Mooney down in Hayward CA

[Joe Larussa]

Anybody have any info on this? M20 going from KHWD to KLHM. My prayers to the family.

[wishboneash]

This is all I could find. It's been chilly in the Bay area with icing levels at a few thousand feet.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pilot-dies-in-plane-crash-on-mount-diablo/ar-BBTo0bo?li=BBnbcA1

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[ArtVandelay]

It might be a new MSer, based on the partial tail number, we had a thread on this plane.

 

 

Tom

 

[PilotKen]

Well I live a mile from the west entrance to Mt Diablo, driving around here Friday night was terrible winds, downpours low ceilings ugh. IFR would have been a challenge. Way below my minimums

Edited February 10, 2019 by PilotKen

[bonal]

2 hours ago, Joe Larussa said:

Anybody have any info on this? M20 going from KHWD to KLHM. My prayers to the family.

Joe very happy to see your post as it was said to be based at Lincoln and discovering it wasn't you. Saw the photo and could tell it was a red and white Mooney. Very sad news regardless. Knowing what the weather was like that night I can't imagine making that flight even if IFR. When we fly out of LVK we pass the west side of the summit and even though much closer to mt Diablo are still able to be above the summit by the time we pass by. Flying from Hayward plane should have been well above that altitude unless he was trying to stay under the SFO bravo shelf that is right there on the west side and not much higher than the peak. Can't imagine that this was a VFR trip and if I had to guess was possible icing 

but as is all too often all we can do is speculate and say a prayer for the family and friends. Very sad news.

[carusoam]

Connecting two threads...

prayers,

-a-

[bradp]

@M20 Ogler was interested in this plane a while back, but looks like he passed.  He said he has a few hundred hours and an instrument rating - this seems to have been VFR scud running into the mountain CFIT at first glance.  No IFR plan on file.

Happy to see that Ogler is currently browsing the forum.

Brad

[M20 Ogler]

Very sorry for this man and his family. Death is a thief. 

Bad weather, night, mountains, high performance plane, and a solo student pilot.

How can a CFI put the fear of god in their students when it comes to IMC with out scaring them out of flying altogether? Look up “178 Seconds to Live” on YouTube. That did it for me. Decided to get my Instrument Rating partly because of that video. 

[glbtrottr]

I don't see how it's possible for people to fly without an instrument rating.  In California we have June Gloom.  In Chicago?  Jeezus we had it all.  Boston even worse.  Going from California to AZ at Altitude and hearing a reported "freezing rain" that wasn't forecasted.  I recall the frightening humor of landing in a snow covered runway in Wisconsin near Green Bay, or getting battered about at Flying Cloud in Minnesota where the reporting ATIS of "braking action:  poor" just simply warmed my heart after a nice long IMC flight...

[flight2000]

2 hours ago, M20 Ogler said:

How can a CFI put the fear of god in their students when it comes to IMC with out scaring them out of flying altogether?

This individual was still a student pilot according to his close friend (also a pilot).  He lived on the edge with other high risk hobbies like skydiving, on-road motorcycle racing, etc, so I don't think you could scare this guy.  He lived life like he wanted and it finally caught up to him. 

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/02/10/pilot-killed-in-mt-diablo-plane-crash-was-still-an-aviation-student/amp/

1 hour ago, glbtrottr said:

I don't see how it's possible for people to fly without an instrument rating.

It's very easy to do if you are disciplined enough to not have get-there-itis or try and fly on a schedule.  I flew for almost 5 years outside of Cleveland, OH as a VFR only pilot in the early 90's and never had any issues.  I simply stayed on the ground until is was clear.  The pilot's decision making process is the single biggest factor in aviation accidents in my opinion, especially if it is weather related.  It even bites instrument rated pilots, so that's not a guarantee either...

Brian

[flyboy0681]

I'll assume the guy in the selfie is his CFI.

[Joe Larussa]

Looks like the pilot was Chris de bar from Rocklin Ca. After looking at his Facebook page he looked like he was full of life. 

[kmyfm20s]

Sad! Unfortunately a bold pilot and not so old.

[Joe Larussa]

Correction, might be Granite Bay Ca

[Danb]

God bless him, he lived on the edge and passed doing something he loved, pretty awesome, I’ve had so many friends in my age bracket passing and many suffering that young fellow went doing one of his dreams.

