PA28 down near Gainesville, FL

Wow! that track. A reminder that aviation is not a forgiving or tolerant activity.
 
Sadly I think we know what game he was playing with that altitude profile in the first half of the flight :(.
"Just a little lower to stay out of it... just a little lower"

Sad to see :confused:
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I pulled up gainesville approach and a couple of people asked about 06W but I never heard him check in there. orlando has so many freqs I wouldn't even know where to begin. I guess he could have been on with jax or daytona as well?
 
eman1200 said:
I pulled up gainesville approach and a couple of people asked about 06W but I never heard him check in there. orlando has so many freqs I wouldn't even know where to begin. I guess he could have been on with jax or daytona as well?
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From the chatter they had him on guard. You can hear him like once on KSG1 feed I think?
 
aterry1067 said:
Wait…I thought many posters on here bragged about navigating ifr as a new pilot from years gone by with nothing more than a VOR and a map. Does this mean they weren’t genuine?
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Yep, VORs, a six-pack, and a LORAN, in the well-equipped Tomahawk!
 
This is so maddening. One of the hardest things to teach as a CFI is good decision making. This kid had no business flying with his skill set, that panel, and low clouds. Sigh.
 
It’s known what the weather situation was? Smooth stuff, bumpy, what the tops were…
 
Would I want to fly in full IMC with that panel? No, but that panel is equipped with everything a properly trained and proficient pilot would need to conduct instrument flight (assuming everything functions properly.)
 
Everyone is being distracted with talking about the panel, rather than talking about what the news article said about the pilot: 1) just purchased the plane a few weeks ago and 2) relatively newly certified pilot
 
luvflyin said:
It’s known what the weather situation was? Smooth stuff, bumpy, what the tops were…
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It was IFR for a day before the crash and "improved" to about 1,000'-1,300' OVC with rain and fog in the hours leading up to the crash. Not a good place for a
relatively new VFR pilot in a recently purchased airplane.

GNV.jpg
 
it’s kind of crazy that he lasted as long as he did. As a newer pilot you’d think he would be well away to stay away at all costs.
 
An unfortunate and preventable death. There is a propensity among people, to prefer to die in lieu of facing the embarrassment of a mistake that bends metal. Seen it both in recreational and professional life alike.

Even the old school marketing dept published AFM/POH of these snooze cans had a blurb about inadvertent IMC. Basically it effectively reads: folks, forget vectors and altitude, fight to keep the wings level, chop power and let the thing drift down.

Given the purported weather, nothing stops this fatality from having done just that, pop out in VMC and if too low for RTB, just take your lickings and put it on a road and live. Young guy prob didn't have the experience or emotional maturity to negotiate that trade, and died for it. What the radar track shows is a guy fighting to save face, and losing his life to recreational IMC, like many others have done before him. And to be clear, an outcome (spatial D LOC) all of us who dabble in IMC are susceptible to.
 
FlightAware shows me the following flights for this tail number:

11/6/2023: 1 hr flying southeast across Missouri
11/6/2023: 1/2 hr continuing southeast into Tennessee
11/6/2023: 1 hr flying southeast into Georgia
11/6/2023: 1-3/4 hrs continuing southeast to Gainesville, FL
11/9/2023: 1 hr flying from 39FA to KISM
11/14/2023: the accident flight, flying from KISM toward Gainesville

This looks a lot like someone got a new plane on the 6th and either flew it home from Missouri to Gainesville or had someone else fly it to Gainesville, then 3 days later took a weekend trip to somewhere in the Greater Disneyworld Area, and by Tuesday afternoon got tired of waiting out the weather and chanced a scud-running trip home.

Larry Korona said:
Valentine’s father hung up the phone immediately when a reporter called him to ask about the crash.
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Indeed. I'd imagine most fathers would want to do quite a bit more to such a reporter than immediately hanging up.
 
Jim Carpenter said:
Would I want to fly in full IMC with that panel? No, but that panel is equipped with everything a properly trained and proficient pilot would need to conduct instrument flight (assuming everything functions properly.)
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Yeah, I did three hours in the soup with a similar panel in my Skyhawk a couple of decades back. I stunk when I landed. Just stunk. And that's with an instructor next to me.
 
I sort of want to rent something with a similar anthropology-grade panel and see how long I could last under the hood.
 
Nothing wrong with the panel. It’s NOT your standard six pack, so would take some experience or familiarity. But it’s as capable as anything. Could even survive any of the basic failures partial panel.

This is a case of decision making. Have a feeling if it were a standard six pack or latest greatest glass wizardry, the outcome would likely be the same.
 
The pilot didn’t have an instrument rating. I wonder if he’d had any instrument training beyond what was needed for his private ticket.
 
Tools said:
Nothing wrong with the panel. It’s NOT your standard six pack, so would take some experience or familiarity. But it’s as capable as anything. Could even survive any of the basic failures partial panel.

This is a case of decision making. Have a feeling if it were a standard six pack or latest greatest glass wizardry, the outcome would likely be the same.
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Yeah, my curiousity is how I would do without any specific training -- I suspect the new owner of this panel did not get any training for what is different stuff than he got PPL in.

