Martha Lunken, our region's first lady of flying, is grounded. 'It's like being disemboweled

[MooneyMitch]

I always feel like somebody’s watching me......

[gsxrpilot]

31 minutes ago, Hank said:

Like many other regulations, "don't fly under bridges" was likely the result of one too many messy, bloody accidents. Do we really want to go back to that?

Is there such a Reg? Or is it a violation of 91.119 minimum safe altitudes?

[ilovecornfields]

3 hours ago, GeeBee said:

One thing I discovered in airline flying starting around 60, was my First Officers were better sticks than I was. Youth has its advantages. When something went wrong, I usually handed the airplane over to the best stick, while I used my experience and management skills to manage the situation. If you notice for instance on UA 232 into KSUX, Captain Haynes never touched the controls, he managed the situation. A little different of course single pilot, but it is important to use your experience, to guide you away from situations beyond your capability. 

Its a hard thing to admit to yourself you are diminishing, but as a pilot it is your job to take stock of the resources and manage them into the possible and not the impossible. 

My son takes a lot of pleasure in pointing out that George (our autopilot) flys much better then I do. That wasn’t true 20 years ago but then I have a much nicer autopilot now. I guess I’m doing the right thing by letting the better stick do the flying.

[Hank]

4 minutes ago, gsxrpilot said:

Is there such a Reg? Or is it a violation of 91.119 minimum safe altitudes?

Seems to me like 91.13 (careless or reckless operation could be argued) could certainly apply.

Also 91.119 (b) or (c) depending on what's around the bridge (cannot operate in sparsely populated areas within 500' of any structure).

Both (b) and (c) give minimum altitudes above things to avoid (ground, water, trees, hills, structures), and they are much higher when people are on the ground.

[aviatoreb]

3 minutes ago, ilovecornfields said:

My son takes a lot of pleasure in pointing out that George (our autopilot) flys much better then I do. That wasn’t true 20 years ago but then I have a much nicer autopilot now. I guess I’m doing the right thing by letting the better stick do the flying.

Get back to me when George is doing the aeronautical decision making.  To proceed based on a given weather forecast and to plot a best flight plan.  Which runway to choose.  What altitude to choose.  Whether to delay 6 hours or launch 6 hours sooner. Whether today is the day to fly under a bridge or not.  Someday, George WILL be making all of those decisions.

[aviatoreb]

Just now, Hank said:

Seems to me like 91.13 (careless or reckless operation could be argued) could certainly apply.

Also 91.119 (b) or (c) depending on what's around the bridge (cannot operate in sparsely populated areas within 500' of any structure).

Both (b) and (c) give minimum altitudes above things to avoid (ground, water, trees, hills, structures), and they are much higher when people are on the ground.

Theoretically, there could be a big enough bridge so distance separation rules don't trigger?

[Hank]

Just now, aviatoreb said:

Theoretically, there could be a big enough bridge so distance separation rules don't trigger?

If the support posts are 4000' apart. General VFR clearances are 1000' above and 2000' horizontal clearance from the highest obstacles within 2 nm of your flight path.

Can you tell I just spent several hours with a CFII getting current and semi-proficient again?

[GeeBee]

She did not meet the 500' rule or the 2000' rule. It is pretty cut and dry. 

Kind of funny how times change. The first China Clipper took off from Alameda  with Captain Ed Musick at the controls as well as paying passengers. When he realized he did not have the climb performance to clear the cables of the under construction Bay Bridge, he flew under them. The press gaggle following in light planes dutifully, flew under them as well. Not a word was said!

Maybe Martha should claim "precedent".

 

[toto]

As a follow up to the obstacle clearance discussion... There is absolutely nothing in the regs that considers flight *below* an obstacle. These are all minimum altitudes *above* an obstacle, structure, or person. 

I think there is no argument consistent with the regs that flying under a bridge is allowed by having met obstacle clearance mins.

Unless you have an emergency or you're somehow on an approach to landing that would require going under the bridge, you'll need a waiver. 

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, toto said:

As a follow up to the obstacle clearance discussion... There is absolutely nothing in the regs that considers flight *below* an obstacle. These are all minimum altitudes *above* an obstacle, structure, or person. 

I think there is no argument consistent with the regs that flying under a bridge is allowed by having met obstacle clearance mins.

Unless you have an emergency or you're somehow on an approach to landing that would require going under the bridge, you'll need a waiver. 

I disagree - mathematically the rule covers below.  500 feet above should be interpreted as 

score=airplane altitude - obstruction altitude >500.

Score is usually a positive number but if score is a negative number then it is still <500 and thee rule is violated.  If the prosecution wishes to hire me as an expert witness, I have the right credentials and I will be happy to give my special rate of $2500/day.  Plus travel and per diem and lodging.

[carusoam]

Martha is a thought leader... a writer... and now a story...

 

Well... Martha, you made me think... 

 

1) What are the rules for the other vehicles going under the same bridge?

Lots of heavy boats with larger power mills than we have... generating more kinetic energy...

All stuck at the same altitude...

 

On the bridge... there are Ryder trucks with unknown cargo... that are rented... Confined within tight lanes...

