PA 28-235 Down in Illinois, 4 Dead, 5/31/2020

sourdough44 said:
I was flying today on a longer trip, 5500 msl in WI. I saw several flocks of larger fowl not that far beneath my altitude. I was actually mildly surprised at how high they were, white birds. For the most part, birds are less a threat higher up.
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I would not bet on that. The higher you go, the bigger they get. I have seen Canada Geese in the flight levels.

Then there is this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_by_flight_heights
 
Tantalum said:
Look how close the inboard sections of the wings are. While the wings may have at some point separated I highly down this is an ERAU style accident
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The outboard wings coming off is one of the patterns seen in Vne accidents. Tail comes off and wings fail under the negative load.
 
Hi All, I went to school with & knew all 4 of the guys who were on the piper that day.
Very Sad. All were very smart guys, no way was it intentional. plane was in great condition. Owner/Pilot was new and just got the plane a couple months before this accident.
I appreciate all the analysis and updates from NTSB.
 
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michiganfly said:
Hi All, I went to school with & knew all 4 of the guys who were on the piper that day.
Very Sad. All were very smart guys, no way was it intentional. plane was in great condition. Owner/Pilot was new and just got the plane a couple months before this accident.
I appreciate all the analysis and updates from NTSB.
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I know from experience that losing several friends in a single accident is a heart wrenching ordeal. I offer my sympathies to you.
 
michiganfly said:
Hi All, I went to school with & knew all 4 of the guys who were on the piper that day.
Very Sad. All were very smart guys, no way was it intentional. plane was in great condition. Owner/Pilot was new and just got the plane a couple months before this accident.
I appreciate all the analysis and updates from NTSB.
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Condolences. I hope the NTSB is able to determine a cause.
 
smv said:
I have seen Canada Geese in the flight levels
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Odd. I thought there was an RVSM restriction for the higher altitudes that keeps the geese lower. Back in the 1970s this was not an issue though, a vulture was sucked into an engine while the plane was cranking it up at 37,000 ft. True story: https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v086n04/p0461-p0462.pdf

Kristin said:
NTSB: Pilot failed to maintain adequate terrain clearance.
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"Pilot's failure to X" is basically the standard boiler plate they use, regardless of what the actual cause was. $10 says had the above resulted in a crash "pilot's failure to avoid vulture" would be probably cause
 
michiganfly said:
Hi All, I went to school with & knew all 4 of the guys who were on the piper that day.
Very Sad. All were very smart guys, no way was it intentional. plane was in great condition. Owner/Pilot was new and just got the plane a couple months before this accident.
I appreciate all the analysis and updates from NTSB.
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I have a friend who was a colleague of the pilot, and I only hear great things about him. This was a terrible tragedy surely and too close to “home”, for me as a pilot. I also recently learned to fly high performance airplanes and I find them to require more attention and to be less forgiving than the planes we typically earn our PPL in. 45deg turns (which seems to be the left turn they did?...) take some effort to keep the plane from descending(nose dropping)..and its easy to fall behind the plane at the higher speeds. To his friend: I think we all want to know what happened because turning a plane to show a friend how its done should not kill anyone and we all do that with friends. As with anything we need to learn from what happened so that hopefully we can prevent in future. I know I have shown friends 45 deg turns (in part because we need to practice those regularly for proficiency) and other maneuvers that I try to stay proficient at.
 
Flying Doc said:
I have a friend who was a colleague of the pilot, and I only hear great things about him. This was a terrible tragedy surely and too close to “home”, for me as a pilot. I also recently learned to fly high performance airplanes and I find them to require more attention and to be less forgiving than the planes we typically earn our PPL in. 45deg turns (which seems to be the left turn they did?...) take some effort to keep the plane from descending(nose dropping)..and its easy to fall behind the plane at the higher speeds. To his friend: I think we all want to know what happened because turning a plane to show a friend how its done should not kill anyone and we all do that with friends. As with anything we need to learn from what happened so that hopefully we can prevent in future. I know I have shown friends 45 deg turns (in part because we need to practice those regularly for proficiency) and other maneuvers that I try to stay proficient at.
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I have shown friends 60° level turns, just so that they could feel two g's. I always asked first. I've also offered to show spins, but never got a single taker. But I do these things with a couple of thousand feet between the ground and where I figure I'll end up after the maneuver, as most pilots would likely do.
 
