Richard McSpadden Crash

Flying Doc said:
Maybe he had no other options but to try turning. We still dont know altitude achieved and type of emergency.
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This is very true and more and more info seems to be coming out that they were really low when whatever happened.

I could be wrong, but I don't think they were trying to turn back.
 
so is this the plane? Only lake placid 177 I could find. IMG_06F18E3FF2CF-1.jpeg
 
Fearless Tower said:
I could be wrong, but I don't think they were trying to turn back.
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Somehow the came up short of the runway (14) going towards it. Winds were out of the north at 4-7 around the time of the accident. Likely would have been taking off 32.
 
Jim K said:
That's upsetting. If that can happen to him, what chance do I have? Is it all just luck?
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It is not all luck, or not all skill. When things go south, you need both luck and skill. When Sully landed in the Hudson, he had both luck and skill. People tend to overlook the luck factor, but if it were IMC and the Hudson was covered in clouds, no amount of skill would have assured a safe outcome. Similarly, without his skills, any other average pilot would have killed everyone while performing a water landing even in VMC.

This accident reinforces the importance of doing a departure briefing. Perhaps they did the briefing but still ran out of options, but without such a briefing, an engine failure at 200 ft is extremely unlikely to result in a good outcome.
 
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Racerx said:
1 in 175 seems shockingly high.

A couple questions if I may...just out of curiosity.

How many total aircraft on the registry?
How many total accidents?
Would this include an incident where a drunk driver drove through a hangar and left his car parked on a Comanche? Or is this strictly moving incidents?
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Here's the aircraft vs. accident data I used for the computation:
1696300870229.png
"All" is the total aircraft on the registry as of the end of the given year. The year itself is calendar year, not fiscal year (the FAA publishes figures based on fiscal year).

It's interesting to note that one can get different numbers of accidents per year depending on what source one uses. For 2021, for example, if you use the online tool, the total comes out to over 1700, vs. the 1635 shown above. I extract my numbers from the NTSB accident database I downloaded on 1 December 2022.

Accidents which receive an NTSB number (e.g., "NYC08CA089") and are included in the NTSB accident database are counted. I presume that these are considered accidents because the criteria in NTSB Part 830 are met.

As I mentioned earlier, this includes some foreign accidents, accidents in the US involving foreign-registered aircraft, and unregistered air vehicles. In addition, separate accidents occurring to a given aircraft will also be counted separately.

Certainly, there are some silly accidents in the database, but I suspect the number of stall-spin cases FAR exceeds the instances where a drunk driver drove through a hangar. In any case, the drunk-driving-into-the-hangar incident would not be considered a reportable accident, per NTSB 830.2:

Aircraft accident means an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, and in which any person suffers death or serious injury, or in which the aircraft receives substantial damage.

If the drunk drove into an *occupied* aircraft, then yes, it would be assigned an NTSB number. For example, a case where a guy with a fork lift drove into a 172 (ANC00LA005).

Should also point out that the figures I posted are based on *all registered aircraft being active*. The a recent annual FAA General Aviation Survey says that less than 80% of the single-engine piston-powered aircraft in the registry are active. Include THAT, and the rate drops from one accident per 175 aircraft to one in 140.

Just remember: It ain't random. You can reduce your risks by trying to fly safe.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Two observations...

1. It doesn't really matter who is PIC if the other front seat occupant panics and grabs the controls. Not saying that is what happens, but if one of them locked up and the other couldn't get them off the controls, at low altitude, you wouldn't have much time.

2. From all accounts, they seemed to be low in hilly terrain. It may simply be that the only two decisions that might have saved them was either to not go, or take something with a couple of turbines...both required hindsight of a low altitude engine failure that is exceedingly rare...
 
wanttaja said:
It's interesting to note that one can get different numbers of accidents per year depending on what source one uses. For 2021, for example, if you use the online tool, the total comes out to over 1700, vs. the 1635 shown above. I extract my numbers from the NTSB accident database I downloaded on 1 December 2022.
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Another factor that may not be obvious is that my one in 175 statistic was for ALL accidents....including those with no injuries.

The same calculation for only accidents that caused fatalities is far more reassuring: About one accident out of every 900 registered aircraft.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Fearless Tower said:
This is very true and more and more info seems to be coming out that they were really low when whatever happened.

