[HN Gopher] Midair Collision over Denver
___________________________________________________________________
Midair Collision over Denver
Author : lunchbreak
Score : 381 points
Date : 2021-05-13 05:10 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (avherald.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (avherald.com)
| na85 wrote:
| I was camping near Whistler a few years ago and heard a bang.
| Looked up and saw falling debris and bodies. A wing landed not
| far from our campsite. Turns out a glider (low-wing monoplane)
| was descending and the tow plane (high wing monoplane) was
| climbing. They were each in each other's blind spots :(
|
| Glad to see no fatalities here; I'm an aerospace engineer in the
| field of airworthiness and technical risk management so my work
| sees a lot of accident reports and flight safety incidents. I can
| say with certainty these folks (esp. the metroliner crew) are
| very fortunate.
| upofadown wrote:
| Probably this:
|
| * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-
| columbia/pemberton-b-...
|
| Whenever there is a collision involving light aircraft the
| question of anti-collision systems comes up. Unfortunately the
| powers that be have completely failed to come up with a
| workable standard for such aircraft. The glider people
| eventually just gave up on waiting and now use a proprietary
| system called FLARM which has fairly good adoption. There is
| more than one system of that type available for light powered
| aircraft with not very good adoption. Each system is entirely
| incompatible with each other, including the standardized ones
| used in heavy commercial aviation.
| na85 wrote:
| Yeah that's the one. I misremembered it as the tow plane
| instead of a Cessna.
| azalemeth wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear that you witness a mid-air collision -- I
| hope it wasn't completely fatal. In the UK, all glider pilots
| wear parachutes and the overwhelming majority have standardised
| on a collision avoidance system known as FLARM that is "glider
| friendly" (unlike GNSS) and can differentiate thermalling from
| colliding.
|
| It's just an internal 16 channel GPS receiver with an external
| antenna and an altimeter that predicts the flight path and then
| transmits it - including a unique identifier - as low-power
| digital burst signals at one-second intervals. Other aircraft
| also equipped with FLARM receive that, compare it with their
| own flight path prediction, and also check for collision
| information with known data on obstacles, including electric
| power lines, radio masts and cable cars, etc. If a proximity
| warning is generated to one or more aircraft or obstacles, it
| bleeps like anything and generates bright LEDs that point in
| the direction of the threat. The display also gives indication
| of the threat level, plus the horizontal and vertical bearing
| to the threat -- and there are three warnings (iirc ~30s, ~15s,
| ~6s) -- it warns by time and not distance.
|
| I remember the thing going off a few times; it's quite helpful
| and draws your attention to a region of sky immediately,
| including behind, above and below you. It's also dirt cheap+
| and is a battery-powered self-contained box with (I suspect) a
| microcontroller and glorified smartphone innards inside.
|
| +(by aviation standards)
| 0xFFFE wrote:
| Comms between tower and the planes involved.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5tb2dVWJqc
| MobileVet wrote:
| Wow, the 'can opener' effect is intense. Insane that the plane
| held together, so much structural loss.
|
| Reminds me of the Aloha Flight 243. My mom's cousin was the pilot
| and hearing his first hand account was pretty crazy. Fun fact, he
| got to be an extra in the made for TV movie of the event.
|
| https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/robert-l-schornstheime...
| zed88 wrote:
| Metroliner, often jokingly called as "flying sewer pipe" is one
| hell of a sturdy plane it seems. Glad to see both parties okay,
| but this makes me think if BRS should be made standard by FAA on
| GA planes given the lives saved by the technology so far.
| [deleted]
| onion2k wrote:
| I find it slightly incredible that two planes ever hit each other
| given the size of planes compared to the volume of space they fly
| in. I understand that it's simple probability (small planes, big
| volume, but _lots_ of flights) but it 's still amazing that it
| happens at all.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| "Big Sky Theory"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_sky_theory
|
| >In aviation, the Big Sky Theory is that two randomly flying
| bodies are very unlikely to collide, as the three-dimensional
| space is so large relative to the bodies. Some aviation safety
| rules involving altimetry and navigation standards are based on
| this concept. It does not apply when aircraft are flying along
| specific narrow routes, such as an airport traffic pattern or
| jet airway.
|
| >The Big Sky Theory has been mathematically modeled, using a
| gas law approach. This implies that collisions of aircraft in
| free flight should be extremely rare in en-route airspace,
| whereas operational errors such as violations of formal
| separation standards should be relatively common. Three
| critical parameters are the number of flying objects per unit
| volume, their speed, and their size. Larger, faster objects,
| flying in a traffic-rich environment are more collision-prone.
|
| http://code7700.com/big_sky_theory.htm
|
| >It seems that there are a lot of pilots out there that believe
| in the "Big Sky Technique." They think the amount of airspace
| out there is so wide and vast, and that they are so small, that
| the chances of hitting another aircraft is too small to worry
| about. And yet history begs to differ.
|
| The Big Sky - Kate Bush
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV7w5TaYjRA&ab_channel=KateB...
| They look down At the ground Missing
| But I never go in now I'm looking at the big sky
| I'm looking at the big sky now I'm looking at the big
| sky You never understood me You never really
| tried
|
| Big Sky - Lou Reed
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug_Z-gu7u44&ab_channel=Naoyo...
| Big sky, big sky holding up the sun Big sky, big sky
| holding up the moon Big sky holding down the sea
| But it can't hold us down anymore Big sky holding
| up the stars Big sky holding Venus and Mars Big
| sky catch you in a jar But it can't hold us down
| anymore Big sky, big enormous place Big
| wind blow all over the place Big storm wrecking havoc
| and waste But it can't hold us down anymore
| upofadown wrote:
| The problem is that the theory mostly works. "See and avoid"
| ends up mostly depending on the good odds a lot of the time.
| Except when it doesn't as in this case.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _I find it slightly incredible that two planes ever hit each
| other given the size of planes compared to the volume of space
| they fly in._
|
| The space can be constrained though. There are "airways" (jet
| routes) for flights, and not that much of a volume/size ratio
| when the volume concerns areas near airports -- where many
| planes approach, exit, are asked to circle in a holding
| pattern, etc.
|
| So it's not like the whole sky is their domain...
| freetime2 wrote:
| Less incredible in this case since it was two planes landing on
| parallel runways at the same time.
| rkangel wrote:
| In free flight, two aircraft can be anywhere in 3D space and
| collisions are rare.
|
| Around takeoff and landing - there is effectively a 1D track
| for the approach and the climb-out. It's not quite that simple
| because different aircraft will have different descent profiles
| and different angles to the wind, but it's a much smaller
| 'search space' for collisions.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| The probability is much higher in terminal airspace because all
| planes are going to or coming from the airport so they are on
| converging paths by definition.
|
| And better GNSS based navigation equipment is now making it
| more likely than 20 years ago. The historical accuracy was such
| that planes where often a bit offset left or right off the
| route giving extra separation. Now the accuracy is so good that
| planes going opposite direction on the same route are passing
| exactly bang in the middle on top/below each other.
| KuiN wrote:
| The ability for planes to follow these highly accurate common
| flight paths was a contributing factor in the Gol flight 1907
| mid-air collision in Brazil [0]. (That, plus ATC clearing the
| two planes at the same altitude _and_ both having TCAS
| (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) switched off). William
| Langewiesche published a great long-form article about the
| disaster called "The Devil at 37,0000ft" that's well worth
| reading if that's your sort of thing [1].
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Linhas_Aereas_Flight_1907
|
| [1]
| https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2009/01/air_crash200901
| randompwd wrote:
| That vanity fair article was a good read but I felt it
| continually excused the American pilots ineptitude but
| happily pilloried the Brazilian air traffic controllers.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Planes going opposite directions on the same route are meant
| to be at different altitudes. Altimeters have been quite
| accurate for a long time.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| 1000ft separation isn't much when you have an issue, if you
| loose an engine at cruise altitude you typically cannot
| maintain that altitude for example.
|
| Oceanic procedure, without radar control, is to turn 45
| degrees off track while descending, but it takes a little
| bit of time to set all that in motion when things go wrong
| while you were just seconds before happily cruising
| straight ahead on autopilot (autopilot is mandatory above
| 29,000 ft in a lot of airspace)
| throwawaygimp wrote:
| Yea, this is a really good point that isn't well known.
|
| We've improved GNSS significantly, but the technology to
| avoid collisions hasn't been widely deployed, even though
| it's orders of magnitude less complicated than high accuracy
| GNSS on the whole
|
| So... a random dilution of precision generator could... save
| lives? ha.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| It's not uncommon in uncontrolled airspace to set a 1 or 2
| Nm offset to the right in the FMS. Then it will follow the
| high accuracy path but not the same as opposite traffic
| that's 1000ft above or below.
| cmckn wrote:
| I've spent a decent amount of time at Centennial; it's one of the
| busiest general aviation airports in the country. There's a great
| restaurant on site that you can watch the runways from. After
| this incident, the restaurant is probably as close as I'd get to
| a Cirrus. :)
| dillondoyle wrote:
| It's really close to the city too.
|
| I'm sure the chances of a collision outside of the airport is
| absolutely basically zero, but these small planes fly really
| low over my house and the downtown area all the time. They get
| pretty low and close for touring over the big buildings for
| photos and stuff, see photos on reddit all the time..
| toast0 wrote:
| I don't see how this incident would make or break your
| impression of the Cirrus.
|
| From the picture, the plane at rest is pretty messed up, but
| all occupants are safe, and pending investigation, there
| doesn't seem to be a sign of mechanical error involved.
|
| Flying in (or near) small planes has a lot of risk, but I don't
| see how this incident would change your impression of this one
| manufacturer's planes.
| cmckn wrote:
| Oh no, my point was just that I'd be wary of getting in a
| small plane, and Cirrus was the craft mentioned in the
| article. I remember seeing a lot of them at this airport
| (though they're probably outnumbered by Cesna's, lots of
| small-time fliers there).
