Posted on 01/29/2020 9:00:09 AM PST by BenLurkin
True, however the first 2-3 seconds of transitioning to IMC when your eyes have been glued to the ground below you is generally fatal when you are low to the ground, and only 2-3 seconds away from impact to begin with.
JFK JR incident was similar in that he was using sight and got disoriented
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That’s correct. He got in a graveyard spiral.
controlled flight into the ground
Anybody that flies aircraft should study the Carole Lombard crash in ‘42. It will stick in their minds forever. It was never solved and that’s the point.
let me ask sort of a morbid question.
If you are in a graveyard spiral would the passengers likely be disoriented as well and have no idea they are going to their death? Might provide some comfort to the family of deceased......
Sputtering would be odd in a turbine engine. I have heard compressor stalls in turbine engines, and those are fairly abrupt, but compressor stalls sound like cannons, not sputtering.
I did see flames come out the front of an RF-8U Crusader once when it had a compressor stall
I wonder what they heard?
Never thought of that
But was he losing altitude
He crashed at a little over 1000 feet
Some of those Santa Monica hills are 3100 foot
Yes, very possible.
“The descent rate for the helicopter was over 2,000 feet a minute, so we know that this was a high energy impact crash,” Homendy said. “This is a pretty steep descent at high speed. So it wouldn’t be a normal landing speed.”
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The 2,000 feet per minute is equal to about 23 miles per hour. That descent rate along with the much higher forward speed would yield a devastating impact.
This is an interesting footnote to the story..from wiki
In 1962, Jill Winkler Rath, widow of publicist Otto Winkler, filed a $100,000 lawsuit against the $2,000,000 estate of Clark Gable in connection with Winkler’s death in the plane crash with Carole Lombard. The suit was dismissed in Los Angeles Superior Court. Rath, in her action, claimed Gable promised to provide financial aid for her if she would not bring suit against the airline involved. Rath stated she later learned that Gable settled his claim against the airline for $10. He did so because he did not want to repeat his grief in court and subsequently provided her no financial aid in his will
Or the pilot actually reverts to instrument flying when IMC and glues his eyes to the instrument panel.
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Correct, but a sudden transition from visual flying to instrument flying can be disorienting.
I suspect that’s what happened.
He may have regained control of the helicopter, but didn’t have enough altitude for the recovery.
Asked for Flight Following, was told ATC couldn’t follow, too low.
Obviously he entered IMC, he should have immediately climbed to MSA and contacted ATC. No big deal. He screwed up.
If you are in a graveyard spiral would the passengers likely be disoriented as well and have no idea they are going to their death?
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Most likely it would feel like straight and level flight to everybody including the pilot. That’s what makes it so dangerous. The only thing unusual may be high engine RPM.
There’s a good chance they didn’t suffer at all.
Exactly what I’m thinking. He’s stuck in a cloud, and has no measurements to tell him anything?
I’m glad I’m not so blinded by my own self worth and money that I would feel the need to take a helicopter to my daughters extracurricular activities.
He probably pressured the pilot to fly in bad conditions because his schedule was more important.
He gambled, his daughter and friends paid the price.
Life is precious and delicate, tread cautiously.
Yes, but had he cleared the hill, he would have been out of the clouds, and would have reoriented himself.
Pilot error makes the most sense.
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7
NO, they were not within 20-30 feet of “clearing the mountain”. Look at the pictures. More like 200-300 feet.
Hope someone gets that point over the the wife and family.
It is so much worse to think of your loved one plummeting to death scared out of their mind grabbing on to each other.
Well, at least a little worse.
None of it is good, obviously
True enough. The fact he entered IMC was not a surprise to the pilot, he could see it coming (I’s bet).
Transition to IFR and instrument flying and a low level route abort should be second nature to any qualified pilot, but pilots make mistakes all the time (historically about 80% of mishaps are ‘pilot error’).
I think maybe he was initially trying to travel VFR on top, but I may be wrong about this. Who knows. What is clear, entering IMC when flying VFR requires the pilot to put down his ego, admit he entered IMC, transition to instruments straightaway and abort to MSA and contact ATC.
I have thousands of hours in the A-10 and the F-15E, flown low level a lot, day and night. In the UK encountering IMC and route aborting was not uncommon since fog seemed to just appear and you had to route abort, and with the Strike Eagle, route aborts were something to expect. Flying low level in Germany in my A-10, encountered unanticipated IMC conditions, route aborted and called ATC. . .German ATC controller were famous for ignoring jets route aborting, they simply didn’t want to talk to a route aborter. . .couple iffy things when that happens, but never hit the ground because natural reflex was to climb while at the same time transition to instruments.
At any rate, NTSB will figure this out.
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