The 235 is on paper 'high performance', at the end of the day it's still a Cherokee. This is not the kind of plane that easily gets away from you or where you have to pay careful attention to your speed when you initiate a turn.
 
I haven't been following the thread, but is it possible he was low on fuel in one wing and when he did the steep turn his engine cut out?
 
eman1200 said:
I haven't been following the thread, but is it possible he was low on fuel in one wing and when he did the steep turn his engine cut out?
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That shouldnt cause him to spiral into the ground.

The 235 has 4 tanks. Iirc there is a takeoff restriction that requires you to use the inboard mains.
 
weilke said:
That shouldnt cause him to spiral into the ground.

The 235 has 4 tanks. Iirc there is a takeoff restriction that requires you to use the inboard mains.
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"shouldn't", being the keyword. guess that's why they call them accidents.
 
weilke said:
That shouldnt cause him to spiral into the ground.

The 235 has 4 tanks. Iirc there is a takeoff restriction that requires you to use the inboard mains.
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The 235 fuel system is different than the 236?
 
I guess the Hershey bar wing was setup different with the Tanks. Didn't realize that, I do have some 236 time and assumed everything prior that was pa28 was setup the same way.
 
The 235 fuel system is four tanks, KISS simple. By the book the mains are used first, then the tips. On their relatively short flight the tips would likely not be needed... especially only one hour into the flight. Like a lot of aircraft a fuel imbalance will telegraph itself... I regularly change tanks at 30 minute intervals to keep the ship in trim. It has been my habit to run down the mains to about five gallons or so, then use the tip tanks... but most flights are accomplished without ever using the tip tanks. In any case, 84 gallons gets you a long way in a 235...
 
P.S. now that I am retired, most of my flights are at 50-60% power, I just don't need to get anywhere fast.... and my bladder capacity is now much less than half of my fuel capacity. :) It's just a part of getting old(er). Putzing along at 120 knots is just fine these days.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
They will likely determine a cause even if they cannot determine a cause.
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Unfortunately short of evidence of a clear easy to find mechanical failure or toxicology report of some type, there may not be much to go on. Small planes don't carry much in the way of recording equipment, unless he had a Gopro running. Anything piloting related would be mostly speculation.
 
weilke said:
The 235 is on paper 'high performance', at the end of the day it's still a Cherokee. This is not the kind of plane that easily gets away from you or where you have to pay careful attention to your speed when you initiate a turn.
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This. I've heard CFI's warn students about the risks of trying to fly a 182 too early after their private because its such a high performance airplane. Well, yeah I guess technically its high performance. None of the 182's I ever flew seemed all that eager to pull the reins out of my hands and start heading for the red line the moment I turned my back.
 
ja_user said:
I guess the Hershey bar wing was setup different with the Tanks. Didn't realize that, I do have some 236 time and assumed everything prior that was pa28 was setup the same way.
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They are basically fiberglass tip-tanks molded to the outboard wing. Similar to the six.
 