| EricE wrote:
| Juan Browne of the blancolirio YouTube channel did his usual
| excellent overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ph7OR6C90w
| dkarras wrote:
| Video of the cirrus chuting down:
| https://twitter.com/DenverChannel/status/1392560583950561281
|
| A photo of the airborne metroliner with fuselage blown open:
| https://imgur.com/gallery/yKPOWR0
| EricE wrote:
| Juan Browne of the blancolirio YouTube channel did his usual
| excellent overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ph7OR6C90w
| londons_explore wrote:
| The plane flying missing half the fuselage suggests to me that
| fuselage was excessively strong (and therefore heavy and
| expensive).
|
| A tube is only strong when complete. Cut away half the tube and
| bending resistance probably goes down ~10x.
| HPsquared wrote:
| The structure would be designed around an adequate fatigue
| life. I wouldn't be too surprised if fatigue considerations
| were such that in "normal operations", stresses could well be
| 10x lower than the ultimate material strength.
| cesarb wrote:
| > The plane flying missing half the fuselage suggests to me
| that fuselage was excessively strong (and therefore heavy and
| expensive).
|
| It's probably the opposite: that the fuselage was only strong
| enough to resist the air pressure differential, and that the
| real structural component was the cabin floor. And that,
| luckily, the control cables for the tail were routed through
| the cabin floor, instead of through the top of the cabin.
| stevehawk wrote:
| It's not the cabin floor. it's what the cabin floor is
| attached to. Most fuselages have all of their longitudinal
| strength in their stringers, which are usually run along
| the floor. If the Cirrus had ripped through the bottom of
| that plane and not the top then that jet would have torn
| apart.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Stringers in a plane seem akin to stringers in a car
| frame... Cars have moved away to unibody designs (where
| the shell of the car is also the structure) because it is
| stronger, lighter and cheaper. Unibody designs have been
| the norm for almost 100 years now.
| hyperbovine wrote:
| Nit: SA-226 is a turboprop not a jet.
| lujim wrote:
| Wow the Cirrus is looking pretty good for how much damage it
| did to the Metro. Flight surfaces are still there and it's only
| broken in half of the parachute landing. Guessing it might not
| have been controllable after the collision.
| wiedehopf wrote:
| Exact tracks of both aircraft with timestamps: press K to enable
| labels
| https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a4eabe,a2cee7&lat=39.63...
| franciscop wrote:
| No deaths nor injuries involved, which I feel like this should be
| in the headline. I came in expecting to see at least a commercial
| flight was involved (how does it make to #1 on HN otherwise?) but
| was very relieved to see it was two small aircrafts with 1 and 2
| pilots respectively and everyone survived safely.
| OJFord wrote:
| > I came in expecting to see at least a commercial flight was
| involved (how does it make to #1 on HN otherwise?)
|
| The Metroliner (one with the fuselage ripped through) is
| commercial, [0] but apparently carrying cargo only in this
| case. [1]
|
| Surely a mid-air collision even between two hobby Cessnas say
| is rare/interesting enough to make it?
|
| [0] - https://www.keylimeair.com/
|
| [1] - https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-
| news/2021/may/12/col...
| benatkin wrote:
| If there were two commercial passenger flights involved and it
| were 300 miles south, it would be life imitating art.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABQ_(Breaking_Bad)#Plot
| t0mas88 wrote:
| The Metroliner isn't really a small (private) aircraft, it's
| more a commuter type aircraft, 19 seats. But in this case it
| was only carrying cargo so the place of impact didn't have any
| people in it.
|
| Another lucky point is that it was at low altitude and at slow
| speed (preparing to land). Higher up it would have been much
| more likely to break up due to way higher speed and larger
| pressure difference between the cabin and outside.
| mannykannot wrote:
| Other inches-from-death aspects: there was no-one in the aft
| of the cabin; the collision missed the pilot; it missed the
| empennage; it missed the wings; it missed the control cables;
| and possibly (I'm speculating wildly here) it left the cabin
| floor intact, without which, I doubt the tail would have
| stayed on.
| bartread wrote:
| Bloody hell: the state of that Metroliner. Surprised it held
| together with that amount of damage, and huge kudos to the pilots
| for getting it on the ground safely.
|
| For such a serious accident this seems about the best possible
| outcome for the crew of both aircraft. I'm not an expert so I'm
| not going to comment on root cause or blame here, but simply glad
| to read that at least everybody survived.
| mdip wrote:
| Wow, that's incredible. Goes to show that people _do_ walk away
| from plane crashes with some regularity. My father was a
| pilot[0].
|
| He sold his plane about 15 years ago (to a group of owners, one
| of which was a priest, I'm sure there's a joke in there). A few
| of winters later, he was called out to Romeo Airport; the pilot
| flying the plane that was formerly his had crashed the aircraft a
| few miles short of the runway in bad weather[1]. He was traveling
| with his daughter, a friend and, I think, his wife. He died, but
| his daughter was able to get free and make her way to a nearby
| farm to call for help. Looking at the plane, the fact that anyone
| _survived at all_ let alone walked to a nearby house with minor
| injuries is pretty miraculous.
|
| It's hard to impress upon folks who have never been in a small
| plane like that just how ... yeah ... how much it feels like
| you're hanging onto a kite. I have no idea the kinds of
| structural technologies are involved in the aircraft but I know
| his plane was made in the 70s and was light enough that he only
| had a pole which attached to the front landing gear to pull it
| out of the hangar. The weight is so critical that the 7-seat
| plane can realistically only seat 4-5 adults. I remember being
| shocked that they had to weigh the _paint_ they applied when he
| had the plane re-painted.
|
| [0] I'll spare the details as I have left many comments in the
| past about his experiences.
|
| [1] https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/43894 - "Pilot Error"; I
| recall my Dad saying " _all_ plane crashes are pilot error "
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_PA-32_Cherokee_Six
| hirundo wrote:
| > It's hard to impress upon folks who have never been in a
| small plane like that just how ... yeah ... how much it feels
| like you're hanging onto a kite.
|
| Years ago I was doing pilot training in a Cessna 152. A
| coworker of mine was a retired Navy captain and instructor at
| the TOPGUN program, with hundreds of carrier landings in an
| F-14. He looked at me like I was crazy. He said those little
| planes were deathtraps and he'd never go up in one again.
|
| Not long after that I had a lesson that coincided with some
| turbulence from the nearby coast. The plane janked around by
| seemingly hundreds of feet in every direction. I was scared
| (almost literally) shitless, and that was my last lesson. I
| haven't been in a small plane since.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| thirty foot jump as a passenger in a 4-seater here at 10,000
| feet in the mountains - I hear you! :D
| mdip wrote:
| I'm glad my Dad's not flying any longer. He was doing very
| long (multiple stops for re-fueling, flying on some form of
| breathing tank[0]) trips. He can go on for hours (and we let
| him) about stories of how he almost didn't make it home due
| to X or Y[1].
|
| And he joked that every gauge/gadget on the dashboard that
| didn't come with the plane was there because "if I had it
| when X happened, X wouldn't have happened" (...or I wouldn't
| have left the ground knowing the condition existed, or it
| would have warned me with well enough time to get to safety
| before I have to be met by emergency vehicles on the tarmac).
|
| Funny enough, he would get a _little_ uncomfortable flying
| commercial. I 'm not sure if he was putting on a show for us
| kids or if he was serious but he'd say he "didn't like
| someone else in charge of the plane". My Dad flew GA (alone)
| a few times a week most weeks, so he was unusually
| experienced for a small plane pilot.
|
| [0] He had a breathing apparatus that allowed him to fly at
| higher altitudes in the unpressurized cabin, IIRC, but I'm
| not a pilot.
|
| [1] Except, when he tells it, he was never in any danger.
| Doesn't matter if he's hanging an arm out the window trying
| to manually spin the prop, "it was _always_ under control. ".
| Uh huh.
| ip26 wrote:
| _It 's hard to impress upon folks who have never been in a
| small plane like that just how ... yeah ... how much it feels
| like you're hanging onto a kite_
|
| Went up in a four man single engine chopper once. It had all
| the reassuring solidity of a bicycle. Never again. I can't even
| imagine what the truly tiny ones are like.
| lbriner wrote:
| I had a lesson in an Ikarus C42, which although it looks like
| a "normal" light aircraft is made of kevlar over aluminium
| and is officially a microlight. It is a 2-seater but the
| weight is so low that if you are travelling with a passenger,
| there is a weight limit. I think I worked out that my 6'3"
| boss was too heavy to fly with an instructor.
|
| It was actually pretty fun but, of course, the weather is
| everything. I can't imagine how bad it would be in any wind
| more than about 5 knots but on the day I had my lesson, it
| was calm and clear.
| mdip wrote:
| I did one of those chopper tours over a big city one time in
| a splurge. Yeah, I hear ya.
|
| I was surprised at how similar the feel is. Your bicycle
| analogy made me laugh -- spot on. I used to _love_ taking my
| macho friends up in my dad 's plane. There's this moment
| after take-off where my Dad will comment on "how smooth the
| air is" ... it's either "perspective" or a pilot joke, I'm
| not sure, because said "smooth air" is about as bad as
| reasonable air-turbulence on a jet and the flight is usually
| marked occasionally by the kind of turbulence that would have
| the overhead bins tossing luggage onto passengers. I recall a
| humorous incident where my buddy Tim dropped an F-bomb over a
| hot mic on the headset when we got smacked sideways.
| qayxc wrote:
| > The weight is so critical that the 7-seat plane can
| realistically only seat 4-5 adults.
|
| I think you overlooked an important factor there. The plane was
| indeed designed to realistically seat 7 adults.
|
| The issue is that in the 50 years since the plane was
| originally designed, the average weight of adults (in the US)
| increased by about 18% [0] and the average adult woman today
| weighs as much as the average adult man in the 1960s.
|
| [0] https://www.newsmax.com/US/average-weight-man-woman-
| obese/20...
| captainredbeard wrote:
| Wrong - most singles can't fill the seats and the tanks. This
| is general aviation 101 folks
| sokoloff wrote:
| If you can fill the seats and the tanks (and be legal), I'd
| say someone made your tanks too small.
| selectodude wrote:
| Apparently normal humans weighed less than 150 pounds until
| we discovered McDonalds.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| I think the average US soldier in WWII weighed less than
| 150. People were a little shorter then too though.
| boringg wrote:
| This sounds like backcountry tent sizing. 3-person tent!
| (Good luck fitting two people in there and anything else!)