I could be wrong, but I don't think they were trying to turn back.
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From what I’ve seen about it, they departed 32 and came up short landing 32. So the ‘impossible turn’ scenario of turning to land back opposite direction would not be it. Look at topo maps. The terrain leading up to the threshold of 32 is uphill. Think in terms of say Santa Catalina AVX or landing 32 at Sedona SEZ. They got low and hit the stern of the ship
 
luvflyin said:
From what I’ve seen about it, they departed 32 and came up short landing 32. So the ‘impossible turn’ scenario of turning to land back opposite direction would not be it. Look at topo maps. The terrain leading up to the threshold of 32 is uphill. Think in terms of say Santa Catalina AVX or landing 32 at Sedona SEZ. They got low and hit the stern of the ship
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Where are you are getting that? Most reports place the wreckage against a berm at the departure end of 32/approach end of 14
 
Not second guessing this accident, but using this airport as an example, sometimes it's best to head FOR the trees, knowing that controlled flight at a slow airspeed into the tops of trees is often very survivable, more so that a stall spin into almost anything, and typically better all-around than crashing into houses or other buildings.

At this airport, for instance a deliberate nose down gentle left turn might be the best first action when things go wrong. When you Google airports in general, most of them have some areas that don't contain buildings OR open fields but do have wooded areas that might be the best choice for a crash site. One other consideration is fire. How often do you see aircraft landing in trees catch on fire? I'd prefer to deal with injuries other than burns. As many have pointed out, it's always an odds game to some extent. The odds of safely returning to the field or even saving the airplane are low in a loss of power on take-off, so I say go for the best odds of survival in that situation. (I do that on every flight in the Pawnee towing gliders, where for short periods trees are really the only option unless there happens to be an open field in just the right place.)





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dbahn said:
Not second guessing this accident, but using this airport as an example, sometimes it's best to head FOR the trees, knowing that controlled flight at a slow airspeed into the tops of trees is often very survivable, more so that a stall spin into almost anything, and typically better all-around than crashing into houses or other buildings.

At this airport, for instance a deliberate nose down gentle left turn might be the best first action when things go wrong. When you Google airports in general, most of them have some areas that don't contain buildings OR open fields but do have wooded areas that might be the best choice for a crash site. One other consideration is fire. How often do you see aircraft landing in trees catch on fire? I'd prefer to deal with injuries other than burns. As many have pointed out, it's always an odds game to some extent. The odds of safely returning to the field or even saving the airplane are low in a loss of power on take-off, so I say go for the best odds of survival in that situation. (I do that on every flight in the Pawnee towing gliders, where for short periods trees are really the only option unless there happens to be an open field in just the right place.)





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Judging from the news photos.....they aren't too far from your picture. Note, the tops of the trees are broken off.

1696336722537.jpeg
 
jim rush said:
Yes Russ Francis bought the business
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Do they scrub ADSB data from public sites when something like this happens? Cannot find it for that tail number on accident day.
 
John Spartan said:
Do they scrub ADSB data from public sites when something like this happens? Cannot find it for that tail number on accident day.
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Two possibilities: one that they intentionally had the xpdr off or in standby because they were going to be flying in formation, or as someone pointed out on Beechtalk, the previous flights xpdr wasn’t picking up until around 3000’ and they never got that high on the accident flight
 
Fearless Tower said:
Two possibilities: one that they intentionally had the xpdr off or in standby because they were going to be flying in formation, or as someone pointed out on Beechtalk, the previous flights xpdr wasn’t picking up until around 3000’ and they never got that high on the accident flight
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They would be telling about the terrain as well. This whole thing sucks. A terrible alignment of bad luck and timing that even a lifetime of flying expertise couldn’t overcome.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Where are you are getting that? Most reports place the wreckage against a berm at the departure end of 32/approach end of 14
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I can’t find the link I read that on now. I did see some pictures when looking though that I hadn’t seen before. They are from different angles than any I had seen before. Nearby houses bear out that it was probably 14, not 32
 
wanttaja said:
Another factor that may not be obvious is that my one in 175 statistic was for ALL accidents....including those with no injuries.

The same calculation for only accidents that caused fatalities is far more reassuring: About one accident out of every 900 registered aircraft.

Ron Wanttaja
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Can you also pull out out a ratio for fatalities not due to inadvertent vfr into imc and fuel exhaustion? These are two causal factors directly under pilot control, and from what I can glean very common causes.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
Can you also pull out out a ratio for fatalities not due to inadvertent vfr into imc and fuel exhaustion? These are two causal factors directly under pilot control, and from what I can glean very common causes.
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When you get done parsing the data.....roughly 20% of all fatal accidents are due to mechanical issues. It's a very small percentage. The human is the cause....in most cases.
 
luvflyin said:
I can’t find the link I read that on now. I did see some pictures when looking though that I hadn’t seen before. They are from different angles than any I had seen before. Nearby houses bear out that it was probably 14, not 32
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Google Earth view of departure end of 32. This looks like the crash site, compared to local news images.

