Pilot dead after plane crash

[Exadios]

Ag plane crashed east of Geraldton, WA

 

 

[Tomo]

Sad to hear.

 

 

[dazza 38]

Very Sad indeed.When we go to work, everymoring regardless of what our occupation is, we expect to come home.

 

 

[Guest Mad Dave]

Tragic. I was actually flying over the top of a guy spraying crops yesterday marvelling at the amount of skill he was displaying, must take rather large ones!

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

It does take large ones. It'd be a pretty enjoyable (and lucrative) game if there were no powerlines...........................Maj...

 

 

[facthunter]

Low Level dangers.

 

It is nearly ALWAYS the powerlines and usually late in the day. Nev

 

 

[foxy]

thats sad to hear. its a very trying job, i guess, doing crop dusting and mustering...any type of low level airwork. extremely difficult to see powerlines and such, whilst trying to maintain ur eyes on your work, as well as the aircraft attitude and possible hazards.

 

commiserations to the family of the pilot involved....

 

 

[Tomo]

A chappy was showing me his "powerline sword" as he called it, the other day.

 

Mounts on the front windscreen somewhere, either deflects it away, or supposedly chops it. I asked him if he's used it... "Oh yes" he said.

 

Though, once he said it didn't chop it, just deflected it over the top, the line still took his tail off, saved his head though.

 

Dad has had to rescue three fixed wing pilots hitting lines, and one chopper. Some do a pretty good job of it, I remember one that took down three or four poles - they must have a bit of inertia there!

 

They all survived with just minor injuries, but the last fairly recent one which was wind shear - killed the pilot. That was pretty tragic.

 

 

[foxy]

*****Mounts on the front windscreen somewhere, either deflects it away, or supposedly chops it.*****

 

dunno if that sounds really all that much of a fix....could be more dangerous than not having....seeing as though you've now got something mounted, surely in your line of vision at some stages of the flight, that will supposedly take away the probability of hitting power lines. surely allowing yourself to believe that this "sword" will remove the probability of hitting powerlines, is far more dangerous, as it would also remove the situational awareness that the pilot should have throughout his flight??

 

one would think that the best way to avoid the powerlines is to keep that situational awareness 100% of the way through your flight, regardless of weather it be looking for aircraft or wx, or powerlines. i would think that a pilots own means of avoidance, is better than a temporary "fix".

 

....just my own thoughts.

 

liz

 

 

[bones]

thats sad to hear. its a very trying job, i guess, doing crop dusting and mustering...any type of low level airwork. extremely difficult to see powerlines and such, whilst trying to maintain ur eyes on your work, as well as the aircraft attitude and possible hazards.commiserations to the family of the pilot involved....

Trust me there is only one thing that really, scares the sh*t out of me, and that's "the lines of death" as we call them, it is IMPOSSIBLE to see without the posts, there is one line near Ravenswood NQ, claimed the lives of 2 in a R22 about 15-20 years ago mustering, i was at the same property a couple of years ago, and one of the guys that was there that fatal day warned me about where it was, even when i knew where it was, you could not see it, situation is, one pole on 1 hill and about 2km away another pole on top of the next hill, in the middle it is about 250', right where you should be mustering, and even though i flew over the top of the pole and followed the line down about 50' away, i COMPLETELY lost it about 50' from the post, they just vanish.

 

So if you fly low be very aware of the surroundings, and you get very spoilt in the NT, cause there is none out here, but its a real shock to the system flying home at 100' looking out the the side seeing a line of poles coming at you :ah_oh:

 

 

[Exadios]

Trust me there is only one thing that really, scares the sh*t out of me, and that's "the lines of death" as we call them, it is IMPOSSIBLE to see without the posts, there is one line near Ravenswood NQ, claimed the lives of 2 in a R22 about 15-20 years ago mustering, i was at the same property a couple of years ago, and one of the guys that was there that fatal day warned me about where it was, even when i knew where it was, you could not see it, situation is, one pole on 1 hill and about 2km away another pole on top of the next hill, in the middle it is about 250', right where you should be mustering, and even though i flew over the top of the pole and followed the line down about 50' away, i COMPLETELY lost it about 50' from the post, they just vanish.So if you fly low be very aware of the surroundings, and you get very spoilt in the NT, cause there is none out here, but its a real shock to the system flying home at 100' looking out the the side seeing a line of poles coming at you :ah_oh:

We have had a few pilots who have had run ins with power line over the years. In one instance a pilot had his face peeled off. He managed to make it to a unoccupied farm house where he hot wired a vehicle and drove himself to hospital.

 

 

[sseeker]

Very sad to hear. Here's a video I found demonstrating the skill required and displayed by Crop Dusting pilots

 

 

-Andrew

 

 

[Tomo]

It's a great video that, Sseeker. Being a local business, it's great seeing something well made.

 

Crop dusting around here is extremely normal/important, spraying, fertilizing, planting, baiting, just about anything you can think about.

 

An AT just flew over as we speak infact! :big_grin:

 

Not to long ago I remember the days standing out holding the flag...

 

 

[Exadios]

The immediate cause.

 

 

[bones]

very cool video,,hard to imagine spending all day at dot feet,,,they must be absolutely buggered at the end of the day

It does get very tiring day after day, i can be found sitting on the tyre most afternoons think What the F*ck am i doing this for, then next morning just before daylight your strapping yaself in again doing the same thing again.

 

immediate cause[/url].

Something so simple, however it was in the overshoot section, so he could have had a problem or just didnt quiet get it off in time.

a pity thats for sure.

 

 

[nong]

Er, daldy... Wire swords and deflector cables are, more often than not, factory fitted standard equipment on ag-planes. Have a look at a Pawnee. Now place yourself in the cockpit at application speed. Imagine a wire coming at you. There is not much structure between you and the wire, so that wire is likely going to chop your head off. Wire deflector/cutters are a good thing!

 

During the working season the hours are long and there can be a fair bit of sleep deprivation. There is an urgency to completing the work, as pestilence (crop attack) waits for no man. Of course ag-pilots work hard to stay alert and they don't need a lecture about maintaining 'situational awareness'!! In fact, despite the environment and circumstances of their operation, they usually achieve long term accident rates equal to or better than the non-professional pilot fraternity can manage.

 

It seems most unreasonable to propose that working pilots should be denied devices designed to provide secondary protection in the event of an error or misjudgement. This line of reason says that seat belts, overturn structures, rear positioned cockpits, etc. should be done away with. Reminds me of a certain air force that denied its pilots parachutes under the mistaken belief that this would induce cowardice.

 

Fred

 

 

[Exadios]

In Australia the mean time of those pilots who crash with injury is about 2000 hours and the mean time of the total population of ag pilots who crash with injury is about 18000 hours.