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Over-sizing vehicles for the intended cargo is far more
| of an upscale suburb thing than a BFE thing.
| mdip wrote:
| Not so much overlooked as omitted ... I had originally
| written "average American adults" but I didn't want to
| distract into the territory of "how bad our diets are in this
| country".
|
| My Dad almost always flew alone. So much so that when the
| plane was packed and we were making an approach into the
| Sandusky, OH airport, we had a sudden "dip" on the way down
| that _everyone_ noticed (we were headed to Cedar Pointe, so
| it was preparation, I guess). My Dad explained that he wasn
| 't used to landing with so much weight and hadn't adjusted
| the trim correctly[0].
|
| [0] If it wasn't abundantly clear, all of my flying
| experience ended at about age 17, which was a while ago, and
| I was never a pilot, so to the extent that I get any of this
| wrong -- that's why :)
| kbutler wrote:
| 6 * 1.18 = 7.08 people, so that could explain 1 adult.
|
| I think the "some adults, some kids" is more significant -
| similar to back seats in many small cars - you can put 3
| passengers in there, but 3 adults won't be happy.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I find it very hard to agree that a PA-32 was "designed to
| realistically seat 7 adults". I don't think they even
| imagined 6 adults as a typical cabin load, but rather a max
| of 4 adults and 2 kids and a typical of 2 adults and 2-4
| kids. It is one of the more roomy cabins among light singles,
| but every one of them that I see for listed for sale right
| now is configured with seating for only 6, which is great for
| 2 adults and a few kids.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| The point of the person you're replying to is that people
| have gotten bigger, which is a fact. Pointing out the
| comfort of levels of people in airplanes today doesn't
| dispute that.
|
| It used to be more common to have a flexible combination of
| seats/baggage/fuel. But pilots flip out (or crash) if they
| can't fill the tanks, every seat and the baggage
| compartment and come in under gross. So the same airplanes
| often don't have the "bonus seats" they used to.
|
| Numbers from Wikipedia, from the 1972 PA-32 owners
| handbook:
|
| 3,400 lb gross - 1,788 empty - (4 hours * 15gph * 6 lbs) /
| 7 passengers = 178 lbs per passenger. The average adult in
| the 70s was about 160. So you're not going across the
| country, but you could safely do a day trip with a 90
| minute flight each way.
|
| Now the average adult is 180. And they're a little taller
| than they were in the 70s, but not much. So every passenger
| has an extra 20 pounds _horizontally_. So in 2021, you 'd
| be just over gross except that the people can't actually
| fit in the airplane.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Have you ever seen the optional 7th seat for a PA-32? It
| makes for 3-across in the back row which makes the
| backseat of a 911 look positively roomy.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| I just looked at photos. Yes, it's very small.
|
| Here's a Piper ad from 1966 with seven adults and their
| bags: https://i.imgur.com/fWyArRH.png
|
| "The SIX will carry up to seven adults and their luggage
| - in real comfort"
|
| And here's an ad from 1969 with six adults in it (and
| some rifles. a different time!)
| https://i.imgur.com/kGMrENf.png
|
| I can't read into the minds of the engineers who made the
| airplane. Maybe it's true "I don't think they even
| imagined 6 adults as a typical cabin load". But we can
| see that the marketing department at least tried to make
| people think it was.
| lisper wrote:
| The useful load of a PA-32 is about 1500 lbs, so yes, you
| can put 7 180-lb adults in it and still have a little
| margin. What you cannot do is carry 7 adults plus their
| bags plus full fuel. Even without bags, you could not go
| very far with a full plane.
|
| Some planes have more margin: the Cessna 182 for example
| is a four-seater and can carry full fuel plus 800 lbs, so
| you really can load it up with four people plus bags and
| still go somewhere.
|
| But all planes will be close to their operating limits
| when fully loaded. Even a jetliner will typically be very
| close to its operating limits on takeoff and pilots have
| to pay very close attention to this. If you think about
| it, this has to be the case. If it weren't, the plane
| would have been over-designed and much more expensive
| than it has to be, and so it would lose to the
| competition.
| jsight wrote:
| Yeah, its 7 seats in the same sense as the Tesla Model Y
| can be a 7 seater. Its technically true, but really only
| true if some of those people are small.
|
| Even with FAA standard people it would be small for 7.
| mdip wrote:
| You're probably right -- I likely have the number wrong. In
| fact, I was able to find the craft in a database online
| (still reporting my Dad's corporation as the owner, so it's
| not perfect) and it indicated 6.
|
| I recall him saying 7, but that was a few decades ago (the
| plane was destroyed by its new owners in 2006, and I hadn't
| flown in it since a few years prior to that). :)
| mnw21cam wrote:
| There's also the fact that an aircraft like that may be able
| to carry 7 adults _in some conditions_. If you 're at sea
| level in cold dry weather[0], then you'll have a lot more
| performance available than if you're trying to take off from
| Denver airport on a hot summer day just after a load of rain.
| There have been (usually light) aircraft that have crashed on
| takeoff/landing because the pilot didn't take the hot day
| into account, the minimum flying speed was higher than they
| expected, and the engine performance was too low.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density_altitude
| BashiBazouk wrote:
| I once witnessed an airplane crash that everyone survived. I
| was a preteen hanging around outside the Scotts Valley roller
| rink with a friend in the early eighties. The roller rink is
| next to the now defunct airfield. The airfield was lower than
| the rink by an embankment. We had recently been watching Jaws
| on Betamax and my most persistent memory is seeing only the
| tail crossing the field. It reminded me of a shark fin moving
| through the water, as the embankment was high enough that I
| could not see the body of the plane. Then bam, the plane hit
| the embankment right in front of me, caught air then crashed
| nose down. I think the plane was a Piper but my knowledge of
| small craft is limited. It was definitely a wing under. My
| friend ran to get his father and we all ran over to the wreck.
| My friend's father opened the doors and everyone but the pilot
| was able to get out by themselves. The pilot had hit his head
| on something and his face was covered in blood but alive. I
| found out from press reports later that was the only time I
| "met" Steve Wozniak.
|
| Edit: just looked it up. The plane was a Beechcraft Bonanza
| A36TC.
| ZeljkoS wrote:
| https://www.cultofmac.com/465778/today-in-apple-history-
| stev...
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this story. Well structured, great ending.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| In aviation load and range are always a compromise, you can fly
| short distance with a higher load (all passengers) or a longer
| distance with less passengers. The combined passenger weight
| and full tanks weight is always more than the Maximum Take Off
| Weigth (MTOW). For example the small plane that I fly the most
| has enough fuel capacity to fly around 2000km, but if I will
| the tanks I need to fly alone, there is no reserve even for a
| backpack. When I took my brother for a flight around the
| airstrip I had 20 liters of fuel in the tanks 'cause he is
| heavy (for an European).
|
| I have a couple of friends that each crash landed at least
| twice in the past 10-15 years; one was in the hospital once,
| for the rest of the incidents they simply walked. In two cases
| it was engine failure, in one a stuck landing gear and the
| hospital one had an external factor.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Did his wife survive?
| osenthuortuh wrote:
| The second link is the crash report. There were four
| occupants and only one fatality, so only he died.
|
| Looks like he tried to land in bad weather, descended before
| he could see the runway, and clipped some trees. Weather is
| an alarmingly common cause of accidents in general aviation.
| jrockway wrote:
| > Weather is an alarmingly common cause of accidents in
| general aviation.
|
| Well, flying VFR into IMC anyway.
| mdip wrote:
| So the "details" are a _little_ off. There wasn 't rain, it
| was an outright winter storm. The pilot was VFR and should
| not have been flying in that weather.
|
| I don't know what the characteristics are of that airport
| but I've been in the plane during a really touchy landing
| in bad snow, before. The occupants described that
| "everything seemed fine", they were coming out of the
| clouds and expecting to see the runway up ahead, but
| instead found tree-tops.
|
| In the case of landing with my Dad in similar weather, the
| clouds were very low, he had no visual and was reaching the
| point where he'd have to put it down or abort the
| landing[0] when he suddenly flung the clipboard at my mom's
| lap and grabbed onto the yoke.
|
| We were on the ground in a few tense seconds and I've
| _never_ seen my Dad jump like that -- it _seriously_
| freaked me the hell out. His explanation was that he had
| already decided to abort the landing when the clouds broke
| and he realized he was in a good position to put it down. I
| get the impression that he was a little surprised about the
| position he was _actually_ in -- and it was an
| uncharacteristically violent landing.
|
| [0] I'm not sure what the technical details are or if I am
| getting that right...
| strogonoff wrote:
| > Weather is an alarmingly common cause of accidents in
| general aviation.
|
| Or--to rewind the causal chain just a little further--pilot
| hubris, impatience and/or ignorance, which leads to weather
| being a factor in the first place. The choice to wing it
| and hope bad weather in the area will not affect you is the
| pilot's.
|
| From my shallow study of fatal and non-fatal GA accidents,
| there is hardly ever such a combination of life-or-death
| urgency and absence of alternative transportation options
| besides flying that could justify risking one's own life
| and lives of one's passengers by wilfully or accidentally
| ignoring weather forecast, and yet too often that appears
| to be the case.
|
| It's not a pleasure to talk about incidents like that, but
| "all plane crashes are pilot error" strikes me as a decent
| framing of the situation to adopt _as a pilot_ when
| considering a risky flight.
| mdip wrote:
| Without reviewing your profile, I'm just going to guess
| you're a pilot or you know pilots -- just from this:
| > Or--to rewind the causal chain just a little further--
| pilot hubris, impatience and/or ignorance, which leads to
| weather being a factor in the first place. The choice to
| wing it and hope bad weather in the area will not affect
| you is the pilot's.
|
| My Dad says "it's _always_ pilot error " and backs them
| up with statements like this. And he accepts that fault
| on himself. These are obvious things, too -- in the case
| of this crash, the pilot was VFR rated and as my Dad
| harshly put it "had no business being where he was in
| that weather".
