PA28 down in San Antonio (KSSF)

Pretty specific details for something that just happened. Spoke with the passengers or something?
 
"have not yet identified the exact model of aircraft that crashed, or given any other details on the victims."

" Afters strong winds caused the overweight plane to tailspin and plummet"

We don't know what plane it was...but we know it's overweight. Got it.
 
These are the METARS for the last 6 hours. Note that they are already seeing the effects of Hurricane Hannah. Not a time I'd want to be flying.


KSSF 251953Z 05013G20KT 10SM FEW080 28/23 A2985 RMK AO2 RAE10 SLP095 P0001 T02830228
KSSF 251853Z 07008G17KT 5SM RA BR SCT042 BKN070 OVC090 24/24 A2988 RMK AO2 PK WND 11034/1820 WSHFT 1814 RAB19 SLP108 P0014 T02390239
KSSF 251843Z 07009G20KT 3SM RA BR FEW009 BKN040 OVC075 24/23 A2989 RMK AO2 PK WND 11034/1820 WSHFT 1814 RAB19 P0012 T02390233
KSSF 251832Z 09014G27KT 2 1/2SM +RA BR BKN034 BKN042 OVC050 24/24 A2989 RMK AO2 PK WND 11034/1820 WSHFT 1814 RAB19 P0009 T02440239
KSSF 251753Z 08009G18KT 10SM BKN034 BKN044 29/22 A2987 RMK AO2 RAB1654E31 SLP103 P0000 60000 T02940217 10317 20256 58002
KSSF 251653Z 07010G18KT 10SM BKN033 BKN050 29/23 A2989 RMK AO2 RAB01E28 SLP107 P0000 T02940228
KSSF 251616Z 07008G15KT 10SM -RA FEW028 BKN032 OVC045 27/23 A2989 RMK AO2 RAB01 P0000 T02720233
KSSF 251553Z 05008G19KT 10SM BKN028 OVC035 28/23 A2989 RMK AO2 SLP109 T02830228
KSSF 251519Z 05012G23KT 10SM BKN028 29/22 A2988 RMK AO2 T02890222
KSSF 251453Z 05010G20KT 10SM SCT024 29/23 A2988 RMK AO2 SLP104 T02940228 50008
KSSF 251418Z 03012G19KT 10SM CLR 28/23 A2988 RMK AO2 T02780228
 
wsuffa said:
Article is pretty bad.

https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/l...injured-following-plane-crash-on-15433852.php
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Racerx said:
"have not yet identified the exact model of aircraft that crashed, or given any other details on the victims."

" Afters strong winds caused the overweight plane to tailspin and plummet"

We don't know what plane it was...but we know it's overweight. Got it.
Click to expand...
What a shame. I fly my Archer into Stinson fairly often to visit family in SA. Must have been one hell of a wind gust to cause tailspin shortly after takeoff. Wx down there doesn't look too conducive to flying. Curious how they knew the plane was overweight.
 
The two injured people were transported to Brooke Army Medical Center.

That's the US Army's burn hospital. My prayers go out to those affected.
 
I heard about this at the grocery store this morning and my first thought was it’s pretty damn windy to be up this morning. My second thought was it was probably a student, there’s a lot of 141 traffic there. Later found out it was three aboard.

Fast forward to 1:08 in the video below for the post crash fire. Apparently a witness saw it and video’d on the way over. Don’t know if he tried to fight it or what.

https://kens5.com/embeds/video/273-500387cc-13ff-4d48-943a-bc0fc9acd7d4/iframe?jwsource=cl
 
What's a tailspin? Asking for a friend
 
wsuffa said:
These are the METARS for the last 6 hours. Note that they are already seeing the effects of Hurricane Hannah. Not a time I'd want to be flying.

KSSF 251832Z 09014G27KT 2 1/2SM +RA BR BKN034 BKN042 OVC050 24/24 A2989 RMK AO2 PK WND 11034/1820 WSHFT 1814 RAB19 P0009 T02440239
. . .
KSSF 251616Z 07008G15KT 10SM -RA FEW028 BKN032 OVC045 27/23 A2989 RMK AO2 RAB01 P0000 T02720233
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I don't know how you read any danger into these metars. Looks like just one cell that was a concern, and the rest was almost still air and light drizzle. 10 miles viz, jeez. I'm a little further up north but the weather was perfect outside of rare storm cells, we had a fly-in breakfast. This whole Hanna turned out to be a big fat nothing. Well, it's a little sportier between Corpus and Brownsville, of course. :)
 
An archaic term for a spiralling descent (usually to the point of a crash). It's first appearance in English usage seems to be around 1916 but it fell out of use for aviation in 1926, but remained for allegorical uses (talking about rapid declines in other aspects) ever since.
 
