Mooney down in California

Right near my home airport. Weather was terrible Friday night with heavy rainstorms all through NorCal.


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It's been scud running weather around here this week and they really don't light up the mountains. Not the kind of flying I would do, but I'm kinda of a sissy flier these days.
 
Dav8or said:
It's been scud running weather around here this week and they really don't light up the mountains. Not the kind of flying I would do, but I'm kinda of a sissy flier these days.
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I was about to say, the irony of your avatar VFR'ing it up over an undercast doesn't escape me LOL. :thumbsup:
 
Peter Anderson said:
Pilot has been identified
Looks like he got his medical and a student pilot license in October of last year. I wonder if he even had his ticket? Is there any way to tell?o
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I see 2, what looks to be father and son, father got PP back in 1984. Are we sure?


Tom
 
About three years ago I drove to the top of mt Diablo. I seem to recall it being the only tall rock for many miles
 
aftCG said:
About three years ago I drove to the top of mt Diablo. I seem to recall it being the only tall rock for many miles
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Airplanes have a tendency to zero in and find those for some strange reason.
I lost two pizza night flying group friends to a CFIT last summer. They missed clearing the peak, almost certainly scud running in the clouds, by 200 ft. And the plane had terrain mapping on the Garmin in the panel and also on the iPad.
The rest of us in the group are still wondering WTF were they thinking...
 
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MooneyDriver78 said:
I see 2, what looks to be father and son, father got PP back in 1984. Are we sure?
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Probably not, but the other one has a medical date of 1984 as well, so either wasn't an active pilot or was flaunting the rules like the Yorba Linda guy.
 
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Zeldman said:
200 feet, man, so close yet so far.

This one haunted me for years as I was just hired and was scheduled to be on this plane as a familiarization ride. I had to drive to Fairbanks from Anchorage that morning but weather and ice on the road around the McKinley National Park entrance delayed me.

https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/R...tID=20001212X19658&AKey=1&RType=HTML&IType=FA
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I know nothing of that kind of flying, but it seems in an area where the weather is almost always shytty, it must be a hard make the call when NOT” to go, especially when you’re trying to run a business. Too cautious and you’ll never get the job done. Too daring and then TRAGEDY...
 
benyflyguy said:
It boggles my mind that a “student” would be so caviler.
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I don't know that this is the case here or not, but often times successful people have egos and confidence that outstrip their actual abilities, or knowledge. It's pretty common in aviation.

The ego and confidence brings professional success, then the success buys the airplane, then the airplane is the rope they hang themselves with because nature, physics and machines don't care about success, or confidence, or your puffy ego.
 
Am I missing something? Is he a student pilot, as in hasn't passed his PPL check ride?
 
benyflyguy said:
It boggles my mind that a “student” would be so caviler.
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A student may not know any better. My first flying adventure was my long (3 landings) XC, where I navigated a mountain pass under a low overcast, and I didn't know that I was having an adventure. The whole thing was painstakingly planned with runway lengths, waypoints, fuel reserves and all that I could imagine preparing. The briefer didn't say anything either! I would never do anything so dumb now. Stil, I have to say VMC into IMC at night seems a little excessive. To depart Hayward, he has to clear the East Bay range before he can hit Mt. Diablo.
 
Dav8or said:
I don't know that this is the case here or not, but often times successful people have egos and confidence that outstrip their actual abilities, or knowledge. It's pretty common in aviation.

The ego and confidence brings professional success, then the success buys the airplane, then the airplane is the rope they hang themselves with because nature, physics and machines don't care about success, or confidence, or your puffy ego.
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From reading some of the reports on the guy sounds exactly like the time. Adrenaline junky.
 
Could have been a lot of things, we don't know at this point. People have been flying into Mt Diablo for probably more than 80 years now but these days it's hard to imagine when all you need is a magenta line on your iPhone to miss it. From what I've read this guy had been doing this Hayward Lincoln commute for a while so obviously he knew it was there. The weather on Friday was sketchy but as I recall most of it had blown through by 8 pm, at least around the bay area it had though it was probably still moving through the area he was headed to.

I knew a guy long ago who got a student permit, bought a Grumman AA1 and commuted from Winters to Oakland for years. Never did get a PPL and never killed himself but probably came close a few times.
 
