Medford OR PA-31-350 IMC Crash 5 Dec 2021

it's thursday the 9th of december my name is juan brown you're watching the blancolyrio channel not a real good day for flying today but a good day for learning we got a little bit of frozen precipitation here at the global headquarters more coming next week hopefully to relieve us from this drought situation here in northern california over the weekend we had a couple of tragic light aircraft crashes that involved flying in imc conditions or foggy conditions we've talked at length on this channel about the different layers of safety that the federal aviation regulations offer from part 91 to part 135 to part 121 airline style operations when you get up to the part 121 level of operations one of the questions i get a lot on this channel is are there very many of you airline pilots that fly small airplanes and the answer is no not a lot of us do it's expensive and most airline pilots figure that by the time they get to their part 121 airline jobs they've paid their dues they know the risks involved with flying smaller aircraft now i still enjoy flying small aircraft it's what i've done all my life but one thing i no longer do is i don't fly in bad weather at all anymore in the small airplanes it's simply too risky the layers of backup that i have come used to in the 121 world are simply not there in the far part 91 world and the best safety device may be one of these and the answer no we're not going to go fly a credit card go get a hotel room and wait until this weather improves it's so sad to [Applause] lose a friend lose acquaintances lose pillars of the society of the community in bad weather conditions only to have their memorial service on a perfectly sunny warm day [Music] so [Music] before we go inside and review in detail the crash of the piper navajo in medford oregon let's review real quick why is instrument flying so difficult for humans we are simply not designed to fly our inner ear vestibular system relies on our eyes in order to maintain situational awareness with the horizon and the surrounding your surrounding conditions folks that don't fly and or don't have a fundamental understanding of physics can't quite understand this when you're standing here on the ground you close your eyes i can always tell which way is up and which way is down because i'm firmly planted here on the ground in an airplane some folks think why don't you just hang a plum bob and then you can always see which way the which way is down which way is up that's not how an airplane works an airplane flies and turns by banking this results in a couple of different forces you've got a vertical lift force counteracting gravity and you've got a horizontal lifting force which allows the aircraft to turn which has a resultant force that looks like this the resultant force is out here centrifugal force throws these weights out centripetal force by the way is the tension on the string keeping the weights from flying off and that resultant force on your human body feels to you like you are flying straight and level that's the feel that you're going to get from your inner ears as the hairs in your inner ears which operate in that fluid will as you roll into the turn and stabilize in say a 30 degree bank turn those those inner ear hairs will level back out giving you the sensation that you are flying straight and level if you do not believe your gauges visually you gotta look at the gauges if you do not believe those gauges and somebody tells you to do a command or do a turn you may very well be thrown off completely for example if you roll into a right hand turn and the controller tells you to continue your right hand turn you may think you're straight and level and you may therefore rack up the aircraft even tighter and tighter resulting in the classic graveyard spiral if you're not believing your instruments also too you may be in a right-hand turn you see the instruments that you need to roll out you go ahead and roll out now your inner ear is telling you that you are in a left bank turn because they haven't adjusted to your new flight profile your inner ears that is and so then you instead rack up the aircraft into an even steeper hand turn now in the 121 world what do we do to counteract this first you've got two current and qualified instrument rated pilots on board the aircraft each one watching the other ver every move coupled with those two pilots you have a very efficient auto pilot that can fly the aircraft for you also you have excellent instrumentation and a pretty magenta pink line to follow to always help you keep your situational awareness on board the aircraft you also have a very rigid safety management system including a thing called focua that monitors our every move in the aircraft anytime i step out of bounds on the airline and exceed any single limit the aircraft will rat me out and i'll get a call and there will be a discussion as to why i exceeded a particular limit on an airline the bottom line is when you know that you are being monitored you behave differently in the part 91 world you're on your own and in a part 91 operated flight of a light twin single pilot ifr at night in foggy conditions that is one of the highest workload environments any pilot can be subjected to especially giving a tricky instrument departure in mountainous terrain does that mean more regulation is the answer no but more quality training aqp advanced qualification program style airline pilot type training in part 91 and general aviation is certainly part of the equation and being more keenly aware of your risk assessment and how badly the odds are stacked against you when to pull out this credit card and say no we're getting a hotel room instead we're not going today let's go inside and take a closer look at this medford situation we'll start off with catherine's report here this occurred on sunday the 5th of december piper pa 31-350 that's the navajo chieftain model of piper twin engine aircraft more on that in a moment this occurred right about sunset 450 local time there's a video out there showing the final seconds uh which i won't be playing here but you've seen it but it clearly shows loss of control of the aircraft and it appears as if the aircraft is entirely in one piece prior to impact in other words all four corners of the aircraft will be located it did not come apart in mid-air uh we'll look at the flight radar 24 data two fatalities now this aircraft was flown from fallon the home base of the airport and the folks involved well-known folks from fallon nevada it was flown from fallon up to medford some two weeks prior on 24 november and the aircraft remained there at the medford airport during that time the aircraft i believe was fueled up just before they took off from leaving medford video provided to newswatch 12 from two sources showed the plane ultimately descended rapidly at a near vertical angle before slamming into the parking lot but one of the