YouTube Influencer crashes GA aircraft, questions on a lot of things

[c502cid]

The final o.k came from the FAA examiner.

That's one of them I'm talking about. Is it easy to fool them?

 

[MRC01]

I don't care how much extra money I would make, I would never encourage a student to keep trying if it was obvious they just don't get it and are dangerous.
Some pilots ( even after they somehow got their license) do not know how weak they are.

I think it’s more about poor pilot skills, period.
...
Not really a pilot in other words.

As an EAA Eagle mentor, in recent years I've seen a disturbing trend, flight instructors who are relatively young and inexperienced, the ink still wet on their certs, teaching other pilots only to build up the 1500 hours they need for their ATP to move on with their career. They may love flying but they don't love teaching, and even if they did, getting commercial+CFI can be done in as few as 250 hours which is nowhere near enough to have the experience and judgment to teach others well. Incidentally, this rare trifecta of desire, skill, and experience is what makes good CFIs so valuable and unique. These fresh young CFIs tend to teach flying by the numbers, by rote rather than by practice and understanding, they haven't been flying long enough to know what they don't know. This leads to new pilots being trained superficially as regulation memorizers and aircraft systems operators rather than developing the skills and understanding to turn off the systems and fly the airplane.

That said, most CFIs -- especially the ones with grey hair -- are pilot's pilots with thousands of hours flying in many different circumstances who have been there, done that, love flying, keep their skills and knowledge sharp and love sharing that knowledge with new pilots. They are certainly not doing it for the money, that's for sure.

The final o.k came from the FAA examiner.

Yep. If a student fails his checkride, it reflects poorly on his CFI. The FAA expects a reasonably high pass rate else it suggests the CFI isn't teaching everything he should be. So it's the CFI's responsibillity not to sign off a student for the checkride unless he believes that student has the skils and knowledge to fly safely and legally, and will pass the checkride. But ultimately it is up to the DPE (designated pilot examiner) to determine whether that student passes. If both the CFI and DPE pencil-whip a license for a student who shouldn't be flying, then Darwin usually claims that student sooner or later (as in this case). I'll add that as a strong believer in personal responsibility, the pilot candidate should also ask himself how good are his skills and knowledge, does he feel that he can be responsible and safe not only for himself but also for his passengers?

That's one of them I'm talking about. Is it easy to fool them?

IME, it is not easy to fool a DPE. The system works well most of the time, training pilots to be safe and responsible and weeding out those who cannot. If that weren't the case, it would be raining small airplanes.

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

That's one of them I'm talking about. Is it easy to fool them?

Some pilots are inconsistent ( good some days, bad other days ) , but usually weak pilots are weak all the time.

Some weak pilots even fool themselves. They don’t think they are weak.

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

One of the BIG reasons FO’s fail Captain upgrades is due to low situational awareness.

 

[john_pifer]

One of the BIG reasons FO’s fail Captain upgrades is due to low situational awareness.

Would you elaborate?

Piloting an aircraft IS situational awareness. Its the number one thing you have to do to fly a plane.

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

Would you elaborate?

Piloting an aircraft IS situational awareness. Its the number one thing you have to do to fly a plane.

You don't seem to need me to answer it if you're telling me what it is.

 

[edyvw]

The above comments about not understanding the aircraft systems are correct. She also seems to have had a fundamental lack of basic airmanship - for example in one video wondering why the airplane won't climb when she didn't add power. This is normally covered in pilot training, one can't even solo without demonstrating those skills, let alone get a pilots license, though her case seems to be an exception.

My impression is that she was pencil-whipped through the training process without really understanding or demonstrating the skills. That's partly but not entirely her fault, instructors and examiners are supposed to know better.

If someone needs any kind of training to understand that in order to go up, to overcome gravitational force, one needs power, that person shouldn’t be next to any kind of machine.
That skill is obtained on bike with helping wheels. Uphill, more push. By year 7 kids get it.

