Close to home

[BravoWhiskey]

Today I found out my CFII was in a fatal accident.  I was scheduled for a flight review with him today.  While naturally my thoughts and prayers are with his family, I can’t help but to wonder about all of the things he taught me regarding stalls, spin recovery, engine out procedures, etc… 

We learn from experience and unfortunately from mistakes of ourselves and others.  Of the 11000 hrs this man had flying, and several thousands instructing I am having a tough time, as well as others that knew him, understanding what occurred.  More personally all the things he taught me are coming to mind.  Of course some of the blogs out there have shared opinions, most of which I know are incorrect.   Not picking on anyone here but those of us that use flightaware to formulate our accident case analysis are about as reliable as those of us that use Facebook to formulate an analysis for International Policies… my CFII would have appreciated that analogy!

Anyway, as the title states, this one is close to home.  I am not trying to formulate an opinion or get an opinion on the accident which is why I am keeping the name and tail number to myself.  I don’t question the lessons I learned from this instructor.  But it sure is hard for me to accept that something occurred in an aircraft that he was unable to walk away from.  

[DF's M20J]

As a fellow aviator mentioned, Life can be very tough and very personal. The further into this CFI active flying game you’ll know of someone maybe someone very close. We’re challenged to review, reset, take a breathe and move on. I know of a former student years ago, past CFI associate, even a flight review client. You get close to people in this business… trust you’ll have better days.

[MooneyMitch]

I’m so sorry for your loss.  Thinking about your instructors loved ones left behind..... so sad for them.

Best to you. 

[Marauder]

Sorry for the loss Bravo. Hang in there. The sobering thing in my aviation experience is the fact pilots like this lose their life. It sobering because where I am in terms of my aviation experience relative to their’s?

I remember when Scott Crossfield died. Here is a guy who accomplished so many things in aviation only to die in a GA accident. If a guy like that can lose his life in a GA accident, how is a Forrest Gump like me going to fair?

It is often hard to accept these accidents because we don’t often truly know what went on in the cockpit during the accident. I have a friend who had an accident in a Debonair. He had GoPros running and his recollection of what happened during the accident and what was on the video had some serious contrasts.

Any of us who had an unexpected inflight emergency can relate to how different practicing emergency procedures are versus doing them for real.

Unfortunately these accidents happen and we are left to ask why.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[GeeBee]

Instructing in an owner flown airplane is often a risky proposition. Knew a fine fellow that crashed and burned in a Commander 112. Cause, insects blocked the fuel vents way up in the tube. The owner had removed the screens along with other dubious owner maintenance actions that were not readily discoverable on preflight (like modifying the elevator hinge brackets). If I had seen him, I would have warned him off flying with the owner. 

As much as we would like to tell ourselves that accidents occur because the pilot failed in some way, that is deflection for the fact there are real risks in aviating that we often cannot mitigate without an inordinate amount of inspection and investigation. The number of maintenance (or lack of maintenance) induced accidents, where the failure point was beyond a normal or even detailed preflight would surprise you. I am reminded of the B777 dual engine flame outs with the Rolls-Royce engines. Nothing anyone did, pilots, engineers, mechanics was wrong, until the strange way fuel icing presented itself in a 1 in a trillion chance. We are not always in control.

I am sorry for the loss of your friend and mentor. Put your mind at ease and let the investigation run its course. Sometimes there is something to learn, sometimes there is nothing to learn other than sometimes bad circumstances just catch up with you. The latter is the hardest to take because it lacks the control we pilots crave.

[carusoam]

BW,

If you can…

It is an honor to post the lost airman’s details…

KDYL is pretty close to many of the NJMPs…

Prayers for the lost airman,

-a-

[BravoWhiskey]

 https://www.doylestownairport.com/flight-training/instructor-bios/al-piranian/

 

[larrynimmo]

It’s not hard to find the flight data on flight aware….plane was doing a lot of maneuvering and a lot of slow flight….perhaps a biannual flight review…not really sure

a very sad loss 

[Sixstring2k]

Sorry for your loss, thoughts and prayers with everyone affected. 

[N9656G]

What a shame. It's always hard to make sense of things like this. My flightaware data on my airplane is so OFF from reality. I often watch todays popular youtube accident commentary and wonder... if I crash, how long before they are ripping apart my innaccurate flightaware data? Also Dan G the other day was calling pilots with 3000+ hours complete NEWBIES. I feel like 3k hours is plenty to know right from wrong. Regardless, RIP. 

[DXB]

Very sad, and it's hard to say much at this point regarding cause of this tragedy, but I believe this is the crash in question.

https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/news/the-latest/2022/03/01/video-puzzling-flight-profile-in-violent-debonair-crash-in-pa-neighborhood/

[jaylw314]

On 2/27/2022 at 1:29 PM, N9656G said:

What a shame. It's always hard to make sense of things like this. My flightaware data on my airplane is so OFF from reality. I often watch todays popular youtube accident commentary and wonder... if I crash, how long before they are ripping apart my innaccurate flightaware data? Also Dan G the other day was calling pilots with 3000+ hours complete NEWBIES. I feel like 3k hours is plenty to know right from wrong. Regardless, RIP. 

You can actually tolerate listening to him??