Wellstone was Murdered (Barf Alert)

Website ^ | 10-18-04 | Drench Kiss Media Corporation

[tiamat]

cyborg wrote:


Let me guess. Bush?

---

Over at the Site With No Name, that is EXACTLY what they were saying.

( i slum there sometimes, just to see what they are talking about)

[cyborg]

( i slum there sometimes, just to see what they are talking about)

** Yes I too sometimes troll the political internet ghetto too to do opposition research ;-)

[tiamat]

i always make sure to scrub down afterwards, though!

[spunkets]

"...some remember how the media blamed the weather.

Which reminds me. I'll be up Jack Frosts way again this year. Anyone else have a message they want delivered? Cheney's list is a bit long this year, but Jack's got time. He enjoys his work.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Oh, no, Possum. Not you. I am Spartacus!

Bwahahahahaha!

Actually, as Archangelsk says (we have both studied this accident at some length and can demolish conspiracy moonbats' ravings about it without even checking our notes), this mishap proves that you ought to check credentials on your professional pilots.

There was a two man crew on that airplane, and both had horrible records. One was a felon who had falsified his flight records; the other an affirmative-action hire who had shuffled through flight school without anybody telling him the truth: he didn't have what it takes to fly.

Here is the official NTSB report on the accident. Short cause: they lost flying speed, stalled, and couldn't recover (stall recoveries are taught before the greenest student solos).

The narratives are sketchy for this accident, which may be a new (and poor) way of doing things at the NTSB. The more complete .pdf is available here. Be aware that it is a 3MB file.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Criminal Number 18F]

Point of detail, Buddy Holly was in a single engine charter (forked-tail doctor killer). He did have a pilot who had a commercial license and no instrument rating (not uncommon in those days, they tell me).

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[atomicpossum]

I guess the same people killed Mel Carnahan, too?

[Criminal Number 18F]

Pumpkin cannon! That's a good one, Michael.

One of the clowns who wrote this published a completely different version (he had to change his conspiracy to account for the NTSB final) in 2003 in some Duluth paper. This has to be a scream for some folks I know that work for Cirrus (a major single-engine airplane builder) in Duluth.

Their website alone is full of lies. For instance, it has a picture of a lake shot on an overcast day with this caption: "Above: Most of the public remember the weather being the official reason for the crash. The photo below was taken a couple miles from the crash scene 22 minutes before the crash." Apart from their confusion about whether the picture is above or below, (1) visibility can be a mile plus on the ground, but if the overcast is at 200 feet it's below most minimums; and (2) whatever most people remember (thanks to liars like these it might be a lie), the "official reason" for the crash, or probable cause as those with more than a third grade education in aviation put it, was an unrecovered stall.

I dunno what their book says was the cause, but Fetzer's bizarre op-ed in the Duluth News Tribune says that Wellstone was killed by an electromagnetic pulse weapon. (That EMP remains a side effect of nuclear blasts, or pure theory, seems to have escaped him. See the kind of PhD you get when you don't have a core curriculum any more? One that doesn't know high school physics....)

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

PS the weed's Duluth News-Trib piece also suggests that the Bush administration is responsible for 9/11, and it quotes über-conspiratroid and literal, diagnosed, schizophrenic Mike Ruppert and a bunch of random websites as sources. Why do we bother with these artefacts of 1970s drug experimentation? -C18F

[Valin]

Admit it, it was Carl (master of evil) Roves idea wasn't it.

[Trillian]

They've been saying that ever since it happened. I still can't understand why they would even fly in the bad weather we had that day.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Here are some excerpts from Section 1.5, "Personnel", of the relevant NTSB report. Edited for brevity. Bold is my emphasis on their words, italic is my comment.

In April 1989, the pilot had been issued a notice of disapproval by the FAA following a flight check for his ATP certificate because of his unsatisfactory performance in several areas, including area arrivals, instrument landing system [ILS] approaches, normal/abnormal procedures, and judgment. He received additional training before retaking....

According to documentation provided by the pilot's wife, the pilot worked at Simmons Airlines (doing business as American Eagle) from November 1989 until April 27, 1990. Simmons could not provide investigators with any documentation regarding his employment at the company.(This is not the only time his records don't jibe with the real world's. However, airlines only have to keep a pilot's records for five years after he's gone. -C18F) However, the pilot's personal records indicate that he reported for Simmons' ground training...program consisted of 17 days of ground instruction, 3 days of training in a Frasca 121 flight-training device, more than 30 hours of flight training, and about 20 hours of initial operating experience. One of the pilot's personal logbooks indicated that he had completed only 13.6 hours of flight training in Avions de Transport Regional 42 aircraft and that he had passed a checkride during this training. (we're a few hours short of the 30 here...) The pilot's logbook also indicated that he had flown four revenue service flights as a first officer...(a total of 4.5 hours) (a few hours short of the 20 too. Gee, why didn't he finish? Read on...)

