Rip #2...

% of a/c you've flown that have had fatal or a/c destroyed accidents:

  • 0-4%

    Votes: 43 79.6%

  • 5-9%

    Votes: 5 9.3%

  • 10-19%

    Votes: 4 7.4%

  • 20%+

    Votes: 2 3.7%
  • Total voters
    54
flyingcheesehead

flyingcheesehead

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iMooniac
I was in New York the other day and saw half of a blurb on CNN scrolling across the bottom of the screen about a plane crashing into lake michigan.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/apr05/321506.asp

:-( 20-year-old kid, apparently took off from Detroit into a headwind, didn't pay attention to his groundspeed (slow due to a headwind), went over the lake, and ran out of fuel. He ditched 5 miles from MKE. Very strong swimmer, but 46-degree water that's flowing against you doesn't help any. (How long does a good swimmer need to go 5 miles?)

Yesterday, it turned just a little freakier: The plane was N5360F, which is in my logbook several times. It was a rental plane here at MSN. I looked through my logbook and found that I've flown 20 planes to date. This is the second one that's crashed. The first:

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20040312X00320&key=1

...destroyed the aircraft, but all 3 occupants walked away. This one resulted in an airplane which has been found basically intact at the bottom of the lake, but a dead pilot.

It's kind of freaky that 10% of the planes I've flown have crashed. What's y'all's record? I sure hope this isn't the norm!
 
Hi Kent. There is a lengthy thread on this flight elsewhere in Hangar Talk. The results of your poll so far look encouraging. I think the more one flies (and flies rental aircraft that are flown by a HUGE number of individuals) the more likely this is to happen. The good news? You can improve your percentages by (safely) flying even more different aircraft!

This one was a tragedy, and quite needless (if he did in fact land in Michigan, that is news to me, and makes me wonder even more why he would not take fuel...).
 
The only one I'm aware of is the 182 that recently hit a large radio tower on approach to Fullerton, CA. I had checked out in that plane (it was a rental from El Monte, CA) only a few weeks earlier, and had planned to fly it occasionally as a backup for my plane. Even worse, I was at Fullerton when it happened, saw the smoke, and heard tower calling the N-number. Very sad.

:(

Jeff
 
BTW, while none of the planes I've flown have gone down (yet anyway....) I did see one on the ground on fire on one of my lessons last summer (CFI "Is that a plane down there"? Me "Nah..." (Thought he was messin' with me) "Oh, yeah, it is. It's that Archer that just took off"!

The plane suffered power failure (partial?) on take off and attempted an emergency road landing. Fortunately, all 3 got out with minor or no injuries. The plane was a total loss.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
It's kind of freaky that 10% of the planes I've flown have crashed. What's y'all's record? I sure hope this isn't the norm!
Click to expand...

Out of over a hundred planes in my logs (and others that aren't there) there are four of them that I know have been effectively totalled. 3 of them with me at the stick and one that took a friend of mine west when she was SIC in it.
 
Arrow 5148S Iif I remember the tail number right) which had a fatal crash near WWD a few weeks ago.

My first experience with that a/c was watching a pilot bring it in to a grass field with nose gear that wouldn't extend. No injuries, thank god.

The second was when I was doing my complex checkout. The plane had just come out of being put together after item 1 above, and the gear wouldn't retract.

Just an unlucky airplane, I guess...
 
A young pilot parked 9962F, the plane I passed my PP in, in the side of my wife's car over the holidays. Hit another plane on the ground and also an FAA inspector's car. Two planes destroyed, and the cars of an FAA inspector and two attorneys ;) But no serious injuries. My wife still carries the pictures, as no one she tells ever believes her. The kid lost control on takeoff somehow. Sigh.

Jim G
 
I'm guessing at 5%. None have been fatalities, fortunately, but a few have been totaled.

Judy
 
Bob,

The Arrow was 36725. 5148S is a Cherokee 180 that looked fine to me last Friday!
 
