Private Pilots - Saving your passenger/self/plane VS killing someone on the ground

[David Goodman]

Serious question:

At what point do you drill that bird into the ground VS. the risk of killing someone on the ground?

Every couple of months there is a news story about a private pilot landing his/her aircraft on a roadway/highway/field etc. Seems like it happens more often than it should and always seems like a pretty dangerous thing for persons on the ground.

Here is a story about a guy that killed a father of two by landing his striken plane on a public beach.

Mom: Jogger hit by plane was excited to head home - Boston.com

Notice the pilot mentions the "tore up plane" before he mentions the person that he killed.

Is there some written or unwritten protocol for this kind of thing? Like an order of responsibily or something?

Like:
1. Passenger
2. Self
3. Plane
4. Innocent people on the ground

Thanks

[ODDJOB UNO]

yeah like why the hell didnt he BEEP HIS HORN OR SUMTHANG! or maybe yell "hey get the feek outta my way!"



ya just cant reason with KAMIKAZE PILOTS!

[Gogar]

1. Innocent people on the ground
2. Passenger
3. Self
4. Plane
5. Clown not-attorney

My guess, anyway.

[ODDJOB UNO]

Originally Posted by Gogar

1. Innocent people on the ground
2. Passenger
3. Self
4. Plane
5. Clown not-attorney

My guess, anyway.

LOL!

i mean come on here. the very least this intrepid pilot could have done is asked "mind if i play thru?"

[James Brown]

Well in the heat of battle with a malfunctioning aircraft, your choices are slim and none. If it's a engine failure, your just a glider and you get only one shot at landing. and you have to choose early and stick with your choice, no wave-off/go around! If someone/something gets in your way on final, try your best but you get what you get.
I bet most "heroes" trying to land in an emergency might have noticed that family picnicking on the beach and swerved at the last minute, stalling and crashing away from people. They get hailed as heroes but they probity didn't intend to do that. First and foremost a pilot wants to make a "normal" emergency landing and walk away.

[Eric Coffey]

Probably not a lot of time to think/plan, flying that "fast glass" beast dead-stick with an oil-smeared windscreen.

[ODDJOB UNO]

kind of evident he wanted and DID PLAY THRU despite the waters edge being a few feet off from the pics.

[dondarnell]

Seems hard to believe that the polit couldn't have drilled that puppy in instead hitting the jogger. I was in a UH-1H once and the last jumper's d-bag took out the rear rotor. The pilot could have safety landed the bird (we were jumping only at 800 AGL), but instead took the bird out of the line jumpers and crashed badly. Very unselfish act of the Army pilot.

This pilot probably cared more about the bird.

[stealthn]

Ah...ditch it in the water you frikken idiot..

Charge him with vehicular homicide and be done with it.

[m21sniper]

He probably didn't see the jogger until the last second.

Too bad for the jogger he wasn't a lazy dude sitting at home eating pizza. He'd still be alive today.

I wonder how many joggers/bike riders manage to get themselves killed or maimed every year "staying in shape."

[Normy]

Originally Posted by m21sniper

He probably didn't see the jogger until the last second.

Too bad for the jogger he wasn't a lazy dude sitting at home eating pizza. He'd still be alive today.

I wonder how many joggers/bike riders manage to get themselves killed or maimed every year "staying in shape."

I run on a typical day a 6.2 mile course that snakes through mostly residential neighborhoods in Fort Liquordale and I have to say that I am a DEFENSIVE runner! I've had people come right at me- I'm not kidding! I've had to jump out of the street and onto the grass a few times. I then exercise my diaphragm screaming expletives~

One thing that I NEVER do is run with earbuds. I use my ears to sense cars around me, and I think it is stupid to do otherwise. Everyone is on their damn cellphone when they are driving these days! Listen, I pull over. If one of my friends wants to talk to me, then I think it is polite to give them my attention. If I have something to do, then I tell them that and ask to call them back. Most of the close calls I've had have invariably been with someone who is on their damn phone!

Just like aviation, running isn't inherently dangerous. It is just very unforgiving of any carelessness or neglect. If you don't look once, twice....three times, and then one more for the CORPS when you cross a road then evolution is taking place. Sorry.

As to that guy flying that plane? I suspect he didn't see the guy running until the last moment, but even then the windshield was covered with oil since the front seal on the gear case blew out when the propellor flew off and caused a monstrous overspeed. I can't believe he didn't have an un-contained rotor-burst! The PT-6 engine in that thing has 4 stages of axial compressor at the rear, and the N1 speed must have gone through the roof!

