Braunfels and headed direct to KSAT well out side of San Antonio. He arrived at KSAT at the height of commercial air traffic after a busy Thanksgiving weekend and then flew directly to the north to do a 360. I suspect he lost his engine by fuel exhaustion banking during the 360. Witness say they saw him put his nose down and crash about 1 mile from the airport.

observations;
To me, his flight log looked like an emergency was declared long before arriving at KSAT. It also appeared he was at 4300’ at the threshold of the KSAT runway and needed to lose altitude hence the 360 circle.

He had made the runway and only needed to circle the threshold and then had 2 miles of runway to land on but elected to the turn away from the airport. This was a critical mistake and cost him his life.

This makes me so sad.

We all need to practice those emergency landing procedures for the sake of those who love u.









1.
 
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hindsight2020 said:
I understand the lay person aspect of having to report technical details one not may be exposed to day to day. But rank and file writers in that business just seem incredibly anti-intellectual as a collective. The acute dilution in writing ability and nuance, even below that of cursory level thought comprehension expected of a high school drop out working retail or manual unskilled labor, is just beyond the pale for people supposedly paid to write with a modicum of coherence.

Might as well write these stories in instagram memes ffs.
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I have reached out to the reporters from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution numerous times to correct aviation related stories. They are actually conscientious enough to make the corrections. I have also offered to do a "smell test" of any aviation story they plan to run. No takers on that one, but it sure would have helped a few times. They can't know everything, but need to recognize when they are out of their comfort zone and bring in a little help.
 
PiperW said:
I suspect he lost his engine by fuel exhaustion banking during the 360.
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Maybe, if not coordinated.
PiperW said:
We all need to practice those emergency landing procedures for the sake of those who love u.
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Isn't there a thread going now about steep spirals and emergency landings? I haven't read the new commercial ACS, but 1080° overhead approaches used to be required. Although great practice for a commercial level of skill, an easier way is to simply meander around until you hit the "key position" reasonably close to pattern altitude (I'm on record here saying this recently) and then aim for 1/3 down the runway, fine tuning on final when the runway is assured. You have to know field elevation and add 1000 feet. If you're used to a small airport the sight picture at a BIG airport can make you think you're closer to the runway than you really are, so watch out for that trap.
 
mryan75 said:
To be fair, this particular market (GA in the US) is the safest on God's green earth, with much lower regulatory burden than some other markets. So we do get something for our troubles. Rewrites of part 23 are also coming pretty soon if memory serves.
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Yeah but I hate the government so I enjoy low hanging fruit for the easy government bashing.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
Yeah but I hate the government so I enjoy low hanging fruit for the easy government bashing.
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No, you can very legitimately criticize the cost and timeframe of safety equipment due to regulation.
 
PiperW said:
To me, his flight log looked like an emergency was declared long before arriving at KSAT. It also appeared he was at 4300’ at the threshold of the KSAT runway and needed to lose altitude hence the 360 circle.

He had made the runway and only needed to circle the threshold and then had 2 miles of runway to land on but elected to the turn away from the airport. This was a critical mistake and cost him his life.

This makes me so sad.

We all need to practice those emergency landing procedures for the sake of those who love u.
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That's my take from listening to Live ATC, too. That's what is so sad about this. RIP
 
kyleb said:
I'd guess he didn't properly account for the awful glide of a CS propped airplane with the prop stopped and possibly the gear down, so he simply undershot. In that situation, plan your landing halfway down the runway. Even if you misjudge it by a half mile, you probably don't end up in the obits.
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Yep, I recently had a partial power loss caused by a blocked fuel vent. I came in very hot and fast, even to a "short" 3200' runway because I knew that all I had to do to survive was to get my wheels down on the pavement - anywhere basically. Even in the last 100' of pavement, the airport fence would end up stopping me rather uneventfully compared to a spin-crash. Worst thing that happened was a *potential* overspeed of the flaps to slow down and go down, but inspection revealed no damage so perhaps there was not even that (memory during an emergency is sketchy at best, so what speed I was at is up for debate). I was not going to risk trying to enter a traffic pattern for the longer runway and lose the engine during that maneuver. Or trying to do 360 and misjudge and end up short.