3 big Texans could very well put that plane out of W&B - and 27kt gusts isn't the friendliest WX for a trainer... Either way R.I.P. It's been a bloody few days for GA
 
Arnold said:
Sounds like they will get great care.
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They will receive the best treatment in the world, but unfortunately when civilians are admitted to Brooke, that means their situation is dire. :(
 
BAMC has been responsible for trauma I civilian patient in this area since 2010, as part of the DoD’s Secretarial Designee Program. What the article doesn't mention is that that came with additional federal dollars, which was the real motivation. At any rate, that made it a 22 adjoining counties AOR.

The decision to begin supporting the local civilian networks has not been without complaints, and concerns for dilution of care and lack of responsiveness to commander-directed request for care by all the JBSA military membership facilites at large, which include both Army and both USAF facilities in this area. I'm not gonna get into the details on here, just wanted to add that the notion BAMC is a military-only walled garden is severely dated.

As such, the admission of these civilian patients, burn victims or otherwise, is not exceptional, it's completely routine for BAMC. Per the above link, the current local policy has been loosened in order to support the current COVID situation. Per DOD policy, BAMC cannot take civilian COVID as in-patient, so they're letting the civilian level-I deal with the local covid by agreeing to accept a larger number of the civilian trauma case load. Since Memorial is tapped out, and BAMC is currently within 10% of getting tapped out on ICU, the locals are flipping out at the DOD not taking more civilian COVID cases. In fairness to BAMC, the call was made by the Pentagon.

This is not the summer to get caught in the middle of an airplane crash, that's all I'm gonna say about what's going on on the medical side of the DOD. That said, my sincere wishes for speedy recovery to the survivors.
 
hindsight2020 said:
BAMC has been responsible for trauma I civilian patient in this area since 2010, as part of the DoD’s Secretarial Designee Program. What the article doesn't mention is that that came with additional federal dollars, which was the real motivation. At any rate, that made it a 22 adjoining counties AOR.

The decision to begin supporting the local civilian networks has not been without complaints, and concerns for dilution of care and lack of responsiveness to commander-directed request for care by all the JBSA military membership facilites at large, which include both Army and both USAF facilities in this area. I'm not gonna get into the details on here, just wanted to add that the notion BAMC is a military-only walled garden is severely dated.

As such, the admission of these civilian patients, burn victims or otherwise, is not exceptional, it's completely routine for BAMC. Per the above link, the current local policy has been loosened in order to support the current COVID situation. Per DOD policy, BAMC cannot take civilian COVID as in-patient, so they're letting the civilian level-I deal with the local covid by agreeing to accept a larger number of the civilian trauma case load. Since Memorial is tapped out, and BAMC is currently within 10% of getting tapped out on ICU, the locals are flipping out at the DOD not taking more civilian COVID cases. In fairness to BAMC, the call was made by the Pentagon.

This is not the summer to get caught in the middle of an airplane crash, that's all I'm gonna say about what's going on on the medical side of the DOD. That said, my sincere wishes for speedy recovery to the survivors.
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Thanks for the correction. I haven't followed the military bases and installations in San Antonio for years, and didn't know this.
 
...isolated storms from Hurricane Hanna are still in the area this morn. SAT is on the edge of the rotating storm, sunny then large storm cells. Wind calm then strong.
I was at the airport yesterday thinking no way I would fly in this spotty stuff.
 
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wsuffa said:
Woah. That sure looks bad for the FAA. I get that they are busy and want to give folks a chance, but this looks like they go well beyond doing that. This instructor sounds like a real cowboy.
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yup, I have been thinking, yay for the compliance approach to pilot deviation...but while reading that I also had to think surely when there is evidence of egregiousness they might want to actually use that hammer.
 
"Multiple students, who asked that they not be identified since they are still pursuing flying lessons locally, said Perguson would put water in the fuel tanks of his planes during preflight checks, even though pilots typically do the opposite, removing water and other contaminants prior to flying."

Gee, d'ya think that could've had sumthin to with it?
 
fasteddie said:
What exactly is the update here?

Saw this same accident brought up on Reddit today, and was wondering "why now?"
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The docket was made public on 22 Sept 2022. It's...interesting.

Nauga,
who flinched a little
 
Fearless Tower said:
No kidding. Like Wsuffa said, this does not look good for SAT FSDO...
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The irony is that they go real hard after people that probably aren't the problem, (I have like 5-6 people in mind, including DPEs that drink wine, the toughest DPE in the area, aircraft sales reps, other members of this board) and then don't go after a guy like this???
 
However angry I am at the flagrant cowboyism on display here, lingering 3 weeks in a burn unit before dying washes even those sins away IMHO. Terrible exit, even for a scalawag flight school operator.

Sucks about the passenger that lingered with him though.

Awful all around. Hadn't read about this one when it happened 2 years ago.
 
I don’t remember reading about this first round. I was surprised on the shenanigans this guy pulled. If the shoddy ADM didn’t get him, it would have been the mx or debtors he owed that would Have.
 
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