From February 2 to 20, 1990, the pilot stood trial on criminal charges for mail and wire fraud. He was convicted and sentenced to 2 years in prison and 5 years probation. The pilot submitted a letter of resignation to Simmons dated April 27, 1990. He began his prison sentence on June 8, 1990, and remained in prison until November 8, 1991, at which time he started serving the probation sentence, which he completed on November 7, 1996. (I guess that's why he never finished his probation with Simmons... he had another kind of probation to deal with).

According to the employment application the pilot filled out at Aviation Charter, he worked as a registered nurse... did not contain any information regarding previous aviation-related employment. (He probably did not want them to check and discover why he had resigned from Simmons, the kind of regional job a young up-and-coming pilot usually wants. Neither his employers nor Wellstone, apparently, knew he was a felon. To be fair to the guy, he never got in trouble with the law again, but wait till we look into his logbook before you call him reformed...) According to Aviation Charter records, the pilot had flown approximately 5,116 total flight hours, 598 hours of which he flew with the company, 200 hours of which were as a company pilot-in-command (PIC) in King Airs. He had flown approximately 101, 53, and 36 hours in the 90, 60, and 30 days, respectively, before the accident.

Aviation Charter's lead ground instructor stated that the pilot was average on learning airplane systems and that several company pilots had indicated that the pilot's flying skills were below average. (Well, we can't all be above average). Several Aviation Charter pilots who had flown with the accident pilot described him as "very meticulous," "by the book," "calm," and "laid back."

The pilot was also described as "friendly," "cheerful,""pleasant," "calm," and "diligent in his use of checklists." According to several Aviation Charter copilots, the accident pilot was generally well liked by them because he had a reputation for letting them fly the airplane.

A few copilots stated that because the pilot often let them handle the flight controls, they were not certain of his skill level. Several Aviation Charter pilots indicated that the accident pilot often allowed them to conduct the flights they flew with him as if they were single-pilot operations (that is, he allowed them to handle the flight controls and communications and perform all of the checklists without his assistance).

One Aviation Charter pilot expressed concerns about the pilot's flying skills, monitoring capabilities, and tendency to become distracted. Some company pilots stated that the accident pilot was not particularly assertive; however, other pilots stated that they thought the accident pilot could be assertive, if necessary. One company pilot, who had flown with the accident pilot shortly after Aviation Charter hired him, described him as "too timid to be a pilot." An Aviation Charter King Air pilot indicated that he had taken the airplane controls away from the accident pilot during an instrument approach because he could not maintain altitude. A company King Air copilot indicated that during level flight in IMC, he had to take the controls away from the accident pilot because he allowed the airplane to enter a 45° bank and a 1,000-fpm descent.

Further, another company King Air copilot indicated that during a flight with the accident pilot about 2 months before the accident, the pilot did not have his navigational radio tuned to the VOR in use for the approach, which caused the pilot's course deviation indicator (CDI) to provide erroneous indications during the entire approach. The copilot was the flying pilot and had his navigation radio tuned to the correct VOR and completed the approach without incident. The copilot stated that he later had to explain to the accident pilot the reason that his CDI was not indicating properly during the approach. According to Aviation Charter's director of operations and the company pilots who told Safety Board investigators about these incidents, none of them were ever reported to company management. (Until he killed himself and seven other people. How sad. The basic problem was, he was a nice guy, everybody liked him -- that was probably useful to him when he was doing his wire fraud way back when, too).

The pilot's logbook indicated that he had flown Senator Wellstone at least 12 times. According to the pilot's wife, he got along well with the Senator, who would often call her husband at home before scheduled trips. (Like the pilot, people who know Wellstone say he was basically a nice guy).

3 days before the accident, the pilot flew Senator Wellstone from STP to ...Rochester, New York, in a King Air 90. The copilot of this flight, ...who was the flying pilot, stated that during takeoff, instead of activating the yaw damper switch, the pilot activated the adjacent autopilot switch, which caused the airplane to pitch down.

The copilot stated that he (the copilot) immediately applied back pressure and then disconnected the autopilot, which caused the airplane to pitch up erratically before it returned to normal climb. The copilot stated that after the airplane was stabilized, he had to explain to the pilot that he had engaged the autopilot instead of the yaw damper and that the pilot replied, "Oh, that could have been pretty bad." (No comment)

...on the return flight to STP, the pilot repeatedly identified the airplane as "Citation 6356K" instead of "King Air 6356K." An air traffic controller eventually asked, "You wouldn't happen to be in a King Air today would you?" The pilot acknowledged his error and apologized to the controller. (For the non-pilots: it's important for controllers to know your type for a number of reasons, but mostly because it helps them to estimate your cruise, minimum, climb and descent performance - C18F).

