Plane crash near me in Plano

[MooneyMitch]

1 hour ago, MikeOH said:

@MooneyMitch

I landed at Meadowlark back in the late '70s...as I recall it was around 1500'?  Decades later I worked with a guy who had flown out of there as a CFI; claimed he flew twins in and out of there

I've read the runway was 1900 feet.  Another little gem swallowed up by progress.

[MooneyMitch]

I have also landed at night at Oceano Airport, L52, without the runway lights on...........just for practice.............just in case. 

[A64Pilot]

1 hour ago, 1980Mooney said:

We just keep dumbing down pilots.  Pretty soon newly minted pilots as well as the old ones that become dependent upon that latest glass from Garmin will only be able to land with Garmin Auto Land.....

When we flew the A model AH-64, we flew with instrument lights off, and had a “lip light” that’s a green LED that attaches to your microphone, want to see something poke your lip out and that turns on the LED. The first lip lights were home made, I still have mine.

We did that largely because anyone on the ground would likely shoot at a light source and we didn’t want to be shot at.

Longbow or D model, had two large full color screens that you could turn off but then you had no weapons or tactical situation display etc, so we raised the “bat wings” large accordion black curtains that sat in the bottom of the windows so that we weren’t sitting there illuminated, but you couldn’t really see out naked eye, just with the system

Longbow was very much more capable aircraft, it brought the Apache into the digital age, but I missed being able to fly completely blacked out, so we did lose something too.

[201er]

 

[hammdo]

He’s wrong on one thing, (if the Mooney pilot is the same guy), he was from the area and knew about this airport. Check the ‘vintage’ magazine article I linked. It explains quite a bit…

-Don

[hammdo]

[hammdo]

Oh man, this is bad…

https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/plane-crash-plano-shopping-center/287-ac46a2ae-ee14-44f6-9f2d-f1c782408219

-Don

[Hank]

Night flight carries unique risks. You have to be prepared for what you find, and you never know what to expect. 

• I've landed twice without a landing light, after checking that it was fine in preflight. The first was with a CFII, and we'd taken off after work; i was wearing my prescription sunglasses but had left my regular glasses in the car. I had the choice of blurry vision or sharp, dim vision. He logged the landing as sunglasses and no landing light. 
• Flew 2 hours to mom and dad's rural airport one Friday after work. (Its even more rural than my own (33A in Upstate South Carolina). I had been assured that the runway lights worked, and sure enough, there they were out there in the darkness below. When I entered the pattern, I confirmed my suspicion that there was only a single row of lights, and neither i nor my wife could tell which side of the runway they were on--so I guessed and lined up with the lights off my left wingtip so that I could see them better. On short final, the runway was visible on the other side of the lights . . . Went around and landed uneventfully with the runway lights off my right wingtip. Carefully, it's only 30' wide, but I could sort of see the old pavement out my window once I was nice and low.
• Coming home one night, just over the end of the runway with all lights brightly lit, fog that was not visible from the air appeared in front of me, bright white and disorienting. I yelled for my wife to turn off the landing light because I couldn't see. Click, the light went off and chirp, we were down and almost immediately rolled out of the fog.

Be sharp, be prepared and be ready to divert when flying at night. But it's often a calm, serene experience. With the usual disclaimer for weather and another one for "what you see is what you get." A little judicious training with an instructor can take the edge off of unusual situations. 

Ya'll be careful out there!! Prayers for the pilot's family, too.

[ZuluZulu]

2 hours ago, hammdo said:

He’s wrong on one thing, (if the Mooney pilot is the same guy), he was from the area and knew about this airport. Check the ‘vintage’ magazine article I linked. It explains quite a bit…

-Don

Blancolirio got basic facts wrong in his rush for views, once again? Well knock me over with a feather. 

[EricJ]

He had just turned west into the sunset.   I suspect maybe just disorientation from not being able to see anything in the glare.

Very sad regardless of the cause.

[hammdo]

Yeah, 34 is ‘right pattern’ so a turn to the east after going straight would have been the way. He asked Addison for the wind too.. something could have happened but it sure looked like a stall accident at low altitude…

-Don

[GeeBee]

6 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

Complete rubbish.  With that attitude why train for any situation other than flying VMC severe clear?  Why train for any dire situation?  Why train with the hood for Inadvertent VFR Flight Into IMC? - might it make students think that it is not such a risk?  Why train for stalls?  Might it make students think that they can climb more steeply than the plane will sustain?   Why train for cross wind landings? Might it make students think that they can actually land when the wind is not directly down the runway?  All those types of training reinforce students' understanding of the limits of the plane and their limits.

It is no wonder that today's pilots, Commercial as well as GA, cannot hand fly a plane if the autopilot fails.

