Robert M. Gary wrote:
On Sep 11, 10:16 pm, "RST Engineering"
wrote:
The fire department can opine all they want; there is no way in hell that
the temperature was 107 except on a black piece of metal aimed directly at
the sun.

Jim


The other thing I thought was interesting is that the NTSB estimated
60 gal of fuel and 270 lbs of luggage (I've flown with 4 for a week
and a half and only got 150 lbs so this sounds strange). Considering
two women and two men, using an average of 170lbs that would put the
average A36 within 50 lbs of being under gross. I can personally
estimate one of the individuals at 140 lbs but one of the guys they
pulled out looked a bit big. In anycase, its certainly not a clear
case of over gross.

This accident has bothered me a lot. Pilots have been so excited to
jump all over this pilot and say this accident was because he was
taking off from a short (not true), high altitude (not true), airport
over gross (not sure). Its amazing how fast fellow pilots are to try
to say an accident pilot screwed up. It got me thinking. I think
pilots, really, really want to believe that any pilot involved in
fatal accident made a serious mistake and moreover, than it was a dump
mistake. They want to believe this because it allows them to separate
themselves from the accident pilot. Its a way to say "this would never
happen to me". No one wants to believe that this pilot could have done
everything right (or at least as right as most of us usually do) and
still had such a traggic ending. I just hope that if I'm ever in a
serious accident that the news crew points the camera at some random
passer-by and not a pilot. I actually heard one pilot say "I trained
in a Warrior, which is like the accident plane, and I would not have
taken off". Maybe the NTSB should ask him to consult on the next 737
accident as well.

-Robert

Not wishing to seem confrontational but this is a gross over
generalization in my opinion.

I've seen 32 of my fellow pilots killed in accidents and served on
several accident investigation committees and have never felt this way,
nor do I know personally any pilot that I would say feels this way and
would be extremely surprised to learn did indeed feel this way.

--
Dudley Henriques