Crash in Lubbock, TX

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voltin

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Voltin
Sad to make this my first post.

At 7:30pm CST today it appears that N301D, a Piper Malibu Mirage, crashed into the transmitter tower for KCBD (the local NBC affiliate) while attempting to land at Lubbock Preston Smith Airport. There was one reported fatality, presumed to be the pilot. We had a powerful front move in through the city this afternoon and evening and conditions went from beautiful VFR, to IFR with possibility of icing.

The crash caused all but one set of guy wires to become separated from the tower taking down a lot of power lines with them, blacking out parts of the city and putting the tower and studio at risk. The NTSB is en-route.
 
Sad. I trained out of Lubbock. Shot that approach more time than I can count. Thoughts and prayers for the families.
 
That sucks.. Looks like the 35L approach gets you pretty close to that tower. Looks like descending early before UFACI could get you into trouble.
 
Appears to be a Meridian. (If N301D is correct.)
 
The company that owns the plane looks to be a partnership based in Lubbock. Both owners live in Lubbock, and one holds an IFR rating, so likely would have been familiar with the approach.
 
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The older I get, the sadder it makes me when pilots get killed. There was one near here, about a week and half ago. cFI and student. The plane went nose in to a chemical factory, according to Bay News Nine, and the fire was so hot they couldn't identify the bodies for hours and hours.

Sad day.

Sorry for the family
 
How close is that tower to the final approach course? Sure was a tall one to have near an airport; 800+ feet?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
How close is that tower to the final approach course? Sure was a tall one to have near an airport; 800+ feet?
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The tower is about 6.5 NM south and 0.5 NM west of 35L.
 
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voltin said:
It is about 8 NM south southwest of 35L.
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It's basically the only obstacle out there like it. Plenty of smaller towers, but that one is the biggie, or was.
 

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That's sad to hear that out of my home town. RIP
 
KCBD is reporting that the pilot was Dr. Kenneth Mike Rice, who was part owner of the corporation that owns the plane, he held an IFR certificate. Conditions at the time of the crash were IFR with 700 ft ceiling and 7 sm visibility, there was some light mist and the temperature was 28°F.

Thoughts and prayers for Dr. Rice's family.
 
That puts the airplane 700 feet below stepdown altitude for that segment of the approach. I'm not the IFR gestapo when it comes to altitude discipline, but 700 feet below stepdown is kinda asking for it, even by my "good enough not to get fired" standards.
 
hindsight2020 said:
That puts the airplane 700 feet below stepdown altitude for that segment of the approach. I'm not the IFR gestapo when it comes to altitude discipline, but 700 feet below stepdown is kinda asking for it, even by my "good enough not to get fired" standards.
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True unless he had some icing and was having trouble holding altitude, flightaware shows him doing a cloverleaf, that seems like an odd way to be vectored into the final approach
 
teejayevans said:
True unless he had some icing and was having trouble holding altitude, flightaware shows him doing a cloverleaf, that seems like an odd way to be vectored into the final approach
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I saw that 360 on flightaware as well. I thought it was possible he missed the localizer or an auto pilot issue and was being vectored back around.

Ice should not have presented an issue for his Meridian. Unless there was an issue with his deicing equipment.

Winds were blowing pretty bad. I was thinking that bumping around in IMC, in ice,winds gusting on approach, makes for alot of distractions.

Really sad. Even though I didnt know the guy, I feel like this hits close to home since I trained and lived up there for a while.
 
RIP

One of my personal nightmares, running into a tower or it's wires.

Synthetic Vision may have saved him. I'm not IFR, but if I were, I'd break my neck to have a good synvis setup and keep it current.
 
txflyer said:
RIP

One of my personal nightmares, running into a tower or it's wires.

Synthetic Vision may have saved him. I'm not IFR, but if I were, I'd break my neck to have a good synvis setup and keep it current.
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I frequently fly over a complex of towers at Cedar Hill, TX (southern Dallas County); they always take me over the top of them at 3,500', which gives me a good margin, but it never feels like it to me!

Plus, right over the antenna farm, the RF is so great that comms are marginal. I much prefer the Narco to the Garmin here, as it is MUCH better at selecting the signal over the noise.
 
SCCutler said:
I frequently fly over a complex of towers at Cedar Hill, TX (southern Dallas County); they always take me over the top of them at 3,500', which gives me a good margin, but it never feels like it to me!

Plus, right over the antenna farm, the RF is so great that comms are marginal. I much prefer the Narco to the Garmin here, as it is MUCH better at selecting the signal over the noise.
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+1 on that.
A few weeks back I did a night flight from Love Field Dallas to Austin and due to traffic the ATC had me a 3000 MSL flying beside those Towers at Cedar Hill. My heart was racing until we passed them.
 
Shy of a failure in the aircraft or FZRA etc, that's a major mistake for someone qualified to fly a plane of that caliber.

txflyer said:
RIP

One of my personal nightmares, running into a tower or it's wires.

Synthetic Vision may have saved him. I'm not IFR, but if I were, I'd break my neck to have a good synvis setup and keep it current.
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No, SV wouldn't do crap if you can't fly a simple step down.

Proper IFR flying would have made this a un eventful landing, presuming no failures or weather beyond the planes capabilities.
 
SCCutler said:
I frequently fly over a complex of towers at Cedar Hill, TX (southern Dallas County); they always take me over the top of them at 3,500', which gives me a good margin, but it never feels like it to me!

