Accident Response

[Bill Greenwood]

What should the response be to the unfortunate, but not uncommon fatal accident?
There are some people who want to hush everything up, usually they say out of respect to the pilot to wait for the offical NTSB report. I disagree. First the report takes 6 moths to a year, and in a severe impact there may not be enough evidence to tell much about it
Also,what could be more of an honor than learning from an accident to help save the next guy

Low altitde acro has extra risk and danger, and best not to do it with a passenger. Do it up high to allow room to recover. And maybe some manuevers like hammerhead or spins should be done solo.

[rwanttaja]

I'm in the "lets discuss it" camp, but I think the main counter-argument is the rampant speculation that often attends such discussions. Some people posit causes on the sort of flimsy evidence that becomes available, and the threads can go way weird. This may dismay family members searching the 'net for more information; it may mislead people in the media which muddies the waters for anyone looking into it.

Two examples come to mind. The first is the Jeremy Monnet Sonex crash a couple of years back. Lots of speculation about the cause, and even a lot of mis-interpretation of what information became available (e.g., the fact that the turbo wasn't spinning at impact was stretched to a claim that the engine failure was the turbo's fault). Did no one a service, really.

The other example is the recent "Baby Duck" P-51 crash. One photo from the scene shows two of the remaining blades on the propellers. One appears nearly intact, the other is slightly bent with some paint scraped. Neither looks like it was spinning at the time of impact. Yet an engine failure doesn't seem to match the other known aspects of the accident.


Again, I prefer to discuss accidents soon after they happen, but several folks I respect muster some good arguments against it.

Ron Wanttaja

[Frank Giger]

Unless there's overwhelming documentation on what happened (such as video or something compellingly obvious from pictures), or in the case of non-fatal wrecks where the pilot is willing to talk about it, there's a lot of guessing and arguing about guesses in most cases.

Not all of it is useful or helpful...or, really, relevant.

Let's take for example my little flip in the grass next to the runway.

Here's what I know - my front brakes locked up on the start of the takeoff roll, leaving nice skid marks about twenty five feet long, and one locked up a bit more than the other, causing me to divert from the runway into high grass. The grass caught the cross beam of the gear and up and over she went. Total time from pushing the throttle forward to pulling it back and going over? Four seconds. Not a lot of time for contemplation.

I've been sussing through how the heck it happened, and I'm still not sure, and the more I've worked on the brakes, the murkier it gets.

I had just adjusted the band brakes to make them more brake-y, as they were too loose. Here's all the causes I came up with, and their solutions:

1) Pilot error. The brake handle was on the stick, and I had just applied them to do a pattern check before entering the runway. It is entirely possible I didn't take my fingers off the lever and applied the brake myself, and as things got stressful, clenched my fist harder. Solution - move the brake handle off the stick and to the side of the cockpit.

2) Brakes adjusted too tight. As they heated, they grabbed harder, until they just flat out grabbed firm to the brake drums. Solution - do more taxi tests when adjusting brakes, and see final action.

3) Bolts in brake drum caught the vertical band support. I had attached the drums to the wheels with the bolt ends to the inside, and they were a bit long. They might have caught the vertical support, stopping the wheel. Unlikely, but the solution is to ensure that the bolt head is on the drum side to make such a scenario impossible.

4) Brake cables bound in sleeves. When I was replacing the brake lines, I discovered that where I routed them through the gear legs there was a definite kink in the lines, cutting through the plastic outer sleeve and crimping the metal inner sleeve. Could have happened during the flip, which put a lot of sideways pressure on the wheels. Don't know. Solution - route the cables cleanly along the outside of the gear.

5) Band brakes are Of The Devil and have no place being on an aircraft. I've had nothing but trouble with them from the start, and they've been the only problem I've had with the aircraft. Either I'm simply not up to the task of a good mounting system for them or they're just an evil brake system that involves a bit of luck to get right. Solution - I'm going to drum brakes.

Now, then, anyone is free to pick any of the above (or a combination) and I won't argue with them, as I don't have a clue as to which one is correct myself - and I built and piloted the brake system.

The real answer, I think, is to completely rethink and re-do the entire braking system with something else. So really, for me, #5 is the one that wins out, with #1 coming in a close second, as I decided to eliminate it as a possibility.

[edit]

Ron, the engine could have come to a hard stop going through three blades against the ground. I broke one prop blade and cracked the other through when I flipped, and the engine was halted immediately. I'd of expected that even though the engine was inverted it would have ran a bit more, as the fuel pump is electric.

[Bill Greenwood]

Frank, Im not talking about " a little flip into the grass"though of course you can discuss that also,
Ron, Im talking about major fatal crashes and especially with a passenger. I ve only seen them for the 34 years I have been in EAA and they havent gotten any easier. Right now I am wearing a button with Vlado's picture on it given to me today by Rhoda, one of the line ladies. Im really sick of losing friends. Go to NTSB and look up "Habu" from July 5th , 1984. Just like Baby Duck with Vlado, low altitude acro with a passener. I dont know if the engine was running or not, doubt if you can tell from 2 blades after a hard nose down impact But I spoke to a witness who saw it. And some say Vlado had expeience and skill. Certanly he did or he wouldn't likely have been flying a 51, especaily one owned by someone else. Same as Earl in "Habu" . The ground is unforgiving.

