Plane Down - Clearwater, FL

My 14 yr old daughter and 11 year old son now understand why Dad spends a lot of time planning days before, preflighting for 30+ minutes, gets a little tense at times, wants a sterile cockpit, wants proper clothing worn and does not fly them places at night. They also know how important that fuel flow transducer is to me. They know why Dad has spent hundreds of dollars for an extra day in the hotel, food and rental car on a return trip. They know why Dad never promises to be somewhere at a certain time or plan overnight accomodations. They know the risk we take as a family and know that I will do everything I possibly can to keep them safe. Please try to do the same for your family and friends.
 
The older daughter that died a few years ago was born 2 days before my daughter. I can't imagine what the mother is going through now. Even though I don't know the family, I am feeling really sad.
 
gkaiser said:
Makes me wonder...Guy left Chicago at 6:30pm, En Route to Clearwater and crashed around 4:00am. Assuming he worked all day on Friday, and that's why the later departure after work hours...12 hours of flight, at night..makes me wonder if fatigue paid into some poor decision making....

also the lack of any fire after crash...was he just trying to get there without adding an extra fuel stop, due to lack of sleep/exhaustion and pushed it too far?
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No fire because the fuel tanks weren't damaged, can't make any conclusion on fuel state from that fact alone.
 
Looks like he had a fuel range of about 4:22
 
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So....... During training I was taught not to trust the fuel gauges. I always used the calibrated dip tubes to verify fuel before take off, calculated my fuel burn ahead of time, kept an eye on actual flying time vs. planned, and rechecked the fuel levels at each stop.

However, I have since noticed that the fuel gauges do work. Seems to me that if you were flying along with one tank empty and one running low, you'd start paying some attention to the gauge if the gauge showed lower than your calculations. i.e. If you plan to have 10 gallons left when you land and the gauge is showing 0 and you're not on the ground, I think I'd give some serious thought to landing sooner.

My point is attitude. "Gauges are unreliable so we calculate everything precisely." I'm not knocking calculating everything to the best of your abilities but maybe there are times when the gauge is telling you something useful.

I still use the dip tubes on every preflight.
 
Gauges or not, the guy likely knew how to plan, and he had to know he was taking a risk with the fuel supply. Precious cargo onboard.... No reason for this.

I've read some of the comments on various articles and incidents like this not only result in a sensless loss of life, but an additional black eye on the general public's perception of GA.

If load permits, I always have the fuel topped off regardless of how short the flight is. I too use a straw to check the fuel level. Even if it's a short hop half an hour away, before I take off again I stick the tanks. What if there is a leak causing the fuel to siphon? Never take fuel chances.
 
fiveoboy01 said:
I've read some of the comments on various articles and incidents like this not only result in a sensless loss of life, but an additional black eye on the general public's perception of GA.
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This!

Every friend of that girl, everyone she ever went to school with, will remember this for the rest of their lives. It's likely none of them will ever become pilots, but quite a few of them might become spouses of people who might want to fly someday. The outcome is predictable: Person is interested in flying and either is forbidden entirely or gets their cert but doesn't fly much because of a spouse who won't fly with them and doesn't want them to fly.

20, 30, 40 years down the road, this can have a significant effect.
 
EppyGA said:
lOOKS LIKE HE HAD A FUEL RANGE OF ABOUT 4:22
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How do you figure? An archer with a carbed o -360 is a 9.5GPH to 8.5 gph leaned properly. That puts you at 5:00-5:30. A gallon more for the first hour for the climb and that's a 4:45 airplane. Do we have any indication he didn't refuel completely in Nashville? If he didn't, then that's just stupid.

Now, if you're the guy who flies around with the red knob parked at the top of the console, then yeah you're not going far. That's one of the big negative transfers of these crappy POHs. The whole business of mixture rich operation is complete crap. People need to learn how to lean. These things aren't poorly cowled fixed wastegate turbos; these things have small red boxes. Just get above 5000' and pull that red knob back 'til it coughs then a smidge forward. It's not a Continental, you don't have to baby it. (sorry, gratuitous jab there :D).

At any rate, back to the accident in question. Completely avoidable if he had refueled 100 miles out from destination or refueled a bit later in the Chicago Nashville leg (say Chattanooga, Atlanta area). Tragic waste. Do I think this guy was trying to get the last drop out of the tanks? No, I think this guy lost awareness of his fuel state due to poor fuel gauges and non-chalant planning. The latter you can't do anything about, the former we could definitively help. Certificated tanks simply suck azz at fuel indications. It's a ******** shame we fly around in these POS needles. Experimentals eat our lunch on that one too. Did I mention experimentals are awesome? Of course, I'm not excusing the guy on account of crappy needles. I do think this is more fodder to push for that part 23 re-write and start putting decent electrics in our rat traps without making it economic non-starters.

