3 more gone too soon. Near Maffra 16/11/24

[Love to fly]

23 hours ago, BrendAn said:

he was flying 100 ft below minimum legal height so when things went bad they were on the ground in an instant.

i went past there tonight on my way to work, there would have been close to a dozen people walking around the site. 

very thorough.

the thing i keep thinking about is the parents who lost 2 sons and a nephew at once for no good reason.

Below minimum legal height? 100ft too low?  Are you using altitude from FR24, adjusted for QNH?  Had they been flying along too low? Or descended due to an onboard issue? I've no idea. Just bloody sad at the loss of 3 lives. Can't even imagine what the families and friends are going through. Hope they are well supported. 

[rgmwa]

Losing one life is bad enough but losing three is a tragedy under any circumstances. That’s one reason I generally prefer to fly alone, especially if the passenger is a trusting non-pilot who is relying on your skill and your aircraft to get them home safely. 

[BrendAn]

46 minutes ago, Love to fly said:

Below minimum legal height? 100ft too low?  Are you using altitude from FR24, adjusted for QNH?  Had they been flying along too low? Or descended due to an onboard issue? I've no idea. Just bloody sad at the loss of 3 lives. Can't even imagine what the families and friends are going through. Hope they are well supported. 

Off fr24 .  I don't know how accurate it is. I would have thought it would be close.  I am only guessing the same as everyone else. I still think it will turn out to be a stall spin .  They had completed a couple of circuits around the farm before the accident . 

You are right it is a terrible tragedy and it's only 15 km from my house.

The thought of losing so many family members at once is hard to contemplate. Rip.

[Love to fly]

11 minutes ago, BrendAn said:

Off fr24 .  I don't know how accurate it is. I would have thought it would be close.  I am only guessing the same as everyone else. I still think it will turn out to be a stall spin .  They had completed a couple of circuits around the farm before the accident . 

You are right it is a terrible tragedy and it's only 15 km from my house.

The thought of losing so many family members at once is hard to contemplate. Rip.

It's awful.  But please be careful saying they were flying below legal minimums.  FR24 isn't adjusted for QNH and that could easily make the difference.  Family & friends could easily be impacted by statements like this.  

[BrendAn]

31 minutes ago, Love to fly said:

It's awful.  But please be careful saying they were flying below legal minimums.  FR24 isn't adjusted for QNH and that could easily make the difference.  Family & friends could easily be impacted by statements like this.  

It's already on the net before I said anything. Ask f10 what the qnh was at the time. He flew just before them. Tinamba area is dead flat irrigation farms  between 100 and 200 ft above sea level. It was around 28 deg

Edited Monday at 10:57 AM by BrendAn

[Jerry_Atrick]

8 hours ago, facthunter said:

 "Pilot Error" is an expression that has NOT been used by  investigators for quite a while. It actually gets you nowhere. There's ALWAYs some reason, why? Investigation is justified as being a way of improving safety Not just apportioning blame. A convenient answer as there's always a pilot at the scene of the crash. Yes Pilots are human and to err is human. . We must reduce the Frequency of these so called human error crashes. HOW is the hard part. Zero accidents is not possible but to not try to reduce them is dereliction of responsibility.. No one goes flying expecting to end up dead. That's obvious. We also think it only happens to others. Safety has to be an ethic. IF you're not sure check it again. Look again. don't show off. Don't be distracted. Fly to the conditions and your and the Planes Limits.. I'd hate to injure anyone or have a student prang because of something he wasn't taught  in a situation I've supervised or been a party to. Set a good example to others. Everyone has a part in it.  Nev

I can't agree with this more.. Often the cited reasons, eg. another flight into IMC by an unqualified pilot probably tells of the symptoms, but not the problems. I had read many ATSB, AAIB, NTSB, and other governments' investigation units reports, and they all mention pressonitis, but but not how it can afflict you. Of course, while reading the stories, I was thinking I would never succumb to it.

 

I found it afflicted me - twice. If I had of let the second event go a minute or two longer, I many not well be here to talk about it. On reflection, there were exceptional circumstances in both situations, and I was under a lot of pressure at the time. Self-reflection after the second one was a cosnscious effort to develop techniques to identify it and steer clear away from aeroplanes.

 

One of the hard things for investigators to do is get teh reasoniong of a particular case when the pilot and passengers are dead. Over here, we have CHIRP:

Summer’s coming? - CHIRP

CHIRP.CO.UK

 

I have submitted my two reports with reflections that hoepfully I and others will learn from. I know the ATSB  has a self-reporting scheme but I am not sure the reports are called out in the same way.

[F10]

Well yes, however over 800 hours on Harvards in the military and countless stalls powering/off, g-stalls, incipient and full spin recoveries plus extensive aerobatics, and in a Skyfox Gazelle @ a MAUW of 520Kg’s, made me comfortable at 2000Ft agl. But yes, always stick to your comfort zone.