Because stalls, VFR-IMC, etc are all inadvertent. You don't "inadvertently" plan to land without runway lights. Further, I can tell you that such training is worthless without constant practice. So you going to land without lights with an instructor every 30 days? I had the good fortune to meet one of the C-130 crews that landed at Entebbe. The maneuver required almost daily practice to perform with acceptable performance. What we should be training for is judgement that says, "don't land without runway lights" and plan your night flying that should the runways lights fail, you have a suitable and viable alternate.

Years ago the FAA had a bunch of fighter jocks work up a curriculum for upset recovery. They had us doing inverted flight and rolling the airplane in the simulator. Yes, it was training for "every possibility" but it was negative training because it taught pilots to be too aggressive with the airplane and in particular the rudder. Here is the results. The pilot did, exactly what he thought was possible from his training.

[Pinecone]

16 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

Complete rubbish.  With that attitude why train for any situation other than flying VMC severe clear?  Why train for any dire situation?  Why train with the hood for Inadvertent VFR Flight Into IMC? - might it make students think that it is not such a risk?  Why train for stalls?  Might it make students think that they can climb more steeply than the plane will sustain?   Why train for cross wind landings? Might it make students think that they can actually land when the wind is not directly down the runway?  All those types of training reinforce students' understanding of the limits of the plane and their limits.

It is no wonder that today's pilots, Commercial as well as GA, cannot hand fly a plane if the autopilot fails.

You have to also teach the judgement tree that goes along with these things.

But I agree with you.   And most students will understand.  But some won't.  But those same ones would have probably tried it without any training.

 

[Pinecone]

10 hours ago, GeeBee said:

Because stalls, VFR-IMC, etc are all inadvertent. You don't "inadvertently" plan to land without runway lights. Further, I can tell you that such training is worthless without constant practice. So you going to land without lights with an instructor every 30 days? I had the good fortune to meet one of the C-130 crews that landed at Entebbe. The maneuver required almost daily practice to perform with acceptable performance. What we should be training for is judgement that says, "don't land without runway lights" and plan your night flying that should the runways lights fail, you have a suitable and viable alternate.

Years ago the FAA had a bunch of fighter jocks work up a curriculum for upset recovery. They had us doing inverted flight and rolling the airplane in the simulator. Yes, it was training for "every possibility" but it was negative training because it taught pilots to be too aggressive with the airplane and in particular the rudder. Here is the results. The pilot did, exactly what he thought was possible from his training.

 

It also shows the pitfalls and why you don't want to do it unless there is no other option.

IIRC, that came about because of a misunderstanding about full surface deflection and airspeed, and how it was presented to the pilots.

[GeeBee]

2 hours ago, Pinecone said:

It also shows the pitfalls and why you don't want to do it unless there is no other option.

IIRC, that came about because of a misunderstanding about full surface deflection and airspeed, and how it was presented to the pilots.

When the program came out, I said, "Somebody is going to die". The answer was, "FAA mandated, we have no choice". So we did the training and yep, some one died. The program was without regard to the maneuvering realities of a transport aircraft, in everything from the generators staying on line inverted, to the structural limits of the airplane. 

For whatever reason there is a belief that "macho training" will save your bacon. We need more emphasis on skill in ordinary ops and judgement.  We need less relying upon extra ordinary training to fix problems in judgement. When we first started wind shear training wind shear accidents actually went up, because we convinced pilots through wind shear training they could fly the shear rather than a focus on avoiding the shear all together. The quick way to fix that is to create unflyable shears. IOW, do everything right and the plane still crashes. It got people's attention.

 

 

 

[hammdo]

Right before impact:

 

[mike_elliott]

19 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

Four days ago he was given the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for 50 years of safe flight.  Sadly that should have been a reminder to question when it is time to stop flying rather than launch a long cross country trip at days from 88 years of age.

The article did say Monroe was a master pilot, but had received this award a few years ago.

Once we vet his widow, we will reach out to her and offer support from the Mooney Summit. I have her name and address

 

[Hank]

1 hour ago, hammdo said:

Right before impact:

 

Stall, roll left, fall . . . .  

[Pinecone]

22 hours ago, GeeBee said:

When the program came out, I said, "Somebody is going to die". The answer was, "FAA mandated, we have no choice". So we did the training and yep, some one died. The program was without regard to the maneuvering realities of a transport aircraft, in everything from the generators staying on line inverted, to the structural limits of the airplane. 

For whatever reason there is a belief that "macho training" will save your bacon. We need more emphasis on skill in ordinary ops and judgement.  We need less relying upon extra ordinary training to fix problems in judgement. When we first started wind shear training wind shear accidents actually went up, because we convinced pilots through wind shear training they could fly the shear rather than a focus on avoiding the shear all together. The quick way to fix that is to create unflyable shears. IOW, do everything right and the plane still crashes. It got people's attention.