Just get it down on the ground, somewhere on the airport, runway, taxiway, grass, parking area, in order of preference.
 
Matthew Rogers said:
Yep, I recently had a partial power loss caused by a blocked fuel vent. I came in very hot and fast, even to a "short" 3200' runway because I knew that all I had to do to survive was to get my wheels down on the pavement - anywhere basically. Even in the last 100' of pavement, the airport fence would end up stopping me rather uneventfully compared to a spin-crash. Worst thing that happened was a *potential* overspeed of the flaps to slow down and go down, but inspection revealed no damage so perhaps there was not even that (memory during an emergency is sketchy at best, so what speed I was at is up for debate). I was not going to risk trying to enter a traffic pattern for the longer runway and lose the engine during that maneuver. Or trying to do 360 and misjudge and end up short.

Just get it down on the ground, somewhere on the airport, runway, taxiway, grass, parking area, in order of preference.
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And frankly, in some aircraft like the Cardinal and I suspect the Comanche, you come to a stop pretty fast but in a reasonably controlled manner if you land with the gear up... which might be a good option if you need a bit more glide. When we had our hydraulic failure, the Cardinal only slid about 5-600' after touchdown on pavement.
 
Great point, and you may even have enough time to do a gear extension (but that is speculation at best) after passing over the threshold if you do indeed come in high and fast enough. But even if not, I hear some gear up landings with the prop stopped barely require more than a new belly skin, if that.
 
Yeah, I'd rather come in high and fast than turn from the airport with the mill not spinning. Can always dump energy if needed. And like the guy said, crashing into the perimeter fence is going to hurt less than crashing into someone's apartment. And always fly the aircraft all the way into the crash. Often as not its the stall/spin that winds up being the killer.
 
hindsight2020 said:
I understand the lay person aspect of having to report technical details one not may be exposed to day to day. But rank and file writers in that business just seem incredibly anti-intellectual as a collective. The acute dilution in writing ability and nuance, even below that of cursory level thought comprehension expected of a high school drop out working retail or manual unskilled labor, is just beyond the pale for people supposedly paid to write with a modicum of coherence.

Might as well write these stories in instagram memes ffs.
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After considerable cogitation I concur.
 
Matthew Rogers said:
Yep, I recently had a partial power loss caused by a blocked fuel vent. I came in very hot and fast, even to a "short" 3200' runway because I knew that all I had to do to survive was to get my wheels down on the pavement - anywhere basically. Even in the last 100' of pavement, the airport fence would end up stopping me rather uneventfully compared to a spin-crash. Worst thing that happened was a *potential* overspeed of the flaps to slow down and go down, but inspection revealed no damage so perhaps there was not even that (memory during an emergency is sketchy at best, so what speed I was at is up for debate). I was not going to risk trying to enter a traffic pattern for the longer runway and lose the engine during that maneuver. Or trying to do 360 and misjudge and end up short.

Just get it down on the ground, somewhere on the airport, runway, taxiway, grass, parking area, in order of preference.
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One piece of advice from an old timer that I've never forgotten: it's better to go off the end of the runway slowing down than to come up short of it in the trees.
 
^^ Didn't look like that wing was flying at that point.
Classic "stretch the glide" attempt?
 
mryan75 said:
It did not hit softly.

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Understatement of the year, IMO. If you watch at 1/4 speed you can see the landing light beams in the street before the plane appears. It was in a leftward spin. Reminds me of the Cirrus lady in Houston.
 
Van Johnston said:
Third occupant identified. Commercial pilot and CFII.



https://www.kens5.com/article/news/...nday/273-16d070c2-fd10-4439-90b5-d171504bf702
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They “believe” it was 38 year old Womble in the left seat.

