Cirrus Down in TX near the pattern 60R

[mike20papa]

http://www.kbtx.com/content/news/Plane-crashes-at-Navasota-airport-at-least-four-dead-370421791.html

Out of David Wayne Hooks.  Always hear lots of Houston based aircraft on the radio come into Navasota for training.

[gsxrpilot]

The pilot was an experienced CFI. Very sad, RIP.

[Zwaustin]

The pilot was in training and his CFI was on board. Pilot has apparently recently bought the plane and only been flying 2 months.

I was up at the time coming home from West Houston Airport and heard them but never heard any distress calls.

[kortopates]

Very sad  The impact really looks like a stall/spin in the traffic pattern. But Primary training with two small children in the back - really?

[kevinw]

Terrible news. It can't be emphasized enough how important it is to stay coordinated and make shallow turns in the pattern. Every time I read about an accident like this it makes me reevaluate my skills and decision making and hopefully makes me a safer pilot.

[M20F]

10 minutes ago, kevinw said:

It can't be emphasized enough how important it is to stay coordinated and make shallow turns in the pattern. 

We often cross control for slips to bleed of excess speed/altitude and in cross  winds.  Many of us make 30+ degree turns base to final because we fly close and tight. 

Making a shallow turn and then pulling back on the stick to tighten the turn (coupled with a little crush of the rudder) because you are over shooting is how a lot of these unfortunate situations come about.  Accelerated stalls and simple better understanding of them coupled with the knowledge that if you don't load up the wings you can bank 90 degrees, mash the rudder, etc. and not worry about stall/spins would help the piloting world quite a bit.  Don't be afraid to bank big, just don't pull back on the stick when you do.

[LANCECASPER]

Not that AOA is a fix-all for every mistake made, but it may have helped here. I don't have one yet but am considering it.

[M20F]

1 minute ago, LANCECASPER said:

Not that AOA is a fix-all for every mistake made, but it may have helped here. I don't have one yet but am considering it.

I have nothing against an AOA the more arrows in the quiver the better.  At the end of the day though you feel G's and when you feel them your natural reaction has to be to unload the wings.  In a typical GA plane if you are in the pattern push the nose down and go around and try again, it isn't rocket science.  I am in no way speculating about the particular crash in question just making a general comment.

[Danb]

Just seems like there are to many accidents than normal, if this was a training flight wonder why kids were aboard, and if it was a cfi its quite unbelievable unless something catastrophic occurred. 

[Jeff_S]

Um, am I the only one wondering about the parachute? I can understand that if this was a stall/spin on approach, the chute wouldn't have enough time to deploy anyway, but it does beg the question of how valuable the chute is in preventing the most common types of airplane fatalities.

[KSMooniac]

55 minutes ago, Jeff_S said:

Um, am I the only one wondering about the parachute? I can understand that if this was a stall/spin on approach, the chute wouldn't have enough time to deploy anyway, but it does beg the question of how valuable the chute is in preventing the most common types of airplane fatalities.

Exactly.  I don't believe the chute is useful in the pattern or even in the terminal environment at all.  It is useful for engine failure. perhaps en-route icing, spatial disorientation, etc. but likely not in a situation like this.

[Bob_Belville]

I have a great deal of admiration for CFIs doing primary training. IMO, they must be ever attentive to anticipate whatever improper reaction a student might have to any given situation. There are moments in any flight when in a panic the student might pull back on the yoke or dump flaps at a very unfortunate instant...

[aviatoreb]

34 minutes ago, KSMooniac said:

Exactly.  I don't believe the chute is useful in the pattern or even in the terminal environment at all.  It is useful for engine failure. perhaps en-route icing, spatial disorientation, etc. but likely not in a situation like this.

Parachute can help in some situations - but not all situations as you said.  For this scenario though there is a modern tool that may have helped.  AOA is a passive tool that can help but the pilot still needs to react properly.  A stick shaker would be a bit more proactive but still the pilot needs to react properly.  Then envelope protection would be ideal.  But ideally all 3 would be built into our airplanes moving forward.  By our airplanes, I don't just mean Mooneys, but all GA airplanes.  These are reasonable modern technologies that only the FAA's current regulation structure makes difficult to innovate but entirely accessible technology.  This is not meant to be a rant - just saying what we can look forward to I hope in the future.  ... give me autoland too for pilot incapacitation.

Edited February 29, 2016 by aviatoreb

[Bob_Belville]

1 minute ago, aviatoreb said:

Parachute can help in some situations - but not all situations as you said.  For this scenario though there is a modern tool that may have helped.  AOA is a passive tool that can help but the pilot still needs to react properly.  A stick shaker would be a bit more proactive but still the pilot needs to react properly.  Then envelope protection would be ideal.  But ideally all 3 would be built into our airplanes moving forward.  By our airplanes, I don't just mean Mooneys, but all GA airplanes.  These are reasonable modern technologies that only the FAA's current regulation structure makes difficult to innovate but entirely accessible technology.  This is not meant to be a rant - just saying what we can look forward to I hope in the future.  ... give me autoland too for pilot incapacitation.

ISTM the feds have made it much easier to add AOA. I installed the CYA100 a year ago for well under 1 AMU. Pics of sensor and panel display in my gallery.

