John F Kennedy Jr’s style was sloppy

Zeldman said:
The real story on the JFK jr crash.

Reader's Digest version.

The wife discovered that the husband had been having affair with her sister. During the flight she decided to confront her husband about the affair. After much discussion, the wife pulled pistol from her purse and shot the husband, then the sister, but then was unable to fly the plane to a country without extradition to the US.

This also explains why no autopsy, and also explains why the bodies were pretty much pulled from the plane, put into caskets and buried.




Ok, this is a totally made up story by the mind of a sane person that comes up with stories to entertain the masses.... but had you wondering for a second, didn't it.??:)
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I'm still kinda wondering. :D
 
timwinters said:
First, AGAIN, neither of us knows what training JFK, Jr had...now do we?
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We do have some reasonably reliable information about the level of training he had received. That is in the NTSB report. The amount of information is not an all or none thing, which seems to be how you are viewing it. Please read the report to understand what is and is not known.

jayyyyyzus dude. READ!
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Good advice - it appears I have read the NTSB report and the AOPA article about this accident. May I ask, have you?

And if not, why go on and on making accusations about how other people can’t understand. I find it is usually best to assume, at least initially, that when there is a lack of understanding between people discussing something, that it is due to honest failures. Instead it seems here there has been from the first post a hostile interpretation. I will give credit that it has not devolved into outright name calling, though some of this is borderline.

I do agree that if one cannot have a reasonable polite discussion about a point, it is best to stop having the discussion.
 
I'm wondering how anyone could be so warped as to write something tasteless and ridiculous as that, and/or so stupid as to think its true in whole are part. That probably fits legal libel measures.
 
Palmpilot said:
I think that would eliminate most night VFR in much of the country.
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Maybe there is some confusion about the meaning of “without a visible horizon”. I was just checking the PHAK and AFH for a definition applicable to this context, but couldn’t find one.

What I mean by that phrase is a situation where one cannot infer from visual cues where the horizon is. At night, cues like the stars, moonlight, city lights, highways, etc. will often provide a visual cue of the horizon’s location.

Absent those, is it possible to fly VFR actually? Or does one have to use the instruments to assist? It strikes me one would need the instruments without some clues.
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Maybe there is some confusion about the meaning of “without a visible horizon”. I was just checking the PHAK and AFH for a definition applicable to this context, but couldn’t find one.

What I mean by that phrase is a situation where one cannot infer from visual cues where the horizon is. At night, cues like the stars, moonlight, city lights, highways, etc. will often provide a visual cue of the horizon’s location.

Absent those, is it possible to fly VFR actually? Or does one have to use the instruments to assist? It strikes me one would need the instruments without some clues.
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Those cues can also trick you. Try flying at the coast at 45 degrees sometime and see if you don’t get the feeling you aren’t level when you are.
 
Salty said:
Those cues can also trick you. Try flying at the coast at 45 degrees sometime and see if you don’t get the feeling you aren’t level when you are.
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That's a good point. In truth, having a visible horizon is not an all or none thing either. There are lots of situations with a marginal level of cues which can be misleading.
 
olasek said:
As we know from countless accidents caused by spatial disorientation at night over water no amount of training may be "enough". Recently Japan lost their first F-35 in exact same manner - pilot flew it at night into water.
This pilot had over 3200 hrs. Japan Air Force say that spatial disorientation is their number #1 killer.
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Palmpilot said:
How do you define "fairly safe" and "reasonably safe"? Those terms by themselves are too subjective to prove anything.
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I definitely agree this is a question of what level of risk is acceptable and how much risk you are willing to tolerate. Thank you for the thoughtful responses.

What I was trying to probe with my queries was where @timwinters ' threshold lies along this sort of continuum. He has insisted that "both instrument work and night work are required parts of the PPL curriculum...and it doesn't take much more that the required minimum to become relatively proficient at it." when referring to the level of proficiency which should JFK Jr should have had. That seems to imply that he thinks the risk levels after just a bit more training beyond the PPL are negligible. He seems fairly insistent on this perspective, which strikes me as different from that of the AOPA article, Jason of MZeroA, and other posters here, which is why I was hoping to pin that down. Alas, I fear there will not be an answer in those terms which we might be able to integrate with other viewpoints.
 
dbahn said:
Again, I suspect that he was an average pilot with fairly low time experience but not particularly reckless in his risk management. But the first step in risk management is to identify the hazard, and I think that was his failure. Had he correctly identified the risk he had a number of management alternatives - take the CFI along, cancel the flight, put his fate in the autopilot (not recommended) or simply fly at altitude and descend over the field. His ultimate destination was Hyannis, and he could even have landed there and sent his passenger to MVY on a commercial flight or ferry boat.
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I appreciate this perspective. But can I clarify your overall view. Do I understand your perspective correctly to be that JFK, Jr did not make any serious mistakes in ADM? He was an average pilot of average hazard identification skills and risk management and just got unlucky?

Or is it your belief that he should have done something differently to help identify the potential hazards on this flight? Maybe a full briefing, or more careful thought when it turned into a night flight, instead of a day flight, or ?
 