As for the Monnett accident I dont know much about the turbochager, but I think taking off from an intersection with 2 people on board was major factor.

[1600vw]

The things that keeps me up at night. High time pilots with skills so far above anything I will ever have, end up in the statistics. What makes me believe someday I will not be in those same statistics. This is why I read things like this. I will never, I know never say never, But I will NEVER do a mid field takeoff. Not from an experimental airplane. Maybe in a Learjet, but in something with a Vdub. I want every inch of turf. be it pavement or grass. Be it 2000' or 8000'. But I say this not because I am some great pilot, but because I learned from those before me, to not do this you could get bitten.

Sad subject. But a needed subject. IMHO. To those of whom we speak..I salute you, and may you R.I.P....

Tony

[rwanttaja]

The things that keeps me up at night. High time pilots with skills so far above anything I will ever have, end up in the statistics. What makes me believe someday I will not be in those same statistics. This is why I read things like this. I will never, I know never say never, But I will NEVER do a mid field takeoff. Not from an experimental airplane. Maybe in a Learjet, but in something with a Vdub. I want every inch of turf. be it pavement or grass. Be it 2000' or 8000'. But I say this not because I am some great pilot, but because I learned from those before me, to not do this you could get bitten.

One is reminded of the philosophy behind the title of a famous Earnest Gann book: "Fate is the Hunter." No matter how good a pilot you are, sometimes your number's up.

Probably the most insidious aspect of aircraft accidents is the complacency that occurs from "pushing the envelope" on safety issues without negative result. A pilot schedules a flight that, with his most precise calculation, will leave him exactly 30 minutes reserve fuel. He makes it, maybe has extra fuel. So the next time he has to make the same trip, he's not as conscientious about computing the fuel needed. He goes on like this for months, even years, until ONE day the wind is strong, the tanks aren't quite as full to start, and the engine sputters to a stop a mile short.

If, on the first time he tried it, the engine ran out of fuel as he taxied up to the fuel tanks...well, he'd probably never stretch his fuel like that again (BTW, speaking from experience, sort of). But he made it, and his brain tells him it was safe all along.

The Monnett accident was likely an example of this. He'd probably performed that same intersection takeoff for years with no ill result. On this day, the engine failed at the worst possible moment.

The NTSB Probable Cause cited stalling out after a power failure of undetermined origin. In addition to the engine failing at the worst moment, the intersection takeoff ensured it happened at the worst possible place. But NOT performing the intersection takeoff would not have guaranteed they would have lived. "Fate is the Hunter," as Gann says. Remember, the airplane crashed because it stalled. Those don't only happen over vehicle parks. The ground has a P_k of 1.0.

Another factor to consider: The intersection takeoff left 2,500 feet of runway. There are lots of airports with runways that length or shorter. If Sonex had been based out of one...instead of the long-runway'ed Oshkosh...would we now be damning the business case that led to them being based at such a "short" airport?

As part of my accident statistics work, I've had to read a lot of accident reports...a bit over 5,000, I think. I end up reliving a lot of pilot foibles. Some make me slap my forehead. Others, though, make me twist uncomfortably in my office chair. They're a little too close to where I've been in the past. I've had some incredible luck and have avoided the consequences. So far. Fate is the Hunter, and this wascally wabbit has avoided it for 47+ years. So far.

Anytime you examine an accident, do me a favor. Look at it from the point of view of, "how could I avoid this happening to me?" not "This wouldn't happen to me because I'm too good/too smart/way lucky/always safe." Fate might finally draw the right lead on me, someday. If it happens, you're welcome to discuss, speculate, condemn, and castigate.

As long as you LEARN from my death, damn it.

Ron Wanttaja

[Frank Giger]

Bill, you were talking in general, and I was giving an example - a very gentle one - of how it's easy to armchair quarterback a wreck and what caused it.

And, with that, how easy the conversation can become pointless and ruinous.

I did a lot of research on the safety of the type of plane I was building - the whole family of them, really, as the light tube-and-gusset biplane design lends itself to be looked at that way - to try and avoid the big gotchas in design and building. The bulk of accidents and incidents happened in take-off as the rudders are small, the elevators large, and it's easy to work one before the other gets a bite (the only fatality was a pilot pitching up too much on takeoff, doing a modified hammer head, and nosing into pavement), landings (ground loops), and in the air, engine outs. The engine outs were almost all due to ground wire failures (lots of VW engines with electronic ignition like mine). Guess what I paid particular attention to when hanging my engine?

As Ron said, there's a certain amount of one's number coming up in aviation, but we can hedge the odds in our favor quite a bit. Some things folks do in airplanes are just flat out riskier than others. Crop dusting comes to mind. There's a high degree of skill required to do the job and the pilots who do it are up to the task. However, they also have a lot of wrecks, as if anything goes wrong it's going to go badly wrong...as at low altitude there isn't a lot of room for correction or adjustment.

[Ernie]

Not to quibble about the words, but I actually have started asking myself, "under what conditions might I have done this?" A little different question and sometimes it's a stretch, but I frequently find those conditions. Fatigue, illness, stress, distraction, are just some of them.

Ernie