Condolences to the family.
 
I agree, there's no excuse for this happening. I'm just saying don't trust your PLAN so much that you ignore reality. He may have had a PLAN that said he could complete the flight with 45 minutes reserve. Things didn't go as planned.

fiveoboy01 said:
Gauges or not, the guy likely knew how to plan, and he had to know he was taking a risk with the fuel supply. Precious cargo onboard.... No reason for this.
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we don't know how much fuel he had in the right tank. the report says it was compromised at the drain.
 
This could have been a look in the tanks, but not seeing. At night, the reflection of the tab, at a quick glance, can look like fuel.

It is clear, if he actually had worked up a flight plan that included fuel burn, this never would have happened.

But it is all speculation. Ten to one is that he considered himself a very conscientious and good pilot, just like we all do.

I've never lost a friend to an aircraft accident, but I have to automobile accidents and drugs.

-John
 
I wonder if flying in the middle of the night limits your choice of places to get fuel?
 
noobJohn said:
I still use the dip tubes on every preflight.
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Use 'em if you got 'em, but keep in mind as you move up into airplanes other than basic Cessnas and Pipers, you can't always stick the tanks.

Because of the tank design, sticking doesn't work in my Baron, for example, unless the tank is nearly full.
 
EppyGA said:
I wonder if flying in the middle of the night limits your choice of places to get fuel?
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That's where flight planning comes into play. Gotta look for either self serve pumps or bigger airports with 24 hr FBOs. Can't just wing it with just a sectional.
 
I would guess he sumped his tanks after fueling up. Either got a piece of debris in the seat or a damaged oring in the RH fuel drain. Trust the gauges when they say they are close to empty.
 
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RV10flyer said:
I would guess he sumped his tanks after fueling up. Either got a piece of debris in the seat or a damaged oring. Trust the gauges.
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Why would you say that? Does the report not say the fuel selector was on the left tank and it was empty (after flying over 4 hrs)?
 
He had to have topped the tanks in Nashville, or he never would have made it as far as he did. Even with a miserly average fuel burn, which would require flying high and leaning aggressively, the Archer has a practical endurance of around 4:45 at best. If he stayed low and rich, he could have drained the tanks in less time than that.

In any case, it's hard for me to see how he didn't know he was fuel critical well in advance of the accident. He would have been required to manage the fuel during the flight, and when he ran a tank dry, his only option was to switch to the other one--unless he knew that it was already empty. According to the NTSB report, the left tank was not compromised and essentially empty, but it was still the selected tank. Even if the right tank, which was compromised, had fuel in it, it couldn't have had much with well over 4 hours already burned between the two.

The optics of these accidents are made worse because of the obligatory but understandable descriptions of the pilots as "conscientious" and "experienced" by friends and family. It's hard to say whether either of those terms accurately describe the pilot in this case, but on this flight it certainly appears that he made multiple decisions which significantly increased the risk at a time (with passengers) when he should have been increasingly conservative with those decisions.


JKG
 
Since it was mentioned that the right drain was compromised and dripping and the pilot mentioned to ATC that he had fuel issues, I am assuming the right tank was not full or the pilot would have switched to the right tank at that time. I doubt he would have made it that far on the the left only. It would have been nice if the investigator noted the right tank fuel qty. I am sure we will hear the atc file and right tank qty with the final report next year.
 
hindsight2020 said:
How do you figure? An archer with a carbed o -360 is a 9.5GPH to 8.5 gph leaned properly. That puts you at 5:00-5:30.
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I'm not 100% on this, but I don't think that you'd be able to achieve that fuel burn at 75% power right?

The radio transcripts actually have the call around 3:30am so if that's accurate the trip was more like 4hrs. There may have been a tailwind, but even still, it doesn't sound like someone dialing back to max range at an economy setting.

I hope they take some time to do the math though. It could turn out that he did have a good plan and the margin of error was grossly underestimated. Admittedly though - at first pass, it certainly looks like he was pushing it or below minimums.

The problem though - if we just chalk it up to bad planning, we may never get a true picture of what happened - and thus its bound to be repeated. The NTSB will stop at fuel exhaustion, but that doesn't tell us anything. I'm sure he didn't set out to kill himself and his other daughter, so are we sure that he had a bad plan? If so, why? Where was the error? We need to find that out.