|
| But he really meant _everything_ is the pilots fault. I
| heard him explaining to someone that there 's ultimately
| no other valid excuse. When his engine failed over Lake
| Michigan, it was pilot error because he didn't have the
| necessary instruments to detect a common engine condition
| that would have prevented him from taking off had he
| known it was happening.
|
| I think it's a little extreme, but frankly, I _want_ the
| person flying my plane to have that attitude for
| themselves!
| 7952 wrote:
| I think you would still feel guilty if passengers were
| hurt even if you were completely blameless. And part of
| your responsibility is to understand the risks. Risks
| that passengers may not fully understand. It is more like
| a risky sport like horse riding or skiing.
| organsnyder wrote:
| I have a friend that is a commercial pilot for small
| jets, and until recently taught general aviation. He says
| that the overwhelming majority of GA accidents are poor
| planning: skipping items on the checklist, flying in
| inappropriate conditions, etc.
| wingspar wrote:
| Another famous case of bad judgement resulting is JFK Jr.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_Jr._plane_c
| ras...
| karlkatzke wrote:
| Yes, those cumulogranite clouds are dangerous.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| There is a similar story in rally car safety. In the 80s and
| 90s going off the road at high speeds almost certainly meant
| death or serious injury.
|
| By comparison, there are some horrific crashes today that
| drivers are walking away from. [1]
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/YpNdoV6xv2s
| [deleted]
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| > The weight is so critical that the 7-seat plane can
| realistically only seat 4-5 adults. I remember being shocked
| that they had to weigh the paint they applied when he had the
| plane re-painted.
|
| I used to work in general aviation. If my eyes could fly a loop
| in my skull they would have.
|
| Were the occupants required to use the bathroom before flying?
| That's how much weight you're potentially saving by weighing
| the paint on a small aircraft.
|
| They make you weigh the paint because they want you to spray on
| a certain thickness so they say "X oz paint, Y oz
| thinner/hardener" (or something like that) in order to get your
| mixture into the right ballpark so it will work with whatever
| procedure they want you to spray it on with and get the
| thickness/finish/hardness the OEM wants you to get.
|
| In aviation there's a ton of treating simple systems as black
| boxes and "do X and exactly X" type maintenance that happens in
| order to smoothly transfer liability. You paint a cowl the way
| the OEM says not because you couldn't get an equivalently
| performing cowl a different way but because you don't want the
| NTSB coming after you trying to determine if you did it
| different but right or different but wrong.
|
| The specifications to which general aviation stuff is done
| isn't really any more exacting than stuff in automotive or
| heavy industry. The service literature is just more verbose and
| the service procedures are more tightly defined.
| officeplant wrote:
| >The specifications to which general aviation stuff is done
| isn't really any more exacting than stuff in automotive or
| heavy industry. The service literature is just more verbose
| and the service procedures are more tightly defined.
|
| This reminds me of how often I quote weight limits on cars to
| people and their eyes go wide at how easy it is to exceed the
| OEM's recommended limits. I'm fairly sure I'm one of the few
| among my friend groups that has read through every owners
| manual for the cars/vans I've owned.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'm building an experimental, and we tend to re-do weight and
| balance after painting. An elaborate paint job can add 30+
| pounds and can shift your CG rearward. The regs don't require
| it, but many builders do it anyway.
| throwaway330935 wrote:
| >in order to get your mixture into the right ballpark
|
| This makes perfect sense. I'm using a kitchen scale to
| measure the 2-part silicone mixture that I'm using for making
| toys, not because weight is critical but because it needs to
| be right for curing. I should do similar when mixing epoxy,
| but I always eyeball that for some reason. Maybe has to do
| with cost, it's $10-20 worth of silicone I'm mixing, and
| usually a quarter worth of epoxy, just due to quantities
| involved.
| marvin wrote:
| I know that glider maintenance procedures in my country call
| for redoing the center of gravity measurents after painting.
| Might have been related?
| inoffensivename wrote:
| In the US, the FAA requires recalculation of the weight and
| balance unless the change is "negligible", which AC
| 43.13-1B defines as "any change of one pound or less for
| aircraft whose weight empty is less than 5,000 pounds".
|
| I think the commenter was making the point that the weight
| of the paint is not a significant consideration, not that
| recalculating the weight and balance after a paint job
| should not be done.
| labcomputer wrote:
| Well... ok, but you usually still need to weigh and check the
| balance of the control surfaces after painting to ensure that
| they aren't going to flutter at less than Vmc (post-paint
| control surface balancing is often explicitly called out in
| the maintenance manual).
|
| Painting a plane is one of those times that you often strip
| everything out anyway, so it's a convenient time to check the
| weight and balance against the logbook.
| mdip wrote:
| Very interesting. I remember thinking it was positively
| "nuts", but then when you're in the aircraft being slapped
| around by the breeze, it starts to click.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > how much it feels like you're hanging onto a kite
|
| The two "small" planes I've ridden in were a Cessna and an
| L-39. The Cessna felt like a toy, and the L-39 was a serious
| piece of hardware. Landings were also very different; the
| Cessna just got tossed around a lot more.
| FatalLogic wrote:
| It's strange that the planes were supposed to be flying parallel
| and yet the damage to both planes in the photos suggests a
| collision at right angles
|
| Remarkable that the Metroliner held together, despite that
| terrible damage, and they landed it safely
|
| edit: interesting photo of the landing from the Reddit thread
| linked elsewhere https://imgur.com/gallery/yKPOWR0
| t0mas88 wrote:
| The Cirrus overshot the centerline of the runway it was
| supposed to land on. The common way for these situations is for
| the plane to be on an intercept angle towards the centerline.
| That's a max 30 degree angle for an instrument approach, but
| this was a visual approach so it could have been a sharper
| angle. All it takes to make this mistake in a Cirrus (and other
| G1000 avionics type small airplanes) is to forget 1 button on
| the autopilot mode. If it isn't set to capture the final
| approach track (either GPS or ILS) it will continue straight
| ahead which in this case means into the side of another
| airplane.
|
| One thing that makes it more likely is that US air traffic
| control makes heavy use of visual approaches, and then it's
| allowed to point two aircraft at collision courses on the same
| altitude because they can see each other. The European way to
| do this is to have them intercept at different altitudes so if
| one overshoots they pass over/under. But it results in lower
| capacity per runway than the US system.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If the 1 button on autopilot mode is the red autopilot
| disconnect, "time to hand-fly" button, I agree with you.
|
| This turn to final (with the unusual additional warning to
| "do not fly through final") is a visual maneuver and I'd
| expect most every pilot to be hand-flying at that point. (My
| autopilot and navigator is _capable_ to make that intercept,
| but it's way more tedious and distracting to program it than
| to just fly it.)
| t0mas88 wrote:
| In the airline world it would at the very least be
| encouraged and in many cases mandatory to have the
| underlying approach programmed for this anyway. Even more
| so if told not to fly through final you would have the
| localizer up and monitor it.
|
| In a Cirrus with what is probably a GFC 700 with flight
| director capabilities I would expect any competent
| instrument rated pilot to have the FD on and approach mode
| armed (the 1 missing button I meant) exactly to avoid this
| mistake.
|
| Great to hand fly, but in a capable airplane just plain
| stupid not to use all the tools. And even mandatory on the
| professional side of things in many cases.
| sokoloff wrote:
| NB: There is no instrument approach to 17R @ KAPA.
|
| I agree I'd have an extended centerline up (it's up by
| default if I zoom the MFD in close enough in my lesser-
| equipped A36), but this is a fully visual maneuver.
|
| Almost no one is going to define a user waypoint near the
| touchdown zone for 17R and pull an OBS line off that just
| so they can use the FD/AP to make an entirely routine
| turn to final.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| That makes things a lot harder for the Cirrus pilot. Easy
| to get the lineup slightly wrong with for example some
| wind correction in from far away. Crazy that ATC had them
| do this at the same altitude as conflicting traffic with
| no underlying approach as a safety net. You can ask
| someone not to go through final, but that's very easy to
| miss judge from a couple of miles away.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Slightly harder? I'd agree with that. A lot harder? 20
| hour student pilots make visual turns from base to final
| from 3 miles out every day. This is not Top Gun material.
| ddoolin wrote:
| If the sight picture is the usual one for the pilot,
| sure. I think if you throw a 20-hour pilot at an
| unfamiliar airport with a different pattern configuration
| than they're used to (right or left, direct to base,
| etc), your chances of overshooting can go up a lot. Throw
| in tight parallels and it's not great.
|
| I train at an airport with parallels with a tight-enough
| runway separation gap to necessitate a 15-degree offset
| in both T/O & L on the GA runway. > 100-hour me overshot
| into the adjacent approach when being cleared direct to
| base for the "commercial runway" which I've probably only
| been given once before. Shameful, yes, and a learning
| experience, but I never overshoot on the adjacent (we
| also have different TPAs for the parallels, probably for
| this reason though).
| azalemeth wrote:
| My gut feeling is that a deconfliction policy will appear
| on the charts and in the airport's procedures. Just
| because something can be done correctly, if the
| momentary-cockup-consequence is potentially the death of
| a large number of people, it's a good idea to make sure
| that there's some sort of defence in depth.
| azalemeth wrote:
| Indeed.
|
| Something else I'd like to point out is that it might seem
| easy to 'blame the Cirrus' pilot or them call out for
| inattention, but doing so by itself isn't helpful. Aviation
| is so safe partly because it has managed to turn a culture of
| blame into a culture of continuous improvement and shared
| learning: I'd be very surprised if the airport's procedures
| came out of this unmodified, for example.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I've probably mentioned this book on HN a hundred times but
| "Black Box Thinking" discusses the aviation culture of
| avoiding blame and making sure a problem isn't repeated and
| how other industries (like medicine) would benefit hugely
| from a similar approach. It's really interesting.
| EricE wrote:
| Would also help computer "science" as well :p
| lbriner wrote:
| I'm not sure how scalable this is in modern penny-
| pinching times. In the old days, airlines had to prove
| they were safe to attract business and this involved
| accepting that certain practices were harmful and they
| were therefore improved.
