RE: Courious Crash

[john smith]

I understand that some who may be acqauinted with the deceased my read
this thread.
I am looking for an explaination which may provide closure, not blame.
CJ, we both have known intelligent people who have made
uncharacteristicly bad/wrong decisions which lead to their deaths.
Indeed, we do not know if this family stopped anywhere between Oklahoma
and Ohio. We still do not know where they stopped in Oklahoma.
What I am trying to understand is, how a husband and wife, both pilots,
would not challenge their spouse's decision to press a situation which
might lead to an uncertain outcome?

[Peter Dohm]

> I understand that some who may be acqauinted with the deceased my read
> this thread.
> I am looking for an explaination which may provide closure, not blame.
> CJ, we both have known intelligent people who have made
> uncharacteristicly bad/wrong decisions which lead to their deaths.
> Indeed, we do not know if this family stopped anywhere between Oklahoma
> and Ohio. We still do not know where they stopped in Oklahoma.
> What I am trying to understand is, how a husband and wife, both pilots,
> would not challenge their spouse's decision to press a situation which
> might lead to an uncertain outcome?
>
At this point, what little I know of this particular accident came from this
thread. However, I do feel compelled to mention that fuel exhaustion, if it
occurred, does not automatically guarantee that there was fuel mismanagement
or even that there was a failure to follow a normal checklist. One pilot,
who I knew for a number of years, had a fuel fitting fail during the cruise
portion of a flight in a Piper Commanche 260. He was fortunate enough to
reach an abandoned drag strip for a successfull landing, and stated that the
Commanche was a very poor glider.

Peter

[Orval Fairbairn]

In article <sQ%hh.795$_X.475@bigfe9>,
"Peter Dohm" > wrote:

> > I understand that some who may be acqauinted with the deceased my read
> > this thread.
> > I am looking for an explaination which may provide closure, not blame.
> > CJ, we both have known intelligent people who have made
> > uncharacteristicly bad/wrong decisions which lead to their deaths.
> > Indeed, we do not know if this family stopped anywhere between Oklahoma
> > and Ohio. We still do not know where they stopped in Oklahoma.
> > What I am trying to understand is, how a husband and wife, both pilots,
> > would not challenge their spouse's decision to press a situation which
> > might lead to an uncertain outcome?
> >
> At this point, what little I know of this particular accident came from this
> thread. However, I do feel compelled to mention that fuel exhaustion, if it
> occurred, does not automatically guarantee that there was fuel mismanagement
> or even that there was a failure to follow a normal checklist. One pilot,
> who I knew for a number of years, had a fuel fitting fail during the cruise
> portion of a flight in a Piper Commanche 260. He was fortunate enough to
> reach an abandoned drag strip for a successfull landing, and stated that the
> Commanche was a very poor glider.
>
> Peter

If you keep the gear and flaps up and pull the prop back to "low RPM"
the Comanche, or any other light retractable is a pretty good glider (at
best glide speed).

Push the prop in, drop the gear and/or flaps, it is a different story.