Joking Pilots in Commuter Jet Crash Wanted to 'have a Little Fun' by Climbing to 41,000 Feet

AP ^ | AP-ES-06-13-05 1117EDT

[tuffydoodle]

ping

[Luna]

Idiots.

[Dashing Dasher]

I prefer the good ole days of flight - the days of Stick and Rudder flying.

Most of these Jet Jocks would be lost without a glass cockpit.

[Xenophobic Alien]

WTF ping

Let me know if you would like on or off the ping list

[Trust but Verify]

Maybe they were that incompetent.

[safisoft]

This is nonsense. Not only is it NOT wrong for a crew to take an aircraft to its PUBLISHED max altitude, it is a good thing if the light load permitted. Most pilots of commercial jets have been at the PUBLISHED max altitude for their aircraft, so wanting to do that was not wrong for this crew - if in fact 41,000 was the max published altitude.

The question is not whether they should have been at the PUBLISHED max altitude, but whether FL410 was in fact the published max altitude. This article does not answer that question, and blaming the pilots without that information is pure silliness.

If FL410 is the max published altitude for the Canadair, then the fault is not the pilots' for going there.

[Tennessee_Bob]

Oh, that's heresy there, that is. Pilot's never make errors...it was the ground's fault that it came up and hit them.

[Cvengr]

AGL or ASL?

Ooooops!

[Tennessee_Bob]

Try the one I used to work on - The Electric Jet, The Lawn Dart, The Falcon - the F-16A-D. All electric, all the time, unless the generator goes offline and the EPU fails to fire. In that case, it's just several tons of deadweight strapped to the pilot's a$$ - a good launch platform for the ACES II.

[SueRae]

Bombardier built Amtrak's Acela's. They don't perform as advertised, either.

[Syntyr]

As pilots tend to say they ran out of Altitude, Speed and Ideas all at the same time...

[paddles]

Two possible explanations is that they slowed below sufficient airspeed for an airstart or that for one reason or another they did not windmill the engine long enough before airstart to overcome rapid cooling brought on by the flameout at high altitude.

Either way, these were a couple of idiots who somehow thought getting an airplane to 41k was a manly feat.

To quote Paul Harvey, "Gonads are useful for their purpose but they are no substitute for brains."

[Pukin Dog]

Hey bud, if the engines took them up there, but failed to bring them back, it is the pilots who are at fault. Jet aircraft are not toys to play around with. Unless your jet comes equipped with ejection seats, you don't go anywhere near the limits. They were idiots.

[nightdriver]

I wonder what kind of engines are used on that aircraft. I've been on commercial flights before that went to 41,000 ft.

Jet engines control themselves by monitoring internal pressures. At high altitudes, the thin air passes through at such a high velocity that the fire gets blown out just like a birthday cake candle. The good ol' P&W engines on the airliner I was on were engineered well enough to accomodate it.

[SkyPilot]

Two possible explanations is that they slowed below sufficient airspeed for an airstart or that for one reason or another they did not windmill the engine long enough before airstart to overcome rapid cooling brought on by the flameout at high altitude.

Quite possibly. I have done airstarts only in the simulator, but they were not that difficult. If you are at 41K, you trade altitude for airspeed--and it doesn't take Einstein to figure that out.

[Pukin Dog]

But, you know Bob, that many F-16s have been brought home on a dead stick. Training makes the difference.

[shellshocked]

It seems FLT410 is the service ceiling of the Bombardier CRJ-200. A beautiful plane, too.

[OB1kNOb]

Icarus - ping!

[SkyPilot]

All I can think of right now is that they cavitated the fuel lines somehow. I dunno--need a licensed A&P or A&I on the forum to address this.

[Dashing Dasher]

Do you still fly?
If so, what?


In my humble opinion, students would learn to fly in a J3 - or a PA-11/12/15/18 or maybe a Citabria or Champ. Something where they learn the basics - without looking at a bunch of instruments. Feel the seat of their pants and not look to a panel for answers.

The Cirrus, while a stunning airplane with wonderful instrumentation blah blah blah, and that STUPID parachute only makes pilots think they are not in charge of getting their airplane safely on the ground.

"I've got trouble, I'll just pull this little handle and everything will be fine - and no longer my responsibility!"

Barf.

We had a report of a guy who was Instrument Rated and Current in a Cirrus who was on a VFR flight plan and got lost in the clouds and he PULLED THE HANDLE!!!

Perhaps, get on the radio, file or find clear sky - ?

He WASTED a perfectly good airplane because he's a chicken.

/soap box off