|
| Once we got to the 1980s, we had so many airlines trying
| to survive that corners were cut, recommendations were
| not followed and various accidents were essentially
| negligent.
|
| Now that lots of smaller airlines have been merged into
| larger ones, we now have Boeing type problems where the
| cost of manufacture, safety and development is so much
| higher than before, no-one wants to put a new plane
| through the whole approvals process, we just want to re-
| badge a 737 and get it into service.
|
| Similar things happen on the railways in the UK where we
| have the RAIB to do a similar "no-blame" analysis of a
| crash/accident yet still time and time again, the same
| problems surface - lack of preparation, lack of training
| and lack of following procedures.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I agree and it's somewhat addressed in the book - if you
| find the premise at all interesting you should definitely
| read it, even if you're skeptical of the practicality of
| implementing the philosophy (for lack of a better word)
| it's interesting and the examples are compelling.
|
| Some of the examples are whole-cloth cultural changes of
| entire industries (usually commercial flight actually,
| IIRC), but some are small, simple, changes that can be
| implemented by one or two people and still have a
| dramatic impact. One of the smaller-scale examples from
| the book that really stuck out was the attitude &
| approach of a surgeon in an operating room. When surgeons
| approach mistakes from the perspective of "okay, this
| happened, let's focus on how we fix it" mistakes are
| reported to the surgeon quickly, the surgeon gets
| accurate information quickly, and can respond
| appropriately. Result: _more_ mistakes are reported but
| the surgeon has fewer complications and better outcomes.
|
| When surgeons approach mistakes by getting angry or
| assigning blame to the nurse who did X or the resident
| who did Y those surgeons have _fewer_ (reported) mistakes
| but worse outcomes. Why? People don't fess up because
| they fear the consequences. And when a mistake _is_
| identified, people don't give accurate and complete
| information because their primary concern is KYA rather
| than fixing the problem at hand.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> I'd be very surprised if the airport's procedures came
| out of this unmodified, for example.
|
| I'm curious. The airport is at about 5900ft and they were
| at 6400. If that's AGL for them that seems like a long and
| high approach. If not, then they were going to do a 3 mile
| straight in at 500 feet AGL? Either interpretation doesn't
| fit my (limited, student) experience.
| azalemeth wrote:
| KAPA is indeed 5900 MSL, and those heights are also all
| MSL.
|
| Looking at the FAA's charts,
| https://aeronav.faa.gov/d-tpp/2104/05715R17L.PDF, this
| combination of heights and distances isn't _totally_
| crazy -- I state without proof (and wait to be
| corrected!) that the approach is modified because it is a
| relatively high altitude airport and there may be quite
| steeply changing terrain underneath. I 've never flown
| there (not even on X-plane) and I'm a low-hours UK
| person.
|
| I haven't done the trig and meterological lookup to work
| out what their AGL altitude was on that day, but at the
| very least it's not crazy-wrong from the published
| chart...
| omegant wrote:
| Looking at the youtube video of the radar with the radio sound
| that someone posted below, the Cirrus is cleared to runway 17R
| but he turns to runway 17L. There are 3 possibilities : 1- he
| mistakes one runway for the other visually, 2- he wrongly
| thinks he is cleared for the 17L runway 3- or he makes a too
| wide turn going for the 17R, intruding the 17L area.
|
| The cirrus is the one that makes the mistake.
|
| The 17 runways are quite close laterally (700') , it may be
| either way a bad maneuver (overshooting) or chosing the wrong
| runway.
|
| https://es.flightaware.com/resources/airport/APA/APD/AIRPORT...
|
| The metro was not expecting another traffic in approach for his
| runway (I understand that they were in different frequencies
| with different controllers).
|
| During the approach the upper-right side relative angle
| position in the window of the metro, makes the cirrus hard to
| spot. I guess he didn't see the cirrus at all or just barely
| before the crash.
|
| The cirrus is looking at the runway to his right and the other
| traffic probably the whole time, the metro is in front of him,
| so he doesn't see the Metro till he is on top of him.
|
| Usually with parallel runways, traffics are kept at different
| altitudes till they are aligned with their runways. This way if
| they make a mistake, they are separated by 1000' vertically
| with the airplane flying parallel.
|
| In this case the cirrus was cleared to visual approach and
| informed of the cessna he had to follow first. Once he says he
| has the cessna in sight, he is cleared to visual approach
| following the cessna. In the same comunication he is informed
| of the metro flying to the other runway and he replies traffic
| in sight again.
|
| My guess is that he either has the metro in sight at the
| beginning and then he forgets about it during the maneuver, or
| he gives traffic in sight two times.
|
| Thinking that the second part of the message is for the same
| aircraft (the cessna) he doesn't even recognize what the
| controller is telling him about the metro. This is possible if
| he is too busy flying the maneuver and not paying proper
| attention to the radio, he hears "cleared for approach" and
| "traffic" but he mentally don't really process the information
| the controller is giving him. A kind of sensory overload.
|
| In airliners we have mandatory TCAS (traffic collision
| avoidance system) installed that shows you the near traffics in
| the screen and give you coordinated (between the traffics)
| automatic avoidance guidance and alarms( one traffic climbs and
| the other descends or keeps altitude).
|
| In busy airports TCAS maneuver happen relatively often (a
| handfull of times a year) but nowadays is much harder to have a
| collision or a close call.
|
| Also when two pilots are in the cockpit (like airliners) it's
| easier that one is concentrated in flying and the other in the
| communications. It's very common to correct and be corrected
| all the time during the flight.
|
| It will be interesting to read the official report.
|
| Edit: Kudos to the Metro pilot who was super calmed in the
| radio while declaring emergency and landing the plane. That is
| really difficult.
|
| Edit 2: correcting the airport , KAPA (I talked about KDEN
| initially which has the same runways but with a bigger
| separation). This does make a difference regarding the mistake.
| Thank you Denvercoder9 for the heads up.
| mannykannot wrote:
| > I understand that they were in different frequencies with
| different controllers.
|
| If that is so, then it seems from the recording that the
| Metroliner pilot was only informed about the Cessna ahead of
| him and on approach to 17R, not of the Cirrus.
|
| The Cirrus pilot is told about the Metroliner in an exchange
| that goes thus:
|
| _TWR: "Cirrus 6DJ, traffic you're following just turned
| right base there ahead and to your right at 6600', Cessna."
|
| 6DJ: "I have traffic in sight, 6DJ."
|
| TWR: "Cirrus 6DJ, follow them, runway 17R, cleared to land.
| Additional traffic north shore, it's a Metroliner for the
| parallel runway."
|
| 6DJ: "Traffic in sight, cleared to land 17R, 6DJ."_
|
| Now, does that second "traffic in sight" refer to both
| aircraft, or only to the Cessna he had just been cleared to
| follow? It would be unambiguous if he had replied "two in
| sight", but if, for whatever reason, the mention of the
| Metroliner (in the same call as the clearance was given) had
| not registered, the Cirrus pilot would not have been aware
| that more than one other aircraft needed his attention. And
| if the Metroliner communication was being conducted on a
| different frequency, neither pilot would have had any other
| opportunity to become aware of the other airplane, except by
| seeing it - and, in addition to the Metroliner pilot
| presumably being in the left seat, the Cirrus was banked
| right, turning final, and one might guess its pilot was
| probably looking at the runways and/or the Cessna ahead.
|
| Putting this together, I suspect the Cirrus pilot never
| registered the presence of the Metroliner until the collision
| - and I doubt the Metroliner pilot saw the Cirrus even after
| the collision, given that he thought he had an engine failure
| (he might have seen it earlier, when it was heading north on
| downwind, and assumed it was behind him.)
|
| This does not alter the fact that the Cirrus pilot overshot
| the 17R approach while turning onto final, and it is this
| which caused the collision. One other fact, pointed out by
| several commentators: the Cirrus was travelling at about 160
| kts at the time, so any delay in turning final results in
| being out of position more quickly than in your average
| small, single-engined airplane.
| sokoloff wrote:
| 160 kts (around 140 indicated) does not seem like a
| remotely appropriate airspeed to join a pattern full of
| Cessnas in closed traffic.
|
| SR22 Vs0 is 59 knots (call it 60 to make the math easier).
| 1.3 x Vs0 is a reasonable "over the fence" speed, so 78
| knots (call it 80) indicated would be good on short final,
| maybe 90 on base-to-final. (Instead, they were descending
| and thus accelerating slightly and hit 169 knots on the
| base leg.)
|
| Bombing into the pattern over 50 knots faster than
| appropriate (70 knots faster than the traffic you're
| following and 40 knots faster than the much larger and on-
| profile Metro on the parallel) might be contributing, but
| certainly suggests to me that the Cirrus crew was behind
| the airplane.
|
| https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a4eabe,a2cee7,a90ffa&l
| a...
| omegant wrote:
| " Putting this together, I suspect the Cirrus pilot never
| registered the presence of the Metroliner until the
| collision - and I doubt the Metroliner pilot saw the Cirrus
| even after the collision, given that he thought he had an
| engine failure"
|
| This is what I think aswell. The overshoot may be either
| way a miss identification of the runway, or just a poorly
| executed turn to final of the 17R. The investigation is
| going to be interesting.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| _> The 17 runways are quite separated laterally so it's more
| probable that he was wrongly going for the 17L thinking he
| was aiming for the correct runway.
|
| > https://flttrack.fltplan.com/AirportDiagrams/KDENapt.jpg_
|
| This is the diagram for a different airport (Denver
| International, KDEN). The accident happened at Centennial
| Airport (KAPA), where the two runways are only separated by
| about 700 feet.
| mannykannot wrote:
| 17R is shorter and narrower than 17L. If the pilot mistook
| 17R for a taxiway, it would have been a mirror-image
| situation to the relatively recent one at SFO, were an
| airliner was making its approach to a taxiway.
| omegant wrote:
| Thank you! I should have checked. Then he may have
| overshoot going for the correct runway. Thankfully both
| pilots will be able to testify.
| gkanai wrote:
| Commercial pilot Juan Browne covers this on his channel:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ph7OR6C90w
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Glad no one was injured or killed. Sounds like the Metroliner
| pilot did very well.
|
| I really think that we should not have flying cars until we have
| true autopilot (hands off the wheel, meatbag!). The thought of
| the "Hey y'all! Lookit this!" knuckleheads that regularly open
| up, roaring past my house, in three dimensions, is chilling. They
| are bad enough with just two.
|
| I'll bet that the advent of true driverless tech will also be the
| advent of illegal aftermarket "mod kits." I can see it now...the
| "Hold My Beer(tm)" line of manual override modules...
