Accident near HPN

[ragedracer1977]

On 1/21/2023 at 7:40 AM, exM20K said:

Tough spot to be in.  I think I heard him say the engine was over-revving at one point, which would be consistent with loss of OP.  From where he was when the incident started, he was high and set up on a long final for 34, but the ceilings were below ILS 34 minimums.  There’s just not a lot of options where and when this happened.  One of the most jarring things here is how close they were to pulling it off.  1 mile final and a couple hundred MORE feet of altitude, and they would have had an awesome “so there I was” story. RIP

Also consider his flight track after he actually declared mayday mayday mayday.

I’d bet money the panel was steam.  He lost his engine and he lost flight instruments.  It would explain the meandering path and failure to turn to the runway.

[Pinecone]

In stress the mind does strange things.

In building fires, people go past exits to where the came into the area.

If the controller said Rwy 16, the pilot could become focused on 16 and not considered that 34 was a shorter vector.

[jetdriven]

2 hours ago, ragedracer1977 said:

Also consider his flight track after he actually declared mayday mayday mayday.

I’d bet money the panel was steam.  He lost his engine and he lost flight instruments.  It would explain the meandering path and failure to turn to the runway.

The plane reportedly had 2 G5s, a Garmin auto pilot, and an insight engine monitor 

[DXB]

This awful tragedy happened despite what sounds like a reasonably capable pilot and aircraft, and it's a sobering reminder that being over low IMC in a piston single is awfully precarious if you need to get down quickly.   I don't think that I could fly an ILS effectively down to 300 under this kind of stress, particularly if I had to adjust my control inputs to compensate for a weak, vibrating engine.  

I do wonder if leaning on synthetic vision could have helped them get just below the cloud deck in good position to land in this dire situation when there may be no time and/or presence of mind to fly a real approach.  Even my newer Ipad mini with Foreflight seems to have pretty serviceable synthetic vision, which I play around with occasionally but have never actually used as a reference to fly the plane. I think it could help you avoid obstacles and put you in good position to land at 300 agl, but perhaps not without practice in advance. Practicing using it in a focused way with an instructor on board to mimic this type of condition might be a life saver.  

[HIghpockets]

This accident provoked a reality check about my training for managing an engine failure in IMC. There has been extensive conversation on Beechtalk  concerning the best way to land and survive. On the Crashtalk forum someone mentioned  an book, "Engine Out: Survival Tactics" by Nate Jaros.  There is a personal account by Matt Anker, a GA pilot who experienced almost the exact scenario as the pilot in the HPN accident. The critical difference is that Anker landed with a ceiling of 600' (not 300' and not in the dark). I highly recommend the book, it's available on Kindle. I have no conflict of interest concerning the book. The book provides detailed advice on surviving engine-out situations.

[Jerry 5TJ]

3 hours ago, ragedracer1977 said:

I’d bet money the panel was steam.

From another forum: said to have been the accident Bonanza’s current panel.  

[Skates97]

2 hours ago, jetdriven said:

The plane reportedly had 2 G5s, a Garmin auto pilot, and an insight engine monitor 

Here is the link on the club page for that plane. The picture Jerry posted is from that page. As Byron mentions here, over on BT where the thread on it is 14 pages with 198 posts and counting it was reported that the plane was recently updated to dual G5's and a GFC500. That is the only place I have seen that mentioned so we may be waiting for the initial report to see if it includes the instrumentation in the panel.

https://www.tandgflying.com/beechcraft-bonanza-a36---19mt.html

The last modification of that page was 12/08/2022 so you would think they would update with the most current pictures, but perhaps they were just updating some of the wording and not the images.

<url>
<loc>https://www.tandgflying.com/beechcraft-bonanza-a36---19mt.html</loc>
<lastmod>2022-12-08T18:07:58+00:00</lastmod>

 

[ilovecornfields]

4 hours ago, DXB said:

This awful tragedy happened despite what sounds like a reasonably capable pilot and aircraft, and it's a sobering reminder that being over low IMC in a piston single is awfully precarious if you need to get down quickly.   I don't think that I could fly an ILS effectively down to 300 under this kind of stress, particularly if I had to adjust my control inputs to compensate for a weak, vibrating engine.  

I do wonder if leaning on synthetic vision could have helped them get just below the cloud deck in good position to land in this dire situation when there may be no time and/or presence of mind to fly a real approach.  Even my newer Ipad mini with Foreflight seems to have pretty serviceable synthetic vision, which I play around with occasionally but have never actually used as a reference to fly the plane. I think it could help you avoid obstacles and put you in good position to land at 300 agl, but perhaps not without practice in advance. Practicing using it in a focused way with an instructor on board to mimic this type of condition might be a life saver.  

At my last MAPA PPP the instructor had me fly the ILS below minimums using the green synthetic vision dot after confidently declaring “I promise you won’t hit anything.” Definitely a useful and underused tool. Seems like an engine out approach would be a perfect use for it since your glide path will be much steeper than usual. Changing winds could still get you in trouble, though 

[kortopates]

1 hour ago, ilovecornfields said:

At my last MAPA PPP the instructor had me fly the ILS below minimums using the green synthetic vision dot after confidently declaring “I promise you won’t hit anything.” Definitely a useful and underused tool. Seems like an engine out approach would be a perfect use for it since your glide path will be much steeper than usual. Changing winds could still get you in trouble, though 

Yep, It works extremely well, especially when your using it before minimums. Why? It tells you immediately when your ground track is deviating from DTK so you can make corrections before you ever see the  CDI deviating off center. Much easier than scanning DTK and TRK when you don't have it. But it's not just for lateral guidance, it also adds the vertical rate dimension in as well so its very helpful and exactly what you want if forced to land in very poor visibility yet super useful flying every straight in approach!

[Ibra]

On 1/24/2023 at 4:24 PM, DXB said:

I do wonder if leaning on synthetic vision could have helped them get just below the cloud deck in good position to land in this dire situation when there may be no time and/or presence of mind to fly a real approach.

GPS and Synthetic-Vision are handy when you have to go down in next 3min in single engine in night and instrument conditions, the question how? straight-in or spiral? where do you nail it? 

Obviously, when landing with no engine in 300ft ceiling stretching with 1:10 glide ratio to airport along 1:20 ILS is impossible? even emergency descent by spiriling overhead airport within gliding range 300ft looks risky? SV FPV becomes misleading

I would not want to be in this situation:  one will rely more on keeping wings being level and slow impact speeds with plenty of luck than navigational accuracy...I have tried power off STOL IFR landing in short 500m strip using FPV in Synthetic-Vision display (with safety pilot looking outside), I don't think it's easy or doable unless you have huge runway or field with nil winds and you start from overhead

 

With 300ft agl ceiling, there is not much to do? after cloud-break speed nailed in 1.3VS into wind and wings have to be level anyway (if one does not like what is ahead, they close their eyes, like low EFATO, no turns: straight wih no back pressure) 

Edited January 29, 2023 by Ibra

[Jerry 5TJ]

Using the G500 with synthetic vision and “the pipper” can work out for emergency use in that awful case of gliding through IMC to 300’ ceilings.  
I have practiced such from simulated engine out in cruise to short final with a CFI watching.  It can work but a bit of luck is required.  It helps to cruise at higher altitudes.