Bad Cessna crash in San Diego

[herr_oberst]

More information coming in, but Juan has some solid information (as usual)

[KNS]

That's look bad for the pilot, possibly flying single pilot. Should have landed at Thermal or Palm Springs.

[pmax]

[afterburn 549]

How come there is no pic of what's left of the airframe anywhere?

[KNS]

^^
I saw a picture of an engine and partial wing section. Fire consumed much it.

[GH85Carrera]

That crash seems to be 100% pilot error. He had to have the "get there syndrome". He must have ignored his instruments, and tried to land with visual clues, and was totally disoriented. Just going to another airport that was clear would have saved a lot of death and disaster. I bet the aircraft insurance company does not have near the coverage to cover the damage expense, and loss of the aircraft

Our little Cessna 182T has all the instruments to get us right to the end of the runway, and do everything but flair and actually land. No way in hell would we try that landing in heavy fog.

[3rd_gear_Ted]

Strikingly similar weather conditions to the Kobe B. Helicopter crash.
The executive pilot syndrome to "get there" or I might be replaced is real.

Some family trusts for the uber rich dictate that the heirs fly in separate jets and damn the costs.

[pavulon]

Had read that the destination approach or runway lights were not working. Pilot may not have been close enough to see them in dense fog anyway. Landing at that airport should not have been attempted starting hours before the pilot decided to gamble with other people's lives.

[GH85Carrera]

My dad talked about his scariest landing as an USAF pilot. It was in a C-47 and he had a high ranking civilian employee of the pentagon on board that had to get to Hondo, TX. The fog was heavy, and dad said he was sweating bullets, as he approached the landing. The civilian VIP was talking to several military officers and here was my dad, with the task of landing in thick fog.

He said it was one of his best landing ever, as he knew it was a long runway, and he eased it down. He was looking out the window for the runway lights to see what side of the runway they were on, and could only see one light, and he said to himself, crap, I am about to run off the end of the runway, and then another light appeared, and another as he came to a stop.

He radioed for a follow me truck to escort them to the terminal as he could not see where to go. The follow me truck over 30 minutes to find them on the runway. The civilian told dad, "great landing" as he exited the C-47.

He said he never wanted to have to do that again, but he was under orders to get there, and refusing would have been a big mess. The Air Force had that technology many decades ago, before GPS and all the computers systems of today.

[KNS]

Glen,
I'm getting a bit off topic here but this is a cool story - you may have seen it before.

Zero/Zero: Flying the C-124

by Charles Svoboda

It happened sometime in 1965, in Germany . I was a copilot, so I knew, everything there was to know about flying, and I was frustrated by pilots like my aircraft commander. He was one of those by-the-numbers types, no class, no imagination, no “feel” for flying. You have to be able to feel an airplane. So what if your altitude is a little off, or the glideslope indicator is off a hair? If it feels okay then it is okay. That’s what I believed.

Every time he let me make an approach, even in VFR conditions, he demanded perfection. Not the slightest deviation was permitted. “If you can’t do it when there is no pressure, you surely can’t do it when the pucker factor increases,” he would say. When he shot an approach, it was as if all the instruments were frozen – perfection, but no class.

Then came that routine flight from the Azores to Germany. The weather was okay; we had 45,000 pounds of fuel and enough cargo to bring the weight of our C-124 Globemaster up to 180,000 pounds, 5,000 pounds below the max allowable.
It would be an easy, routine flight all the way.

Halfway to the European mainland, the weather started getting bad. I kept getting updates by high frequency radio. Our destination, a fighter base, went zero/zero. Our two alternates followed shortly thereafter. All of France was down. We held for two hours, and the weather got worse. Somewhere I heard a fighter pilot declare an emergency because of minimum fuel. He shot two approaches and saw nothing. On the third try, he flamed out and had to eject

We made a precision radar approach; there was nothing but fuzzy fog at minimums. The sun was setting. Now I started to sweat a little. I turned on the instrument lights. When I looked out to where the wings should be, I couldn’t even see the C-124 navigation lights 85 feet from my eyes. I could barely make out a dull glow from the exhaust stacks of the closest engine, and then only on climb power.

When we reduced power to maximum endurance, that friendly glow faded. The pilot asked the engineer where we stood on fuel. The reply was, “I don’t know— we’re so low that the book says the gauges are unreliable below this point.” The navigator became a little frantic. We didn’t carry parachutes on regular MAC flights, so we couldn’t follow the fighter pilot’s example. We would land or crash with the C-124.

The pilot then asked me which of the two nearby fighter bases had the widest runway. I looked it up and we declared an emergency as we headed for that field.

The pilot then began his briefing. “This will be for real. No missed approach. We’ll make an ILS and get precision radar to keep us honest. Copilot, we’ll use half flaps. That’ll put the approach speed a little higher, but the pitch angle will be almost level, requiring less attitude change in the flare.”

