Light plane crashes

[Gabriel]

By the way…wait for the final report is not a literal statement on an ass-hat parlour talk discussion forum. It’s really only valid when there’s more than one likely theory but the data needed to distinguish between the theiries probably won’t be available till then.

There are data pointing to speed decay and the need for tight maneuvering.

By the way, I don’t like to compare this to Teterboro. Teterboro was gross airmanship, high speed, during the day in wide open terrain…

This seems much more precise, carefully controlled, challenging and tight with one final, small misjudgement/insidious neglect.

I agree. This may be a risk management issue. There is a known "fallacy" in risk management (don't know its name, but it falls under the bigger category of overconfidence) where one evaluates previous successful outcomes (and just the successful outcomes) favorably. For example: "I did it 9 times and all worked ok, so I feel very confident that it is safe". Well, guess what, if the next one goes wrong it is a 10% fail rate, which in risk management is AWFUL.

Apparently this plane and crew where based in this airport. Maybe they did this 270-turn visual approach to 27R several times times, threading the hills and all. Maybe they did it at night sometimes. Maybe they did it in less than perfect visibility some times. Maybe a few times with both circumstances combined. And they thought "we got this".

But the real question is.... if you did this 10 million times, in how many of them you would die? And of course that cannot be answered factually because nobody ever did 10 million times one thing ever. There is variation in all things involved. Visibility, wind, aircraft weight, and pilot performance (even if the pilot is the same). It is hard to judge those variations and their influence, but that is what risk management tries to do. Because one day you may find yourself at night, with visibility a little worse, with the runway and the hills coming in and out of sight, with the pilots maybe not in their sharpest day, with their performance and CRM a bit under their own average, and you may die. And if this combination may happen a few times per million, then it is too much risk even if you managed to pull it off 100 times successfully.

It is not how many times you did it successfully, it is not just the outcome, but what was the safety margin left in those times to absorb any reasonable variation of circumstances in the future, and any reasonable combination of variation of the circumstances that may conspire against you. And also not just variations of the previous circumstances, but outlier conditions not experienced before in the previous successful attempts. What if there is a windshare, what if there is an engine failure, etc...

It is not easy stuff.

[3WE]

… sudden transition from not falling out of he sky to falling out of the sky, which is all I’m saying. That and the Lear factor.

Fixed. There was plenty of not normal things on the Teterboro CVR.

Now, this crash may have had prior gross sloppiness OR could have had high levels of precision and safety right up through the final minute.

Acknowledged. The sudden loss and “Lear Factor” are comparable. Shall we throw in several short final/flare PIO control loss crashes…the sleek little aeroplanie has been known to bite.

[Evan]

By the way, I don’t like to compare this to Teterboro. Teterboro was gross airmanship, high speed, during the day in wide open terrain…

Teterboro was a late transition from the ILS approach to the circle-to-land maneuver caused by being way behind to begin with and leading to steeper maneuvers at low speed and altitude rather than a proper go-around. It fits into the sudden transition from normal CVR to panic CVR scenario, which is all I’m saying. That and the Lear factor.

[3WE]

By the way…wait for the final report is not a literal statement on an ass-hat parlour talk discussion forum. It’s really only valid when there’s more than one likely theory but the data needed to distinguish between the theories probably won’t be available till then.

There are data pointing to speed decay and the need for tight maneuvering.

By the way, I don’t like to compare this to Teterboro. Teterboro was gross airmanship, high speed, during the day in wide open terrain…

This seems much more precise, carefully controlled, challenging and tight with one final, small misjudgement/insidious neglect.

[3WE]

Throw in a sudden loss of 5-10kts relative wind during the heading change.

Are you Don Moore?

[brianw999]

Or just wait for the final report.

Fixed !

[Evan]

That's a good point. I think the Learjet has a stickshaker. I don't how well it would come through the pilot's hot mic.



