Patrick's accident report

[Marauder]

I don't think it was midfield. I remember something either on here originally or in the prelim about not using the 1st few hundred feet.

If he did line up for take-off at mid-field, he had to know he had very little runway in front of him. The runway lights end at the threshold to 5, leaving about 1,200 feet in front of him with runway lights on either side (assuming the mid-field taxiway splits the runway in half). Anyone know offhand what the take-off distance of a fully loaded gross J is at a density altitude of 2,500'?

[jetdriven]

A 2700 pound M20J should have been able to take off from 2200' of runway if the short field technique is correct. However, in Patrick's case, the stall warning sounded immediately after liftoff and, I presume, continued to do so until the crash.   The M20J absolutely won't climb if that close to a stall. You must have clean airflow over the wing to have positive performance.  Try it sometime at altitude, the airplane can't maintain altitude at full power in that regime. That laminar flow wing does not behave like a 172 at such low speed.

[RocketAviator]

While this report is sad indeed and I did not know Patrick I plan to use it along with the all the good posts here as a stern reminder of all the considerations that I as a pilot need to take into account.  Also especially appreciate Byron's comment on how important it is to know our airplane and how it flies.... & climbs.  His example which I have had personal experience with where I needed to increase airflow to get the climb I wanted...

 

One of my favorite sayings:

You know the difference between a smart man and a wise man?

The Smart man learns from his mistake!

The Wise man learns from someone else mistake!

 

Thanks for a great forum and posts from all!

 

Fly safe,

Rocket On!

[Seth]

I fear making that mistake (of mistaking my takeoff location on an unfamiliar airport).  I have flown into a lot of them, and at night they can produce some confusion.  I am grateful for the taxiway diagrams on Foreflight, I use them on every single airport where they are available.  A little fear is a good thing. 

 

I am very sorry it happened to a friend.

 

I'm also very cautious at airports I'm unfamiliar with and use those diagrams.  I forget which airport, maybe Charolottesville, VA, where a pilot at night saw the ramp, continued, and ended up "surfing" down a grassy hill to the ramp not realizing there was a drop off.  The diagram even showed the issue from the taxi way to the ramp - the pilot just though the ramp was adjacent to the taxiway, not that you had to use the two or three connection taxiways to get to the ramp.  Darkness can do strange things.

 

I'm curious if this accident would have occured during the day as well.  I only me Patrick once and he was indeed a happy soul. Very into aviation and his business card had a twin on it as I think that was his next aspiration. 

 

Be safe.

 

-Seth

[flyboy0681]

I'm curious if this accident would have occured during the day as well.

 

 

Nobody will ever know what transpired that night, but I'd be willing to bet that it would not have occurred during daylight hours.

[RJBrown]

As I read the report as he took off where the taxiway intersects the runway 225' from the end of RW 23. This gave him 2250' of runway plus the 450' of displaced runway beyond the start of runway 5. That would have given him 2700' of asphalt in front of him. The report is not clear. It seems unlikly that he chose to start his roll with only 1650' of asphalt, 1200' rwy and 450' displaced. Even if he had he still should have had room to take off.  There is a "bald spot" on the ground, in the above picture, right where the report places the crash. It is right after a small tree line. Length of the runway is not the issue IMHO. Pilot technique appears to be the issue. Trying to force a climb at too low an airspeed can use up 10,000' of runway with the same result. It sounds to me like he tried to climb too soon out of concern over a shorter runway. Trimmed properly you should never need to hold any back elevator for any take off. If you find yourself "pulling" you are mushing through the air in ground effect and need to push forward to gain airspeed..  

[BigTex]

I suspect what happened is that by the time he realized that that he was running out of runway, he pulled up out of ground effect not knowing what was ahead in the dark and hung into that near stall state until impact. What's scary is that I can see me doing the exact same thing... Pretty sobering.

[mcpilot]

I came to this forum too late to get to know Patrick in print. His accident reminds me of another really "good guy" who we lost back in '02 off the coast of OR. Anyone else here remember Yury Avrutin? A personable, intelligent, and adventurous soul who I was fortunate to meet a couple of times at Buchanon Field, Concord, CA. He sent me a draft of his planned book, "The Viking Route" about his Mooney flight to Europe. I will say he made flight and planning decisions that I thought on the ballsy side. Such a sad loss though, and it seems the same with Patrick.