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Reality is that you won't have the type of idiots that roar
| past your house flying cars/planes or anything of that nature
| unless it is fully automated because most of them aren't smart
| enough to pass the tests required to be a pilot.
| gresrun wrote:
| ATC comms with visualization:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5tb2dVWJqc
| ordu wrote:
| The pilot is speaking about failed engine after the collision,
| like it is nothing. Fascinating. I'd be shouting something
| obscene in such a situation. For half an hour at least, I
| think.
| [deleted]
| js2 wrote:
| I thought he sounded just a little rattled after he was on
| the ground. As calm as his demeanor was right after the
| collision, there had to have been some adrenaline going in
| landing that plane.
| [deleted]
| neom wrote:
| Trusted his training. Very good pilot.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| This what separates professionals from the chaff
| goodcanadian wrote:
| He might not have been aware of the full extent of the
| damage. He is on final; the plane is flying; he's lost an
| engine; he's going to land it. There is no time for anything
| else.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _He might not have been aware of the full extent of the
| damage._
|
| This is likely true. He was the only person onboard the
| plane, so he would not have been able to get up and look.
| Unlikely he could see the extent of damage from his seat.
| And as noted, on final approach, he doesn't have time for
| much to change plans. Even if he knew the extent of the
| damage, the choices are roughly the same - land as planned,
| or go around.
|
| That said, he did exactly what he should. Aviate, navigate,
| communicate. He controlled the plane, made a decision, and
| communicated that to ATC. Well done.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I think it's amazing planes can fly sort of straight with
| only one engine providing thrust though.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| He was on final. The engine was providing little more
| than idle thrust. If he were taking off some serious
| rudder input would have been required.
| mannykannot wrote:
| ... and that rudder input would have put additional
| stress on the weakened fuselage.
| ertemplin wrote:
| Engine failure is the most important thing you are
| trained for when you transition from flying single-engine
| airplanes to multi-engine.
|
| Most multi-engine airplanes can even take-off and climb
| with only a single engine functioning. You would never do
| it intentionally, but sometimes engines fail shortly
| after takeoff when you are 50 feet above the runway.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> The pilot is speaking about failed engine after the
| collision, like it is nothing. Fascinating. I'd be shouting
| something obscene in such a situation. For half an hour at
| least, I think.
|
| When you get your medical clearance, one of the things they
| look for is signs of psychological issues or instability. Not
| saying that's you, and I bet you'd do better than you think.
| Pilot training also IMHO makes you better at that stuff.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| When people encounter emergency situations in domains they
| are familiar with they tend to do a pretty good job of
| rolling with it.
| lbriner wrote:
| Exactly. You either panic and run around screaming and then
| you die or you could try and take control and you might
| live. It's no different than most of us driving a car. If a
| tyre blows out, most of us wouldn't scream and close our
| eyes, we would try and steer to safety.
| ordu wrote:
| _> You either panic and run around screaming and then you
| die or you could try and take control and you might
| live._
|
| It is not so black and white. One might (and normal
| person should) feel a stress reaction with rising levels
| adrenaline and suchlike in his bloodstream, and it is
| normal, it might even be beneficial, if one was trained
| to benefit from this mind state. I become more resolute
| from this, more concentrated than usual, sometimes even
| more concentrated than it is good for me because I might
| miss some important detail.
|
| _> If a tyre blows out, most of us wouldn 't scream and
| close our eyes, we would try and steer to safety._
|
| I never was in this situation with a blown tyre, but I
| was in some other situations when there was a danger to
| my life (or I believed that it was) I become extremely
| concentrated, almost silent (except for occasional
| curses), but when I needed to communicate, I did it
| loudly and with a good deal of swearing. I think that
| communication for me in these situations is like a
| distracting hindrance, so if I need to do it, I'll do it
| in a way that will make it unnecessary to repeat it.
|
| The communication of the pilot have not a hint of his
| emotions. My mind was blown not because of his perfect
| actions (I expect perfect actions from a professional),
| not even because the lack of swearing. It is the tone of
| his voice, it is completely composed, almost relaxed. I
| can imagine myself in this situation restraining from
| shouting and from swearing, but my emotional tension
| would leak through my voice, I wouldn't even try to hide
| it.
| xattt wrote:
| It's amazing there were no casualties. The novelty of the report
| is the use of a rescue parachute by the Cirrus plane.
| schoen wrote:
| I remember seeing some Internet post a couple of decades ago
| where someone asserted that the goal of ATC was to prevent midair
| collisions and that U.S. ATC had met this goal _perfectly_ , with
| no midair collisions between aircraft that were under the control
| of ATC at the time.
|
| I think the claim was qualified in some way like "collision
| between civilian flights that were both flying an ATC-assigned
| clearance at the time". (So some kinds of flights and some kinds
| of airspace don't require ATC clearance, and if one of them were
| involved in a collision, it wouldn't be ATC's responsibility, in
| some sense.)
|
| My question at the moment is: is this claim plausible if you
| qualify or restrict it enough? Do you have to tack on additional
| conditions?
|
| Is there any useful sense in which this collision was a first for
| U.S. aviation history?
| mlac wrote:
| > "The Cirrus descended through 6400 feet about 3nm north of
| the threshold of runway 17R, but overshot the centerlines of
| both runways 17R and 17L"
|
| It looks like the Cirrus wasn't flying to what the ATC
| cleared...
| _s wrote:
| Private Pilot here - just thought I'd chime in quickly;
|
| Many aviation enthusiasts / pilots first go to is to have a look
| at the flight data - usually available on FlightAware /
| FlightRadar24 and a few other websites, plus LiveATC usually can
| provide recordings of the flights communications to towers as
| well. We should refrain from using just those data points to draw
| conclusions to the cause; the NTSB (and other orgs) will perform
| an investigation and the report will be made public (both
| interim, and final ones), and changes are almost always made to
| processes / systems, and often to the virtual or physical items
| that led to this incident.
|
| There are a few more photos and insights from various folks that
| were there at the time and captured a few moments on the reddit
| thread here:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/nauck8/mid_air_just...
|
| Note - it's incredibly rare for a midair not to result in
| fatalities so an incredible amount of luck all around.
| sokoloff wrote:
| It's not incredibly rare. Around 2 in 5 midair mishaps result
| in no fatalities.
|
| https://iflyamerica.org/midairs.asp
|
| This one was incredibly lucky, especially for the Key Lime
| aircraft.
| lbriner wrote:
| My guess would be that only in the worst scenarios does a
| collision involve a full-impact. In most cases I would expect
| either or both pilots to be taking avoiding action so that
| you might get some more minor scrapes which allow you to limp
| home.
| mannykannot wrote:
| Interesting - that's higher than I would have expected, but
| apparently explaind by most collisions being in the pattern
| or otherwise near an airport (makes sense now that I think
| about it.) At least in the pattern, for most of the time,
| everyone is going in approximately the same direction (even
| this case.)
| sundvor wrote:
| Thanks, that does seem incredibly lucky indeed.
|
| Also, I like the headline including "all parties ok".
| nitrogen wrote:
| No injuries reported. Kind of fascinating to read.
| ardit33 wrote:
| Spoiler: No one died, so it has a happy ending
| martyvis wrote:
| As always, Juan Browne has great reporting and analysis of this
| incident https://youtu.be/_Ph7OR6C90w
| nickcw wrote:
| Just in case anyone (like me) is thinking - wait did that
| aeroplane have a parachute?
|
| From:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Airframe_Parachute_Sy...
|
| The Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) is a whole-plane
| ballistic parachute recovery system designed specifically for
| Cirrus Aircraft's line of general aviation light aircraft
| including the SR20, SR22 and SF50. The design became the first of
| its kind to become certified with the FAA, achieving
| certification in October 1998, and as of 2014 was the only
| aircraft ballistic parachute used as standard equipment by an
| aviation company.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I remember when these were being tested. Some of the testing
| was done at the NASA Langley center, which still today
| specializes in airframes in addition to space... They have a
| whole-airframe catapult and drop system.
|
| These parachutes have been an absolute game-changer for small
| aircraft pilot survival. It's unlikely this kind of collision
| would have been survivable for the small-plane pilot 25 years
| ago.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Thank you, I was so confused. I was thinking the pilot a genius
| for bringing and activating a parachute. Now I see it was just
| great design.
|
| > As of 1 May 2021, CAPS had been activated 122 times, 101 of
| which saw successful parachute deployment. In those successful
| deployments, there were 207 survivors and 1 fatality. No
| fatalities had occurred when the parachute was deployed within
| the certified speed and altitude parameters
| ssully wrote:
| For those curious about seeing it in action:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBCUQlF3MMU
| captainredbeard wrote:
| It's a "marquee feature" of buying a Cirrus, he didn't just
| wake up and pack a chute
| londons_explore wrote:
| They are some impressive numbers, but to really compare you
| need an expert looking at each situation and estimating the
| likely outcome had the CAPS system not been installed.
| selectodude wrote:
| Most GA pilots are awful so it's a pretty safe bet that
| CAPS saved lives.
| jmpman wrote:
| 21 of 122 failed? That's a concerning statistic. I'd expect
| closer to 99% success, not 82%. How many fatalities when the
| parachute failed to deploy? 100%? If so, then you have almost
| a 1/5 chance of dying when you engage the parachute?
| sio8ohPi wrote:
| Cirrus has a list of deployment events on their site. The
| failures mostly appear to be cases where the parachute was
| deployed too low.
|
| https://www.cirruspilots.org/Safety/CAPS-Event-History?id=3
| jessriedel wrote:
| If the pilot flies into terrible weather or gets into an
| uncontrolled spin, it's not reasonable to expect the chute
| to deploy correctly and save the situation.