 

[john_pifer]

You don't seem to need me to answer it if you're telling me what it is.

I was just curious about some of the ways that a professional pilot might lose situational awareness in a severe enough way that he would fail a sim check, given that maintaining that is obviously a big part of the job.

 

[Owen Lucas]

I was just curious about some of the ways that a professional pilot might lose situational awareness in a severe enough way that he would fail a sim check, given that maintaining that is obviously a big part of the job.

A few examples of this I've seen mentioned in crash documentaries are situations like a steep dive, flying too slow (losing lift), and too close to the ground. I don't know how you can't notice if your nose is pointed down or going to slow, I guess this would be loss of situational awareness.

Isn't there a seat of your pant's skill to flying a plane, like you'd fell the angle of the plane even if the instrumentation is wrong? Maybe it's harder to feel in a passenger airliner than a Cessna?

 

[97prizm]

Supposedly they recovered the Gopro cameras she was using. So it's very likely they have video of the entire accident, beginning to end. That may help in determining the exact cause.... Assuming they weren't damaged too badly.

I read that the airspeed was somewhere around 252 knots at impact. At a 60 degree downward angle.

That's really fast, and a steep angle. That makes me really wonder what happened to cause that scenario.

 

[97prizm]

As an EAA Eagle mentor, in recent years I've seen a disturbing trend, flight instructors who are relatively young and inexperienced, the ink still wet on their certs, teaching other pilots only to build up the 1500 hours they need for their ATP to move on with their career. They may love flying but they don't love teaching, and even if they did, getting commercial+CFI can be done in as few as 250 hours which is nowhere near enough to have the experience and judgment to teach others well. Incidentally, this rare trifecta of desire, skill, and experience is what makes good CFIs so valuable and unique. These fresh young CFIs tend to teach flying by the numbers, by rote rather than by practice and understanding, they haven't been flying long enough to know what they don't know. This leads to new pilots being trained superficially as regulation memorizers and aircraft systems operators rather than developing the skills and understanding to turn off the systems and fly the airplane.

That said, most CFIs -- especially the ones with grey hair -- are pilot's pilots with thousands of hours flying in many different circumstances who have been there, done that, love flying, keep their skills and knowledge sharp and love sharing that knowledge with new pilots. They are certainly not doing it for the money, that's for sure.


Yep. If a student fails his checkride, it reflects poorly on his CFI. The FAA expects a reasonably high pass rate else it suggests the CFI isn't teaching everything he should be. So it's the CFI's responsibillity not to sign off a student for the checkride unless he believes that student has the skils and knowledge to fly safely and legally, and will pass the checkride. But ultimately it is up to the DPE (designated pilot examiner) to determine whether that student passes. If both the CFI and DPE pencil-whip a license for a student who shouldn't be flying, then Darwin usually claims that student sooner or later (as in this case). I'll add that as a strong believer in personal responsibility, the pilot candidate should also ask himself how good are his skills and knowledge, does he feel that he can be responsible and safe not only for himself but also for his passengers?


IME, it is not easy to fool a DPE. The system works well most of the time, training pilots to be safe and responsible and weeding out those who cannot. If that weren't the case, it would be raining small airplanes.

Great comments. I soloed many years back. I'm hoping to go back and at some point get my pilots license. My instructor was very adamant about "Aviating" ie flying the plane. His rule of thumb was to get yourself on the ground safely. If you don't aviate you could become a statistic.

 

[The_Eric]

If someone needs any kind of training to understand that in order to go up, to overcome gravitational force, one needs power, that person shouldn’t be next to any kind of machine.
That skill is obtained on bike with helping wheels. Uphill, more push. By year 7 kids get it.

I think that some folks (maybe an increasing amount) simply do not understand these basic core tennets... The absolute basic bits of physics, chemistry and so on, even if they "know" them. Your example of of riding a bike is a great one... But who has really thought about it as they've ridden? Or any other core aspects as they've experienced them?