[Jeff_S]

I had graphic proof for how quickly things can deteriorate in the pattern just this week. It was a clear late winter day, which in Atlanta means there was some breeze coming down from the northwest. So coming back into PDK they were landing on the 3s, since it wasn't strong enough to warrant 34. But the winds were squirrely, and on short final I had a couple of gusts from a quartering tailwind and was getting bounced around pretty good. I was stabilized at 50' and landing speed of 75 knots when all of sudden the bottom just dropped out, stall warning horn starts blaring, curse words start flying out of my mouth. I managed to arrest the drop before impacting, and somehow made an actually nice little chirp-chirp landing, but way more adventurous than I like.

In thinking about it later, I may have been better served to go around, but that has its own set of consequences once you are that committed to the landing. But the whole thing was over in literally a couple of seconds. It can happen fast.

[M20F]

1 hour ago, aviatoreb said:

but still the pilot needs to react properly.  

It is always going to flow back to this.  

We can all point to the Colgan incident and dozen's of other 121 incidents with all kinds of technology where accidents happen that we scratch our head at.  When you feel G's in the pattern, in VMC, let go of the stick; add power; and go around.  It is really that simple and if you can't correlate that chain of events into action, then having bitching Betty screaming in your ear probably isn't going to make much of a difference.  

AOA to me is something exceptionally useful to have when in IMC where you can't trust your eyes and the G's.  For VMC though getting into this kind of problem is really related to something else that technology doesn't help.  My opinion, and just in the context of AOA's/Technology not the crash in question.

[gsengle]

I don't think it's that simple. Some airframes are better than others in various ways. I believe that the Icon LSA is practically unspinnable. Canards stall before the main wing preventing spins. Some airplanes are approved for spins. And some... have a reputation for control issues.

Is it true that the Cirrus required the chute for certification, due to spin characteristics?

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[M20F]

Just now, gsengle said:

Is it true that the Cirrus required the chute for certification, due to spin characteristics?

They elected not to do spins in the certification process thus the chute.  

Emotions aside in the discussion there has yet I believe to be a fatality from a proper chute pull on a Cirrus.  I personally wouldn't spend the bucks on a chute but really no denying they are about the best thing for saving your life when used correctly (not so much for your plane/insurance company).  

[gsengle]

My concern is that I don't think the chute should have been allowed as a way of avoiding spins in the certification process as you have this issue at low altitude. It does seem as though Cirrus in particular has a history of in the pattern stall/spin - and I don't know if it's the pilots, the wing, the bungee trim system, what, but it is worrisome, and would keep me out of a cirrus personally...

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[chrisk]

2 minutes ago, M20F said:

They elected not to do spins in the certification process thus the chute.  

Emotions aside in the discussion there has yet I believe to be a fatality from a proper chute pull on a Cirrus.  I personally wouldn't spend the bucks on a chute but really no denying they are about the best thing for saving your life when used correctly (not so much for your plane/insurance company).  

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/35273362/ns/us_news-life/t/deadly-mid-air-collision-near-boulder/#.VtS1Oeb7JZg

I believe this was a fatality.  I think I would have preferred to spin into the ground instead of riding down on fire.

 

[M20F]

Just now, gsengle said:

My concern is that I don't think the chute should have been allowed as a way of avoiding spins in the certification process as you have this issue at low altitude. It does seem as though Cirrus in particular has a history of in the pattern stall/spin - and I don't know if it's the pilots, the wing, the bungee trim system, what, but it is worrisome, and would keep me out of a cirrus personally...

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Spins aren't the issue, accelerated stalls are the issue which come from overshooting base to final or trying to make the impossible turn in almost everyone of these instances.  A spin is just the result of the stall occurring in the first place and no plane is going to recover from a spin at 400' AGL.  In the Cirrus if you immediately popped the chute you might live so certainly better odds then doing it in a Mooney.  The point being, do not stall close to the ground.

[M20F]

Just now, chrisk said:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/35273362/ns/us_news-life/t/deadly-mid-air-collision-near-boulder/#.VtS1Oeb7JZg

I believe this was a fatality.  I think I would have preferred to spin into the ground instead of riding down on fire.

 

Fair enough but either way that one was ending poorly.  There is a Youtube video off a GoPro out there which I am sure somebody will link of some airplane in Switzerland who had almost the exact same situation (a mid-air) and pulled the chute and lived (non-chute guys died, I think the glider guys bailed out and lived.  Memory is fuzzy).  I don't think it was a Cirrus.

[chrisk]

If a chute was affordable for my Mooney and didn't take more than 50lbs of useful, I would add one.  I don't know about the weight, but the price (for a 182) is above what I would pay.

[CaptainAB]

I've been thinking recently that I should always be flying approaches. Towers seem to want to put you in a lot of tight patterns and manuevers, unless you fly the approach in which case you are just lined up so nicely. 

This case is chilling to me, because I fly with my kids. Just did this weekend. 

[gsengle]

The issue is the Cirrus has a high rate of stall spin pattern accidents, and the chute is irrelevant in these cases. Moreover maybe the inclusion of the chute lead to a false sense of security in certification.

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