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| It's not 100%. In one of the flying mags you can read a
| story about how a VFR (not instrument rated) pilot got into
| the soup, lost attitude awareness, freaked out and pulled
| the chute lever. Nothing happens. While the pilot was
| yanking on the chute lever, taking hands off the stick let
| the aircraft's static stability take over and the plane
| flew out of the cloud by itself. The pilot then took over
| and landed in the usual manner.
| bananabreakfast wrote:
| That is not a correct interpretation of that statistic.
|
| The parachute has never "failed" in any engineering sense.
| The stat is taking into account all deployments, including
| those well outside of the deployment envelope, such as not
| enough altitude or too much velocity. No one can expect any
| parachute to deploy if you're too close to the ground.
|
| Within the envelope of deployment, the statistic says it
| has a 100% success rate.
| stevehawk wrote:
| the chute has deployment parameters (altitude, airspeed of
| plane, etc) that aren't always met by the pilot in an
| emergency.
| maweki wrote:
| I was wondering whether there was a mix-up in the crew count,
| as one pilot with a parachute saves two people and a one-person
| crew lands the plane.
|
| This mostly clears it up.
| Grustaf wrote:
| My less charitable reading was that the pilot abandoned the
| Cirrus on a parachute, but then it seemed like the plane
| landed...
| maweki wrote:
| That's exactly what I wondered about. How one parachute and
| two crew can lead everybody uninjured.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Pilots of planes with CAPS are (now) taught to pull the
| chute if anything goes wrong inside the profile (low enough
| speed, far enough above ground) where the chute is designed
| to work. The aeroplane is insured, you can buy a new one.
| Even if the pilot and all passengers are insured you can't
| buy new ones.
|
| They changed this because it turns out that the same
| phenomenon that leads to private pilots taking undue risks
| in the rest of flight ("Get-there-itis") also makes them
| reluctant to pull the chute even when it's clearly their
| best option. Pilots who clearly couldn't reach a safe
| landing spot, yet had working CAPS would dig themselves
| (and their passengers) a grave rather than just pull the
| handle. So teaching them to _start_ by assuming they 'll
| pull the chute and only then considering whether there are
| other options reduces the fatality rate.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I'm not really sure how to ask what I want to ask, so
| apologies if this doesn't make sense: Does the parachute
| only work if the plane is in a free fall? If the plane is
| gliding along and suddenly the engine goes out, for
| example, would pulling the chute work?
| captainredbeard wrote:
| Well you wouldn't pull the chute. The plane has lift when
| it has forward motion at a non stalling angle of attack.
| It would become a glider until reaching stall speed
| tialaramex wrote:
| No, you should probably pull the chute.
|
| Yes you're gliding right now, but whilst that's better
| than just falling uncontrolled from the sky it's no
| guarantee you'll walk away.
|
| Now if you're gliding... right towards a perfectly nice
| runway you were already lined up on then CAPS is likely
| the wrong call, not least because you may already be too
| low. But if you're just in the middle of nowhere then
| CAPS is much safer than hoping that's just a big empty
| grassy meadow you see ahead and doesn't have a thin,
| wheel-snagging ditch, or a barbed wire fence, or a dozen
| other obstacles that you wouldn't see until it's too
| late.
|
| Even for a water landing, if you have never practised
| there are a lot of ways for putting a conventional plane
| down in the water to go badly, including flipping or
| breaking up the plane, whereas CAPS should just plonk you
| in the water, relatively gently, right side up, not
| _great_ news, but very survivable.
| jrockway wrote:
| Here's an analysis of the CAPS system's safety record:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT58pzY41wA (contains
| some good footage of an SR22 parachuting into the ocean,
| and into the ground).
|
| This is a good overview on the survivability of water
| landings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LwGYBBhTss. I
| haven't watched the video recently but I think even a 172
| that cartwheels after landing has a pretty good
| survivability rate, something like 90%. Parachute is a
| nice to have, of course.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Paul Bertorelli is a lot of fun, I have seen those videos
| a while back. I enjoy his "cheap pilot bastard" attitude
| to things even if maybe I don't agree with it.
| throw0101a wrote:
| There is a maximum speed that the system can handle:
|
| > _Four CAPS deployments occurred successfully at higher
| speeds, 168, 171, 187 and 190 knots indicated airspeed,
| and one deployment failed at an airspeed estimated at
| over 300 knots airspeed._
|
| * https://www.cirruspilots.org/Safety/What-Is-CAPS
|
| Anything lower than that will forward-motion stop the
| aircraft. AFAICT, there is a need for 2000' (650m) of
| altitude above the ground for the system to deploy in
| time to be useful (slow descent).
| captainredbeard wrote:
| Even then, they recommend pulling the chute anyway
| because it can reduce velocity if it's still above
| nominal "touchdown" speed
| alister wrote:
| What are the problems with making such a system for large
| passenger aircraft (perhaps with multiple parachutes)?
| gecko wrote:
| The drastically higher speeds involved (250-300 knots
| airspeed, as opposed to more like 50-90 knots for GA
| aircraft), combined with drastically higher weights (think
| about the chutes needed for something like Apollo, which is
| nowhere near the size of a large passenger aircraft, and
| realize you need way more) would both be major issues.
| There's also the simple fact that larger passenger aircraft
| tend not to fail this way, making it less likely such a
| system would help even if it existed.
| morcheeba wrote:
| I'll add on to the good points other have made here - smaller
| planes tend to fly out of small airports in the suburbs or
| the countryside. Larger planes fly out of much more urban
| areas, where there are a lot more obstacles, making a safe
| landing less probable.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| I would expect the problem to be "mass goes up with size
| cubed, while parachute drag only goes up with size squared".
| I.e. you need a disproportionately larger chute (or more of
| them) for large aircraft. Those are dead weight in normal
| operation, which really hurts the economics.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| The sibling comments make some of the same arguments, but
| here's an article which also addresses it:
|
| "An aircraft is most vulnerable during take-off and landing
| because it is closer to the ground (its biggest obstacle),
| and is travelling at low speeds and therefore is harder to
| manoeuvre. According to statistics from Boeing, almost three-
| quarters of deaths from plane crashes between 2005 and 2014
| occurred during these phases of flight. But this is the time
| when a detachable cabin would least likely be successful at
| saving lives. Being closer to the ground would give the pilot
| much less opportunity to jettison the cabin following an
| incident and if it were detached it could well land in a
| built-up area."
|
| https://theconversation.com/why-a-detachable-cabin-
| probably-...
| marcinzm wrote:
| To add to another comment larger planes have much better
| redundancy (multiple engines, multiple control lines,
| multiple pilots, etc.) so the situations where a parachute
| would help are much much fewer. So weight is probably better
| spent on making the redundant systems even more redundant
| than anything else.
| jonplackett wrote:
| I don't know why this blew my mind so much, but it did.
| dmix wrote:
| > The device is attributed with saving over 200 lives to date.
|
| https://www.cirruspilots.org/Safety/CAPS-Event-History
| sokoloff wrote:
| That particular phrasing and calculation, suggesting that
| every chute deployment without fatalities represents that
| number of people "saved" is quite controversial and IMO not
| supported by an analysis of the data.
|
| I think it's great that the system exists, it has undoubtedly
| saved lives, but unless Cirrus crashes are overwhelmingly
| fatal compared to other airplanes, it's overstating "fatal
| accidents turned into non-fatal accidents" by likely a factor
| of ~3 and number of fatalities avoided by ~4.
|
| This type of mishap is probably the best scenario for a
| chute, though. I have no illusions that following a mid-air
| that I am still a strong favorite to bring my non-chute
| airplane to earth without fatalities. (The stats say I'm
| about a 60:40 favorite to do so.)
|
| CAPS saves lives. CAPS has not saved the lives of every
| person who survived a CAPS deployment, because most of those
| would have survived anyway. In most off-airport arrival
| scenarios, I'd be wishing to have a chute.
|
| * - One of my instructors was in command for CAPS Event #46
| mlyle wrote:
| > . I have no illusions that following a mid-air that I am
| still a strong favorite to bring my non-chute airplane to
| earth without fatalities. (The stats say I'm about a 60:40
| favorite to do so.)
|
| Note this was a midair with a much larger, faster aircraft
| and at an unfavorable aspect. The empennage was sliced
| nearly entirely through by the other aircraft's propeller
| and the elevator/horizontal stabilizer is deflected into a
| position commanding a steep dive.
| mannykannot wrote:
| I completely agree, but for a more complete analysis, we
| would have to consider the fatality rate for the sort of
| crashes in which CAPS is employed.
|
| IIRC, Cirrus is now encouraging pilots to use CAPS in any
| engine failure with sufficient altitude for it to work, on
| account of the number of such accidents, in CAPS-equipped
| aircraft, where the pilot chose not to use it, and someone
| aboard was killed or seriously injured. This will
| presumably further muddy the used/saved ratio, while
| probably increasing the total number of saved.
|
| In a collision situation, at least one as violent as this
| one, you can't be sure whether some vital control or
| structure has been damaged to the point where it is about
| to fail, so using a parachute of any sort, where feasible,
| seems to be the rational choice.
|
| Quite by accident, I came across this pucker-inducing
| article a couple of days ago, where thre's little doubt
| that bailing out, if it were an option, would have been the
| right thing to do, even though this flight ended safely in
| this case.
|
| https://airfactsjournal.com/2019/03/student-flight-
| control-j...
|
| (On second thoughts, if the pilot had a parachute, he could
| have attempted to free up the controls without making his
| situation any worse.)
| elliekelly wrote:
| Are there any fees associated with an emergency landing
| like that? I imagine La Guardia runways are in pretty
| high demand but pilots have a culture that prioritizes
| safety above all else so I'd be curious which takes
| precedence.
| mannykannot wrote:
| Tangentially, one reason why Cirrus has been persuading
| pilots to use CAPS as soon as they get into difficulties
| is because it was suspected that pilots often chose not
| to do so (or delay until too late) because it was widely
| believed (and is true in most cases) that doing so totals
| the airplane - i.e. an economic disincentive to put
| safety first.