Departure end of Rwy 32 Lake Placid.jpg
 
Chip Sylverne said:
Can you also pull out out a ratio for fatalities not due to inadvertent vfr into imc and fuel exhaustion? These are two causal factors directly under pilot control, and from what I can glean very common causes.
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My primary interest is homebuilt accident statistics. Other than a patchwork of given types I've used for comparison, I don't have overall GA specifics.

Looking at my Cessna 172 database (covering 1998 to 2015), continued VFR into IFR conditions is #3 in fatal accidents. #1 is what I call "Pilot Miscontrol", basically stick-and-rudder mistakes by the pilot (doesn't include judgement issues, or "ADM" as others refer to it). That's about 25% of the fatalities (vs. 60% of the total). #2 is Midairs; about 17% of the fatalities. Continued VFR into IFR conditions comes in at 14%, just ahead of my "Maneuvering at Low Altitude" category at 11%. I group the last two, with other issues, under "Pilot Judgement".

Engine failures (whether due to mechanical issues or pilot ones) produce a lower rate of fatalities than the Pilot Miscontrol or Pilot Judgement categories. After all, it's something we were trained at (a lot), and all you really need to do is make one survivable landing (complicated with environment and terrain, of course). About 15% of all Cessna 172 accidents feature an engine failure, vs. 6% of the cases where fatalities occurred. Only six of 110 fuel-exhaustion accidents were fatal.

Again, these are all based on Cessna 172 accidents from 1998 to 2015. Results for other aircraft differ. The rate for fuel-management accidents for the Cessna 210 is three times that of the 172, and that carries through with the fatal accidents.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Flying Doc said:
I Feel the same way.
We tell ourselves “we would have done better” but when those teaching safety go down its demoralizing.
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I'll guarantee that it would take me 20-30 seconds to really recognize and identify the issue, prior to acting on it in any way (besides getting the nose down.)
Coming down at 500-600 fpm from low altitude erases solutions by the second.
 
Here' the raw output for Cessna 172s, showing the results for all accidents and fatal accidents.
1696369040955.png

Ron Wanttaja
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
Nope.... I think many of us are having these thoughts. ;)
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This week has been bad and yes this has given me pause about flying. Truly having to decide whether I want to continue in the risky activity. Very sad for everyone who has lost someone this week. (Yes I know hundreds of people died in car accidents this week too.) but cars have a more utilitarian purpose for most of us and depending on where you live it’s hard to get by without a vehicle. A plane - well it’s an expensive, and sometimes truly exciting hobby for most of us.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Fearless Tower said:
This is very true and more and more info seems to be coming out that they were really low when whatever happened.

I could be wrong, but I don't think they were trying to turn back.
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Per the AOPA press release here
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"The airplane attempted to return to the airport but failed to make the runway. "
 
Whatever happened, they didn't have much time to make a decision. I have no real experience in ASEL but my glider instructor taught me from day one to always verbally call out and finger-point landing spots progressively while under tow up until the safe turn-back altitude. Even if those landing spots are sketchy. When the tow rope breaks or the tow plane's engine fails, you have to immediately lower the nose and also pull the tow release handle. Both of these things are counter-instinctual and ideally the decision of where to put it down is made before you're faced with those mental hurdles. There's a decent sized field to the north of this runway that is 10-20' lower in elevation and probably would have been the subject of my attention for a window of time after takeoff.

But we know so little about this incident - for all we know they did a full takeoff engine out briefing and events simply conspired against them (e.g. partial power, wind shear, etc.)
 
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Nothing new as far as I can see other than "The plane had two steering columns." I'm glad we got that straightened out. At least they managed not to screw up the quotes about flight plans and black boxes not being required.
 
flyingron said:
Nothing new as far as I can see other than "The plane had two steering columns." I'm glad we got that straightened out. At least they managed not to screw up the quotes about flight plans and black boxes not being required.
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It gave a much better location of the crash site at least.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
It gave a much better location of the crash site at least.
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I thought so also....it gave a picture of what happened with additional witness accountings.

I got it wrong....thought they were on the takeoff roll....but, no they were trying to make it back.
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
I thought so also....it gave a picture of what happened with additional witness accountings.

I got it wrong....thought they were on the takeoff roll....but, no they were trying to make it back.
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Yeah, if the latest info is correct, it sounds like they did complete the 180 but as luvflyin suggested, they went below field elevation and were either intentionally trying to turn to the right away from the berm or they stalled it at the very end trying to avoid the berm when they crashed.

Like the classic Fate is the Hunter, this could turn out to be one of those instances where they did everything they could but still couldn't save themselves.
 
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