Another MU2 down...

[FN FAL]

Wrightstown picnic? As in Wrightstown take the Hwy U exit off 41? We live about 5 miles from there

Then you know what I'm talkin bout! Hahaha...howdy neighbor!

They may have toned down the firemans picniks...but I remember not too long ago that those things turned into riots.

 

[WNRHD17]

we always clarify who is speaking if, inadvertently, happened to be logged on using someone else's name....is it really that difficult to understand? I thought we were all adults? this is simple grade school knowledge...read and comprehend.

I don't have to worry about being professional in my statements, as pilot is not my chosen career....thank goodness my career allows me to not be a, well, I think I've made enough comments for tonight....tomorrow will be another lovely Wisconsin day

howdy to you too, neighbor...we may be moving to wrightstown or somewhere nearby next spring due to my husband's employment requirements.

Reading and writing some of these posts just cracks me up sometimes. After searching for some of skyking1976's earlier posts (pre-Dad), some of the comments he'd make would purely be to get a rise out of people, which it usually did. I can understand why he did so....it's pretty humorous watching everyone get so worked up.

 

[WNRHD17]

You are not my dad, and I'm not a huggy touchy feely sort of person.

I think you're more touchy feely than you think if you felt that "Hugs, Dad" through the computer...My Dad is "THE DAD"...the universal Dad, if you will...but that's ok, I don't want to share him with you anyway. Wouldn't want to waste any of his "Dadness."

 

[ackattacker]

Personally, I have nothing but sick contempt for those who live to find blame...but if you want to lay blame in an airplane, lay it at the feet of the pilot in command.

Any pilot who doesn't accept it is a spinless fool. Dead or alive, we all know the score before we introduce fuel or spark, before we ever cross the dark tarmac and open a door, before we ever get out of bed. We know.

Knowing, and failing to accept full responsibility for loose foam, bad safety wire, thunderstorms, or two passengers far in the back who get into a fight...is cowardice and failure to uphold ones duty as PIC. In that aircraft, no authority short of God is greater than that of the PIC, and no soul can or should attempt to take away that responsibility. It's supreme, it's heavy, and it belongs on the shoulders of the PIC, pure and simple.

Avbug, I think I understand the point you are trying to make here... but you take it too far. In flight, the PIC has ultimate responsibility to ensure the safe outcome of the flight to the best of his/her ability. ALL crewmembers have responsibility to be mentally and physically prepared for mechanical failures, unforecast weather, etc. And mentally it is probably a good idea to be ready to accept responsibility even for things which are truly outside of our control. But ensuring safe outcome of the flight takes many forms. For example, what if the PIC has a medical situation and becomes confused and nonresponsive? In a crew environment, he can continue to do his job by having created an environment where the SIC feels empowered to take control. But perhaps this is a digression.

"those who live to find blame".... I also have contempt for those who live to point fingers at people other than themselves, or profit from misfortune. But it is very important to identify the factors that lead to accidents so that safety can be improved in the future. I have a lot of respect for NTSB investigators. They have a tough and thankless job, and frankly all of us probably OWE OUR LIVES to the lessons learned from past accident investigations. Much of the training we receive and regulations we follow are written in blood. You have a lot of experience, but you weren't born with aviation knowledge. Nor did you teach yourself. If you did, you wouldn't still be here. If the training you received was shoddy then you would be dead. If the airplanes you flew were designed so that the wings fell off in flight then you would be dead. If the mechanics who serviced your planes were incompetent or used shoddy parts then you would be dead. The PIC authority is not so "god-like" that a proper mental attitude can unexplode an exploded fuel tank or magically add 500 fpm to a single-engine climb rate.

In an accident, to simply say "it was pilot error" and leave it at that is a cop-out. It's the easy way out. Lay the blame at the feet of the pilot, who's already dead... so problem solved, right? No need to do any further work to ensure it doesn't happen again. If he had had the "right stuff" then everything would have been OK. This is an old-school attitude that might have been mentally necessary to strap yourself into an F104 the day after you buddy augered in, but I think we have a responsibility to do better. One of the ways we can do better is to say "if a large majority of the pilots out there can't seem to fly a F104 safely, maybe we should start looking at other factors. It's irresonsible to continue with the status quo."

Substitute MU2 for F104.

