Oh No, My Baby!!!!!!!!!! Crash at PTK.

[Razor]

Did the observing CFI estimate their altitude at the time of initiating the attempted 180? That would be beneficial for all to know, as well as the winds.

He did, but he was a mile and a 1/2 away at the opposite end of the airport and said it was hard to tell... maybe 300 ft? I would guess a bit higher though (however, I wasn't there). It's hard to tell because of distance, and the airport's not completely flat (not that any of them really are), so getting a true judge of altitude from a distance like that is pretty difficult.

According to the FAA's brief on faa.gov, the winds at the time of the accident were 200 @ 7.

Gene and I got our CFI certificates about a week apart in 2002 and had the same instructor. After the training, I took the road of part-timer, he decided to try full-time flying/instructing and he seemed to have finally found his niche and some real happiness. He really enjoyed tailwheel flying, and had a good time passing on the joys of conventional gear and energy management to his students. He was also a Glider instructor and had gotten his start flying gliders way-back-when, so he was keen on talking to people about trying that too. He'll be missed by a lot of people.

Carolyn

 

[LINCOLNPHILLIP]

PTK is my home field I rent from Tradewinds Aviation, it really shakes you to the core when such an unfortunate tragedy occurs. I remember when I began my training at Teterboro in New Jersey and there was an air to air at Caldwell, I did not fly for a month, largely to placate my very concerned wife. My condolences to all affected by this and may it be a teacher to us all.