In the state of PA you can’t buy a car without a drivers license...
 
zaitcev said:
A student may not know any better. My first flying adventure was my long (3 landings) XC, where I navigated a mountain pass under a low overcast, and I didn't know that I was having an adventure. The whole thing was painstakingly planned with runway lengths, waypoints, fuel reserves and all that I could imagine preparing. The briefer didn't say anything either! I would never do anything so dumb now. Stil, I have to say VMC into IMC at night seems a little excessive. To depart Hayward, he has to clear the East Bay range before he can hit Mt. Diablo.
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I agree that sometimes "you don't know what you don't know" but as a Student making a required flight there is usually consultation with a flight school or instructor. I can't believe that he would be OKed to go on a night flight when the weather was shoddy.... Also, even when I was an extremely low time student pilot I had the common sense to see if more information or consultation was needed prior to flying in iffy conditions. All that being said I have made my fair share of mistakes that I have learned from. We will see what comes from this.
 
TipTanks said:
I agree that sometimes "you don't know what you don't know" but as a Student making a required flight there is usually consultation with a flight school or instructor. I can't believe that he would be OKed to go on a night flight when the weather was shoddy.... Also, even when I was an extremely low time student pilot I had the common sense to see if more information or consultation was needed prior to flying in iffy conditions. All that being said I have made my fair share of mistakes that I have learned from. We will see what comes from this.
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When I was a student I had to clear my solo flying with the instructor. In the latter stages it was pretty simple text message and he knew I was careful. If I’d had my own plane I guess I could have cheated. Never occurred to me.
 
jsstevens said:
When I was a student I had to clear my solo flying with the instructor. In the latter stages it was pretty simple text message and he knew I was careful. If I’d had my own plane I guess I could have cheated. Never occurred to me.
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Exactly.... but typically you do tell your instructor whats going on. Absolutely, I could have cheated as well with my own aircraft... I would not have...especially on a nasty night.
 
Student pilot since October here and I own my plane. This wasn’t a student pilot issue, this was an ego problem.

I call absolute bull crap that is CFI didn’t know he did stuff like this.
 
Jamie Kirk said:
Student pilot since October here and I own my plane. This wasn’t a student pilot issue, this was an ego problem.

I call absolute bull crap that is CFI didn’t know he did stuff like this.
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Unless the CFI was tracking Tach time on the plane how would he know?
 
Dav8or said:
I don't know that this is the case here or not, but often times successful people have egos and confidence that outstrip their actual abilities, or knowledge. It's pretty common in aviation.

The ego and confidence brings professional success, then the success buys the airplane, then the airplane is the rope they hang themselves with because nature, physics and machines don't care about success, or confidence, or your puffy ego.
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Could not have said it better myself.
I’ve seen this not only in the aviation world, but in the racing world many times as well. A guy would come watch a few races from the stands then decide it didn’t look all that difficult so he’d go buy the best car money could buy. It was kinda fun to watch the natural progression of speed right up until he put into the wall at 100 mph. Lucky for him, in a race car you may get a little banged up or maybe knocked out,but normally it’s not life threatening. The next thing that’s fun to watch after that is the natural progression of RESPECT for the machine and the realization that your checkbook can’t buy you talent
 
47PILOT said:
Could not have said it better myself.
I’ve seen this not only in the aviation world, but in the racing world many times as well. A guy would come watch a few races from the stands then decide it didn’t look all that difficult so he’d go buy the best car money could buy. It was kinda fun to watch the natural progression of speed right up until he put into the wall at 100 mph. Lucky for him, in a race car you may get a little banged up or maybe knocked out,but normally it’s not life threatening. The next thing that’s fun to watch after that is the natural progression of RESPECT for the machine and the realization that your checkbook can’t buy you talent
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I met a number of those guys, except several never realized that lots of money did not mean lots of talent.
 
47PILOT said:
Lucky for him, in a race car you may get a little banged up or maybe knocked out, but normally it’s not life threatening.
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I'm sorry to say it, but you might be speaking from position of ignorance here. Club racing is extremely dangerous. At the highest levels, such as Formula One, they didn't have a fatality since... 1994 maybe? But it's not how it goes for common folk.

BTW, I received more serious injuries by crashing a Formula Ford car than by crashing my airplane.
 
AKBill said:
Unless the CFI was tracking Tach time on the plane how would he know?
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Didn't know this guy, but have known since of the type who might do this type of stuff. None of them are the discrete type who didn't talk about it. It's possible this guy was different.
 
Has anyone tried to find the FlightRadar data? He was way south of the course he should have been on. Maybe he was turning around to head back.
 
zaitcev said:
I'm sorry to say it, but you might be speaking from position of ignorance here. Club racing is extremely dangerous. At the highest levels, such as Formula One, they didn't have a fatality since... 1994 maybe? But it's not how it goes for common folk.

BTW, I received more serious injuries by crashing a Formula Ford car than by crashing my airplane.
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F1 most recent death: 2015
 
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