Bill Greenwood said:
I'm wondering how anyone could be so warped as to write something tasteless and ridiculous as that, and/or so stupid as to think its true in whole are part. That probably fits legal libel measures.
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I think there were a lot more crazy theories at the time as well.
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Do I understand your perspective correctly to be that JFK, Jr did not make any serious mistakes in ADM? He was an average pilot of average hazard identification skills and risk management and just got unlucky?
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He probably didn't make the same decisions that you would have made, based on your posts. Could he have been more conservative? Sure, but it's a decision that other pilots have made and survived. In that respect he was "unlucky".

But my theory is that his fashion-conscious wife started ragging on him for his sloppy dress while they were enroute, and he got distracted...
 
Everskyward said:
He probably didn't make the same decisions that you would have made, based on your posts. Could he have been more conservative? Sure, but it's a decision that other pilots have made and survived. In that respect he was "unlucky".
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Agreed it is a continuum and people who know me will tell you that I definitely support the right of people to make their own decisions about it, as long as they don't hurt others.

I think I will continue to teach that night flight is riskier than flight during the day, it is particularly risky when you have no good visual cues for the horizon, and also risky over the water. Best to be proficient in the use of instruments and think carefully before doing it.

But my theory is that his fashion-conscious wife started ragging on him for his sloppy dress while they were enroute, and he got distracted...
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LOL.
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Maybe there is some confusion about the meaning of “without a visible horizon”. I was just checking the PHAK and AFH for a definition applicable to this context, but couldn’t find one.

What I mean by that phrase is a situation where one cannot infer from visual cues where the horizon is. At night, cues like the stars, moonlight, city lights, highways, etc. will often provide a visual cue of the horizon’s location.
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I take the term "visible horizon" literally. Making up one's own definitions of terms tends to lead to misunderstandings.

As for visual cues, my experience is that they can be misleading, especially at night.

Absent those, is it possible to fly VFR actually? Or does one have to use the instruments to assist? It strikes me one would need the instruments without some clues.
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On my first night flight during private pilot training, as soon as we lifted off, the first thing my instructor said was, "Get on your instruments," probably because with the plane in a climb attitude along the edge of San Francisco Bay, visual cues were not immediately obvious.

The "R" in VFR stands for "rules," so if you're in compliance with VFR minimums, then you're flying VFR. You may, of course, not be flying visually at times, which probably has something to do with why basic instrument flying and night flying are specifically required in the private pilot syllabus.
 
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Palmpilot said:
I take the term "visible horizon" literally. Making up one's own definitions of terms tends to lead to misunderstandings.
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OK, sorry if I don't understand, but can you explain a bit more by what you mean by a literal meaning of "visible horizon"? I tried to find a definition of this in aviation sources like the PHAK or AFH, but it wasn't defined there.

Do you mean one has to be able to see the actual horizon? And if so, how much of it? I have been in situations where I could infer where the horizon was from perhaps 20% of it being directly in view, but maybe that isn't what you mean by a literal meaning?

I am happy to try and understand people's posts in terms of any reasonable definition they like to use. I think this question arose because I wrote "I guess I don’t know the exact regulatory language, but doesn’t VFR flight require having a visual horizon, at least to do so safely?"

I see know now that VFR flight per se, that is, per regulation, does not actually require a view of the horizon, so long as visibility and cloud clearance requirements are met, as you have noted.

I think it is also true that one could not safely fly "visually" without instruments unless one has some reference to the horizon, whether that reference be a direct view of it or indirect cues (which can be misleading).
 
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PeterNSteinmetz said:
I appreciate this perspective. But can I clarify your overall view. Do I understand your perspective correctly to be that JFK, Jr did not make any serious mistakes in ADM? He was an average pilot of average hazard identification skills and risk management and just got unlucky?
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Not speaking for him, but it seems to me that average pilots are capable of making serious mistakes in ADM. I know I have.

Or is it your belief that he should have done something differently to help identify the potential hazards on this flight? Maybe a full briefing, or more careful thought when it turned into a night flight, instead of a day flight, or ?
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That's kind of obvious from the outcome of the flight, no? As for your list of avoidance strategies, I would say any of them had the potential of changing the outcome. As with most accidents, there was an accident chain, and breaking any link in the chain could have prevented the accident.
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
I appreciate this perspective. But can I clarify your overall view. Do I understand your perspective correctly to be that JFK, Jr did not make any serious mistakes in ADM? He was an average pilot of average hazard identification skills and risk management and just got unlucky?

Or is it your belief that he should have done something differently to help identify the potential hazards on this flight? Maybe a full briefing, or more careful thought when it turned into a night flight, instead of a day flight, or ?
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I just don't think he was aware of the hazard involved in descending into the haze over water at night. You can't mitigate a risk if you don't realize it's there.
 
I kinda wish the thread title could be changed. What started off about a article solely about his dressing habits and no reference to flying (that I am aware of) has quickly turned into pretty much inferring his flying style was "sloppy" and he therefore killed himself and the two ladies (which he most likely did). For all we know his only fatal decision may have been getting in the plane with a mobility issue that ultimately prevented him from otherwise correcting a attitude problem. We just don't know and its all speculation since he wasn't talking and it wasn't recorded. I'm not trying to defend the guy based on politics as I go the other way. Just seems like a lot more speculation than actual facts for those final few minutes. The same for a lot of accidents.
 