Also - check out the selfie that's all over the news... no shoulder belts??? I wonder if that played a factor. Sounds like the top got ripped off, so maybe belts would not have helped, but clearly the backseat passenger survived and the pilot was ejected and on the street. I wonder if belts would have mattered. Here again, the NTSB report probably won't provide guidance on that.

I agree wholeheartedly with the poster on the Part 23 revisions. I flew in an Archer whose gauges were just way off, so I know there's room for improvement. From the pics I've seen it doesn't look like he had a totalizer - which could have saved two lives. It shouldn't cost $6,000 to get good seatbelts and a fuel totalizer in an aircraft.
 
Hopefully the survivor in the back will be able to fill in the details... She watched it play out in real time...:eek:
 
EppyGA said:
I wonder if flying in the middle of the night limits your choice of places to get fuel?
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Yes, but some pilots feel a lot more limited than others...

There are MANY pilots who have never fueled an airplane. It's not in the PTS, after all, and especially those who rent are used to just parking the plane on the ramp and letting the FBO take care of it.

So, many people never learn how to fuel an airplane themselves and are not comfortable with it and will not bother landing somewhere where they'd have to fuel themselves. This pilot may well have been one of those, since his fuel stop at KJWN had a 24-hour full-service FBO (according to ForeFlight - No info on airnav).
 
hindsight2020 said:
How do you figure? An archer with a carbed o -360 is a 9.5GPH to 8.5 gph leaned properly. That puts you at 5:00-5:30. A gallon more for the first hour for the climb and that's a 4:45 airplane. Do we have any indication he didn't refuel completely in Nashville? If he didn't, then that's just stupid.
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I think he figured 4:22 endurance because that's how long it was from takeoff to crash.

We know the left (selected) tank was empty. We know the fuel selector was on the left tank. We know the right tank was breached, but we also know the pilot declared a fuel emergency with ATC.

Whether there was any fuel in the right tank and the pilot simply was so fatigued he forgot to switch to it, or whether he was completely out, we'll never know. A senseless waste of an airplane and two lives in any case.
 
SteveA said:
The problem though - if we just chalk it up to bad planning, we may never get a true picture of what happened - and thus its bound to be repeated. The NTSB will stop at fuel exhaustion, but that doesn't tell us anything. I'm sure he didn't set out to kill himself and his other daughter, so are we sure that he had a bad plan? If so, why? Where was the error? We need to find that out.
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The "error" was that his second leg was too long for the range of the airplane, even if he had somehow made it successfully. Night VFR requires a 45 minute fuel reserve after reaching the destination. In an Archer, that would require a pretty decent sustained tailwind and some precision flying over the leg that he chose.


JKG
 
Sad deal .. especially when it's preventable. My condolences and prayers go out to the family.

RT
 
JGoodish said:
The "error" was that his second leg was too long for the range of the airplane, even if he had somehow made it successfully. Night VFR requires a 45 minute fuel reserve after reaching the destination. In an Archer, that would require a pretty decent sustained tailwind and some precision flying over the leg that he chose.


JKG
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Agreed, even on a 60-65% power setting on that archer, circa 8-8.5gph and a true around 107-110tas, that puts him at 4:55 ETE with a total endurance of 5:25. Considering the climb as part of the endurance block, it's worse. Add a typical headwind of 10 knots, it's game over, the ETE equals or exceeds the total endurance of the aircraft at that economy setting for that leg. His effective fuel burn/loss was 11gal/hr.

If we are to concede a right tank breach (I'm not sold on that theory), then the unsually short endurance of that right tank would have been a dead giveaway to land early and investigate. Continuing to press shows lack of awareness of the aircraft endurance profile.

A very preventable situation. As someone already posted before, this is perfect fodder for pedestrians to project their fears of flying in small airplanes as inherently fatal and an activity to be avoided at all costs.
 
We still don't know how much fuel was in the right tank. The NTSB has said the right tank was dripping fuel. They also said the left tank contained 4 ounces and the fuel selector was on the left tank.
 
Paul Allen said:
We still don't know how much fuel was in the right tank. The NTSB has said the right tank was dripping fuel. They also said the left tank contained 4 ounces and the fuel selector was on the left tank.
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But we know the ETE, ergo we DO know there wasn't gas on the right. Unless you can prove he got more than 3 hours of flight time out of the left tank (that's a hell of a tailwind on that thing) and considering the limitation of 48 usable gallons, it's impossible for the right tank to have usable fuel after a 4:22 ETE with the left tank empty and the selector on left. If anything, if he had actually attained supernatural endurance out of the left tank, it makes the scenario even more egregious because that means he flew that many hours actively aware he had a compromised right tank :yikes:.