Also on the subject of PIC reponsiblity - "no authority short of God is greater than that of the PIC, and no soul can or should attempt to take away that responsibility. It's supreme, it's heavy, and it belongs on the shoulders of the PIC, pure and simple."

Well in 121 I share many responsibilities. The dispatcher has a joint responsibility that is clearly codified in regulation. And the safety of the flight relies on the professionalism and compentence of a great many people. A short list:

Aircraft designers
Aircraft builders
Mechanics
Fuelers
TSA
Dispatchers
Weather forecasters
ATC
Flight Attendants
Baggage handlers
SIC

and lets not forget the training department. Experience has shown that in an emergency the pilot will perform within the confines of his/her training. I don't care how "god-like" you are.

 

[350DRIVER]

to start- this is BS;
"Any professional pilot who blames the airplane overhimself is no professional, but a kid with a lot of growing up to do. "

Accidents and incidents happens for many reasons and some of them are through no fault or deficiency in the pro pilot. Avbug is full of bravado, hence the BS meter is pegged. Do I really need to pick through his verbose essay line by line?

fido

Again, you have failed to point out what was asked, nice out though. Pegged on what?. It is much wiser to keep emotion out when trying or in your case "attempting" to prove a point. Avbug is full of experience whether you like him or not, somewhat of a known fact, do you know him?. I kind of thought so. I can understand the emotion from the loss of human life that these families are experiencing present day but to jump on a bandwagon to condemn one specific aircraft?. A 152 can kill someone just as easily as the deuce. The MU-2 is not going away anytime soon, whether you like it or not.

 

[Wolfy]

I don't understand what everybody is getting huffy about, the design flaw argument is so "out there" that I don't think any of the pilots here are giving that theory too much consideration.

What avbug and the rest of us are saying gives dignity back to any airman that looses life while doing his job, even if the situation got the best of him. You all are taking it all wrong. Much honor in death is the least we can give our fallen comrads, it is taken away when we start blaming the aircraft, the machine, the weather, etc. We acknowledge that there are extenuating circumstances i.e. weather, ice, mechanicle probs, and if so, that makes the guy who'se gone down with his ship even more heroic.

You all are making this too difficult by being so emotionally driven, this is a proffessional pilots board, you are here on our turf, so to speak, and we handle accidents differently than the general public.

These posts aren't worthy of insults from the family, I think you should really try to "see" what is being said with perhaps a different perspective, they are honoring Skyking in the truest way.

 

[WNRHD17]

I do believe the homepage says "Welcome to Aviation Communications, for all your aviation needs!" All of them, not just the professional pilots. My Dad was a professional pilot for 30+ years. I also don't think it's fair to lump all professional pilots into one group. Unless you're a herd of cattle.

 

[Peanut gallery]

Say things that make sense

This place is surely for everyone to discuss their interest in aviation. It is also a place to learn and freely share one's thoughts regarding aviation.
I enjoyed reading the post that your brother shared with us. His interest in aviation was enthusiastic and his sense of humor was wonderfull.

The problem is that you are pursuing a resolution to your incredible loss. In that pursuit, some of your families thoughts have crossed certain lines that aviation enthusiast simply will comment negatively upon. It is basically because they have no agenda other than to discuss the reality of their interest. The one consistant line of thinking through this thread has been to defend any thought about pilot error. We are all human and the final acceptance of that possibility is a step that you may need to make. This in no way takes away from the wonderfull human being that I am sure your brother was. This final acceptance is the true statement of love that is on the other side of the sudden loss trama that all of us unfortunately have felt through the years.

I read the preliminary report from the NTSB. Most of these reports in aircraft without voice recorders or flight data recorders do not change that much. Barring the post crash discovery of some additional major malfunction of the aircraft in addition to the engine loss it will remain pretty much the way it is now, along with a new section listing the contributing factors and the final determination.

The factual text of the preliminary report tell the story. I hate to be blunt but this will certainly be categorized as a loss of control accident. Now you can hate me for saying that but the facts are clear. Basically there is a multi engine airplane that has suffered an engine loss, it was in a position to make it back and flew through the final. In an attempt to get back to the runway it suddenly assumed a near nose down attitude and crashed. The wing quit flying because it was not controlled in a way that was aerodynamicly correct. These are the facts from the report.

I feel terrible for the loss that you have endured but I hope you can accept the facts as the final report is issued by the NTSB. Maybe I am completely wrong but the odds are that you will ultimately have to accept that conclusion.