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20030325X00386&key=1

In airplane above, I:

- took my private checkride
- Took my family up for first rides
- flew it during instrument training...210' ceilings...hopping around the atlanta class-D airports shooting approaches in actual...less than 2 weeks prior to this event. There was water in the static system and it made the pitot-static instruments screwy. After much instrument training in Cirri, and the screwy instruments, I vowed to not fly single Cessna's in IMC a week before this accident.

It really, really freaked me out until after much study I learned that Cessna singles, in a full stall, uncoordinated, handled wrong by student AND instructor, result in a tail-plane stall that will point the nose at the ground...and the student in his 'recovery' has shoved the throttle in...now they are pointed at the ground, with no lift over the h-stab, and worse off than if they were just subject to gravity. The CFI has one, split-second chance to recover, and if he doesn't, they are overspeed.

Before this accident, I can't find a single instance of an inflight breakup of a 172. So, this doesn't happen often, and most often it is handled correctly...but not this time...sigh...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
RobertGerace said:
snip
Before this accident, I can't find a single instance of an inflight breakup of a 172. So, this doesn't happen often, and most often it is handled correctly...but not this time...sigh...
Click to expand...

There has been just one other inflight breakup of a 172. A heavily used pipeline patrol plane had the wing collapse.
 
There might need to be a column for "I have no idea"

Since I don't know if any of the planes I've flown have crashed.....
 
grattonja said:
A young pilot parked 9962F, the plane I passed my PP in, in the side of my wife's car over the holidays. Hit another plane on the ground and also an FAA inspector's car. Two planes destroyed, and the cars of an FAA inspector and two attorneys ;) But no serious injuries. My wife still carries the pictures, as no one she tells ever believes her. The kid lost control on takeoff somehow. Sigh.

Jim G
Click to expand...
Crap! 2 lawyers and an FAA Inspector! That's as bad as rear-ending a cop! or a whole line of cops!!! Probably worse! :hairraise:
 
Of the six different aircraft I trained in, 4 have had minor scrapes consisting of mostly aborted takeoffs that went astray of the runway. All of the aircraft are currently still in the training business, so I would say that with the large exposure to risk that these types see, my logbook is pretty lucky. I'm knocking on the wodden rabbits foot, sitting under the horseshoe while spitting through the circle formed by my thumb and index finger even as we speak.....who's superstitious?
 
gkainz said:
Crap! 2 lawyers and an FAA Inspector! That's as bad as rear-ending a cop! or a whole line of cops!!! Probably worse! :hairraise:
Click to expand...


Poor guy had maybe 60 hours of time, and had just checked out in the plane. Both cars were 100K plus mile deals, so the insurance check on that lot was low. I was not upset because: A. no one was hurt and B. he would have been flying my favorite skyhawk if I didn't have it already scheduled, so he destroyed a plane that I had never liked all that much, that had never worked 100% all the time. The other plane that he clobbered was an old 152 owned by the same place that had the hawk on leaseback. So he kept it "all in the family" so to speak.

Long story short, as far as I know, he did not get sued. He has told the owners that he will never fly again, though :( Darned shame.

Jim G
 
MSmith said:
Bob,

The Arrow was 36725. 5148S is a Cherokee 180 that looked fine to me last Friday!
Click to expand...

Right you are... it was 36725! I'm lucky if I can remember my phone number -- it's a good thing tail numbers are placarded where I can see them :)
 
N4802B, the 152 I had soloed in at Palm Beach (PBI) several years earlier, was taken for a night flight in 1990 by a young CFI and a student. It never returned. Radar returns showed it doing touch and goes at Lantana (LNA) and then disappearing. The airplane and occupants were never found.

This CFI was known to go out over the ocean at night and do spins. While there is no evidence to indicate that happened that night, my guess is that the airplane is in the Atlantic Ocean.
 
grattonja said:
Poor guy had maybe 60 hours of time, and had just checked out in the plane. Both cars were 100K plus mile deals, so the insurance check on that lot was low. I was not upset because: A. no one was hurt and B. he would have been flying my favorite skyhawk if I didn't have it already scheduled, so he destroyed a plane that I had never liked all that much, that had never worked 100% all the time. The other plane that he clobbered was an old 152 owned by the same place that had the hawk on leaseback. So he kept it "all in the family" so to speak.

