Orlando Crash Video

I finally got some time to put this one up on our site. See it at

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photoga...ash_1-2005.mpg

It's a HUGE file, sent to us by a fellow newsgroupie who used his TIVO
set-up to capture the video, enlarge it, and run it in slow-motion.
(If you're on dial-up, you may want to skip this one.)

It really shows how little choice the poor Cessna pilot had at the last
moment, when that pickup truck suddenly appeared out of no where. His
choices were either (a) hit the truck, or (b) try to veer to the right
and avoid it.

He chose (b), thus saving everyone in the pickup truck, but gave his
life in exchange. A true hero.

See all the videos we've collected at:

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/aviation_videos.htm

Some are funny, some are tragic, many are educational -- but all are
fascinating.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On 16 Jan 2005 08:01:00 -0800, Jay Honeck wrote:

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photoga...ash_1-2005.mpg

It's a HUGE file,

it would be a good idea to give the exact (or approx.) size of the videos.
what is a huge file?

sent to us by a fellow newsgroupie who used his TIVO
set-up to capture the video, enlarge it, and run it in slow-motion.
(If you're on dial-up, you may want to skip this one.)

can you please avoid spaces in filenames?

#m

btw: your c-130 gif on the left upper navigation is broken.
--
http://www.terranova.net/content/images/goering.jpg

what I fail to understand, is while he was still above tree top height.. he
did not do a 90 right into that golf course.. trees are more forgiving than
concrete power poles..

BT

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
I finally got some time to put this one up on our site. See it at

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photoga...ash_1-2005.mpg

It's a HUGE file, sent to us by a fellow newsgroupie who used his TIVO
set-up to capture the video, enlarge it, and run it in slow-motion.
(If you're on dial-up, you may want to skip this one.)

It really shows how little choice the poor Cessna pilot had at the last
moment, when that pickup truck suddenly appeared out of no where. His
choices were either (a) hit the truck, or (b) try to veer to the right
and avoid it.

He chose (b), thus saving everyone in the pickup truck, but gave his
life in exchange. A true hero.

See all the videos we've collected at:

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/aviation_videos.htm

Some are funny, some are tragic, many are educational -- but all are
fascinating.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I wasn't there at the time and cannot comment on this crash.

I would make the observation that roadways are often the worst option for a
"good" landing. Roads may look like a place to try to make a "great"
landing but are usually far to narrow. The power wires, trees and sign
posts adjacent to most roads can contact a wing tip while the aircraft is
still too high to survive the fall. Even a glancing force from dragging a
tree out on the wing tip will cause the aircraft to rotate around the struck
wing and we will see something close to a slow snap roll where the inside
wing will be stalled and the outside wing will rise sharply. This is a
horizontal spin.

Roadways are also full of big heavy steel things both moving and parked and
full of people who will not be aware you are in distress.

Always remember:
"In any emergency you are now flying an aircraft that belongs to your
insurance company in which you hope to preserve the lives of your passengers
and yourself."

If all else fails try to fly the aircraft as far into the crash as you can.

It is better to hit the bottom of a tree almost stopped than to hit near the
top almost flying.

Blue skies to you all

"BTIZ" wrote in message
news:fuxGd.1367$ry.1317@fed1read05...
what I fail to understand, is while he was still above tree top height..
he
did not do a 90 right into that golf course.. trees are more forgiving
than
concrete power poles..

BT

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
I finally got some time to put this one up on our site. See it at


http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photoga...a_crash_1-2005
..mpg

It's a HUGE file, sent to us by a fellow newsgroupie who used his TIVO
set-up to capture the video, enlarge it, and run it in slow-motion.
(If you're on dial-up, you may want to skip this one.)

It really shows how little choice the poor Cessna pilot had at the last
moment, when that pickup truck suddenly appeared out of no where. His
choices were either (a) hit the truck, or (b) try to veer to the right
and avoid it.

He chose (b), thus saving everyone in the pickup truck, but gave his
life in exchange. A true hero.

See all the videos we've collected at:

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/aviation_videos.htm

Some are funny, some are tragic, many are educational -- but all are
fascinating.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Firstly, thanks Jay for putting the file up.