With enough training and practice, anything is "just fine". I'm curious what one can just jump into and fly in clouds successfully. That panel looks a bit more challenging than the latest 3-screen glass with SVT.
 
It’s kinda random… but I get where you’re coming from. Really, I think the hardest part of this one is what I think is a wet compass only. Even if not, the horizontal card is challenging… although represented on some glass configurations.

Overload is a real problem, and this one doesn’t suffer from that.

Additionally, If you’re stressed out, even familiar is a problem….

Your attitude of “this is different from what I’m used to” shows a level of problem solving probably not employed in this incident… you’d probably do just fine.

An attitude of “how much different can this be?” is more likely in this case.

That probably better conveys what I meant by it was a decision making error.
 
aterry1067 said:
Wait…I thought many posters on here bragged about navigating ifr as a new pilot from years gone by with nothing more than a VOR and a map. Does this mean they weren’t genuine?
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Poor decision making, can be overcome by experience and luck, but experience and luck don't always work then either.

Poor decision making, inexperience, requires a lot more good luck...that one is less likey to get.

FYI the story below is about a retired WWII PBM pilot (the 1st to sink a German sub in US water)...


he ordered a new Schweizer SGS1-23D for the 1956 Nationals in Grand Prarie, TX. He was anxious to fly it but there was a very large storm approaching on the day the sailplane arrived. He rushed to take it out of the trailer, assemble and get launched before the storm. At the last moment he noticed the instrument panel did not have a turn and bank. So he grabbed an instrument and battery, put them in his roomy working pants pocket and launched. The weather became worse than expected and he was soon somewhat surrounded by clouds but also very strong lift. As he approached cloud base and even more clouds, he decided it would be a good time to have a turn and bank so he pulled the instrument out of his pocket and hooked it up. Soon he was completely engulfed in cloud. He put the nose down trying to get clear but the lift was too strong. After about an hour, he found himself at 19,000 feet, with the canopy iced over – and he was very cold. There was more excitement to come but eventually all worked out OK. Read the details in the book or in Soaring magazine, June 2002, page 24. Nevertheless, after repairing the hail damage to the sailplane, he flew it in the 1956 National Championships at Grand Prairie, TX
 
I flew a Cherokee 140 with a shotgun panel for 600 hours. Got my IR in it. Once gotten used to, the barrel DG isn't a problem, though frankly getting "turn right heading xxx" or "turn left heading xxx " instructions took the pressure off when busy IMC. Because of it's position I rarely used the AH. Scan was primarily DG, needle, ball and airspeed. That still sticks with me to this day. (Though I love my a/p!)

But this guy had only just scratched the surface, had no business flying that day. Tragic.
 
21 years old, with ATC for 20 minutes but couldn't manage to get it safely down? Sounds like he just made a mistake in judgement in going up, and that was enough.

I feel bad for the family, and I feel bad for the controller.
 
hindsight2020 said:
There is a propensity among people, to prefer to die in lieu of facing the embarrassment of a mistake that bends metal... ...just take your lickings and put it on a road and live.
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Plus, landing on a road doesn't necessarily involve bent metal. And depending on the road, doesn't necessarily involve a violation either.
 
asicer said:
Plus, landing on a road doesn't necessarily involve bent metal. And depending on the road, doesn't necessarily involve a violation either.
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But it may afford an opportunity to participate in an airplane crash and a car wreck simultaneously.

IIRC, that’s why @Salty rejected a nearby road and put his Mooney into an orange grove.
 
Half Fast said:
But it may afford an opportunity to participate in an airplane crash and a car wreck simultaneously.

IIRC, that’s why @Salty rejected a nearby road and put his Mooney into an orange grove.
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True, but I'd guess that you'd have more time to find a better and/or less occupied road if it's VFR-into-IMC forcing the decision than your one-and-only engine going quiet.
 
I am not a fan of landing on roads for a number of reasons: road signs, power lines, traffic, etc. Here in central Wisconsin, there are many, many farms with better places to land. Thirty miles north of here? Not much besides trees and water. Most of the roads are very narrow.

A few years ago, a local pilot put his Cessna 172 down on a county highway. I asked him if he was concerned about power lines. His answer: "I work for the power company... I know where they are."
 
www.wuft.org

Young man who died alone in plane crash near Gainesville dreamed of becoming commercial pilot

The pilot who died alone in a small plane crash earlier this week near Gainesville – after pleading for help in bad weather from an air traffic controller…
www.wuft.org www.wuft.org


The pilot who died alone in a small plane crashearlier this week near Gainesville – after pleading for help in bad weather from an air traffic controller over his radio and expressing his love for his parents – dreamed of becoming a commercial pilot, his family says.

Valentine received his pilot’s license in May 2021, according to FAA records..


Newish pilot in a new airplane (for the pilot)

How are we training our pilots these days? ADM skills completely lacking. Weather was certainly not appropriate for a VFR flight, MVFR at best
 
Having dealt with far too many recently created CFIs, they don’t understand about potential medical cerification issues and can’t explain the process and potential problems. Welcome to legal weed, which is becoming more legal.

Far too many of these CFIsare not doing a good job with ADM
Even worse, they aren’t warning the student about potential dngerous situations and how to avoid and how to save themselves.
 
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