People used to ask me when I flew passengers for the two regional airlines and the one 727 operator where I was a Captain if I was ever worried about the 177 people in the back. I just told them that if my ass gets there safe then so does theirs so I don't think about them, I just think about getting my own rear safely on the ground. When things go wrong you go into a mode, and what is behind the cockpit door doesn't matter.

N-

[m21sniper]

With a windshield full of oil i don't know how anyone can fault the guy for not seeing a jogger as he came in dead stick.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by m21sniper

With a windshield full of oil i don't know how anyone can fault the guy for not seeing a jogger as he came in dead stick.

Exactly! The pilot could not see anything in this situation, his prop had come off and the windshield was covered in oil. He had very few options in this situation.

Then we get dipsXXX posting's saying "ditch it in the water" when there is a nice open and what the pilot hoped is a clear beach. Add to the mix a jogger who is oblivious to ANYTHING going around themselves with the frigging headphones in their ear and who knows whats going to happen.

I feel sorry for the jogger but also feel sorry for the pilot. Neither of them wanted to have a day like this. Have any of you ever thought about ditching in the water, then being trapped in the plane, not being able to get the door open or belt off and drowning? This is not Hollywood and you are not always able to pop the door open, jump out to a waiting boat and waltz to shore.

This is an "Act of God," nothing more and nothing less. They call them accidents for a good reason and thats what this was.

[billybek]

How much noise does an unpowered airplane make?
I doubt I would hear it.
Still the pilots responsibility to avoid contact with people on the ground. Hope! You have to do better than hope!
The poor bugger that got hit was (at least in his mind) safe from all the goofy actions of motorist and cyclist, then gets run over by something falling from the sky. What are the chances of this sequence of events happening?
I wonder if some poor AME had just finished working on this aircraft....

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by billybek

How much noise does an unpowered airplane make?
I doubt I would hear it.
Still the pilots responsibility to avoid contact with people on the ground. Hope! You have to do better than hope!
The poor bugger that got hit was (at least in his mind) safe from all the goofy actions of motorist and cyclist, then gets run over by something falling from the sky. What are the chances of this sequence of events happening?
I wonder if some poor AME had just finished working on this aircraft....

Depends A LOT on what kind of plane it is. An old biplane with guide wires and lots of drag usually whistles on the way down, engine or not. The newer composite airplane's are pretty slick and may have been a lot quieter.

Put yourself in the pilots seat then hope. Prop departed the plane, that filled the seat with brown material to begin with. Then oil started pumping out and covered the entire windshield, blocking about 95% of your forward vision. Entire airplane is shaking, rattling and you are not sure if its going to fall apart or stay together.

Then you see a beach and "thank God" you might survive this thing, battling with an airplane with no power, shaking like a wet dog, covered in oil and way out of weight and balance. As you flare you might or might not see someone with their ears plugged with a walkman or Ipod plugs and its far too late to do anything, you are on top of them if you even saw them in the first place.

Believe that the PIC did a pretty good job as is and did everything that they could do to avoid harming anyone or anything. He/she did not want to hurt anyone but now we have a lot of "monday morning quarterbacks" coming out telling them what they should have done, when they prolly had about 20 seconds from start to finish, five times as long as it took to type this post.

[widgeon13]

i have always thought it was bad to run on the beach!

Case closed.

[tcar]

That's a high performance plane, designed for high altitude, high speed. It doesn't glide very well. It would be very, very quiet.

The pilot can't see what's under the plane, or straight ahead for a distance. If you're flaring (nose slightly up) to get the speed down before 'landing', that distance ahead/below increases a lot.

Oil.

The pilot may not have seen the guy he hit, either.

One witness said the plane WAS in the water, close to shore (could have been tide coming in later, though).

BTW, the article said it was a 'turbine' engine and someone above said it was a PT6 turboprop, but the IV-P model is not a turboprop, its a turobcharged engine (and the nose architecture in the pic looks like the turboCHARGED reciprocal model IV-P). There is a propjet model, but it's model designation is different - "IV Propjet"

[James Brown]

Yes it was a piston aircraft, normalized turbocharger.

[p911dad]

Check out the "Island Packet", the local Hilton Head paper. The story is the flight was at 13,000 feet over the ocean heading from Orlando to VA, when the trouble started. The pilot was told to head for Hilton Head airport (on the north end of the island) by the Marine Corps approach controllers in Beaufort. It sounds like the engine seized and the propeller separated. So the guy was heading for the airport in a glide and simply ran out of altitude.

[Noah930]

Originally Posted by gmeteer

So the guy was heading for the airport in a glide and simply ran out of altitude.

Isn't that what happens in pretty much every airplane crash? (Short of being blown to bits in mid-air by some missile?)