![Thunderstorm visible from a cockpit [Getty Images]](https://www.flyingmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/httpswww.flyingmag.comsitesflyingmag.comfilesimages201706everything-explained-june-1.jpg)
We teach as we were taught—especially when it involves a physical skill like learning to fly.
One size does not fit all in flight instruction, and CFIs have to understand that. Problems arise when the instructor is used to a fast-paced, learn-the-check-ride program or an airline academy-style program and tries to teach that way outside the environment.
As I write this, the aviation world is discussing the final report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) about the fatal event in Whitesville, Kentucky, involving a CFI who intentionally flew into a thunderstorm at night with a student pilot. The NTSB lists the probable cause of the accident as the “flight instructor’s decision to continue into an area of known thunderstorms, which resulted in an in-flight breakup.”
This crash—I still can’t call it an accident because it was so preventable—sent shock waves through the flight instructing community because the CFI, 22-year-old Timothy McKellar Jr., also had a social media presence as an “influencer” and documented the flight on Snapchat. Most of the posts were insulting and demeaning comments directed at or about the learner, 18-year-old Connor Quisenberry, a private pilot candidate.
When I first learned about the event, I was angry—we’re talking about a mother wolf protecting her young angry—both about the loss of life and the behavior of the CFI. I wrote a FLYING column, “Death by Time Builder,” after the tragedy occurred to shine a light in the dark corner of flight instruction where the time builders lurk with the intent of getting the attention of the flight instructing community.
I throw down the gauntlet of challenge. We must turn time builders into experience builders. In short, put the learners first, or we will kill more of our own. The CFI’s job is to facilitate learning and, more importantly, keep the learners safe.
This did not happen the night of September 27, 2023. McKellar and Quisenberry took off in the Piper Warrior belonging to Eagle Flight Academy from Owensboro/Daviess County Regional Airport (KOWB) to Bowling Green-Warren County Regional Airport (KBWG) in Kentucky. The purpose of the flight was for Quisenberry to gain the required night experience for the private pilot certificate.
It was the first time they had flown together. Quisenberry was a student at Eagle Flight Academy. He was flying with McKellar because his regular CFI was not able to do the night flight.
According to records, a little over a year earlier McKellar soloed at Eagle Flight Academy then finished his training at ATP Flight School; according to its website, ATP has an accelerated program and multiple locations around the country. ATP caters to those who seek professional pilot careers. The program emphasis is on learning the check rides and getting certificates and ratings quickly.
Across the industry, ATP tends to be known for its fast pace. McKellar was used to this pace, both as a learner and then for a brief time, according to his Facebook page, as a teacher, and he expressed frustration with Quisenberry.
The social media posts began with comments about Quisenberry’s lack of speed while performing the preflight inspection and his wanting to have a conversation with McKellar before the flight. McKellar included a video of himself drumming his fingers on the fuselage of the airplane as if in frustration, and he can be heard urging Quisenberry to hurry.
It is one thing to express your frustration to the learner or ask them to keep conversation to a minimum, but it’s quite another to post your frustration and shame the learner. That is never OK—ever. Also, you should never rush a preflight inspection—especially at night.
McKellar continued to post during the flight. One was a video of the takeoff. That’s questionable behavior, as the takeoff and landing are the most critical parts of the flight, and an instructor should know better than to be using the camera rather than monitoring the learner flying the airplane.
According to the NTSB, McKellar had been a CFI for approximately five months and had a total of 447 hours of flight experience, of which 20 hours were at night and 6.6 hours in actual instrument meteorological conditions (IMC).
Photocopies of the pages of his logbook were included in the report. They show his dual instruction given as approximately 145 hours. That’s pretty good for five months, but the way it was logged was perfunctory at best. These flights were logged in ink in the paper logbook using the date, type of aircraft, aircraft identifier, points of departure and arrival, aircraft category and time of the flight, the word “maneuvers,” and the name of the client.
There should have been more detail, such as which maneuvers were performed—per 14 CFR 61.51. It should be in both the learner’s logbook and the CFI’s. It may help someday if a learner gets into trouble and claims they were never taught a particular maneuver like slips to a landing. It’s their word against the CFI’s, so having it in the logbook can help defend themselves. A CFI should also log the ground instruction given. For example, “.3 preflight inspection, use of checklist.”