Why hadn’t I thought of that? Where was my “feel” and “class” now? The briefing continued, “I’ll lock on the gauges. You get ready to take over and complete the landing if you see the runway – that way there will be less room for trouble with me trying to transition from instruments to visual with only a second or two before touchdown.”

Hey, he’s even going to take advantage of his copilot, I thought. He’s not so stupid, after all. “Until we get the runway, you call off every 100 feet above touchdown; until we get down to 100 feet, use the pressure altimeter. Then switch to the radar altimeter for the last 100 feet, and call off every 25 feet. Keep me honest on the airspeed, also. Engineer, when we touch down, I’ll cut the mixtures with the master control lever, and you cut all of the mags. Are there any questions? Let’s go!”

All of a sudden, this unfeeling, by the numbers robot was making a lot of sense. Maybe he really was a pilot and maybe I had something more to learn about flying. We made a short procedure turn to save gas. Radar helped us to get to the outer marker. Half a mile away, we performed the Before Landing Checklist; gear down, flaps 20 degrees. The course deviation indicator was locked in the middle, with the glide slope indicator beginning its trip down from the top of the case.

When the GSI centered, the pilot called for a small power reduction, lowered the nose of the C-124 slightly, and all of the instruments, except the altimeter, froze.

My Lord, that man had a feel for the C-124! He thought something, and the airplane, all 135,000 pounds of it, did what he thought. “Five hundred feet,” I called out, “400 feet … 300 feet … 200 feet, MATS minimums … 100 feet, Air Force minimums; I’m switching to the radar altimeter … 75 feet nothing in sight …. 50 feet, still nothing … 25 feet, airspeed 100 knots.”

The nose of the C-124 rotated just a couple of degrees, and the airspeed started down. The pilot then casually said, “Hang on, we’re landing.” “Airspeed 90 knots….10 feet, here we go!” The pilot reached up and cut the mixtures with the master control lever, without taking his eyes off the instruments. He told the engineer to cut all the mags to reduce the chance of fire.

CONTACT! I could barely feel it. As smooth a landing as I have ever known, and I couldn’t even tell if we were on the runway, because we could only see the occasional blur of a light streaking by. “Copilot, verify hydraulic boost is on, I’ll need it for brakes and steering.” I complied. “Hydraulic boost pump is on, pressure is up.” The brakes came on slowly—we didn’t want to skid this big beast now. I looked over at the pilot. He was still on the instruments, steering to keep the course deviation indicator in the center, and that is exactly where it stayed.

“Airspeed, 50 knots.” We might make it yet. “Airspeed, 25 knots.” We’ll make it if we don’t run off a cliff. Then I heard a strange sound. I could hear the whir of the gyros, the buzz of the inverters, and a low frequency thumping. Nothing else. The thumping was my pulse, and I couldn’t hear anyone breathing. We had made it! We were standing still!

The aircraft commander was still all pilot. “After-landing checklist, get all those motors, radar and un-necessary radios off while we still have batteries. Copilot, tell them that we have arrived, to send a follow me truck out to the runway because we can’t even see the edges.” I left the VHF on and thanked GCA for the approach.

The guys in the tower didn’t believe we were there. They had walked outside and couldn’t hear or see anything. We assured them that we were there, somewhere on the localizer centerline, with about half a mile showing on the DME. We waited about 20 minutes for the truck. Not being in our customary hurry, just getting our breath back and letting our pulses diminish to a reasonable rate.

Then I felt it. The cockpit shuddered as if the C-124 nose gear had run over a bump. I told the loadmaster to go out the crew entrance to see what happened. He dropped the door (which is immediately in front of the nose gear), and it hit something with a loud, metallic bang. He came on the interphone and said “Sir, you’ll never believe this. The follow-me truck couldn’t see us and ran smack into our nose tire with his bumper, but he bounced off, and nothing is hurt.”

The pilot then told the tower that we were parking the bird right where it was and that we would come in via the truck. It took a few minutes to get our clothing and to button up the C-124. I climbed out and saw the nose tires straddling the runway centerline. A few feet away was the truck with its embarrassed driver.

Total damage—one dent in the hood of the follow me truck where the hatch had opened onto it. Then I remembered the story from Fate Is the Hunter. When Gann was an airline copilot making a simple night range approach, his captain kept lighting matches in front of his eyes. It scarred and infuriated Gann. When they landed, the captain said that Gann was ready to upgrade to captain. If he could handle a night-range approach with all of that harassment, then he could handle anything.

At last I understood what true professionalism is. Being a pilot isn’t all seat-of-the-pants flying and glory. It’s self- discipline, practice, study, analysis and preparation. It’s precision. If you can’t keep the gauges where you want them with everything free and easy, how can you keep them there when everything goes wrong?