| sokoloff wrote:
| There are no emergency-specific fees. Whether Newark (I
| think it was EWR, not LGA) would assess a normal landing
| fee is probably not a consideration for the pilot,
| especially back then.
|
| Landing fees are quite reasonable. Off peak, the landing
| fee would be $25 now. On peak, it would be $125.
|
| https://www.panynj.gov/content/dam/airports/pdfs/schedule
| ofc...
| elliekelly wrote:
| Wow that's surprisingly low! I was imagining the fee was
| thousands of dollars.
| maigret wrote:
| It depends on your aircraft weight basically
| TylerE wrote:
| Where they'll get you (for normal operations) is things
| like parking fees. At Newark, for an aircraft less than
| 100,000lbs that is $45/8 hrs.
| akouri wrote:
| The SR-22 also cannot recover from a spin. I would assume
| most of those deployments are from out of control spins. I am
| not sure the parachute system can be credited for saving more
| lives than a similar plane not-equipped, because the Cirrus
| _needed_ that parachute system in order to be certified.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > The SR-22 also cannot recover from a spin.
|
| The SR-22 can recover from a spin, using conventional anti-
| spin control inputs. EASA testing showed that.
|
| It is true that Cirrus secured an "equivalent level of
| safety" ruling during FAA certification and so _did not
| demonstrate_ conforming spin recovery in flight testing
| here, but it can recover.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Ah, that's why I only read about one parachute for two
| passengers :D
| t0mas88 wrote:
| The more generic system is called BRS, Ballistic Recovery
| Systems. They deliver this as an option for many small aircraft
| and it's popular for experimental / home built aircraft.
|
| One downside of the systems is that they typically have a
| maximum lifespan of 10 years while airframes last 50+ years. So
| every 10 years there is a large maintenance cost to
| replace/renew the parachute system. Much less an issue for a $
| 800k Cirrus SR22 (like the one in this incident) than for a $
| 30k old Cessna.
| cookguyruffles wrote:
| Am I correct in saying after one usage, the parachute system
| generally needs replaced? I think I read this about Cirrus
| planes anyway
| bbojan wrote:
| I believe the whole airplane needs to be replaced after BRS
| use.
| mc32 wrote:
| Not necessarily. Frames can be repaired. Frame repairs
| and overhauls are common. If the damage is too extensive
| and expensive then you use it for parts.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| It may sound pointless unless you consider that the pilot
| will not need to be replaced.
| Leherenn wrote:
| There's the issue that in many cases people tried to save
| the airframe rather than activate the parachute, knowing
| the aircraft was likely to be written off, and died doing
| so. It the same when the pilot is equipped with a
| parachute.
| sokoloff wrote:
| This is indeed the early experience with BRS, which has
| been substantially addressed via training which started
| with some complex scenario-based messaging and later
| evolved to a more simplified "pull early, pull often"
| which has resulted in a bias in a better direction for
| human safety.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| What's the risk to the people below?
|
| I'm reminded of a 2011 airshow crash of a _Red Arrows_ T1
| jet which, at least according to this account, [0] may
| have involved the pilot heroically making the decision
| not to personally eject, but to crash the aircraft away
| from crowded areas, perishing as a result. Of course, the
| aircraft itself had no parachute, unlike a Cirrus. (Also,
| I 'm uncertain if that account of the incident is
| consistent with later investigation. The relevant quote
| is not from any investigation, but from a politician.)
|
| [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-14838982
| cameldrv wrote:
| There's a huge difference in the danger to those on the
| ground between an 15000 lb fighter jet going hundreds of
| mph and a small 3000 lb airplane descending at about 15
| mph (plus the wind speed).
|
| It's possible that the Cirrus could hurt or kill someone
| but I don't think it's happened in the about 100
| parachute activations so far.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| > There's a huge difference
|
| Of course there is, that's the reason I emphasised it.
|
| > I don't think it's happened in the about 100 parachute
| activations so far
|
| That's good, although there could be a selection effect
| there: pilots might be more hesitant to deploy it if they
| think the falling aircraft could do harm.
| EricE wrote:
| >What's the risk to the people below?
|
| A lot less than from a plane traveling at terminal
| velocity!
| agloeregrets wrote:
| I mean, would you rather the plane crash at 30mph at a
| chosen point or at 200mph wherever it leads?
| toss1 wrote:
| Yes, and this happens also in many other arenas. I've
| only done a bit of flying, but in my experience in speed
| sports such as Downhill ski racing and auto racing, you
| must be mentally able to switch your goals in a fraction
| of a second, from [win the race] to [save the run] to
| [save your life], without hesitation.
|
| Sometimes you succeed in [save your life] and are still
| on-track / on-piste pointing in the right direction and
| are back to [win the race] in the space of a few seconds.
| Other times, you are on the sidelines, and hopefully not
| on the way to the field clinic.
|
| But the switch in perspective must fully committed and
| absolutely not include [save the equipment], which is
| replaceable, even custom one-off gear. Anything else is
| over-constraining the problem and inviting disaster.
| karlkatzke wrote:
| At the point a pilot is considering declaring an
| emergency, they should do so. Once they have declared an
| emergency, the insurance company owns the airplane, and
| the pilot should be focused on preserving as many lives
| as possible. This is as true for a mechanical emergency
| like a gear up landing as it is for every other kind of
| emergency.
| thesh4d0w wrote:
| That's assuming you have in motion insurance on your
| aircraft. I don't on my 152, the plane is worth so little
| we'd cover the airframe cost in 7 years of insurance
| payments.
| nopzor wrote:
| yes, i think the way i've heard it pitched is that
| deploying the parachute will result in "a bad day for the
| insurance company, and a great day for the pilots and
| passengers"
| miked85 wrote:
| > _Cirrus originally thought that the airframe would be
| damaged beyond repair on ground-impact, but the first
| aircraft to deploy (N1223S) landed in mesquite and was
| not badly damaged._ [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Airframe_Parachu
| te_Syst...
| stevehawk wrote:
| they're almost always totaled by the insurance company.
| Easier than risking that they missed a hairline fracture
| somewhere and have the plane go down again.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Yes. The parachute has a pyrotechnic deployment mechanism
| that is consumed; I never saw a BRS sold in separate
| components, so you need to replace the entire package. The
| 10 year shelf life is coming from the pyrotechnic charge
| and the parachute material, they both age.
| fnordfnordfnord wrote:
| You can buy the components separately but they won't
| usually be certified so that's only useful for EAA types
| and people like Mike Patey.
| jaywalk wrote:
| The parachute system will need to be completely replaced
| after usage no matter what. Activating the parachute
| involves firing a small rocket motor to pull it out
| quickly.
| [deleted]
| vertis wrote:
| This[0] youtube video has good explanation with the air traffic
| control audio. The metroliner pilot was cool as a cucumber after
| being hit.
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ph7OR6C90w
| throw0101a wrote:
| See also VASAviation's recreation of radar plot, which is
| referenced in the above video:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5tb2dVWJqc
| HHalvi wrote:
| I felt erilly familiar with the details of this accident after
| reading the details. I dug up my browsing history and realized I
| watched the ATC exchange of this very collision yesterday not
| realizing that this had happened the very same day the video was
| uploaded[0]. Also props to the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System
| (CAPS), hope this gets implemented in more smaller (or homemade)
| aircrafts.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5tb2dVWJqc
| throwawaygimp wrote:
| @dang "Mid air just north of KAPA- all parties OK" is the more
| appropriate headline on reddit.
|
| As an aviator my stress levels are only just coming down now from
| seeing this headline and clicking expecting there to be deaths.
| Grustaf wrote:
| What is KAPA and do people know what it means?
| mnw21cam wrote:
| It's the code for the particular airport they were about to
| land at. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Airport
| t0mas88 wrote:
| The ICAO airport code as used for navigation. They're
| different from the IATA 3 letter codes that most passengers
| know. US airports start with K, European with E (e.g. EF for
| Europe-France).
|
| Often for large airports the code is very similar to the IATA
| code for passengers, e.g. KJFK for JFK and KSFO for San
| Francisco. But not always, as in EGLL for London Heathrow
| which is LHR in passenger codes.
| papercrane wrote:
| > European with E (e.g. EF for Europe-France).
|
| EF is Finland actually. The first letter is region code,
| and Europe is divided into multiple regions. Northern
| Europe is E, Southern Europe is mostly L (so France is LF).
|
| Wikipedia has a nice map showing the different boundarys on
| it's ICAO airport codes page.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICAO_airport_code#/media/File
| :...
| t0mas88 wrote:
| Haha sorry, you're right bad example.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| > _US airports start with K_
|
| ICAO-registered U.S. airports in the contiguous 48 states
| start with a K. Alaskan and Hawaiian airports start with a
| P and other U.S. territories get other different initial
| letters depending on their region (e.g. TJ for Puerto Rico
| or NS for American Samoa).
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| _> Often for large airports the code is very similar to the
| IATA code for passengers_
|
| This is mostly only the case in the United States, since it
| has a single-letter K prefix, so they can append the
| 3-letter IATA code to make a valid 4-letter ICAO code. In
| the rest of the world the second letter of the ICAO code is
| used to designate countries, so the 3-letter IATA code
| cannot be appended.
| tialaramex wrote:
| KAPA is the code for Centennial Airport in Denver. It's
| likely many US pilots would either know what that is or be
| trivially able to look it up, non-pilots not so much.
| FabHK wrote:
| I wonder how many mid air collisions we would expect to see if
| see-and-avoid where entirely ineffectual, or pilots would not
| look outside ever except to land. I have the impression the
| accident numbers would not be much worse than they are.
|
| In other words, my hypothesis is that the fact that there are few
| mid-airs is owed to ATC, technology (TCAS, TAS) and "big sky",
| rather than vigilant pilots.
| ericpauley wrote:
| Agreed. It can be hard to spot traffic even if you know where
| the other plane is! With this in mind ADS-B/TIS-B seems like
| such an essential tool for GA pilots.
| shockeychap wrote:
| The picture of the Metroliner reminds me of the Aloha Airlines
| incident.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243
|
| It's amazing that the hull can survive in the air for any time
| with that much torn away.
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