How? No autothrottle, aiming to keep Vref which is the speed for the FINAL approach when you don't need to turn anymore, yet turning, looking too much outside whole circling VFR at night with marginal weather and, trying to find the runway that is coming into and out of sight and at the same time trying to thread the flight path through the narrow gap between 2 hills at both sides of the final approach whose peaks are above you.

Oh, Learjet. We've seen this before. Initial approach on the runway with ILS, then quick bendy maneuver to the desired runway heading without appropriate airspeed to accommodate the Lear tendency to fall out of the sky during steep low speed banks. Was that Teterboro? Throw in a sudden loss of 5-10kts relative wind during the heading change. Or just wait for the final report.

[3WE]

How? No autothrottle, aiming to keep Vref which is the speed for the FINAL approach when you don't need to turn anymore, yet turning, looking too much outside whole circling VFR at night with marginal weather and, trying to find the runway that is coming into and out of sight and at the same time trying to thread the flight path through the narrow gap between 2 hills at both sides of the final approach whose peaks are above you.

Yeah, at least it’s not a beautiful sunny afternoon, nor 36,000 feet fat dumb and happy (except for warnings).

I’m hard pressed to say wind shear, Delta-191 style, BUT some turbulence/speed fluctuation could certainly been a contributing factor.

[Gabriel]

Wind shear?

The wind was reported variable direction a 5 knots... that was on the field. It could have been different 800 ft AGL, especially in mountainous terrain.

So I vote for 3we's proposal, let's wait for the final report.

[Gabriel]

I would have expected to hear a stall warning if that were the case.

That's a good point. I think the Learjet has a stickshaker. I don't how well it would come through the pilot's hot mic.

Plus, how could any licensed commercial pilot pull up so much as to cause an inadvertent stall?

How? No autothrottle, aiming to keep Vref which is the speed for the FINAL approach when you don't need to turn anymore, yet turning, looking too much outside whole circling VFR at night with marginal weather and, trying to find the runway that is coming into and out of sight and at the same time trying to thread the flight path through the narrow gap between 2 hills at both sides of the final approach whose peaks are above you.

[3WE]

***a stall scenario***

I would have expected to hear a stall warning if that were the case.

Plus, how could any licensed commercial pilot pull up so much as to cause an inadvertent stall? I mean that’s so Uber basic, it’s hard to fathom…then again, keeping proper attitudes and SA in IMC is kinda basic, too.

I guess we’ll have to wait for the final report.

[Evan]

Wind shear?

[Gabriel]

and rather uninformative.

I read gossip that the weather at the field was OK, with hard, windy IMC closer to the hills.

Obvious speculation is severe disorientation from a brief ‘distraction’, possibly while hand flying in sudden IMC.

The audio has a part that is quite informative (although not conclusive) and the last part is extremely sad and emotionally troubling. Such last part was cut in some versions of the audio, understandable, I suppose either for respect to the deceased and their loved ones or to "protect" the audience from a traumatic experience.

The first part, more informative, has the following elements:

They were on an RNAV approach from the North to RWY 17.(so basically a straight in)
When they got the field on sight they requested to cancel IFR and to land on 27 right, which was granted. That required a 270 left (or 3 90s).(at night in mountainous terrain so no good horizon in a not very well lit area and with clouds on top so no stars or moon either)
At some point the pilot asks the tower to increase the intensity of the runway lights, to what the controller replies that they were at 100% already. This may be an indication that they were into and out of IMC.
The way that the communication changes suddenly from normal communication to screams of terror makes me think that it was a sudden loss of control, which would be more consistent with a stall scenario than spatial disorientation.

[3WE]

The audio is terrifying.

and rather uninformative.

I read gossip that the weather at the field was OK, with hard, windy IMC closer to the hills.

Obvious speculation is severe disorientation from a brief ‘distraction’, possibly while hand flying in sudden IMC.

[Gabriel]

A plane crashed on 12/28/2021.

I assume a fairly capable plane.

The audio is terrifying.