Final Landing

Did anyone else read Peter Garrison's article about pilot suicides in this
month's "Flying" mag?

It really makes you wonder if some of those "inexplicable" accidents we talk
about here -- you know, the ones where the normally safe and solid pilot
flies off into horrible weather, or flies a plane with a known mechanical
problem -- aren't really suicides?

I found the conversations with ATC to be especially chilling...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay,

I worked with a guy some years ago who did accident investigation and
who said to me that he felt that over 10% of g.a. accidents were
suicides (that seemed a bit high to me). Interestingly, there have
only been two inflight breakups of Cessna 150s in history. One was in
the '70s when I worked part time flying freight at Willow Run airport.
A guy who had been turned down for a job flying DC-6s rented a 150,
climbed to 10,000 feet over Willow Run while talking with controllers
and telling them to clear everyone out of the area. He then dove
vertically at the west ramp (in front of what was then the tower). The
airplane started shedding parts at about 500 feet AGL. Two days later
I had a trip and went into one of the large hangars (the old B-24 final
assembly hangars - it's a fascinating airport) to preflight the
airplane I was to fly. The accident investigation had been done and
the wreckage was piled in a corner near the 402 I was to fly, so I took
a moment to look at the wreckage. Everything was badly mangled. The
thing that got my attention was that the engine evidently impacted
straight down at extremely high speed as all of the cylinders were bent
forward about 30 degrees.

Sad events, when someone commits suicide with an airplane - and
incidentally hurts all of the rest of us by driving up the accident
rate and perceived level of safety. Worked on one many years ago where
a young man had a serious alcohol problem and his marriage was breaking
up, wife having filed for divorce. He was a private pilot. One
afternoon he showed up at a local FBO seeking to rent an airplane. The
receptionist could tell he was drunk, so she told him, correctly, that
he had to have a checkout with an instructor to rent their airplanes.
She then said the schedule was full for that day and the next, but
she'd put him down for the third day. He declined and staggered out.
Apparently badly depressed, he continued drinking and took some
downers, then after dark, called his best friend from a pay phone and
said he was drinking and taking downers because his life was in ruin
and that he was going to go steal an airplane and commit suicide.
Evidence observed later was that he broke into the same FBO, took the
keys to a 152 and flew it about 5 miles to where it was found having
impacted the bank of a canal in a nearly vertical attitude. The young
man's body was inside. Interestingly, the grieving widow did find an
attorney who filed a lawsuit alleging the altimeter "had to have been
defective, otherwise he would have seen he was close to the ground and
wouldn't have crashed". It went away as soon as the attorney was shown
the blood-alcohol level of the pilot and learned of the phone call made
to the best friend.

There was another where an aircraft broker was supposed to be in one
city closing a deal on the sale of some used airplanes, for which a
very large sum of money had been entrusted to him to hold as a deposit.
At the moment he was to be at the meeting, he was impacting the ground
in a steep dive some 500 miles away, going in the opposite direction,
while calling to the controllers that he was having contol
difficulties. Post crash, the deposit money he was supposedly holding
(and which was to be transferred at the closing) could not be found,
but he had sent a letter to a friend asking him to look after his
family if something should happen to him. That one certainly appeared
to be a suicide, but made me wonder how many are planned so as to cover
up the fact they are suicides. The other ones that puzzle me are
pilots who get into minor emergencies (is that an oxymoron? g) and
then do nothing, either freeze up or decide their time has come and
just sit and watch. I don't know how many accidents of twin engine
airplanes I've looked at where the pilot lost one engine but did
absolutely nothing about securing and feathering the dead engine (or
sometimes even retracting the gear). The prop control was found in the
cruise or max high rpm setting after the crash, rather than having been
pulled into the feather position.

Sad subject for the first nice weather morning we've had in a while.
Warmest regards,
Rick

) wrote:

Sad subject for the first nice weather morning we've had in a while.

Your's is an interesting post. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

--
Peter

wrote:
The other ones that puzzle me are
pilots who get into minor emergencies (is that an oxymoron? g) and
then do nothing, either freeze up or decide their time has come and
just sit and watch.

More of those around than you think - they don't all wind up in the
database.

I know a local pilot/owner of a C-150 (not an Aerobat) who was out
teaching himself to do aerobatics. He got the plane rolled over and
got stuck. Of course we know that had he simply pulled back on the
yoke a bit, put in full aileron and maybe a bit of rudder, he would
have rolled right side up again - not pretty, but it would work.
Instead, he decide (his own words here) to "trust God and the Cessna
engineers" and let go of the controls. The plane eventually righted
itself.

I don't know how many accidents of twin engine
airplanes I've looked at where the pilot lost one engine but did
absolutely nothing about securing and feathering the dead engine (or
sometimes even retracting the gear). The prop control was found in
the
cruise or max high rpm setting after the crash, rather than having
been
pulled into the feather position.

I do a fair amount of twin engine recurrent training. Sometimes I fly
with people who haven't had any twin engine recurrent training in a
long time. All I can tell you is that I'm not surprised.

