PTK

Hilarious! Love it!!

How about the poor passengers Hank? Do we forget about them? It's all about us pilots?

Look, I get it. Sometimes calling a spade a spade may not be PC. It's uncomfortable and may sound rude or impolite and unpopular. Beating around the bush is more convenient and may give you the feel good warm and fuzzies. But that "doesn't do a damn thing to make anyone safer" either. So what do we do? Once we get passed the initial shock of such a horrific tragedy maybe we can try and face the problem head on to identify its causes. Recognize it exists and that we have a lot of work to do. Only then can we work towards solving it. As we learn at the Mooney Safety Foundation, we have to first identify the chain of latent failures before we can break it.

What's blindly egotistical is not admitting to himself and his pax that he just can't safely land there and maybe he should go somewhere else. His ego may have been hurt and it would be an embarrassing inconvenience but he and his pax would be alive today and respect him for his safe decision. He wasn't alone. He had passengers onboard. He failed them and betrayed their trust by his gross negligence. (Not speaking specific to this tragedy or what transpired.)

No. An accident is an event unplanned or unintended caused by chance. Negligence is lack of reasonable and ordinary care in the management of the machine due to lack of skill which causes damage or injury to others. Crashing due to failure of the machine can be reasonably called an accident because it happens by chance. Crashing from a botched landing and goa is negligence because it happens by something other than pure chance. (This is a general discussion and not intended to pass judgement or draw parallels from this unfortunate tragedy.)

Traditionally trainer aircraft are Warriors, 180's or Cessnas. After getting the ppl pilots continued to fly these aircraft as owners if they bought or as renters. Consequently they built time in make and model as they built tt. More importantly they learned the airplane and became more proficient in it. To decide one day to get a checkout in another make and model aircraft and fly several hours to satisfy insurance requirements may be "legal" but may very well be even farther from proficient. To compound this by loading up passengers and killing them is negligence. Why do underwriters ask for time in make and model? Does anyone disagree? (For puropses of general discussion. Not in any way passing judgement to what happened in this tragedy.)

How blindly egotistical is it for a pilot to not disclose his/her hours in make and model to his passengers? Is that blindly egotistical as well? Have the trusting innocent pax been given informed consent? Again purely hypothetical and not intended to draw conclusions from this horrible tragedy.

There are accidents and there are acts of negligence. Someone said earlier that an owner relies on insurance guidelines in deciding who can rent his plane. Insurance companies have a very different definition of accidents. They assign responsibility and enforce it with real teeth that bite. It is not enough to simply say "I'm so so sorry! It was an accident!

Good to see there's a discussion beginning to happen and data starting to be accumulated and analyzed. I'd be very interested to know of those 24.3% what airplanes are they renting and what is their tt and time in make and model.

Not 1000 hours but maybe 400.

Yes Hank I agree. The owner determines who can rent their plane and uses insurance guidelines. The question then becomes how adequate are typical insurance requirements? As an example are 400 hours tt with 10 hours as pic in make and model enough for the Mooney? I don't think it is. (I'm using examples for the sake of discussion. Not specific to the individual pilot in this accident.)

"Short field" is relative. What length runway a given pilot is accustomed to and his/her skill level. Its also relative to the airplane. Personally for the Mooney I don't consider Sky Manor a short field. Now speaking of the airplane, the POH has a set of charts that show how much ground roll is needed in a given set of conditions. Which brings me back to my original questions: When do we, (as in we collectively in GA), look and scrutinize closely at who can rent what airplane? When do we seriously look at currency, total time, and time in type? When do we look at our pilot training model and see if it can be improved? Do we need desperately to be discussing this or am I overreacting? Does anyone with a ppl and a checkout have the right to rent an airplane and go? Would it be an infringement on our freedom to ask some hard questions? I think we need a GA-wide discussion. If we're serious about decreasing these accidents maybe we need to make some changes. Otherwise we'll continue to have fatalities like these.

Why not?

I don't see how.

Granted a np approach will not bring you down to the numbers it will help you greatly in setting up flying a stabilized approach. This can be especially useful at an unfamiliar field. I wouldn't dismiss it as irrelevant. It's another resource to be used as needed. Runway 25 has an LP approach (next best thing to an LPV) which brings you down to 522 agl. Nobody said cut others off. You're saying that. I said with proper communication as situations allow.

If someone for whatever reason is having trouble "getting good visual cues as to altitude and the field altitude" as was posted earlier, please explain to me how flying an approach in vfr, granted np approach, is irrelevant. Also please show me the regs where it prohibits flying straight in vfr. It is also a collision risk to spend more time than necessary in the pattern with other traffic. I see nothing wrong with flying and utilizing an approach for assistance to an unfamiliar field. I also see nothing wrong with straight in finals vfr whenever possible with proper communication. It enhances safety by getting you on the ground sooner.

I disagree. The airport has published GPS approaches for both runways and an additionsl VOR approach for 7. Did he make use of it?

Sooooo... back to my original question: When do we, (as in we collectively in GA), look and scrutinize closely at who can rent what airplane? When do we seriously look at currency, total time, and time in type? When do we look at our pilot training model and see if it can be improved? Or if someone had a checkout is considered "legally qualified" and we hand them the keys? God forbid we risk being accused of favoring overregulation! Did the innocent pax have any input in the decision making process? If saving lives means "overregulation" than I'm all for it!

So if we look closely at "legally qualified" vs. "qualified" it would be viewed as too much regulation? I respect people's opinion. How about if we try and start a discussion anyway. And try to get away from labeling it "overregulation." Let's think outside the box and let's not be afraid to start talking about it.

What we know: Pilot rented a Mooney, loaded it almost to the gills and attempted to fly into Sky Manor. Probably not the most straightforward approach and landing as has been described. Resulted in loss of control of the airplane and along with it two lives and possibly a third. Questions that come to mind: When do we, (as in we collectively in GA), look and scrutinize closely at who can rent what airplane? When do we seriously look at currency, total time, and time in type? When do we look at our pilot training model and see if it can be improved? Do we need desperately to be discussing this or am I overreacting? Does anyone with a ppl and a checkout have the right to rent an airplane and go? Would it be an infringement on our freedom to ask some hard questions?

May they rest in peace. Prayers for the ones they leave behind.

The boss wants us to utilize the garage for the cars. Go figure! So I was appointed to build a shed. If its of any consolation I'll be thinking about you when I'm working on it and when I'm flying. Because it will not cut into my flying! Made that very clear to the boss and obtained approval!

Thank you Jerry. I went flying today and was planning afterwards to remove the radio and bring it home to my workbench, aka kitchen table. But much to my pleasant surprise the display was fine! So I'm leaving it alone.

Think of it as simply remodeling the galley. Very normal. You have not lost your mind!

Do these come in a PAR46 for the J landing light? I'll keep it on all the time!