 

be careful, fly smart,

 

bumper

 

 

I came to this forum too late to get to know Patrick in print. His accident reminds me of another really "good guy" who we lost back in '02 off the coast of OR. Anyone else here remember Yury Avrutin? A personable, intelligent, and adventurous soul who I was fortunate to meet a couple of times at Buchanon Field, Concord, CA. He sent me a draft of his planned book, "The Viking Route" about his Mooney flight to Europe. I will say he made flight and planning decisions that I thought on the ballsy side. Such a sad loss though, and it seems the same with Patrick.

 

be careful, fly smart,

 

bumper

Hey there Bumper...  I was in the group back then...

 

I remember Yury...  Wasn't it a "G" model that he flew?  Didn't his incident involve an over the water flight in Alaska?

 

Mike

[mcpilot]

Just curious... What rate of climb are you all seeing in your 201s??  (Standard conditions)

[Hank]

I thought Yury went down off the coast of Oregon? I also would love to read his Viking travel journal, but would not want to take my C on that route to Europe. He was before my time, but the legend lives on.

 

There has been sporadic talk of someone editing and publishing his writings. Any new information?

 

Patrick's case was tragic, right at graduation time. Couple of hundred under gross would be a challenging departure for me when going uphill at night in the rain, and I'm based at a [flat] 3000' strip. It comes down to ADM, risk tolerance and apparently knowing where you are on the field in the dark and where the obstacles are.

 

Loaded heavy like this, initial climb can be lethargic until airspeed builds in ground effect, unless the J's are significantly different.

[flyboy0681]

I hadn't realized it until now but I didn't include the link to the detailed report, just the summary.

 

Here's the factual findings.

 

http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentReports/ysjjjtris4uy5x45g4bhmx551/P06202013120000.pdf

[Marauder]

I suspect what happened is that by the time he realized that that he was running out of runway, he pulled up out of ground effect not knowing what was ahead in the dark and hung into that near stall state until impact. What's scary is that I can see me doing the exact same thing... Pretty sobering.

 

 

As I read the report as he took off where the taxiway intersects the runway 225' from the end of RW 23. This gave him 2250' of runway plus the 450' of displaced runway beyond the start of runway 5. That would have given him 2700' of asphalt in front of him. The report is not clear. It seems unlikly that he chose to start his roll with only 1650' of asphalt, 1200' rwy and 450' displaced. Even if he had he still should have had room to take off.  There is a "bald spot" on the ground, in the above picture, right where the report places the crash. It is right after a small tree line. Length of the runway is not the issue IMHO. Pilot technique appears to be the issue. Trying to force a climb at too low an airspeed can use up 10,000' of runway with the same result. It sounds to me like he tried to climb too soon out of concern over a shorter runway. Trimmed properly you should never need to hold any back elevator for any take off. If you find yourself "pulling" you are mushing through the air in ground effect and need to push forward to gain airspeed..  

 

N70 has a hill that sits off the approach end of 5 (hence the displaced threshold). I believe the accident report mentions that they were aware of it. If they took off at the nearest taxiway to runway 23 and using Byron's 2,200 fully loaded take-off distance, the pucker factor had to be high when they got to the end of the runway lights and knew the hill was there and they were just departing the runway. It was cloud covered night and with limited lighting, the temptation to pull on the yoke had to be high.

 

Another factor that I think played a role is the 2.4% uphill grade they had to climb. If you factor in a 10% increase in take-off distance for this, you would be on the displaced threshold as you broke ground.

[DonMuncy]

My statements above were obviously wrong. It appears he only "gave away" a couple of hundred feet of runway. Ordinarily, that is not much. In this particular instance , a take off from the very end might well have made the difference.

[201er]

Ok, if in fact he only did not use the threshold rather than the midrunway intersection, then I'm near certain he broke ground with enough distance and cutout ahead to make it. The suspicion is (and based on witness testimony from the complete report) that he flew too high of an angle of attack, effectively behind the power curve, inhibiting climb and eventually resulting in a stall. In other words the nose was pointing way up but the plane was going straight cause of the excessively high aoa (or for you lay men, he was going too slow).

[fantom]

Yuri was an experienced pilot, a well known risk taker in a ratty old Mooney. Patrick was an inexperienced pilot in a well maintained newer Mooney, and a bit caviler in his approach to flight planning, based on my talks with him.