[facthunter]

 You fly at low level on take-off ,landing and go arounds. We all need competence  in this Phase of flight. I always say you don't really know exactly WHAT happened in most cases.. We don't want it to happen . . It's unlikely the plane was overloaded.  There are many variables possible.  I've had Gazelles that we trained in when you would take ages to get to 4,000 ft. on warm days with "larger" people on board.  I had a 6 cyl Continental  have one hydraulic lifter fail and it wouldn't climb at 400 ft. Luckily it came good saving me from settling into a field of large tree stumps that would have ruined my day for sure. Nev

[F10]

22 hours ago, Flightrite said:

I sure as hell wouldn’t be doing unbalanced stalls etc at 2000 ft!

Thought this post was after the quoted one, but no, so this re-posting it.

 

Well hell yes, however over 800 hours on Harvards in the military and countless stalls powering/off, g-stalls, incipient and full spin recoveries plus extensive aerobatics, and in a Skyfox Gazelle @ a MAUW of 520Kg’s, made me comfortable at 2000Ft agl. But yes, always stick to your comfort zone.

[Flightrite]

3 hours ago, F10 said:

Thought this post was after the quoted one, but no, so this re-posting it.

 

Well hell yes, however over 800 hours on Harvards in the military and countless stalls powering/off, g-stalls, incipient and full spin recoveries plus extensive aerobatics, and in a Skyfox Gazelle @ a MAUW of 520Kg’s, made me comfortable at 2000Ft agl. But yes, always stick to your comfort zone.

Graveyards are full of ‘expert’ aerobatic pilots! 

[turboplanner]

10 hours ago, Flightrite said:

Graveyards are full of ‘expert’ aerobatic pilots! 

True, but the track and heights of this VH registered aircraft don't indicate aerobatics, but the common killer; sighteeing and/or getting photos of homesteads.

 

The aircraft is flown low - 500 feet agl is a good height for a standard camera lense.....and also the minimum legal flight level, and most people about to take photos are not focused on a suitable height for a stall.

 

The pilot starts out with a shallow enough turn but the person with the camera is shouting "CLOSER!" "CLOSER!!!" "Stay there!, I've just about got it!" and the pilot gets tighter and tighter until the aircraft lets go.

 

I'm not saying this is what's happened here and with ATSB investigating, their decision will be based on a lot more actual evidence, but I don't see any evidence here of beat ups straight over the houses or aerobatic displays, just multiple turns above the properties which I've done lots of times. It's normal to rev the engine or give some other pre-arranged signal, because people on the land are prone to saying afterwards that they didn't see you, and "Oh yeah a plane went over the house about that time."

 

If you want to avoid a similar accident to this, don't do the circling bit, come straight in towards the property, offset so the person with the camera can get a good shot, climb out. That was you have a clean, stable 500 - 600' camera pass and your turns are similar to circuit turns. Passenger needs a shot from another angle? From your shallow turn at higher altitude drop down to camera height and fly another straight line towards the new view requested.

 

Another way to avoid this is what I do - hire an Instructor and do a 15 minute brief before the flight: the Instructor is in the LH Seat, he/she is PIC at all times and responsible for height, other traffic etc. I point to where I want to shoot once we descend to photo level, and it's optional for the PIC to abort. We then just fly on and come come round in a cloverleaf for a second attempt. In a pre-planned 1 hour flight I get roughly 40 good shots, a few fuzzy ones, and about three go rounds resulting in good shots. We haven't spoken over the photo area and when we land the Instructor is happy and I'm happy.

[red750]

More background on the deceased.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14095111/Tinamba-West-plane-crash.html?ito=social-facebook

[BrendAn]

8 minutes ago, red750 said:

More background on the deceased.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14095111/Tinamba-West-plane-crash.html?ito=social-facebook

. They were circling Daly's farm where the youngest one lived. They were not flying to Maffra because there is no airfield at Maffra. Daly's are a well known local family. 

[F10]

13 hours ago, Flightrite said:

Graveyards are full of ‘expert’ aerobatic pilots! 

Yes true, aerobatics below 500Ft its no mans land, no matter how good you are. But if you are calling stalling exercises aerobatics, think again.

[kgwilson]

It has probably been said before but young and experienced and a flight instructor means he was a pretty good pilot. The missing link is time and that hopefully provides wisdom. If it was a stall turn at low altitude then getting caught up in all the fun of it with mates that young can very easily lead to a loss of situational awareness and over confidence.

Edited Wednesday at 06:53 AM by kgwilson

[onetrack]

I've never seen too many young men who didn't think they were invincible - especially when it came to driving something with an engine in it.