Secondly, I have to agree with Martin in that "huge" is somewhat
'relative' - for example, I routinely work with video files in the range of
13 to 20 Giga bytes, which I think of as normal - so I tend to think of your
'huge' 14MB as being 'trivial' (took less than 2 1/2 minutes to download).


"Martin Hotze" wrote in message
...
On 16 Jan 2005 08:01:00 -0800, Jay Honeck wrote:


http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photoga...na_crash_1-200
5.mpg

It's a HUGE file,

it would be a good idea to give the exact (or approx.) size of the videos.
what is a huge file?

sent to us by a fellow newsgroupie who used his TIVO
set-up to capture the video, enlarge it, and run it in slow-motion.
(If you're on dial-up, you may want to skip this one.)

can you please avoid spaces in filenames?

#m

btw: your c-130 gif on the left upper navigation is broken.
--
http://www.terranova.net/content/images/goering.jpg

"BTIZ" wrote in message
news:fuxGd.1367$ry.1317@fed1read05...
what I fail to understand, is while he was still above tree top height..
he
did not do a 90 right into that golf course.. trees are more forgiving
than
concrete power poles..

I wondered the same thing - the other thing I found surprising is that this
was a fatal accident - from the point at which the aircraft hits the wire it
appears to come to a halt quickly and then drops vertically. Sure, nothing
I'd like to try in practice, but I didn't see anything that I would have
thought would have killed anyone, assuming they were belted in good and
tight.

Jay Honeck wrote:
It really shows how little choice the poor Cessna pilot had at the last
moment, when that pickup truck suddenly appeared out of no where. His
choices were either (a) hit the truck, or (b) try to veer to the right
and avoid it.

He chose (b), thus saving everyone in the pickup truck, but gave his
life in exchange. A true hero.

I think "hero" is... well perhaps we all have a different definition of
"hero". I'd like to know more about the entire accident sequence before
judging the CFI on this one. Wasn't he landing right next to a golf couse?
What other options did he have? Is it really that bad to read-end a truck
at (a guestimate) 20 mph in a 172? (Cessna's groundspeed minus truck's
forward speed) This is all Monday morning QB - I may have made the same
decisions, but since I believe decision making is where we as pilots can
really improve the accident rate, it sure is worth thinking about and
understand the events.

I just think "hero" is too stronge of a word when in some accidents (not
specifically this one), the pilot run of of gas thereby endangering himself
and his passengers, and then lands in a field in a built-up area and is
labeled a "hero".

Hilton

Jay Honeck wrote:
I finally got some time to put this one up on our site. See it at


http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photoga...ash_1-2005.mpg



It looked like the pilot originally tried to set up for the golf course
and then opted to try for the road at the last minute when they saw the
golfer on the field. They appeared to be much too high to make the
golf course however.

Once they turned towards the road on the left, the pilot may have
suddenly realized that he was going to overshoot the centerline of the
road and made some small corrections to the right to compensate for the
drift to the left. It did look like he had everything under control
before disappearing behind a set of trees. Once the plane was behind
the trees, the bottom of the left wing settled down on top of a power
line running along side of the road. You can see the power lines sag
down before the plane reappears from behind the trees. Since the left
wing was now riding on top of the power line, the continuing descent
set the plane on a knife edge, shearing off parts of the right wing as
it struck the ground and unfortunately guided the cockpit straight into
the utility pole. The video seems to also show that he was able to
clear the truck if he had made it to the road.

A quick look on terraserver NW of Orlando Executive revealed this golf
course that looks like the site they were aiming for:

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ima...rlando%7cfl%7c

What a tragedy this is. It looked like they had a real shot of a
successful forced landing. Since most of my flying is over densely
populated areas, I have to wonder how I would've reacted if I were in
their shoes at the time.

Here is the NTSB prelim report:
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...13X00046&key=1

What other options did he have? Is it really that bad to read-end a truck
at (a guestimate) 20 mph in a 172? (Cessna's groundspeed minus truck's

Off memory, isn't VSo in a MAUW 172 something like only 33 knots?

Again off memory I believe they have the numbers for being the safest GA
aeroplane of all time.