1.5.1.2 The Pilot's Logbook History
After the accident, Safety Board investigators obtained five of the pilot's logbooks from his wife, the most recent of which began with a statement signed by the pilot and a notary public, dated January 23, 2001, which stated that the pilot had "lost his logbook(s) dating from 1979 to December 1994." The letter summarized the pilot's flight hours from 1979 to 1994 as 4,518 total hours, 3,379 hours of which were in multiengine airplanes. The notarized statement also stated that the pilot had "not operated an aircraft from 1994 to December 2000."

Safety Board investigators reviewed all of the logbooks provided by the pilot's wife. One logbook covered a period from December 1978, when the pilot received initial flight training, through May 1986. The pilot's flight time from May 1986 to May 1990 was recorded in two separate logbooks, and these logbooks contained conflicting accounts of his activity during this period. The disparities between these two logbooks included the following:

• different flight hours for the same flights;
• different departure and arrival airports for the same flights;
• different flight times and dates for the same flights;
• some flight segments mentioned in one logbook were not mentioned in the other logbook; and
• one logbook indicated that the pilot had flown 1,600 total flight hours from June 1986 to September 1987, and the other logbook indicated that he had flown 1,850 total flight hours during the same period.

In addition, the two logbooks contained multiple entries by a certified flight instructor (CFI) who provided the pilot with training for his ATP certificate, but the signatures in the two logbooks were different. According to the CFI named in the logbooks, only one of the logbooks contained his actual signature.

The flight hours reported in the January 23, 2001, notarized statement contained in the pilot's most recent logbook represent an increase of more than 1,460 undocumented hours from the flight hour totals in the final entries of the two conflicting logbooks. Further, in August 1992, the pilot reported on an FAA medical certificate application form that he had a total of 3,250 flight hours, which is 1,268 fewer hours than he claimed in the notarized statement to have acquired as of December 1994. (You may miss the significance of these numbers if you are not a pilot. For someone who is not a professional pilot to accumulate 635 hours a year is quite difficult. Note also the contradiction with his other statements). Safety Board investigators did not find any records that could verify the hours reported by the pilot in his private logbooks. See figure 4 for a reconstruction of the pilot's reported flight hours.

unfortunately, I can't easily suck Fig. 4 out of the .pdf and put it here, but the graph shows an inexplicable jump in hours. The inescapable conclusion is that he pencil-whipped his logbooks.

I'll just give you some bullets on the copilot -- much more in the .pdf.

1. According to Aviation Charter employment records, the copilot had never been employed previously as a pilot. However, his logbook entries and other records indicated that he worked as a pilot for a skydive operator from October 1998 through March 1999.(uh-oh, credibility problem. What didn't he want them to know about his experience with the Skydive outfit?)

2. According to the skydive operator, the copilot was let go when he did not meet pilot qualifications standards for flying the Cessna 182. (Answers that question, huh? Two things you will miss if not a pilot: A Cessna 182 is a pussycat, differing from a trainer only in having a constant-speed prop and more power. And skydive operators, for better or for worse, do not have a great reputation as upholders of pilot standards).
4. In February 1999, Northwest Airlines hired the copilot to provide instruction to company pilots on Airbus A320 systems and procedures...[in] ground school. ...He also received seven flight-training lessons in an A320 simulator. The copilot's instructor ...twice noted that the copilot needed to be reminded to keep his hands on the throttles during approaches. (again, this is basic private-pilot level airmanship, leading to the conclusion that this guy was beyond bad, he was horrible).

5. Northwest records indicate that the copilot was not able to successfully complete ... the training program. (Plain English: he washed out for lack of ability).

6. According to his supervisor, the copilot's ability to learn and retain the details of the A320 systems was far lower than that of fellow trainees with comparable flying experience. (I think he's being unfair here. He probably didn't have any trainees with comparable experience: being sacked by a drop zone for inability to master the mighty 182).

7. by the time the other trainees finished learning to teach all of the A320 systems lessons, the copilot had mastered less than half of the lessons. (This kind of quantifies how bad he was: twice as bad as the worst guy or gal that passed).

8. The company provided the copilot with special assistance, but he was still unable to master the material.

9. Aviation Charter's lead ground instructor characterized the copilot's performance in ground school as below average and stated that he spent extra time working with him.