Long story short, as far as I know, he did not get sued. He has told the owners that he will never fly again, though :( Darned shame.

Jim G
Click to expand...

Seems like everybody that flys much is bound to lose some planes... no big deal.
 
RotaryWingBob said:
Right you are... it was 36725! I'm lucky if I can remember my phone number -- it's a good thing tail numbers are placarded where I can see them :)
Click to expand...

More than once I've forgotten the tail number of the plane I'm in on any particular day. Always embarrasing to be talking to ATC going "Skyhawk 12.. uh, uh..." while I search frantically for the little placard.
 
RotaryWingBob said:
Right you are... it was 36725! I'm lucky if I can remember my phone number -- it's a good thing tail numbers are placarded where I can see them :)
Click to expand...
They are called "Senior Moments".
A while ago I had just bought a new (to me) Fuji FA2OO and went to pick it up with a friend who would follow me back in my old AA5. I had been so used to using the AA5's call sign for the last five years that, on the return trip in my new plane, when I called up Thames Radar I inadvertantly used the wrong call sign.
Me: Thames Radar, G-BBUE request transit...
Thames: G-BBUE cleared...
After a few minutes
Me: Oops, sorry Thames I am not G-BBUE I'm G-OISF
Thames: Snotty reply (Try and remember who you are).
At this point my friend comes on frequency in, you guessed it G-BBUE
Friend: Thames Radar, G-BBUE,
Thames: Silence
Friend: Thames Radar, G-BBUE
Thames: More silence
Me: Er Thames, this is G-OISF that really is G-BBUE, he is following me.
Thames: I wish you two would make your minds up!!!

Stephen.
 
Okay, Kent, you got me wondering. Off to the file cabinet for logbooks #1 & #2. Pour a glass of Scotch, settle back in the couch and take a nostalgia tour.

So far, logbook #1, page #1, there are seven entries (seven lines) total, encompassing four (4) separate aircraft (2-C150, 2-C152). Of those four aircraft, three (3) have been destroyed.

I am afraid to turn the page. So far no one has died; just a lot of perfectly good aircraft destroyed.

I either need more Scotch or I need to stop this nostalgia tour now.

More Scotch it is.

Here are the first three NTSB reports:

Log Entry (p/l) Aircraft Type N# NTSB Report

1/1 C152 N23TW http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001213X26007&key=1

1/2 C150 N6213S http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001211X14457&key=1

1/4 C152 N757XG http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001212X20569&key=1
 
Looks like you're in the lead at something around 60% (remember, 4 out of 3 people can't do percentages...)

Ed Guthrie said:
Okay, Kent, you got me wondering. Off to the file cabinet for logbooks #1 & #2. Pour a glass of Scotch, settle back in the couch and take a nostalgia tour.

So far, logbook #1, page #1, there are seven entries (seven lines) total, encompassing four (4) separate aircraft (2-C150, 2-C152). Of those four aircraft, three (3) have been destroyed.

I am afraid to turn the page. So far no one has died; just a lot of perfectly good aircraft destroyed.

I either need more Scotch or I need to stop this nostalgia tour now.

More Scotch it is.

Here are the first three NTSB reports:

Log Entry (p/l) Aircraft Type N# NTSB Report

1/1 C152 N23TW http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001213X26007&key=1

1/2 C150 N6213S http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001211X14457&key=1

1/4 C152 N757XG http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20001212X20569&key=1
Click to expand...
 
Of the 15? I've flown (and I was surprized when I counted them up), one hit a deer, one a snowbank (neither did them in), and one ran out of fuel (a total). Not a bad record.
Oh! I forgot. '47h broke a wing on a loss of power at take off. Since it's been flying for 15 years since, I bought it.
 