One test of whether reasonable judgment was sound would be to take all of the facts of the case and apply that to a scenario that resulted in a successful flight. If your initial reaction was "wow I can't believe they made it!" than it's probably not sound judgment. If no red flags went off in your head, perhaps it was reasonable. The reality is judgment is rarely cut and dry, and without all of the facts, it's impossible to say whether he specifically made good or bad choices. That said, it's good discussion to use this, and other accidents like this, to discuss factors that apply to good ADM and concepts such as personal minimums, risk evaluation tools (FRAT), and personal assessments (IMSAFE).
 
Sinistar said:
I kinda wish the thread title could be changed. What started off about a article solely about his dressing habits and no reference to flying (that I am aware of) has quickly turned into pretty much inferring his flying style was "sloppy" and he therefore killed himself and the two ladies (which he most likely did).
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Thanks. I'm glad to see this returned in some sense to the original usage of the term "sloppy" and whether JFK Jr's flying, decision making, hazard identification was somehow "sloppy". A definition of "sloppy" is " adjective careless and unsystematic; excessively casual."

Personally, I have learned a lot in this thread and the associated reports, links, articles, etc. which would make me think that there are a number of ways that what he did on that flight was careless and unsystematic. I won't repeat them all again here. I guess I wouldn't say that his behaviors were outright insanity either, just not the sort of care I would hope to see in students or myself when flying family members.

I also agree that the information is limited (though that is different from no information) and it is necessary to speculate about exact causation, relative causal factors, etc. Thus people have different opinions about it because we don't have a lot of certainty about what happened in the final few minutes, as noted.
 
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PeterNSteinmetz said:
OK, sorry if I don't understand, but can you explain a bit more by what you mean by a literal meaning of "visible horizon"? I tried to find a definition of this in aviation sources like the PHAK or AFH, but it wasn't defined there.

Do you mean one has to be able to see the actual horizon?
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I mean that if the horizon is not visible, then you don't have a visible horizon.

And if so, how much of it? I have been in situations where I could infer where the horizon was from perhaps 20% of it being directly in view, but maybe that isn't what you mean by a literal meaning?
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In that scenario, I would say that you have a partially visible horizon. Whether that will be enough in a given situation is difficult to predict.

I'm not just nitpicking. I think it's important, for safety reasons, to keep in mind the distinction between actually seeing the horizon, and inferring it from other visual cues. I say "for safety reasons" because I once got into an unusual attitude over the Arizona desert in excellent night-VFR conditions, and getting the plane back into a wings-level attitude was complicated by the fact that my mind was incorrectly interpreting a row of car lights on a highway as the horizon. Instrument training may have saved my life that night.
 
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PeterNSteinmetz said:
He has insisted that "both instrument work and night work are required parts of the PPL curriculum...and it doesn't take much more that the required minimum to become relatively proficient at it."
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I can't speak for what Tim thinks. I'll just add that JFK Jr. was well into his instrument training. That should have been enough to prevent this. I just hope that I don't make whatever mistake he made that led to this accident myself.
 
PPC1052 said:
I can't speak for what Tim thinks. I'll just add that JFK Jr. was well into his instrument training. That should have been enough to prevent this. I just hope that I don't make whatever mistake he made that led to this accident myself.
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The zero video said he’d had 3 lessons and it took him all three to finish the first lesson in the syllabus successfully. Dunno if that’s true.
 
"On April 5, 1999, the pilot returned to FSI to begin an airplane instrument rating course. During the instrument training, the pilot satisfactorily completed the first 12 of 25 lesson plans. The pilot's primary CFI during the instrument training stated that the pilot's progression was normal and that he grasped all of the basic skills needed to complete the course; however, the CFI did recall the pilot having difficulty completing lesson 11, which was designed to develop a student's knowledge of very high frequency omnidirectional radio range (VOR) and nondirectional beacon operations while working with ATC. It took the pilot four attempts to complete lesson 11 satisfactorily. After two of the attempts, the pilot took a 1-week break. After this break, the pilot repeated lesson 11 two more times. The CFI stated that the pilot's basic instrument flying skills and simulator work were excellent. However, the CFI stated that the pilot had trouble managing multiple tasks while flying, which he felt was normal for the pilot's level of experience."

https://www.ntsb.gov/about/employme...ev_id=20001212X19354&ntsbno=NYC99MA178&akey=1
 
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I was flying that day in the same general area. Heading from KFRG to KSLK. Haze was thick and although newly instrument rated I wasn't comfortable and my Tiger at the time didn't have an a/p. It was stressful flying and after half an hour I elected to turn back. I had a buddy with me and we were headed for a day of golf. He was learning to fly and said it was a great experience. When I heard the news the next morning I knew exactly what happened. Flying the coast on those 3 miles in haze days is not fun. Night time, no way.
 
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