Privately owned twins are something of a special case. Based on my
experience I don't believe there is any such thing as an average piston
twin owner. There are those who are well trained - half the time these
are either airline pilots or trained by them - who have the twins
because they perceive themselves to be at increased risk of
engine/system failure because of the type of flying they do
(night/IFR/overwater/unfriendly terrain). These people maintain
carefully and train carefully. Then there are the ones who see a twin
as a cheap way to buy a fast airplane with a big cabin. I've really
seen nothing in the middle. Every private owner of a twin I've flown
with either handled engine cuts just fine or extremely poorly, with no
middle ground.

When a guy owns a quarter-mil+ pressurized turbocharged airplane he
really can't train in (engine cuts will destroy that kind of engine)
and decides that going to FlightSafety is a waste because the insurance
discount won't cover his costs of attenting, well, exactly what do you
expect?

In other words - I don't think the accidents you looked at were either
suicide or resignation - I think they were gross incompetence. The guy
literally forgot what he was supposed to be doing in the heat of the
emergency, because he had not drilled the procedures. You won't
believe that until you see a guy absolutely refuse to fly slower than
15 kts over blue line, even when he clearly can't hold altitude. I
know I didn't.

Michael

On 21 Jan 2005 08:41:12 -0800, "Michael"
wrote in
.com::

I know a local pilot/owner of a C-150 (not an Aerobat) who was out
teaching himself to do aerobatics. He got the plane rolled over and
got stuck. Of course we know that had he simply pulled back on the
yoke a bit, put in full aileron and maybe a bit of rudder, he would
have rolled right side up again - not pretty, but it would work.
Instead, he decide (his own words here) to "trust God and the Cessna
engineers" and let go of the controls. The plane eventually righted
itself.

Irrational beliefs ultimately lead to irrational acts.
-- Larry Dighera,

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005, Larry Dighera wrote:

Instead, he decide (his own words here) to "trust God and the Cessna
engineers" and let go of the controls. The plane eventually righted
itself.

Irrational beliefs ultimately lead to irrational acts.

Then again, there are lots of irrational folks around, with all sorts of
belief systems. Doesn't mean his belief system is irrational; maybe it
is, maybe not, but you'd have to look a lot deeper than that to know.
Maybe it was just his action that was irrational, not his belief system.
"Trust God" is perfectly rational as far as it goes, but this guy's
actions say a lot more about his own rationality & judgement (or lack
thereof), than about his belief system. It was poor judgement followed by
an irrational decision to do nothing, not his belief system, that almost
got him killed. There's no need to make derogatory comments about things
you don't know nearly enough about to make a judgement.

Or maybe you were referring to the rationality of trusting the Cessna
engineers. I'm not qualified to comment on that -- I fly a Tomahawk.

-Dan

"Trust God" is perfectly rational as far as it goes,

Huh?

Check your dictionary.

"Trust God" is the opposite of rationality.

You might think it is "normal" or "usual" or "sensible", but it certainly is not
rational.

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 12:22:03 -0800, Dan Youngquist
wrote in
. org::

"Trust God" is perfectly rational as far as it goes,

How would you rate the rationality of the buyer of the eBay auction?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...4640005 &rd=1

"Michael" wrote in message
oups.com...
wrote:

snip
teaching himself to do aerobatics. He got the plane rolled over and
got stuck. Of course we know that had he simply pulled back on the
yoke a bit, put in full aileron and maybe a bit of rudder, he would
have rolled right side up again - not pretty, but it would work.

I assume that you are suggesting that the correct recovery from inadvertant
inversion is a steep decending barrel roll. My acro insrtuctor was most
emphatic that this, or attempting to split S, will consume lots of altitude
and is likely to result in an overspeed of engine or Vne. Assuming you have
lots of altitude AGL, which you may not have if the inversion was caused by
wake turbulance.

He said NEVER pull, always PUSH and roll.

Instead, he decide (his own words here) to "trust God and the Cessna
engineers" and let go of the controls. The plane eventually righted
itself.

Do a google search on "beggs-mueller technique"

Blue skies to all, up or down

Thanks, Rick, for the enlightening (if depressing) post. Sorry to bring
this up at such a dismal time of year, but I found Garrison's article quite
interesting.

Your example of the fellow with terminal cancer (from a few posts down)
flying out over the ocean until he ran out of gas -- although fictional --
is especially poignant. It's hard to fault a guy like that, really. I've
seen too many friends and relatives die of cancer to pretend that it's an
easy way out.

I've seen pilots act in (what I considered) suicidal ways with regards to
their aircraft and weather conditions. Just a couple of days ago I watched
a Cessna Skylane depart into widespread low ceilings and sleet, with the
temperature well below freezing.

Apparently he made it wherever he was going, but ATC was full of moderate
icing reports from King Airs and up. You've just got to wonder what in hell
was so important that our intrepid pilot HAD to depart into the worst kind
of winter conditions.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"