[GH85Carrera]

Misunderstanding of IFR Basics and Poor ADM Possibly Led to the Fatal Citation Jet Crash this Week
This week, a Citation 550 crash resulted in six fatalities, likely due to a misunderstanding of basic IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) principles.
While en route to KMYF, the pilot of the Citation 550 requested local weather at the destination airport. He was informed that the AWOS (Automated Weather Observing System) was inoperative. ATC provided weather from nearby airports, which showed visibility and ceilings below minimums (1/2SM visibility, 002OVC ceiling).
The pilot then communicated that he would attempt the RNAV 28 approach, but asked the controller, "Just in case we go missed, what is the weather at our alternate KSDM?" Although KSDM was just 15 nautical miles away from the destination, the reported weather there was significantly better than the minimums required for the approach: "Wind calm, visibility 2 1/2 SM, ceiling 300 feet overcast."
Despite this, the pilot made the fatal decision to continue to KMYF, mistakenly believing the 300-foot ceiling at his alternate (KSDM) would prevent a successful instrument approach. He stated, "It’s a little better but still not a great option either," indicating a misunderstanding of the rules.
What he didn’t realize was that when selecting an approach, only visibility is a critical factor, not the ceiling. The visibility at KSDM (2 1/2 SM) was well above the minimum required (1 SM), making it a viable alternate with a safe approach. Had the pilot diverted to KSDM, he would likely have had sufficient flight visibility to visually identify the runway environment and land safely.
Instead, the pilot continued to KMYF, intercepted the approach, and was cleared to descend on the glide path. Minutes later, the aircraft descended below minimum published altitude, struck power lines and crashed into a residential neighborhood, killing all on board and injuring several people on the ground.
Takeaway: FAA Part 61 regulations do not prohibit pilots from attempting an instrument approach when weather conditions are below minimums. However, FAR 91.175 stipulates that a pilot must have the required flight visibility to continue an approach below the DA (Decision Altitude) or MDA (Minimum Descent Altitude). The ceiling is irrelevant to whether the approach can be legally continued; only the visibility matters.
In this case, the alternate airport weather reported 2 1/2 SM visibility (well above the 1 SM required) and was in close proximity to the primary destination. Given these conditions, diverting to the alternate would have been the safest and most logical option.
This tragic event may serve as a textbook example of poor aeronautical decision-making (ADM) and a critical misunderstanding of IFR procedures.
Remember: Visibility, not ceiling, is the determining factor when selecting an instrument approach.

100% pilot error.

[speeder]

Tell me what "ceiling" means in aviation?

[917_Langheck]

The problem with landing at KSDM - Brown Field - is restricted air space to the south (Mexico-US border), making left down wind to base and final challenging, and a big ass mountain (Otay) immediately east of the 26 approach making direct and right down wind turn approaches difficult under those adverse conditions.

Not sure why the pilot/atc discussion didn't include Palomar. That may have fogged in too, but it wasn't brought up.

[KNS]

Originally Posted by speeder

Tell me what "ceiling" means in aviation?

The base of the cloud layer. If you're standing on the ground and the bottom layer of clouds are 500 ft over your head (a crappy day for flying) - that's a 500 ft ceiling.

[afterburn 549]

and don't get AGL confused with attitude and altitude,,,,

[pmax]

[t6dpilot]

It is not legal to attempt an approach past the Final Approach Fix when the weather is below minimums for the approach. This clearly was below minimums and he should not have even thought about "going to take a look." Divert and rent a car. All get home safely. Tragic outcome.

[speeder]

Yep, total waste of life. It's important to remember in cases like this, (and the Kobe Bryant crash), that the pilots were not reckless criminal jerks, by all accounts they were nice people who really loved flying and probably were trying to be good pilots but they made an error in judgement once that spiraled into tragedy. That's what should be taught in flight schools, IMO. JFK Jr. and the rest were not bad people being reckless, they just made one bad decision and physics did the rest.

Super sad but the lesson applied correctly could prevent future tragedies.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by speeder

Yep, total waste of life. It's important to remember in cases like this, (and the Kobe Bryant crash), that the pilots were not reckless criminal jerks, by all accounts they were nice people who really loved flying and probably were trying to be good pilots but they made an error in judgement once that spiraled into tragedy. That's what should be taught in flight schools, IMO. JFK Jr. and the rest were not bad people being reckless, they just made one bad decision and physics did the rest.

Super sad but the lesson applied correctly could prevent future tragedies.

No one thinks they were just suicidal maniacs. No doubt, the passengers wanted to get to the airport. The pilot should have said, it is impossible, and gone to a safe airport. He just made a very deadly poor decision, and paid with his life, and several other people's life's. Sad decision.

[otto_kretschmer]

Juan's channel has become a plane crash channel. I barely watch him anymore.