McKellar’s logbook was also incomplete, as he didn’t sign the completed pages certifying the information was true and correct. That is something you learn as a student pilot. The treatment of the logbook makes me wonder if he wasn’t taught the logbook is a legal document and that someday it may be scrutinized by a potential employer or even the FAA. Pages listing “maneuvers” and “pattern work” don’t cut it.
The big surprise in the NTSB report was that McKellar knew about the thunderstorms before they left the ground. Let that sink in. Prior to takeoff, he received a weather briefing via ForeFlight that warned of the extreme weather but he made the flight anyway. McKellar, as CFI, was the PIC and responsible for the safety of the flight.
The report does not indicate if Quisenberry, who had 37 hours of flight time logged, had obtained a weather briefing before the flight. We don’t know if he knew how to do this, or if he did so, learned of the storms, and then deferred to McKellar’s judgement. If he trusted his regular CFI, it is likely he trusted McKellar.
At one point McKellar posts that Quisenberry acknowledged that McKellar was dissatisfied with his performance, saying, “I don’t mind you being hard on me. I know I need it.” McKellar’s posted response is dismissive, indicating he didn’t care about Quisenberry’s feelings because he was “giving it to him straight up.” Quisenberry was trying hard to learn to be a safe pilot, looking to McKellar for guidance, while McKellar exhibited an apparent lack of judgement.
The flight arrived at KBWG, and they spent some time doing multiple takeoffs and landings as required for certification. On the way back they ran into the thunderstorms, as McKellar’s last post showed them captured by a weather application and a notation that they were heading right toward the Piper. The aircraft continued in the same direction rather than turning around.
When the aircraft encountered heavy rain and turbulence, McKellar contacted ATC asking for an IFR clearance and was given vectors to get away from the heavy precipitation. McKellar noted that the aircraft was being tossed around “like crazy.” Radio contact was lost as the airplane was caught in the storm.
The photographs of the wreckage are devastating. The airplane came down in pieces over 25 acres of hilly and forested terrain. The metal was ripped as if it were paper. The wings and tail were torn off. The control cables were broom-strawed—it takes a lot of force to snap a steel control cable like that.
The NTSB report includes a diagram of the debris field identifying what was found where. The photo of the cockpit—or rather the panel and what is left of the cockpit—shows the control columns twisted as if they were made of Play-Doh. The bodies of McKellar and Quisenberry were found several yards apart and separate from the wreckage. Their personal effects, namely a backpack and a cooler, were found elsewhere.
Overreliance on Technology
This accident stresses the importance of understanding the limitations of cockpit technology. Tools like NEXRAD show where the thunderstorms were at the time of image capture—emphasis on the past tense—therefore, you can’t trust it to keep you out of harm’s way.
The NTSB reminds pilots that the “actual weather conditions could be up to 15 to 20 minutes older than the age indicated on the display. You should consider this potential delay when using in-cockpit NEXRAD capabilities, as the movement and/or intensification of weather could adversely affect safety of flight.”
The fact that McKellar saw the storms on the app but didn’t take prompt and corrective action is puzzling. As pilots often model the behavior of a previous instructor, you can’t help but wonder if he never learned about the limitations of NEXRAD or if someone took McKellar into a thunderstorm and “showed him” how it was done? Or if he had flown through one before and lived to tell the tale? Something went wrong somewhere in his training.
Months after the crash, the Quisenberry family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Eagle Flight Academy and ATP, claiming that McKellar’s negligence caused the “totally unnecessary and avoidable crash” that resulted in his and Quisenberry’s deaths. The lawsuit is still winding its way through the court system.
It should be noted that Eagle Flight Academy closed a few months after the crash.
I hope this event will be used as a training tool for CFI candidates. When you instruct, you are literally holding the lives of your learners in your hands. When you become an instructor, please be an experience builder, not a time builder.
Your focus should be on the education of others while you fill your logbook. A few years from now that person you are demonstrating skills to may end up being your copilot at the regional you’re flying at, or in the cockpit of the jet your family is flying in.