 

[TIGV]

I am in complete agreement with the Peanut Gallery......

That was something that eventually needed to be put in black and white.

 

[Tadpoles]

Just so you "professionals" know...
no, we are not trying to find a solution. look back in our posts...do we ever give our "2 cents" about what happened? no! why? b/c we're not in the aviation business. all what we're doing is trying to tell you guys that "pilot error" is not always the case (which i'm not putting those words into everyone's mouths--you know who you are) especially before the NTSB report is completely out. Then, when people start saying things such as, "you can't fly that plane without your a-game", or "what these companies are doing are putting these guys with few hours and big egos out on those planes". and just what size is your ego, my sirs? i think in order to BE a pilot, you MUST have a big one, in order to take all that responsibility on your shoulders.
Once again, i'll take a little poll (no one seemed to respond to it the last time, so i'll try again, a little more general this time): WHO HERE HAS LOST A FAMILY MEMBER TO A PLANE CRASH???? just simply answer, that's all i'd like. Once you can experience your flesh and blood dying in a plane, then you tell us to leave emotion out of all you're trying to say, mmk?
Whoever said a long post ago about us being the ones with an emotional attachement to the plane, well, I guess you could say we do--and that emotion would be hate. Besides, it's really fun seeing how mad you all get defending an airplane.

 

[Wolfy]

I do believe the homepage says "Welcome to Aviation Communications, for all your aviation needs!" All of them, not just the professional pilots. My Dad was a professional pilot for 30+ years. I also don't think it's fair to lump all professional pilots into one group. Unless you're a herd of cattle.

My apologies for writing my statements unclearly, I didn''t mean to say that we are excluding you, but meant that we, as a group here, tend to handle aviation accidents differently than those who are not pilots, and not the immediate family. We tend to be emotionally detatched and tend not to want to speculate about the cause until the report comes back, and after the report, we try to glean any information from any accident that would help us become better and more aware pilots.

If the report comes back as pilot error, we tend to find it undignified and dishonoring, to the departed, that anyone would start blaming the airplane. If it were us, we awould want to have the glory of "dying with our boots on", doing something that we loved.

Peanut Gallery-very good post.

 

[Lilah]

SEMANTICS!

That may be what we're dealing with here. I do agree that the PIC is ultimately responsible for the completion of a safe flight, but at the same time is clearly not guilty of negligence if events occur beyond his control. The PIC chooses to accept the risk. Here are a couple of examples where the crew performed as they trained to do, and paid the ultimate price.

AA191
Shuttle Challenger
Shuttle Columbia
Pan Am at Tenerife
Early Comet accidents
The aircraft of 9/11

In all of these examples, the crews performed as they were trained, and the outcome was negative nevertheless. Avbug might have us believe it's the PICs responsibilty, but I can't believe anyone would say it's the PICs fault.

All aircraft are not created equal, and some aircraft DO have design flaws. For example, Van's would encourage you not to build an RV-3 wing to it's original specifications. How about AS-204? Was it Grissom, White's, and Chaffee's fault they boarded a rocket tide to heaven? It is unfortunate that most MU-2s do not have FDRs or CVRs, so we're left with mostly conjecture at this point pending the NTSBs findings, and even then they're not likely to spend as much effort on a single pilot 135 accident as they might with a higher profile situation.

If we all agreed on a few definitions, we might find a more common ground...

Responsibilty
Fault
Negligence
Probable Cause
Design Flaw

To say no aircraft have design flaws, and therefore it's always the pilot's fault is a bit of a stretch in my book, and I don't believe that takes away from (or is inconsistant with) a PICs responsibilty.

Just some food for thought....

Lilah

 

[Snakum]

If it were us, we awould want to have the glory of "dying with our boots on", doing something that we loved.

If it were me, I'd rather be run over by a beer truck while coming out of a whorehouse on my 90th birthday.

But that's just me.



Minhommad

 

[WMUchickenhawk]

I agree with pretty much all you said, except for one thing. The Pan Am at Tenerife failed to turn off at the proper taxi way because it was a sharp turn, had they done so, they would have been clear of the runway

 

[Wolfy]

Good point, that's another difference between pilots and the general public. When it's clearly a stupid human mistake that gets everyone killed we tend to get annoyed with the pilot/crew rather than to be compassionate.