Accident Probes

The vast majority of aviation accidents have a chain of events that lead up to tragedy. It may be long or short, but seldom is it a single catastrophic event that strikes without warning.

Sometimes the events that chain the airplane to the accident are subtle. Only by playing Monday morning quarterback can you spot the links. In examining those accidents you may silently wonder if you would have spotted the potential for disaster in time to avert it.

Other times, the accident chain smacks you across the face. How, you wonder, could anyone have been so foolish?

One December night three acquaintances decided to go flying. They drove to a private airstrip west of Ocean City, Md., and…

Although you hate to admit it, some pilots just seem to be asking for it. They fly like drunken outlaw motorcyclists, always dodging regs and cutting corners. You can usually spot their aircraft by the duct tape on the landing gear. When these guys crash their airplanes, you shake your head knowingly and say, What the hell was he thinking, anyway?

At the other end of the scale, there are those times when a highly trained, proficient, conscientious pilot augers one in. When it happens to airliners the feds spare no effort until they get to a conclusion the experts can live with. But among general aviation crashes, the scorched earth approach to accident investigation falls victim to too…

There comes a time in every pilots career when they get ready to launch on a flight they really shouldnt make.

The warning signs are there. Maybe the pilot isnt feeling up to snuff. Maybe the mechanical health of the airplane is suspect. Maybe the weather is either threatening to go bad or already is below the pilots or legal minimums.

This is the stuff of flying. Forget about stick and rudder. Forget about IFR radio technique. Forget about navigation. Think instead about the C that comes with being PIC. Command. It implies the skill to measure the likelihood of a favorable outcome and the wisdom to know if the risk is worth the outcome. In short, its the competition between judgm…

Pilots and even aircraft owners have a tendency to take airplanes at face value. If a friend or acquaintance asks you to go flying, do you ask to see the maintenance logs, check the applicable ADs, or even tag along on the preflight?

The fact is that the FARs put the onus on the airplane owner to maintain the aircraft in an airworthy condition, and most people trust that the rules have been followed. And when someone asks you to go flying with them, odds are you accept that persons piloting skills as a given without even asking a few simple questions.

The last flight of an Aero Commander 500-B shows just how misplaced that trust can be. The aircraft was being positioned from Lancaster…

Some flights just dont seem to go right. Your tongue turns to mush when you key the mic. You keep chasing altitude and cant quite get the trim set right. Your dyslexia acts up every time you read back a frequency.

Training and attitude help keep the bad flights away and hold the mistakes to a minimum, but recent experience – the mark of a proficient pilot – may be the single biggest determinant of how easily you can keep misfortune at bay.

Recent experience means more than just how many hours youve logged lately. To be truly proficient, you have to revisit your operating handbook from time to time to review critical speeds and procedures. Check the weight and balance occasionally, e…

By ignoring a few rules, pilot takes three friends to the bottom of a lake instead of a hockey playoff

All pilots have had them, those flights where you make a little mistake and it goes unnoticed for a long time.

Maybe its leaving the gear down until you get to cruise, and only then figuring out why the airspeed is so low. Perhaps you left the transponder on standby and didnt correct it until a gentle reminder crackled over the headset. And some people have been known to forget to turn off the autopilot, which makes a traffic pattern a difficult thing to fly.

The point is that minor problems rarely turn into major ones, because usually theyre caught in time. And even if theyre not caught until the airplane lands, there are few such mistakes that carry severe penalties. Occasional…

At approximately 12:10 PDT, a Vanek gyroplane and an unregistered ultralight collided in mid-air at the Scappoose airport. The two occupants of the gyroplane and the ultralights pilot were killed. Witnesses said the ultralight was taking off from the runway and the gyroplane was descending to land on the parallel taxiway when they collided….

At 15:00 CDT, an F4U Corsair collided with a Grumman Bearcat on runway 18 at Wittman Regional Airport. The F4U-4 Corsair was destroyed and the pilot seriously injured. The Bearcat was substantially damaged but the pilot suffered no injuries. The pilot of the F4U-5 Corsair suffered minor injuries. At the time of the collision, the Bearcat was stationary on the runway about 1,400 feet from the departure end with its engine at idle power. The F4U-4 was at full power on takeoff roll and struck the Bearcat from behind. The F4U-5 was on takeoff roll in formation with the F4U-4. It sustained substantial damage when the pilot saw a second Grumman Bearcat on the runway in front of his aircraft and el…

At about 16:45 EST, a Piper PA-28-161 and a Cessna 152 collided while on final approach to land at the Plant City Airport. The two airplanes stuck together, with the Cessna on the bottom. The instructor aboard the Cessna successfully landed the two planes in the grass adjacent to runway 10. The two airplanes suffered only minor damage and no one was injured. The pilot of the Piper was flying from Melbourne to Plant City and the Cessnas student pilot was practicing touch-and-go landings. Both pilots said they were announcing their positions and both turned base to final at approximately the same time. The two airplanes collided as they crossed the airport boundary fence….