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Juliet Hotel said:
This. I've heard CFI's warn students about the risks of trying to fly a 182 too early after their private because its such a high performance airplane. Well, yeah I guess technically its high performance. None of the 182's I ever flew seemed all that eager to pull the reins out of my hands and start heading for the red line the moment I turned my back.
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Back in the day, I found the jumps from 150 to 172 to 182 to be trivial, as well. None of these planes nor the Cherokees are anything scary.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
This. I've heard CFI's warn students about the risks of trying to fly a 182 too early after their private because its such a high performance airplane. Well, yeah I guess technically its high performance. None of the 182's I ever flew seemed all that eager to pull the reins out of my hands and start heading for the red line the moment I turned my back.
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Hardest part of flying the 182 is pulling it out of the parking spot. And relearning the amount of back pressure to use on round-out I guess.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Back in the day, I found the jumps from 150 to 172 to 182 to be trivial, as well. None of these planes nor the Cherokees are anything scary.
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I’ll admit... as a newly minted pilot with 50 some hours under my belt in 2014, jumping from the 152 to the 172 felt like quite the leap. Sitting up higher, more horses under the hood and heavier controls etc., but I concur, in reality, it’s not that big of a leap from one to the other.
 
Bender Aviation said:
Hardest part of flying the 182 is pulling it out of the parking spot. And relearning the amount of back pressure to use on round-out I guess.
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The only things remarkable I remember when moving from the 172 to 182 was needing a heavier right boot on the rudder on the takeoff roll, and that correct trim was critical on short final to alleviate the heavy elevator on roundout and landing. Other than that (and the cool 6cyl sound), I didn't find it all that difficult, and in fact found the heavier bird easier on xwind landings.

The real learning was moving to the Mooney, that sucker is slick. You come in too high and/or fast, and you're floating to the next county.
 
I did a PA-28-181 to PA-32R-300 transition in a single 3 hour flight which included complex and HP endorsements. It really doesn't fly that different, most of that lesson was getting used to retract procedures and general familiarization. Flight wise, it's just a heavier elevator pressure to get used to and a little bit faster sink rate but I had that down in a couple of touch and gos, just had to do everything a tad faster in the pattern.

I would imagine a transition between PA-28s to be even less difficult.
 
cowman said:
I did a PA-28-181 to PA-32R-300 transition in a single 3 hour flight which included complex and HP endorsements. It really doesn't fly that different, most of that lesson was getting used to retract procedures and general familiarization. Flight wise, it's just a heavier elevator pressure to get used to and a little bit faster sink rate but I had that down in a couple of touch and gos, just had to do everything a tad faster in the pattern.

I would imagine a transition between PA-28s to be even less difficult.
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I enjoyed learning to land the Pa-32-300. It took me a 1.5 hour transition lesson coming from only flying high wings. Very nice to not have any float.
 
cowman said:
I would imagine a transition between PA-28s to be even less difficult.
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My CFI also traded in Piper aircraft. One day his Archer was out for a tire replacement or something so I got my lesson in the 235. There is really little difference. I was signed off to fly the 235 solo and used one of them for my solo cross-country.
 
Any updates on this crash/investigation?
 
Flying Doc said:
Any updates on this crash/investigation?
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Probably not. The NTSB won't usually release anything more until the investigation is done, and a fatal accident like this can take 1-2 years.
 
cowman said:
I did a PA-28-181 to PA-32R-300 transition in a single 3 hour flight which included complex and HP endorsements. It really doesn't fly that different,
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@cowman The aircraft insurance company required 10 hours of training for that transition, in my case.

I do beg to differ that it does, too, fly differently. The biggest difference is doing short field landings in the 32-300. The deck angle, and the amount of throttle required to fly at minimum controllable airspeed is an eye opening experience!:hairraise:

-Skip
 
sourdough44 said:
https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/GenerateNewestReport/101348/pdf

 Here’s the final, both wings separated at the root. They come up with a 4.72 G pullout, 35 kts above Vne. Just skimming though, seems to go in the ‘flat-hatting’ category, sorry for family & friends.
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Looking at those data readouts, it does look like they were playing around a little with steep turns. That in and of itself isn't that dangerous, but the airspeed was also allowed to bleed off. My guess is he got into an accelerated stall at 60 degrees of bank and 85 kts (groundspeed, airspeed could be wildly different), the airplane unhooked and went inverted, then attempted to panic pull it back upright. Very sad end of events.
 
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