 

I have done my share of dumb tricks in aviation, and truth be known, most all of us have. BUT neither crash was totally shocking; may they rest in peace; so too should the passengers they killed. Dumb is one thing, incredibly stupid is quite another. Patrick's poor right seat passenger burned to death, and Yuris' probably drowned. Manslaughter at best, IMHO, insensitive though it may be in some eyes.

 

You all better be more careful than they were, stop fretting and keep on top of things better than either of these two did, or you'll have me to answer to some day in the Heavenly Aviator's Club.

[flyboy0681]

Patrick's poor right seat passenger burned to death, and Yuris' probably drowned. Manslaughter at best, IMHO, insensitive though it may be in some eyes.

 

 

 

Which actually brings up another interesting question. The person in the right seat was also a pilot, why didn't he question the midfield takeoff? I'm sure if there was any conversation about it over the intercom that the survivor would have reported it to investigators.

[FloridaMan]

I mentioned this in the previous thread about this incident. I experienced something unexpected in my first soft-field takeoff in my Mooney (3100x100 turf). I applied the method I'd been trained as a student, which may or may not have been correct in the aircraft that I trained it, but was certainly not correct in the Mooney. I started my takeoff roll at full power with the yoke in my lap, lowering the nose as soon as the airplane became airborne. While in ground-effect at such a high angle of attack I found my airplane aggressively drifting to the left side of the runway. I allowed it to gain speed as I didn't have enough altitude or airspeed to do anything but keep the wings level and try to gain some control authority. Once I had enough speed, I recentered the airplane on the runway and took off as normal. I was a good 400 lbs under max gross with 1000ft more runway, at sea level and with no obstacles aside from a 4ft fence 300 ft from the end of the runway when I experienced that. 

 

In the case of Patrick's accident, I remember reading that the plane crashed to the left of the centerline of the runway, which matches the behavior that I experienced in my own airplane taking off with a high angle of attack and at low airspeed. 

[fantom]

 

In the case of Patrick's accident, I remember reading that the plane crashed to the left of the centerline of the runway, which matches the behavior that I experienced in my own airplane taking off with a high angle of attack and at low airspeed. 

 

That's the direction most take-off problems happen.

 

It's called P-factor, a term for asymmetric propeller loading, that causes the airplane to yaw to the left when at high angles of attack, much more pronounced right after lift off in a Mooney.

 

You probably learned about it early in training.

[scottfromiowa]

why woudn't the gear have been retracted?

[fantom]

why woudn't the gear have been retracted?

 

Pucker P-A-N-I-C

[FloridaMan]

 

...

You probably learned about it early in training.

 

 

I was taught what it was early in training. I didn't really "learn" about it until I started flying the Mooney. It never seemed to have much effect in the trainers, aside from maybe the instructor telling you to get the ball back on center. Hell, even if you stalled a little uncoordinated in those trainers, they would still stay pretty well-behaved. 

[aviatoreb]

I was taught what it was early in training. I didn't really "learn" about it until I started flying the Mooney. It never seemed to have much effect in the trainers, aside from maybe the instructor telling you to get the ball back on center. Hell, even if you stalled a little uncoordinated in those trainers, they would still stay pretty well-behaved. 

 

On the more high powered mooney's, well rocket at least - the only one I have flown, it is really very necessary to pay attention to pfactor and keep the ball centered since the effect is really quite pronounced.

[aviatoreb]

I corresponded with Patrick several times in the months before this incident.  HE was as a super nice guy.  That does not mean that while I was saddened tremendously by this outcome, I was not surprised and neither were many here.  The details of this incident are in the NTSB report but he put himself out there regularly in a way that was leaving openings to something.  I bet many folks here may have outgrown that sort of behavior in time, and I bet Patrick would have too, but it was not to be.  Rest in peace Patrick.

[bumper]

To all who've asked me to post or send a copy of Yury's draft book, "The Viking Route", when Yury sent it to me it was with the understanding that I was not to further disseminate it as he hoped to publish the book. 

 

I've sent an email to his nephew earlier today after finding his website memorializing Yury - - http://joshuaweinstein.com/yury/yury.html

 

If I hear from him, I'll seek permission to post the draft. If he doesn't get back to me  , , , I'll be persistent and try again (g).

 

bumper

[Jeff_S]

I was not able to access either link that was provided. They both said "page not available."  Can someone remind me when this occurred so I can find the NTSB report?