Accident recording

[Bill Greenwood]

There is a recording and explanation of a Cirrus accident that I recommend everyone listen to. It is on the AOPA website and I don't think you have to be a member or sign in to hear it, although I expect most of us are members there also.
Unlike so many accidents this was not a normal gen av airplane in bad weather or a warbird or experimental lost doing acro. It was just a plane flying a normal flight in good vmc daylight weather and still was fatal to 3 people.
The essence:
1 Much of the focus with the tower conversation was which runway the pilot was going to land on, which is of much less importance than a safe pattern and landing.
2 The pilot when cleared to land, tried to cut short the pattern to do a base entry rather than a full downwind; not a good idea at a busy ariport.
3. When a traffic conflict developed with another Cirrus on a long straight in final, the accident pilot rolled back toward downwind with much too steep a bank, up to 60%, at full gross weight and only 100k airspeed,and stalled and spun it. A Cirrus is NOT certified to recover from spins, it would not do so in flight testing and in any event at 300 feet nobody would likely have recovered. The parachute was used, but too late.

[rwanttaja]

A Cirrus is NOT certified to recover from spins, it would not do so in flight testing....

Are you implying that a Cirrus *cannot* recover from a spin? According to Cirrus, they had to perform spin testing for European certification. "A series of spins were performed on their [EASA] initiative. While not a complete program they reported no unusual characteristics."

http://whycirrus.com/engineering/stall-spin.aspx

In this accident, yes, the aircraft was outside the envelope of the CAPS. But otherwise, spin characteristics appear to be normal.

Ron Wanttaja

[FlyingRon]

Spinning at 300 AGL in any aircraft is NOT a good idea and likely not recoverable. I disagree with some of the ASF video analysis. A lot of it is pure conjecture and really separate from the issue. The tower controller definitely issued instructions that were unclear both in the original clearance to land and in response to what the tower considered was an unexpected behavior from the pilot. That said, the pilot panicked which was the final cause of the crash.

As pointed out many times, CLASS C AND D TOWERS DO NOT SEPARATE VFR AIRCRAFT. All they do is try to maintain an orderly flow.

[1600vw]

Are you implying that a Cirrus *cannot* recover from a spin? According to Cirrus, they had to perform spin testing for European certification. "A series of spins were performed on their [EASA] initiative. While not a complete program they reported no unusual characteristics."

http://whycirrus.com/engineering/stall-spin.aspx

In this accident, yes, the aircraft was outside the envelope of the CAPS. But otherwise, spin characteristics appear to be normal.

Ron Wanttaja

Ron no he is not implying this. This is about communication between ATC and PIC or lack of. You must watch this. All PIC need to watch this. This should have never happened, Panic set in all within seconds for the PIC.
Please watch...and pass this along.

Tony

[1600vw]

This is about confusion. ATC told the PIC runway L and the PIC kept saying runway R and they did not listen to each other.

[Bill Greenwood]

Guys, I am trying to get folks to listen to an accident report and learn from it, but some of you can seem to start a controversy out of whether water is wet or not.
1600, I believe you are wrong about runway L , the pilot was cleared to land on the right, despite some discussion of the left might become available.
Ron, the primary point of my post is to get folks to learn from how this accident came almost out on nowhere and was fatal. It is not primary intended to be about Cirrus spin recovery. Obviously short of maybe a Curtis Jenny, not many pilots are going to recover from a spin below a thousand feet. HOWEVER , and since you make it an issue, I believe I am correct that a Cirrus is NOT certified for spins or spin recovery in the U S. During testing, a test pilot was lost in a spin and Cirrus could not make the plane meet normal U S stall/spin recovery criteria so they were able to get a special waiver from the FAA on this point. What they may have done in Europe, I don't know, but if I am wrong I am sure someone is going to tell me. Some U S airplanes are tested and certifeid for spins and recovery, such as C 172, and Beech T-34, probably older types like Cub and Super Cub. And the Cirrus website says, "In short, modern general aviation airplanes are not certified for spins" and that is a verbatim quote, not something I invented. Their site goes on with a long sales pitch about how their design is to avoid spins. I regard much of this as smoke screen, thus if your design doesn't do what earlier ones do, like a 172, then you put out the sales pitch that tries to downplay the idea of spin recovery. I am not an expert on Cirrus accidents, but I think the record of Cirrus is no better than other more standard designs and certainly not free of spins, even some that were saved by the parachute as well as this one that was not.

The point of this recording was to learn from it, and fly safely especially in the pattern, nt to get into a debate about how great Cirrus is or not.

[rwanttaja]

The point of this recording was to learn from it, and fly safely especially in the pattern, nt to get into a debate about how great Cirrus is or not.

Then why stick in a dig against Cirrus? You say most pilots wouldn't be able to recover in a spin below a thousand feet (which I fully agree with you), but WHY take a valid safety lesson and turn it into yet another attack against Cirrus?

If it didn't make a difference...then why did you feel you had to mention it?

Ron Wanttaja

[Mike M]

As AOPA video said, "air traffic controller" is a misnomer. " Air traffic collision avoidance advisor" is a bit unwieldy. Marconi isn't flying, the tower operator isn't, the PIC is.

[FlyingRon]

This is about confusion. ATC told the PIC runway L and the PIC kept saying runway R and they did not listen to each other.

Not true at all, the ASF stuff is a bit muddled. Read the NTSB report and supporting documents.

[Mayhemxpc]

I am just trying to figure out what this thread has to do with simulation.