What's that about common sense?

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

I was just curious about some of the ways that a professional pilot might lose situational awareness in a severe enough way that he would fail a sim check, given that maintaining that is obviously a big part of the job.

Gotcha now.

Classic loss of situational awareness is CFIT ( controlled flight into terrain ) but there is other stuff that causes a pilot problems that’s not as obvious.

Let me get back to you tomorrow morning ( in between shifts down south ) when I get back.

 

[billt460]

That's really fast, and a steep angle. That makes me really wonder what happened to cause that scenario.

One of the Youtube crash analyzers, (I want to say it was Juan Brown), said it was possible that because she didn't understand the autopilot, or how to correctly use it, she got the airplane in a very heavy nose down trim, that the autopilot was fighting against. (Her altitude was all over the place in the last couple of minutes before the plunge).

When the autopilot was than disconnected, (either by her, or automatically), it basically sent the airplane into a nosedive. The speed of the aircraft then increased rapidly.

This speed, coupled with the heavy nose down trim, supposedly could have caused so much downward pressure on the control yoke, she couldn't overcome it.

They said the data showed a rate of descent at impact was almost 12,000 feet per minute. That's over 2.2 miles per minute. That translates into a descent rate of over 120 MPH straight into the ground, at what was an approximate 60 degree angle.

Terminal velocity for the average skydiver is right around 125 MPH in a spread eagle free fall. They did say they did not recover ANY of the instruments from the panel.

I have no idea how the guts of a Gopro work. But that is a tremendous impact, that I'm sure produced one very ugly crash site. The last few seconds of that flight had to be downright terrifying!

 

[nate379]

The above comments about not understanding the aircraft systems are correct. She also seems to have had a fundamental lack of basic airmanship - for example in one video wondering why the airplane won't climb when she didn't add power. This is normally covered in pilot training, one can't even solo without demonstrating those skills, let alone get a pilots license, though her case seems to be an exception.

My impression is that she was pencil-whipped through the training process without really understanding or demonstrating the skills. That's partly but not entirely her fault, instructors and examiners are supposed to know better.

Curious, what stops me from flying without having a license? There cops for planes?

 

[Smoky14]

Don't stop flying the aircraft until the aircraft stops flying.
Flying without feathers ain't easy.

Smoky

 

[DuckRyder]

I have no idea how the guts of a Gopro work. But that is a tremendous impact, that I'm sure produced one very ugly crash site. The last few seconds of that flight had to be downright terrifying!

GoPros use micro SDs. Some (maybe all recent ones) can also upload directly to GoPro cloud storage.

 

[billt460]

GoPros use micro SDs. Some (maybe all recent ones) can also upload directly to GoPro cloud storage.

So are you saying, (correct me if I'm wrong), if the Gopro was uploading in real time as everything was taking place, would it then not matter how pulverized the actual camera was at impact?

 

[Astro14]

Curious, what stops me from flying without having a license? There cops for planes?

You would have to own the airplane. Nobody is going to rent you an airplane without all the documentation.

But you do not need a license to buy an airplane.

Yes, there are cops for airplanes - FAA inspectors. You can get a “ramp check” any time they feel like it. They will ask to see your logbook, aircraft maintenance records, medical certificate, pilots license, endorsements, all of it.

Up to them what to do if you fail to produce the requested documentation.

You don’t get pulled over in the sky - but the ramp check will make getting pulled over look like a pleasant experience.

 

[DuckRyder]

So are you saying, (correct me if I'm wrong), if the Gopro was uploading in real time as everything was taking place, would it then not matter how pulverized the actual camera was at impact?

Yes though i doubt that was the case. It would have to have a connection through WiFi or bluetooth (AFAIK anyway). In any case, the camera itself doesn't mater, it is the MicroSD assuming it isn't damaged and can be removed without damaging it the footage should be recoverable. I'd say it's within the realm of possibility.

I doubt we will ever see it though, which is ok with me.