[Sabremech]

2 minutes ago, Danb said:

God bless him, he lived on the edge and passed doing something he loved, pretty awesome, I’ve had so many friends in my age bracket passing and many suffering that young fellow went doing one of his dreams.

Passed doing something he loved but most likely not how he wanted to. 

[Danb]

Agreed but not my point.

[gsxrpilot]

The whole narrative about how he lived life on the edge, skydiving, racing motorcycles, etc. certainly doesn't do anything for GA. It's sad to be equating those activities with simply flying a small airplane.

I'll bet this was just poor judgement start to finish. And I pity the CFI who might or might not have signed him off for the flight.

[Bob_Belville]

21 minutes ago, gsxrpilot said:

The whole narrative about how he lived life on the edge, skydiving, racing motorcycles, etc. certainly doesn't do anything for GA. It's sad to be equating those activities with simply flying a small airplane.

I'll bet this was just poor judgement start to finish. And I pity the CFI who might or might not have signed him off for the flight.

I'm not a CFI but I suppose that at most he had some kind of a blanket sign off for that commute and not a specific sign off for that night flight into questionable weather. 

[RobertGary1]

36 minutes ago, gsxrpilot said:

 

I'll bet this was just poor judgement start to finish. And I pity the CFI who might or might not have signed him off for the flight.

No offence but its really disgusting to start "betting" on what killed this fellow Mooney driver before he's even laid to rest. Let the NTSB professionals pass the judgement and not social media guessers.

 

-Robert

[Danb]

Bob remembering long ago prior to receiving my ppl my CFI had guidelines as I progressed along, ie.winds 13 or less 3000ft ceilings and 8 miles vis., 50 miles or less from home base without a conversation with him.He beat weather analysis into our head giving it utmost respect. I’d never been allowed to fly on a day like that without him. 

[Bob_Belville]

1 minute ago, Danb said:

Bob remembering long ago prior to receiving my ppl my CFI had guidelines as I progressed along, ie.winds 13 or less 3000ft ceilings and 8 miles vis., 50 miles or less from home base without a conversation with him.He beat weather analysis into our head giving it utmost respect. I’d never been allowed to fly on a day like that without him. 

You no doubt have a better memory than I... those restrictions make sense though I don't recall having any multi flight sign offs... but that was literally 50 years ago.

[Marauder]

9 minutes ago, Danb said:

Bob remembering long ago prior to receiving my ppl my CFI had guidelines as I progressed along, ie.winds 13 or less 3000ft ceilings and 8 miles vis., 50 miles or less from home base without a conversation with him.He beat weather analysis into our head giving it utmost respect. I’d never been allowed to fly on a day like that without him. 

I went through a 141 school. I needed to have a conversation with an instructor before I could fly solo before every flight.

Edited February 11, 2019 by Marauder

[gsengle]

No offence but its really disgusting to start "betting" on what killed this fellow Mooney driver before he's even laid to rest. Let the NTSB professionals pass the judgement and not social media guessers.
 
-Robert

I post this somewhere online at least every couple of weeks. It is not only appropriate for pilots to speculate on the cause of recent accidents, to discuss recent accidents, and to kick around risks and possible causes, it is a significant component of professional pilot training and is one more reason commercial aviation is so safe today. We post-mortem accidents. We use thought experiments and accident discussions to familiarize ourselves with risks that we might better recognize them in our own flying. Do we need to get the final conclusions right to accrue these benefits? No.

I didn’t see anyone making any bets, and it sure isn’t disgusting. Finally, if he really was a student pilot he was almost certainly not qualified for that flight and not legal for that flight. Without even a PPL I don’t think of him as a “fellow Mooney driver”. It’s tragic but it’s also stupidity that unfortunately will reflect again poorly on GA.


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[RobertGary1]

3 minutes ago, Bob_Belville said:

You no doubt have a better memory than I... those restrictions make sense though I don't recall having any multi flight sign offs... but that was literally 50 years ago.

I've occasionally signed off a student for repeated solo between two airports.

But let's not read too much into a newspaper report which is likely at least 50% inaccurate if history is any indicator.

 

-Robert