10. the copilot had problems remembering memory items, calculating weights and balances, and applying formulas.

11. Several pilots who had flown with the copilot described him as "not assertive" and expressed concern about his flying skills, especially his inability to land the airplane without assistance.

12. Two pilots stated that the copilot had difficulties with power management when flying an approach and that he had to be reminded to keep one hand on the throttles and to monitor his power gauges. One of these two pilots, who had been mentoring the copilot and flew with him often, stated that this was a consistent problem for the copilot. (again, basic airmanship).

Once again, this incompetent co was a nice guy: "Pilots who had flown with the copilot described him as "friendly,""happy, "organized," "motivated," and "eager to learn."

Take two nice guys who can't quite fly confidently, add one senator and a staff, shake, and fry on the side of a mountain: instant conspiracy theory, but as you see, it isn't such a mystery at all. "In spite of what you may have heard, the plane was exceptional, the pilots well-qualified..." Jim Fetzer, the philosophy professor and conspiracy buff from U of Minnesota-Duluth writes. I guess he considers a pilot who is happy and organized, but can't land the plane, "well qualified." Isn't it a good thing he is lost in the philosophy department up there at that noted hotbed of philosophical thought, Snowshoe U, and not, say, an FAA Examiner? "Well, we missed the runway and we're kind of on fire here, but you have an honest face so I'll sign you off for your ATP!"

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Boundless]

> Point of detail, Buddy Holly was in a single engine charter

Roger that. Thanks.

What would you characterize as the accident that set the
trend for modern celibrity twin charter disasters?

Carole Lombard's might fit the bill, but was a TWA a/c.

[Boundless]

> Take two nice guys who can't quite fly confidently ...

I might have put it "competently".

Putting these two in the same airplane,
it was just a matter of time.

If we had a CVR, their last words to each
other might have been:
"I thought YOU could fly!"

[WorkingClassFilth]

On the very day that Wellstone bought the farm, Ira Flatow (SP?) on the 'Science Friday' program of MPR brought up the notion of Wellstone having been killed as part of a conspiracy. I couldn't believe that one, even for the public radio radicals. These fools move from kum-by-yah to rabid hysteria in 0.6 seconds.

[Criminal Number 18F]

What would you characterize as the accident that set the trend for modern celebrity twin charter disasters?

Gee... I dunno. Knute Rockne was an airliner (not charter). Rocky Marciano died in the safest plane going, a 172 (single engine). Payne Stewart is much too recent. Back in the seventies you had Graham Hill and Thurman Munson, but they were piloting themselves in their own planes (not charters). This page (of Celebrity Plane Crashes) suggests Mike Todd, in 1958. (Never heard of him, apparently he was one of the eight or whatever husbands of Liz Taylor. In 58 he was famous, I guess)

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[HitmanLV]

all eyes were on the Senate race of Senator Paul Wellstone

All eyes were NOT on this senate race. It was hardly the center of the universe among political junkies. It was considered a difficult race for Wellstone, and he wasn't running away with it.

Further, I don't recall Coleman trailing late in the race nearly as badly as the article says. I think it was even or so, and Coleman was looking good going into the home stretch.

This is just the type of revisionist crap that even the writers find themselves believing.

[Boundless]

> ... Mike Todd, in 1958. (Never heard of him ...

http://www.in70mm.com/newsletter/1995/42/todd_ao/todd_ao_story.htm

Mr. 70mm. Well known to wide-gauge film buffs.
His death was likely the major factor in 70mm
exhibition never becoming more than a niche
format. It survives today only in IMAX halls.

The Todd-AO company is still around.

[Criminal Number 18F]

I guess the same people killed Mel Carnahan, too?

Well, according to the lawsuit the widder filed and the floor levels on the jury (if they drool out of both sides of their mouth the floor is level) it was all caused by a small vacuum pump that just happened to be made by a large corporation, Parker Hannifin.

The physical evidence showed that the vacuum pump was working perfectly well when it hit the terrain at about 290 knots. After that it wasn't in such great shape. The actual failure was in another instrument, the primary artificial horizon. But the company that made that wasn't as well heeled as PH, so guess who got targeted?

Any instrument pilot is taught and periodically retested on ability to fly "partial panel". In this case, the pilot, Carnahan's son, got the ultimate "no go at this station."

The real lesson here may be: give your son an office job and don't extend nepotism into the cockpit of your airplane.

I think we need to start some countervailing conspiracy stories. I bet we can make better conspiracies than the Dems. Here's my attempt: "John Kerry whacked Heinz because he wasnted Teresa's wrinkly booty -- and the money attached to same."

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[b4its2late]

Hey Drench Kiss!