Hmm....
The 150 I trained in ate an exaust valve and was landed in a farmers field in ND.
The Mooney I currently own was bellied into a farm field in Ohio in 1978.
Lets see...at the current GA fatality rate, 1.7 per 100,000 hours....if I fly 10,000 hours in a lifetime my chances of being killed are like 1 in 5.8. Is that right? Geez, I hope that aint right.
Ok....thats enough of this morbid non-sense:)
 
Jeff Oslick said:
The only one I'm aware of is the 182 that recently hit a large radio tower on approach to Fullerton, CA. I had checked out in that plane (it was a rental from El Monte, CA) only a few weeks earlier, and had planned to fly it occasionally as a backup for my plane. Even worse, I was at Fullerton when it happened, saw the smoke, and heard tower calling the N-number. Very sad.

:(

Jeff
Click to expand...


Jeff,
I learned to fly at EMT. Who's 182 was it??

Dee
 
RobertGerace said:
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20030325X00386&key=1

It really, really freaked me out until after much study I learned that Cessna singles, in a full stall, uncoordinated, handled wrong by student AND instructor, result in a tail-plane stall that will point the nose at the ground...and the student in his 'recovery' has shoved the throttle in...now they are pointed at the ground, with no lift over the h-stab, and worse off than if they were just subject to gravity. The CFI has one, split-second chance to recover, and if he doesn't, they are overspeed.
Click to expand...

Bob, I'm having trouble visualizing what you suggest above. Would you mind running through the elements, please? I have a particular problem with the "no lift over the h-stab" and "pointed at the ground" plus "overspeed" residing in two related sentences. Whatever might proceed it all, the last appears to be no worse than the back side of a loop. Normally no big disaster there, so obviously I'm missing something in the scenario you describe.
 
Ed Guthrie said:
Bob, I'm having trouble visualizing what you suggest above. Would you mind running through the elements, please? I have a particular problem with the "no lift over the h-stab" and "pointed at the ground" plus "overspeed" residing in two related sentences. Whatever might proceed it all, the last appears to be no worse than the back side of a loop. Normally no big disaster there, so obviously I'm missing something in the scenario you describe.
Click to expand...

Not to mention a tailplane stall which should be impossible without being out of the forward CG limit and/or carrying a bunch of ice on the tail.
 
Tail plane stall by itself should cause nose high, pointed straight up, at least in all of the flight modeling I've seen. Not an expert though.
 
A Piper Arrow 180 I rented and flew in he mid 1970s . It was for sale and I was serious thinking of buying it. I rented it many times when I was looking to buy. As the saying goes the shoe fit and I was putting in an offer when it crashed. The pilot was using it to run checks at night. The accident investigation concluded that he fell asleep only a few miles from home. I got to meet him which made it worse. I do remember the tail number 3298R. I could not believe it for I had flown the plane 2 days before on a long X-C and was ready to buy it.

I do know others one was a Taylorcraft that crashed an hour before I was to solo it on my 16th birthday. The pilot survived.


John J
 
In 2003, I was getting checked out in the Cardinal and chatting on the CTAF with the FBO where I did most of my private training when the news came in that a small plane had just gone down at PTK. Turned out a 152 on a dual training flight had suffered an engine out on short final and put down in a field. The student pilot was seriously injured, the CFI had only scratches, the plane was pretty much totaled. Then a few days later I looked up the preliminary incident report and got that creepy feeling when I saw that it was N65455 out of 57D. I had a little over 10 hours in that plane and at one time was thinking of finishing my private in it.

Then last year a student pilot at DET somehow lost control of Cherokee 7662C during a go-around and put it into the roof of a T-Hangar. Luckily no one was hurt though the plane - and the roof - were messed up pretty badly. 62C is the only non-Cessna I've ever flown (about 3 hours at the beginning of my primary training).

So far I've flown 7 other airplanes, and as far as I know, they're all still flying.

Liz
 
So far as I know, none of the aircraft I've flown have been destroyed. Closest has been when Skyhawk 13320, a beat to pieces old plane I remember most fondly, had an engine failure during a lesson. The instructor took over and landed on a baseball field, with no damage. Took the wings off, trucked her home, and fixed the engine.
 
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