Any news on what happened to this plane?

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CEO bought more jet than he could handle. Fatigue, weather, visibility, and get-home-itis all came into play.
 
Another rich guy thinks he’s a pilot....and bites off more than he can chew.

Happens with depressing regularity.

You may be legal, and think you’re OK to fly over water at night.

But it’s not VFR. It’s frackin’ dark. With no horizon
 
Originally Posted By: 4WD
Reminds me of JFK Jr … ended a bright future trying to be a pilot …


Yup. Over Long Island Sound in the summer. No horizon. What a shame.
 
Originally Posted By: Sam_Julier
Originally Posted By: 4WD
Reminds me of JFK Jr … ended a bright future trying to be a pilot …


Yup. Over Long Island Sound in the summer. No horizon. What a shame.


Aircraft are rich man's hotrods.

If you owned a plane but had someone fly you around, it would be difficult to resist. Free as a bird with multiple engines, who could resist that?
 
Spatial disorientation.

He took off at night and made a 90 degree turn. The ears can really play tricks on you.

You need to use and trust those instruments.
 
Originally Posted By: AandPDan
Spatial disorientation.

He took off at night and made a 90 degree turn. The ears can really play tricks on you.

You need to use and trust those instruments.


True instrument flying requires training and discipline.

Both tend to be in rather short supply when talking about wealthy owner operators...

What’s not in short supply: ego.

No idea of their limitations. After all, they’re successful people, so they think they can do anything...

Flying an airplane is easy, right?
 
It was interesting to read through all the comments in the kathrynsreport link. I think I'll wait for the NTSB report.

If I was a pilot, I'd've been scared witless taking off as he did. I agree, on the surface it looks like a rich man's arrogance.
 
Originally Posted By: Crispysea
Looks as if the plane possibly iced over, too. I doubt he had experience with icing, among other things.


Ostensibly, all those things (instrument, icing, etc.) would be covered in his annual training, which was completed weeks before the accident.

However, the owner was single pilot at the time, and had very little time in type.

Neither is good...particularly when dealing with complex problems like high winds, low visibility, pure IFR, potential icing, and hand-flying. There are many ways that human physiology falls short in an aviation environment. The most common is a graveyard spiral, in which your inner ear didn't sense the initial roll, and now you feel as though you've rolled the opposite direction, so, you roll more in the direction in which you had already rolled, tightening up the turn, and entering a steep spiral, and as you lose altitude, you pull back harder, increasing both the turn rate and illusion...

Only slightly less common is a somatogravic illusion - in which you perceive acceleration/deceleration as pitch up/down respectively. So, even though the airplane didn't pitch, you respond to the acceleration/deceleration as though it did, pulling up in response to a power reduction, and thereby stalling the airplane, or pushing forward on a power increase, and fly right into the water.

Both have happened before, many, many times, and in similar conditions. A clear horizon on a good day counters all of these inner-ear illusions with real-world cues that allows your brain to become properly oriented.

But on a dark night, over the water, even if you're clear of clouds, there is no horizon. Those inner-ear illusions are hard to overcome. Your primal brain is screaming at you that you're turning, or climbing, or descending, when, in fact, you're not.

Rigorous discipline on the instruments, and lots of practice flying them, is the only counter.

Most low-time, instrument rated pilots simply lack both the discipline and the practice to avoid those traps.

JFK Jr. is a classic example. He was flying over water, using visual flight rules. But, at night, away from land, there is no horizon. and visual flight rules, while legal, are deadly.

I think this guy was the same: in a more complex airplane, turning, at night, over the water, as he leveled off in a high-performance airplane. His eyes and his inner ear were in conflict.

His instincts won.
 
No low time PPL belongs in a single pilot jet, as has been proven time and again.
There is no substitute for regular IFR flying if a pilot is to remain proficient.
If the accident pilot filed a VFR flight plan in the dark over water conditions described, then he was acting with a lack of the judgment that any good pilot must use.
A good pilot being one who doesn't destroy his machine and kill himself in the process, of course.
This guy set himself up for failure.
You see this sort of thing fairly often in bright guys who figure that if all those ATPs can do it, then a smart guy like him should have no problem.
These guys neglect to reflect that all of those ATPs fly through real IFR on a regular basis in planes a lot more demanding than a Cessna Citation and that they're also very bright guys.
 
Originally Posted By: Astro14
Ostensibly, all those things (instrument, icing, etc.) would be covered in his annual training, which was completed weeks before the accident.

However, the owner was single pilot at the time, and had very little time in type.

Neither is good...particularly when dealing with complex problems like high winds, low visibility, pure IFR, potential icing, and hand-flying. There are many ways that human physiology falls short in an aviation environment. The most common is a graveyard spiral, in which your inner ear didn't sense the initial roll, and now you feel as though you've rolled the opposite direction, so, you roll more in the direction in which you had already rolled, tightening up the turn, and entering a steep spiral, and as you lose altitude, you pull back harder, increasing both the turn rate and illusion...

Only slightly less common is a somatogravic illusion - in which you perceive acceleration/deceleration as pitch up/down respectively. So, even though the airplane didn't pitch, you respond to the acceleration/deceleration as though it did, pulling up in response to a power reduction, and thereby stalling the airplane, or pushing forward on a power increase, and fly right into the water.

Both have happened before, many, many times, and in similar conditions. A clear horizon on a good day counters all of these inner-ear illusions with real-world cues that allows your brain to become properly oriented.

But on a dark night, over the water, even if you're clear of clouds, there is no horizon. Those inner-ear illusions are hard to overcome. Your primal brain is screaming at you that you're turning, or climbing, or descending, when, in fact, you're not.