On Sunday, Garrow was with 38-year-old Austin businessman Robert Tyson Womble, believed to be in the pilot’s seat, and his company intern, 22-year-old Eric Naranjo, when the plane went down in San Antonio.
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https://www.click2houston.com/news/...s-71-year-old-plane-crash-victim-from-spring/

I’m sure that was instantaneous. If there’s anything good, at least they didn’t suffer. :(
 
Rushie said:
They “believe” it was 38 year old Womble in the left seat.



https://www.click2houston.com/news/...s-71-year-old-plane-crash-victim-from-spring/

I’m sure that was instantaneous. If there’s anything good, at least they didn’t suffer. :(
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They suffered for how ever long the fall was. That has to be some seriously scary stuff.
Maybe we should just simplify the lesson: do absolutely anything but stall-spin. It's literally the only situation in which you have 0 chance of survival.
 
mryan75 said:
They suffered for how ever long the fall was. That has to be some seriously scary stuff.
Maybe we should just simplify the lesson: do absolutely anything but stall-spin. It's literally the only situation in which you have 0 chance of survival.
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I can’t imagine what that feels like. I hope you’re in shock and disbelief.
 
Horrible. I did some spin training, and even more important than learning to recover from a spin is that recovering takes some altitude. A spin at pattern altitude is pretty much a death sentence.
 
Fly all the way into the crash. That might have been survivable had he come in under control. Really sad.
 
steingar said:
Fly all the way into the crash. That might have been survivable had he come in under control. Really sad.
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The only way to have survived was to recognize and recover from the stall before it degraded into a spin. According to an article I read in AOPA, the average GA aircraft recovers from a stall in 100-350ft. Recovery from a spin typically takes 1200ft. AKA, pattern altitude. And those are if you recognize what's going on at the onset. I'd say you will waste 3-5 seconds minimum getting past the shock of "oh crap, something bad just happened" and moving on to corrective maneuvers.
 
Another thing that didn't occur to me - this was an hour after sunset. That may have complicated matters. Poor cockpit lighting, general disorientation looking inside and outside and back repeatedly, trying to keep track of the runway, altitude, etc., and just lose track of airspeed...
 
Matthew Rogers said:
Yep, I recently had a partial power loss caused by a blocked fuel vent.
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Had a friend have a partial power loss recently. Turned out fuel contamination, lots of water in the fuel. He uses premium auto fuel in his 172. He thought he was going to have to ditch in Icy Straight west of Hoonah, AK. Made the runway and dumped all the fuel. Had to have someone bring him fuel from Juneau. There is a reason I only use 100LL from a fuel truck and contamination is at the top of the list.

steingar said:
And always fly the aircraft all the way into the crash.
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I hope you don't have to that to often..:rolleyes:
 
AKBill said:
Had a friend have a partial power loss recently. Turned out fuel contamination, lots of water in the fuel. He uses premium auto fuel in his 172. He thought he was going to have to ditch in Icy Straight west of Hoonah, AK. Made the runway and dumped all the fuel. Had to have someone bring him fuel from Juneau. There is a reason I only use 100LL from a fuel truck and contamination is at the top of the list.

I hope you don't have to that to often..:rolleyes:
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Partial power loss sucks....from experience. I just watched an Aviation Safety Institute video about a partial power loss crash in a P51 and that guy still made mistakes even after having many thousands of hours of experience from GA to 747 captain to warbird/P51. I mean, my partial power let me make it to the airport vs a field, but still the back and forth really messes up any chance of following an emergency plan correctly. You go from your training and full engine out to "oh, sht, wait its ok" to "oh sht, this is going to be bad" to "oh sht, I might make it". The only thing in common is "oh sht"
 
NavAir said:
Photo shows engine in the wreckage. Just the usual ignorance of the press when reporting aviation stories: "He lost his engine"
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Ha you say! This is ANTI-fake news ... this great reporter already LOCATED the LOST ENGINE prior to first responders or NTSB arriving on screne!:confused::confused:;)
 
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