Accident Case Study: Everyone's Problem

it's mid-afternoon on the 15th of November 2007 on the ramp at the Arlington Texas Airport a flight instructor and two foreign students one receiving instruction the other writing along to gain experience and radio communication are preparing for a cross-country flight in a Piper arrow the day is calm and clear and there's no outward sign that this will be anything other than a routine trip behind the facade of normality though why disturbing indications of what's to come the instructor for the flight though relatively inexperienced has gained a reputation as a quote-unquote good pilot albeit one with a certain reckless streak namely a fondness for aerobatic maneuvers in non aerobatic aircraft later testimony from his fellow CF is corroborated by emails from one of the students killed in the crash describes multi turn spins barrel rolls wing overs and aggressive pull ups in normal category aircraft hardly the stuff of typical flight instruction shortly before the flight another CFI the primary instructor for the student riding along to observe caution sir colleague not to do any funny stuff the warning however seems to be given more out of concern that the student will pick up bad habits then over worries about danger either way it goes unheeded the arrow departs Arlington westbound and from there ATC radar tells the tale analysis shows the aircraft performing several maneuvers in the moments leading up to the crash most of the maneuvers begin with pitch overs in which altitude is rapidly traded for airspeed most likely in preparation for aerobatic maneuvers though due to the imprecise nature of radar evidence this cannot be determined definitively at 3:03 p.m. the aircraft makes one last climb to 11,000 to 800 feet before pitching over its airspeed peaks at 135 knots well above maneuvering speed and has just begun to decrease when radar contact is abruptly lost on the ground witnesses described hearing an engine cutting in and out along with whirling sounds and a loud bang as the aircraft falls to the ground in pieces you this is an admittedly extreme example of what can happen when unsafe practices are left unchecked such recklessness is rare in the world of flight instruction and yet despite its egregious 'no --scent is instructive for one it shows how dangerous one bad apple can be both in the obvious physical sense and in the potential to influence the behavior of others but it also points to an uncomfortable truth one that's perhaps more broadly relevant than we'd like to admit when the peers of a rogue pilot stand idly by the implicitly endorses behavior in this case other c-f eyes clearly knew what was going on and they certainly knew that it was both illegal and dangerous one or two voiced concerns but nothing further was done friendly warnings from peers are relatively easy to brush off at a minimum those who had concerns should have followed up to make sure that things had changed if they hadn't a discussion with flight school management would have been appropriate and from there perhaps even stronger measures it's easy to follow the path of least resistance to overlook safety issues to go along to get along to carry on with business as usual following a different path requires action difficult choices and sometimes even courage but as more of us do it the easier it gets for everyone and the less often we have to hear about accidents like this one you

Channel: Air Safety Institute

Views: 381,122

Rating: 4.8962002 out of 5

Keywords: air, safety, institute, asi, aopa, fatal, accident, crash, investigation, ntsb, faa, cessna, piper, texas, flight, training, student, cfi, cfii, ga, atc, takeoff, landing, acs, wings, credit

Id: A6wJt9xCshI

Length: 4min 27sec (267 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 06 2016