Rigorous discipline on the instruments, and lots of practice flying them, is the only counter.

Most low-time, instrument rated pilots simply lack both the discipline and the practice to avoid those traps.

JFK Jr. is a classic example. He was flying over water, using visual flight rules. But, at night, away from land, there is no horizon. and visual flight rules, while legal, are deadly.

I think this guy was the same: in a more complex airplane, turning, at night, over the water, as he leveled off in a high-performance airplane. His eyes and his inner ear were in conflict.

His instincts won.


All of that makes absolute perfect sense. But I've never understood how hard can it be for a pilot, any pilot, to look at an artificial horizon.... And believe it?
 
It's hard to believe your eyes, particularly when your eyes see just a small instrument, when your vestibular input is telling your brain something completely different.

Ever see folks try this: put their forehead on a bat held vertically, and spin around the bat?

When they stand up - they fall over immediately! I tried this once, in college, and I jumped to the side to escape the floor that was rising up at me...except that the floor was steady, and what my eyes saw was real... But the sloshing fluid in my inner ear (and those of my team-mates) completely overpowered my brain and I believed that the gym floor was moving up at me.

Flight induces similar accelerations that are picked up by the inner ear. Those inputs become overwhelming.

You can train a pilot to ignore what his body is telling him, but it does take training, and lots of it, because fundamentally, people are wired to accept the inner ear input. It is hard to train out biology.
 
Hopefully the the blue "level" button and other recently hatched envelope protections will save a lot of families flying with the ego-ridden more-money-than-brains hero. That's exactly who it's designed for. One more step toward flying around in drones I guess.

Interestingly I have read a couple of master flight instructors lately who put forward some up-til-now heretical ideas. The first was that he would rather see people with the full intent of buying a personal jet go from the trainer with an IFR straight to the jet and get the complex, turbine, RVSM and multi along with getting the type rating in the jet. His reasoning was that a way station at workload-heavy piston twin was a waste of time and money. He didn't specify FADEC, antiskid brakes and autothrottles. (which are becoming available) but I would have. In a world with 350kt+ King Airs and 400 kt Piaggio turbines I'm not sure the motive force makes a difference anymore.

The other guy would do a full ab initio in the light jet. With nothing to compare it to and absolutely having to fly any jet to the correct airspeeds for every regime he felt the simplicity of many modern jets could overcome "bad habits" learned from lesser airplanes along the way. That position, while understandable, is harder to defend in my mind. Both approaches would require a mentor for the first 500 hours. Cha-ching but the Daddy Warbucks going at it this way can probably handle it.

I have to confess I have come to believe that the complex, piston twin is an unneeded waypoint. Good yes, smart yes, useful yes but not absolutely mandatory. Increased IFR and emergency procedures training (and testing) throughout is a necessity either way. With an A/P and the other technologies/training mentioned and a Phenom 300 (insert fervent prayer here) I would be comfortable putting my family in back. At any rate, we may be coming to a point where the "doctor killers" can be mitigated.

Cheers guys and Happy Sunday.

Larry
 
The second idea actually makes a lot of sense.
If you take a rich guy who intends to buy and operate a turbine single-pilot, why have him earn his PPL and IFR rating in something easy and forgiving in which his take-away might be that it's okay to deviate from procedures since nothing bad happens when you do?
Why have him fly a piston twin to earn his multi rating?
If the guy can really afford both the cost and the time commitment involved in learning to safely operate a turbine aircraft, an ab initio program might be the quickest and most effective way for him to reach that goal.
If the prospective pilot can't afford the dollars or the time, then he should be encouraged to scale his turbine dreams down to something like a Pilatus which is less likely to kill him and his family while still offering impressive capabilities. He should also be encouraged to avoid potentially difficult situations like the one noted in the opening post.
 
Gear up, flaps up, autopilot on. It can be done in 4 seconds if necessary.

I work with HNW (high net worth) individuals and their aircraft. It's my opinion that HNW people tend not to be willing to spend the time getting a type rating or doing any sort of recurrent training at Flight Safety. I have seen many HNW people try hard to skirt the real world requirements of the profession. Choosing instead to do the bare minimum.

As mentioned above proficiency and professionalism has a known set of requirements. Our flight department has very professional pilots that take their proficiency very seriously. Many others do not.
 
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I think you're right on the number one issue - unwillingness to invest the proper time. I worry that the PC-12 / TBM crowd may have a goodly number of guys who only train to your 4 second operational scenario beyond the Flight Safety visit. And, if true and sad as that may be, it's probably OK 99% of the time for guys that came out of a Cirrus or similar (recent technology, IFR experience, etc.). They "get away with it". I have to admit that envy *may* color my opinion of those folks but I don't want to fly with some of them when it all goes wrong on that cold, dark night.

That 4 seconds would be in a Beechcraft, right?
grin.gif


Cheers guys

Larry
 
Several, (but by no means all), of the very wealthy people I've met in life unfortunately develop the mindset that once you have the money, you are, "over the hump" in life, so to speak. And everything beyond that is a given. Nothing in life is a given. Possession may be 9/10ths of the law when it comes to expensive sports cars, houses, and boats..... But not high performance corporate airplanes. Anyone with enough cash can drive a Ferrari, or drag a Pavati to the lake, and ride around impressing babes in skimpy bikini's.

But operating a complex aircraft requires time and training. It's not something you can, "develop a feel for as you go". Unfortunately many who don't believe that end up like this guy. Or Jack Roush, who I like to refer to as, "the luckiest man in aviation". The list is long and distinguished of wealthy, famous people with airplanes who snuggled neatly into the, "more money than skill and brains" department.
 
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