Plus, right over the antenna farm, the RF is so great that comms are marginal. I much prefer the Narco to the Garmin here, as it is MUCH better at selecting the signal over the noise.
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There are a couple 1999 footers south of Houston. Flying IFR into Galveston they kept me above those towers. Even though I knew they were there and I was looking for them (in some haze) they were hard to find. When I did find them they scared the sh** outta me because they looked, from a distance, like I was going to smash right into them. I could see that my altitude was high enough but that didn't stop me from being all nervous nelly and asking ATC if I was "good" - he just calmly said that those towers were the reason he had me at 3000 feet. He was probably thinking, as I was, "duuuuuh moron". Still. Puckery.
 
Just the other day I flew the RNAV35 approach into McGregor Texas. It flies right over a giant antenna farm that has snagged a number of aircraft over the years. If you have ever driven I35, it's that big tower farm you see near Temple.

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You go right over one of the towers at the FAF. You are 665 feet above the top, but by golly it looks more like 6.65 inches! It's a startling thing to see!

My heart just breaks for the people involved in this horrible accident.
 
Five northeast of KLRO Mt Pleasant,SC, are 2 2000 ft towers that are painted in a color that blends right in with the ocean air background. They will surely get some unsuspecting pilot on day.
 
airguy said:
That video makes it APPEAR as if he was descending rather rapidly at the time of impact with the tower.
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That's what I thought too. It appears the aircraft was not under control.

I forget when it happened but years ago a Navy jet hit the KDFW tower in Cedar Hill. It didn't come down, they were able to repair the damage and ended up with the tower reduced in height a hundred feet or so.

That tower is now a backup to a new one built on site about 20 years ago. I think it's 2,200' tall. All of those towers in the area certainly get your attention. The guy wires don't look like much from a distance but they are 2" in diameter.
 
airguy said:
That video makes it APPEAR as if he was descending rather rapidly at the time of impact with the tower. Quality isn't great and you can't tell what the angle of the camera is with respect to the direction of flight, but it sure looks like he was dropping fast.
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The camera is looking south (maybe a little bit to the SE.) The store is pretty much 0.5 miles directly north of the tower.
 
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The relative positions of the moving lights in the video make it appear that he was in a steep bank. I'm not familiar with the lights on a PA-46.
 
James331 said:
Shy of a failure in the aircraft or FZRA etc, that's a major mistake for someone qualified to fly a plane of that caliber.



No, SV wouldn't do crap if you can't fly a simple step down.

Proper IFR flying would have made this a un eventful landing, presuming no failures or weather beyond the planes capabilities.
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Assuming you're not out of control, or something wrong with the plane, if you're out of the step down, or off coarse, synthetic vision with a big red blaring tower on a display screen in front of you would I think get your attention.

I'm a fan of synvision.

I think it has great potential to lessen spatial disorientation and CFIT accidents in general. :)
 
airguy said:
That video makes it APPEAR as if he was descending rather rapidly at the time of impact with the tower. Quality isn't great and you can't tell what the angle of the camera is with respect to the direction of flight, but it sure looks like he was dropping fast.
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And.... It looks like the wing tips lights were in a 60+ degrees bank angle... Not level flight...:no:
 
Turns out I'm pretty familiar with that tower...

We had a site to shoot that's on one of my regular routes right next to the scene today.

That tower was aligned closer to final than I remembered. Pretty scary to contemplate and definitely a reminder that those minimum altitudes are there for your protection.
 

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NoHeat said:
Did the tower fall down after it was hit?
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I think the top section was snatched off when the guys were snagged. The tower was dropped today since it was considered a hazard because the guy wires were gone on 2 sides.

I agree that it looks like he was out of control and a 60 deg bank (graveyard spiral?) but that was super close to the ground for as far out as he was according to Voltin's description of the tower position relative to the approach course. Hopefully there's enough clues for the investigators can bring closure to this event- thankfully no fire- which is a miracle in itself.
 
Interesting that the tower separated at the point shown in the pictures. Most towers are designed not to separate like that in a collapse. The only other answer would be that they brought it down intentionally from that point to spare the building.

I'll email this thread to my father to see what he thinks.
 
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NoHeat said:
Did the tower fall down after it was hit?
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Over half of the tower was pulled down by the guy wires after the impact. The station had to be evacuated and the road outside of it closed due to the tower being structurally unsound. The station made the decision to remove the remaining part of the tower this evening so that they could reoccupy the building.

Here is the video of them pulling down the tower for those interested: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152940595527034
 
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voltin said:
Over half of the tower was pulled down by the guy wires after the impact. The station had to be evacuated and the road outside of it closed due to the tower being structurally unsound. The station made the decision to remove the remaining part of the tower this evening so that they could reoccupy the station.
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What was the height of the tower ?

In still waiting on my fathers opinion, but from listening about his tower collapse experience it should have all dropped at once.
 
ARFlyer said:
What was the height of the tower ?

In still waiting on my fathers opinion, but from listening about his tower collapse experience it should have all dropped at once.
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FAA records put it at 814 feet. It looks like it snapped at the point the lower guy wires were attached to the tower.
 
ARFlyer said:
What was the height of the tower ?

In still waiting on my fathers opinion, but from listening about his tower collapse experience it should have all dropped at once.
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About 15 years ago a tower under construction in Cedar Hill collapsed after a section being hoisted fell and struck guy wires. It was over 2,000' when it came down.

The tower fell in a circular pattern about 200' in diameter. I was working about 1/4 mile away at the KDFW transmitter when it happened. I was really surprised at the compact area, but the KDFW guys told me that's the normal manner of collapse.
 
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