 

2) With George’s WAAS accuracy... don’t select the exact middle...  Somebody else may have done the same thing...

 

3) Our airplanes can fly with extreme accuracy... I have seen the wing  of another Mooney in some pretty close formation for a longer period of time than going past a bridge...

 

4) If we splatter into the bridge, do they just hang up a blue tarp while sweeping up our environmental mess...

 

5) If we hit a lamp pole which is more frangible...

 

6) Why was the rule written this way?

 

7) What or who is it protecting?

 

8) Maybe we need better defined lanes...  red or green lights on the bridge...

 

9) Need a pic of a big boat stuck in a bridge?  What rule was broken then...

 

10) Hey look Ma, no hands...

 

I think I know which rule was broken...

 

The don’t do nothin’ dumb rule....  

 

The rule has sub-rules....

10.1) While being famous

10.2) While being deemed rich (wealth has nothing to do here)

10.3) While holding public office

10.4) While in the public eye

 

 

The long term affects on the population of this under the bridge showboating...

She’s no Roy Halliday...

 

This will be in the news for about five more days... when somebody more famous does something equally dumb...

PP thoughts only...

Best regards,

-a-

[201Steve]

If equipped as a sea plane, I believe it’s legal so long as it’s considered an approach to landing. 

[GeeBee]

Let us review:

FAR 91.119 (c)  Over other than congested areas. An altitude of 500 feet above the surface, except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In those cases, the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any  person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.

Altitude has nothing to do with it. A little hard to claim you were more than 500 feet from the structure when it is only 239 feet above the surface as well.

 

[bradp]

So if this were Jerry Wagner flying under a bridge (which may have had vehicles), we’d be piling on and quite content with the FAA action.  Because it’s Martha and there’s some nostalgia and she writes articles for AOPA, people are coming to her defense. We don’t fly our little planes under bridges.  People generally think pilots are daredevils and GA planes fall out of the sky left and right.  GA Airports are endangered species,  and media is now doing splash articles about lead intoxication in impoverished kids and attributing it and adult repository problems in urban areas to piston single exhaust.  Martha’s not an ambassador for the preservation of GA pulling shit like this. It’s one more thing that continues to put  GA at risk. The faa was correct to perform a certificate action.  

[MooneyMitch]

23 minutes ago, bradp said:

 Martha’s not an ambassador for the preservation of GA pulling shit like this. It’s one more thing that continues to put  GA at risk

As I’ve said before, writing for an alphabet organization and becoming well know within the pilot community does little to promote general aviation, other than within our own community.

Flying under bridges ( regardless of any reason or thrill), and making the 5 o’clock news, thereby reaching the majority of folks that don’t read our in-house writings, is not a positive for us.

Again, I say bad Martha  I truly wish you’d not done that 

[aviatoreb]

I wonder how many times she’s flown under bridges before this time she got caught?

[Deb]

Apparently there’s a bit more to the story (from Avweb dated April 23) https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/bridge-stunt-leads-to-ads-b-revocation/:

But a coincidental malfunction of her Cessna 180’s transponder with ADS-B-Out may have resulted in her being slapped with an emergency revocation of all her certificates instead of the suspension that normally accompanies such transgressions. 

Lunken said that after she’d crossed flying under a bridge from her bucket list she headed home and checked in with Cincinnati Approach and was told her transponder was off. She said she reset it and set a new code and it resumed working. In their subsequent investigation, FAA officials determined that she’d shut it off on purpose to stop the system from tracking her while she threw caution to the wind. Lunken, a longtime former FAA safety inspector and veteran flight instructor, vehemently denies the charge. “I know what I did in that cockpit and I did not turn it off,” she said. 

The agency used a new section of its Legal Enforcement Actions guidebook for FAA staff, which calls for revocation of a certificate for “operating an aircraft without activated transponder or ADS-B Out transmission (except as provided in 14 C.F.R. § 91.225(f)) for purposes of evading detection.” The section was added in a package of other amendments in January of 2020, just after ADS-B became mandatory in most controlled airspace and about two months before Lunken’s flight of fancy. The section is on page 9-14 at the bottom.

Lunken said she took the 180 to her avionics tech, who said the transponder seemed to be loose in its mount when he took it out. It tested fine on the bench and after it was re-installed. The FAA interviewed the tech. Lunken said the tech was unable to tell them whether the device was malfunctioning during the flight. She said now it’s her word against the FAA’s on whether the intermittent ADS-B Out signal was a malfunction or a crime. She said radar tracks that were part of the evidence against her showed the ADS-B signal from her aircraft to be intermittent. She speculates she jarred the connections loose during a few bone-jarring landings in gusty crosswinds. “I had made several rather brutal landings at OH77 (the 32’ wide, concrete, crosswind strip just north of the bridge) and it was bumpy at low levels,” she said. “I did not turn it off.”

In addition to the article @Hanklinked (https://www.flyingmag.com/unusual-attitudes-no-excuses-screw-up/), two months later Martha detailed the events leading to the loss of her DPE here https://www.flyingmag.com/unusual-attitudes-another-screw-up/.