Remember, the reason that training was mandated was that people had died from not know how to handle upsets.

The AA one was that virtually no pilots understood that Va was for a SINGLE full travel deflection. Everyone was taught that you use full control deflection up to that speed.

[GeeBee]

9 hours ago, Pinecone said:

Remember, the reason that training was mandated was that people had died from not know how to handle upsets.

The AA one was that virtually no pilots understood that Va was for a SINGLE full travel deflection. Everyone was taught that you use full control deflection up to that speed.

I think if that is what you took from the report, you missed a lot of things. The use of that kind of rudder single, or full swing was inappropriate at any speed in a transport aircraft, including approach to stall as well as stall. Further the simulation lacked fidelity (which I pointed out earlier) and most important it violated the "train like you fight, fight like you train" principle. The mis-application of rudder control principles to a transport aircraft was a direct result using only people with air combat maneuvering experience in the program development and not consulting transport test pilots or the manufacturers.

[John Mininger]

I remember the late, great Ron Blum saying one time that in his investigations of accidents in the traffic pattern, something like 80% occurred while in the take-off or go-around phase.  Not the infamous base-to-final turn.

I can believe it. I've practiced go-arounds and loss of engine during take-off procedures while at a safe altitude. You learn to PUSH real quick! 

[A64Pilot]

On 11/24/2023 at 9:15 PM, GeeBee said:

I think if that is what you took from the report, you missed a lot of things. The use of that kind of rudder single, or full swing was inappropriate at any speed in a transport aircraft, including approach to stall as well as stall. Further the simulation lacked fidelity (which I pointed out earlier) and most important it violated the "train like you fight, fight like you train" principle. The mis-application of rudder control principles to a transport aircraft was a direct result using only people with air combat maneuvering experience in the program development and not consulting transport test pilots or the manufacturers.

You sure he was taught to motor the rudder full travel left to right when entering turbulence?

At least that’s what I remember from that accident as to what happened.

Why in the world would anyone do that, much less teach it?

People even “experts” think of the simulator as being just like the real aircraft, when in fact it’s just a computer of course and will only act like it’s programmed.

I’ve talked more than once to accident investigators getting into the AH-64A simulator to see if a person could have successfully recovered the aircraft or not, most understand when I tell them at best they are only validating programming, not what would really happen in the aircraft, when you take a simulator outside of the normal envelope you may be getting into unknown territory. 

The AH-64A simulator when rolled would have the trim ball move full travel from side to side at the top of the roll, of course the aircraft doesn’t do that, when I dug into why it was the simulator wasn’t programmed for past about a 150 degree bank was why.

To prove the simulator could be gamed I learned that if you flew off the edge of the “world” you could descend and fly back underground and shoot anything, it couldn’t shoot back, which is silly of course but did show that just because the simulator says you can do something doesn’t mean you can in the real aircraft.

[GeeBee]

1 hour ago, A64Pilot said:

You sure he was taught to motor the rudder full travel left to right when entering turbulence?

At least that’s what I remember from that accident as to what happened.

Why in the world would anyone do that, much less teach it?

 

Because you are steeped in ACM (air combat maneuvering) then got a job with the FAA.

 

[A64Pilot]

1 hour ago, GeeBee said:

Because you are steeped in ACM (air combat maneuvering) then got a job with the FAA.

 

I don’t want a job with the FAA and I’m not steeped in ACM, but we did train for it in the late 80’s because at that time the USSR was developing a helicopter specifically to shoot us down, Army quickly for whatever reason quickly backed out of ACM, and never really fielded air to air weapons for the AH-64. Good thing I guess because the air to air threat never materialized. Their stated concern was airframe fatigue but later testing found that not to be a concern, largely because helicopters simply can’t generate the G forces a fixed wing can.

However you didn’t answer the question, was the Copilot trained to motor the rudder full travel back and forth when encountering turbulence?

This if accurate seems to indicate several issues, training is one, any time it’s pilot error it’s a training failure, but aircraft design and apparently mis programmed simulators as well as other factors were in play, many other factors. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587

Hopefully no one actually trained him to bury the rudder pedals to full deflection. 

[Pinecone]

3 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

People even “experts” think of the simulator as being just like the real aircraft, when in fact it’s just a computer of course and will only act like it’s programmed.

I’ve talked more than once to accident investigators getting into the AH-64A simulator to see if a person could have successfully recovered the aircraft or not, most understand when I tell them at best they are only validating programming, not what would really happen in the aircraft, when you take a simulator outside of the normal envelope you may be getting into unknown territory. 

The older pre-motion T-38 sim, you could land it upside down.  And if paused in that condition, immediately "crashed" when the next person took it off of pause.