EDIT to add: I went back and actually, if he had a tailwind to put him circa 124KTGS, burning 2 hours on the right on takeoff, and the full 2.5 hours on the left at a 9.5 gph 75% setting, in that order, would have put him going dry on the left, crashing, with 30 minutes of gas on the right, that he elected to not select, or panicked into forgetting. I don't buy that scenario but it's plausible.
 
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JGoodish said:
The "error" was that his second leg was too long for the range of the airplane, even if he had somehow made it successfully. Night VFR requires a 45 minute fuel reserve after reaching the destination. In an Archer, that would require a pretty decent sustained tailwind and some precision flying over the leg that he chose.


JKG
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No I get that part, and I agree that even if the plan somehow was legit, he should have seen the problem at some point... also there's no question a number of decisions were arguably ill thought - night flight (at 3am probably would violate commercial regs for on duty time), poor choice for fuel stop, etc. But... I flew that same route to Jacksonville a couple days later and the weather system had a pretty well established tailwind. At 11,500 I was getting 30 knots.

What I'm saying is that as much as I want to say this guy made a bonehead choice (which it certainly looks like he did) it actually is possible he did not. You could have flight planned for 5.5 hours of endurance at 65% power with 115 knots. With a 10 knot tailwind - you should have had fuel with reserves. That day, that weather? It may have been a possibility.

Point is, we need to know what happened, but it has to go beyond just determining the cause. We all know he ran out of gas. Questions are - why did he run out? Poor planning? Failure to recognize higher fuel consumption/slower speed? Mechanical? Didn't know how to lean correctly?
 
Re: the information that this family also lost another child in a snowmobiling accident.

Doesn't anyone else find it odd that the family's two daughters are BOTH named Christine or Kristine??
 
Flygir said:
Doesn't anyone else find it odd that the family's two daughters are BOTH named Christine or Kristine??
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Odd, yes, but not unheard of.

In my hometown, growing up, there was a large catholic family, 13 kids IIRC. All the boys were named Joseph, all the girls Mary.

They all had different middle names and their middle names are what they used in school, etc.

BTW...welcome to PoA.
 
Plane crash victim: Katherine/Kate/Katie- she has been called all three by news media. They get info from friends/family/coworkers. Sometimes people go by different names depending on who they are with.

Snowmobile crash 2009: Christine(Kate's older sister).

Friend in the rear seat: Keyana.
 
Things like night VFR and unscheduled hotel rooms have been mentioned above in passing. I'm thinking farther up the accident chain than Tampa.

Regardless of fuel capacity, consumption, or planning, does anyone else wonder about the wisdom of launching on a 4-hour leg at 11:38 PM? Maybe the pilot was a nocturnal sort, but if he kept anything approaching a typical sleep schedule I would think that fatigue is a major contributing factor. What exactly would the passengers have done after arriving in FL at 4:00 AM that they couldn't have done at 10:30 AM had the pilot spent the night in Nashville and launched for FL at first light?
 
Flygir said:
Re: the information that this family also lost another child in a snowmobiling accident.

Doesn't anyone else find it odd that the family's two daughters are BOTH named Christine or Kristine??
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First post...... Welcome to POA...

:cheers:
 
DJTorrente said:
Things like night VFR and unscheduled hotel rooms have been mentioned above in passing. I'm thinking farther up the accident chain than Tampa.

Regardless of fuel capacity, consumption, or planning, does anyone else wonder about the wisdom of launching on a 4-hour leg at 11:38 PM? Maybe the pilot was a nocturnal sort, but if he kept anything approaching a typical sleep schedule I would think that fatigue is a major contributing factor. What exactly would the passengers have done after arriving in FL at 4:00 AM that they couldn't have done at 10:30 AM had the pilot spent the night in Nashville and launched for FL at first light?
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Also. what are the chances he will be able to maintain VFR and stay clear of clouds in that long of a distance....?:idea:...:dunno:..

My guess is the deceased pilot likes to roll the dice, once too often..:sad:


ps... I still say the key to explain this crash lays with the survivor in the rear seat and what she discloses... There ain't no way she slept through that trip..:no:
 
hindsight2020 said:
How do you figure? An archer with a carbed o -360 is a 9.5GPH to 8.5 gph leaned properly. That puts you at 5:00-5:30. A gallon more for the first hour for the climb and that's a 4:45 airplane. Do we have any indication he didn't refuel completely in Nashville? If he didn't, then that's just stupid.
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Pilot in our club did almost this exact same thing. Private pilot with fresh instrument rating, launched late at night on a long IFR cross country.

Ran out of gas and crashed in the trees. He walked away. Ran out of fuel in 4:43

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/GenPDF.aspx?id=ERA11CA423&rpt=fi
 
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