[Greg Ellis]

Her story just doesn't work with me, if that AvWeb article is correct in quoting her.  Initially in the story it is first written that flying under the bridge was "an impulsive and “immature” stunt she told AVweb she knew was wrong." 

Then in a following paragraph it is written "Lunken said that after she’d crossed flying under a bridge from her bucket list she headed home and checked in with Cincinnati Approach and was told her transponder was off.:"

So which is it....an impulsive and immature thing to do or something you have been planning for long enough to put it on a bucket list.

Those two statements just don't work together.  I think her whole story is hooey.  I think she planned it out and did it and managed to get caught and now is back tracking to cover her ass.  She gave GA a black eye.  But this is my opinion only and not based on anything than what I have read.

[PeteMc]

The ADS-B issue is not so much about if she did it or not.  Her license was revoked because of the ADS-B issue and a reg that came in with the introduction of ADS-B.  

I believe she admitted flying under the bridge from the very beginning.  The FAA refers to "people on the ground" so I'm guessing there is also a photo and/or recording of the event.  But instead of getting a suspension, she got the full revocation of her certificate due to the ADS-B issue. 

Is the FAA trying to make an example?  Who knows, but it sure wouldn't surprise me. 

[aviatoreb]

She seems completely unremorseful since she seems to have planned to do this thing including hiding it by turning off the adsb, then it seems as if she is continuing to lie about that part even now - these hard to prove but so it seems - but she continues to describe flying under the bridge not as breaking a rule, but as "crossing it off" her "bucket list" which is a description of self belief that is therefore ok because she has a right to do that.

[bradp]

She should have just flown in formation. One with and one without transponder and ads-b.  ;-p

[gsxrpilot]

Opinions, and nothing more

• I think it's something she's been thinking of doing for a long time and finally decided to do it.
• Just because she'd been thinking about it for years, doesn't preclude the fact it could have been a last minute decision. She very well could have taken off without any intention of flying under the bridge that day, and then in a weak/foolish moment, decided, what the heck.
• I could go either way on the transponder issue. She intentionally turned it off to hide the flight, but then lied about it? Or she's not lying about anything. She admits to wanting to fly under the bridge for a long time, and she did it, why lie about the transponder?
• I have no issue with the enforcement action and support the idea that consequences should follow for breaking the regs. I think it's a little harsh, but you take your chances when you knowingly violate the regs. So I'm fine with the punishment.
• Would I do the same thing... maybe. Certainly not today. I have a lot of flying still to do. If I'm 78 and about to lose my medical anyway... the probability goes up a bit.

[Shadrach]

On 4/25/2021 at 1:02 PM, Hank said:

So which rules are useless, because whoever wants to can break them at any time? If Martha can fly under a bridge, so can you and I and him over there. What other regs can we break on a whim? (If you film your u der-the-bridge flight, don't post it here.)

Like many other regulations, "don't fly under bridges" was likely the result of one too many messy, bloody accidents. Do we really want to go back to that?

Or do we give free.passes only to celebrities? Who determines if a person is "enough" of a celebrity to get away with a particular infraction? We don't want to go there, either.

This is the duality of an issue like this. You don’t want every Tom, Dick and Mary flying under bridges willy-nilly. Indeed there would be more accidents if that were the case maybe even mid-air collisions.  But the actual violation, while more risky than straight and level flight at 1000+AGL was not terribly risky. I would say that I Could easily make the case that flying under that bridge under those circumstances is far less risky than flying the Hudson exclusion on a busy day.  Legal and safe or not the sa... it’s been said too many times to repeat.

I think of this sort of like someone in a sports car who knows their county back roads really well and decides to open up their sports car on a deserted straight away. No driveways, no children, little chance of additional traffic. I’ll admit to doing that myself and I bet there are many others on this board who have as well. Is it illegal, absolutely. Is it dangerous? There is some increased risk. Is it likely to end up causing property damage or loss of life? Highly unlikely. 

Every single person on this board breaks a federal or state regulation almost daily. Some of you may set your cruise control right at the speed limit every time you drive. Those of you who don’t have rationalized breaking the law as long as it’s within the confines of what you consider to be reasonable. This doesn’t make you unusual it makes you the norm. I do see a societal change in the willingness to excoriate those who've been caught. My anecdotal observation is that people used to be much more “there but by the grace of God go I“ and much less “throw the book at that SOB and destroy the life they’ve built”... at least until the pious get caught then it was an isolated incident, a sickness or a miscalculation.  I don’t think we’re better society for it.
 

Martha did what she did; whether the FSDO likes her or not should not matter (but it sure does). Should she walk with a warning? NO. But it burns me up that a sitting US senator received a slap on the wrist and an expungement for intentionally landing on a closed runway while personnel were conducting operations. That was far more dangerous, far more risky and equally premeditated. 

Edited April 27, 2021 by Shadrach

[MooneyMitch]

Paul Bertotelli comes through again with his Martha follow up writings yesterday titled “Fear, Loathing and ADS-B”.  

[gsxrpilot]

29 minutes ago, MooneyMitch said:

Paul Bertotelli comes through again with his Martha follow up writings yesterday titled “Fear, Loathing and ADS-B”.  

Excellent as always!