On Dec 3, 6:56 am, JJ Sinclair wrote:
On Dec 2, 4:13 pm, db_sonic wrote:

Possibilities are;

- Weather (
snipped No fog. Turbulent, yes. We flew that day at TAGARs
(Truckee glider
race). While I can't vouch for the conditions at Mammoth, I am pretty
sure it was similar to Truckee.


I believe the answer lies in Steve's mind-set that day, we know he
buzzed a ranch hand shortly after takeoff. The NTSB has removed the
accident report to update after finding the ship, but the original
report stated Steve was seen between 100 and 200 feet near 9-mile
ranch. He was having fun!

Gad zooks. The Discovery program and RAS drivel drives me nuts.
NTSB isn’t likely to find anything conclusive that we don’t already
know.
I’ve already had these discussions with most of my students and
customers and many persons of the public who know I fly.

Possibilities a Weather, Mechanical Failure, Pilot Failure.

Weather - nope. Unless there was a density altitude issue. And some
other crazy elements that make less sense and probability.

It was a gorgeous soaring day.
My customers flew 750 km triangles, and 500 km O&Rs that day from Cal
City. The 750 km pilot flew within 11 miles of the crash site at
about 2 pm at 14,500 msl, and the 500km pilot was within 35 miles, on
the Whites. There was a sniff of cumulus OD in the much later
afternoon. There was not a sniff of the vicious Sierra wave, nor
those dreadful ‘shear’ zones reported by Discovery Channel. And no
one seems to wish to recall that Steve had actually flown a few days
of wave, and might be wary of those conditions in a little Bellanca
with a moderately powered airframe. Or would this then be an
indication of a less than “world class pilot”?

I think JJ is a lot closer in his surmisings than most folks.
It was a pretty day, and a guy was out in a little airplane looking at
some of the most breathtaking scenery available on this continent.
Based on the apparent heading of whacking the surface, I’d guess he
was headed back north towards a light lunch.

Mechanical failure - Statistically, we don’t see many in flight
breakups of even
poorly maintained airframes. There was no reason to think this one
was poorly maintained. The MOST common cause of airplanes out landing
didn’t seem to apply here. The airframe burnt on impact, so it had
some fuel on board.

Could there have been a moment of carburator icing? Sure. Could the
mixture have run rich and caused an interruption of power? Possibly.
Would those things alone cause a pilot to run into the ground at fast
speed? Hmmm.

Why was it going fast on impact? Perhaps the airframe broke. We’ll
wait for the NTSB for another 9 months to hear that answer. I was
curious about the prop blade/shank that was shown as mostly intact,
and not hardly marked nor twisted and separate from the wreckage. Not
knowing its location relative to the bulk of the parts, it is
impossible to conclude if it left the machine pre-or post-impact.
High speed usually means high prop rpm, so it is curious to have it be
relatively unscathed. High-speed impact onto rocks means that parts
will tend to remain in motion until friction slows them down.
A shallow impact angle means more spreading of parts. 200 mph for a
Bellanca is howlingly fast, and won’t happen without the nose being
pointed down some.



Medical Factors –
Well, Steve was 63 years old. Jim Fixx, a renowned personal distance
runner, dropped dead of a heart attack at age 52. We all know that
aviation medicals do not actually predict sudden incapacitation.
Incapacitation can happen for many reasons, stroke, heart attack,
eschemia, medication, and illness. http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/docs/cb/cb_198.pdf

From the FAA Office of Aerospace Medicine in a study of airline
pilots:
“The most frequent categories of incapacitation were loss of
consciousness, cardiac, neurological, and gastrointestinal. Safety of
flight was seriously impacted in seven of the 47 flights and resulted
in two non-fatal accidents. “ http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/m...media/0416.pdf


If Steve was not aware at impact, how to explain speed and seat belts
perhaps being loose? Have you ever unbuckled to rearrange in your
seat for a moment or two? If the moment coincided with a big whacking
thermal bump in the later morning hours over rising ground, couldn’t a
head be struck on tubing in the cockpit? A loose, sturdy body slumped
forward over a stick would certainly have pointed the nose down.

Or, a pilot who perhaps did survive impact might have unbuckled to try
to exit.
Or, a scavenger wouldn’t have any trouble scrabbling around and
dragging a nail across a Pacific Scientific buckle and having it
unlatch. Or a limp torso in not snug belts, leaning into a stick
might just poke the buckle into the stick top and rotate the hub. I
have seen pilots rotate a stick in a cockpit and easily unlatch their
belts on their own bellies during preflight checks. It is not beyond
comprehension.

Will we ever have a concrete answer? Not in my mind. The body isn’t
available for autopsy, which likely wouldn’t yield an answer on
incapacitation anyway. Will the NTSB get a ‘good’ handle on the
mechanical possibilities? Maybe. Why bother? No one else was
killed; there is no liability issue, and no air transport safety
issue.

We as aviators should take away from this loss of a fellow pilot the
information to apply to our own flying, which will either prevent our
demise, or simplify the recovery for our loved ones, and diminish bad
press for aviation to the public.

File at least an informal flight plan with friends, to give them a
route to retrace. Take communications equipment with you to use,
should you interrupt your flight before the destination. If you fly
over remote or inaccessible areas, consider equipping the airframe
with an auto-reporting function of ELTs, APRS or Spot functioning
systems. Remember that in this case, an ELT was of little service to
Steve or to Search and Rescue efforts. Have a landout kit that
provides shelter and sustenance for a couple days.

This flight did nothing to improve the case of general or recreational
aviation in the eyes of the public. And Discovery Channel did general
aviation no service here either. Let’s see if at least some soaring
pilots can garner some benefit from the tragedy.

Cindy B