videos also shows the plane prior to the crash apparently fighting to gain altitude swooping down into the frame pulling back up remaining out of the frame for several long seconds then reappearing in the uh straight down portion of the crash video which we've already seen so we'll be able to look at that data on flight radar 24 as well here's the data from flight radar 24 departing runway 1-4 generally to the south starting the right-hand turn as part of the standard instrument departure procedure for that runway which we'll look at in a minute and then losing control right here in the turn if we back this up and play it out he's climbing and accelerating doing fine right about up into here then the climb rate slows down and begins descending in the right-hand turn and then begins ascending a very steep ascent very low to the ground 1700 foot gps altitude the field elevation at medford we'll take a look at that in a second 1300 feet very close to the ground and then begins then loses control of the aircraft altogether to me this indicates what i believe to be an accelerated stall following spatial disorientation an accelerated stall is when you stall the aircraft in a steep turn or in a maneuver as you know as you increase bank angle you increase your stall speed over here in the speed and altitude graph we can see he's climbing out normally and then right about here he begins to lose control of the aircraft at 1600 feet not very far off the ground was that some 300 feet or so off the ground his ground speed 125 knots then he begins descending and the airspeed shoots up big reversal then he begins climbing and the air speed descends rapidly and then i believe that's the loss complete loss of control of the aircraft i believe once he began to lose control of the aircraft he then created his own accelerated stall of the aircraft which concluded in the final stall spin that we saw on the video or you can see on the video it's on i'll put it on the links below this is medford airport located in southern oregon just over the northern california border interstate 5 runs right through here and as you can see it's located in the rogue valley here surrounded by very high terrain there's mount ashland right there 7 200 feet just to the south of the airport so you have to climb in such a manner as to clear the terrain to get up safely into the ifr structure clear of the terrain here's the standard instrument departure that he was cleared to fly the brute 7 departure to lanx from runway 1-4 top altitude 11 000 feet take off minimums runway 1-4 standard with a minimum climb of 460 feet per nautical mile to 6 000 feet that brings up another point this is a climb gradient what are you going to do if in the event you lose an engine on your twin engine departure can you make that 460 foot per nautical mile climb gradient on one engine probably not what's going to be your single engine procedure regardless this requires a right-hand turn pretty much right after takeoff to an ndb who's ever navigated off of an ndb in the recent past mef you better have that already programmed into your gps if you don't have that ndb still on the aircraft it's basically a right hand 270 degree turn back over the approach end of the runway and then out to brute this way point here and then a right turn out to lengths where you got to be at least at or above 8000 feet and now you can get safely up into the ifr structure clear of all of the terrain now when do you make this right hand turn this this departure doesn't give you a pretty a pretty magenta line to follow you use your standard instrument departure plan or procedure of climb straight ahead to 400 feet before beginning a turn get everything squared away at 400 feet and then begin your right hand turn to start your procedure quick review of your standard weather minimums on bold method here remember the weather for this particular in this particular situation was three miles and missed 200 overcast and your standard takeoff minimums one or two engine one statute mile if you're flying a sid remember too in part 91 you could technically take off in zero zero if you wanted to not recommended but because you're flying this sid this minimum takeoff weather minimum applies a quick review of the faa handbook on the chapter on departure procedures you need to understand how these procedures are designed and built in order to understand how to fly them and if you scroll on down here and we just spend years studying this from the military all the way through the airlines and continuously reviewing the training on these procedures here on page 16 it explains that you need to the standard procedure unless specified otherwise required required obstacle clearance for all departures including diverse departures based on the pi is based on the pilot crossing the departure end of the runway der at 35 feet above the end of the runway elevation and then climbing to 400 feet above the departure end of the runway elevation before making the initial turn and maintaining a minimum climb gradient of 200 feet per nautical mile and unless required to fly a level offer crossing restriction or if there's other minimums that apply which there are in this case because of the surrounding terrain now let's go over here to visit victor at vas aviation again thank you victor for getting this all together so very well in this presentation highly support highly recommend you support victor's channel bass aviation here again is the weather no wind three miles missed overcast at 200 feet that is legal takeoff weather minimums for this departure besides the what are you going to do in the event of an emergency if you lose an engine for climbing out of there and avoiding the obstacles what are you going to do or where are you going to go to come back to in the event of an emergency you're right down to the minimums for the ils return to this particular airport or do you want to try and climb out and go somewhere else out of these mountains romeo with uh information uniform at jet center i'd like to pick up our ifr departure that's the rfr flight plan back to fallon level 6-4 bravo romeo medford ground cleared to the foxtrot lima x-ray airport via the brute 7 departure lengths transition then as filed climate maintain one one thousand expect one five thousand five minutes after departure departure frequency one two four point three squawk six six seven seven this controller is fantastic he is very slow and deliberate you will not get this kind of service at busy airports like new york or chicago this controller is doing a fantastic job here roger um the departure is a root seven or a brute seven b is in bravo navajo for bravo romeo fruit seven bravo romeo uniform tango echo with the lynx transition there's only one sid for runway 1-4 the brute 7 departure he's he should know this already you've got to have you've got to have this all squared away in your mind long before you get to this point please give me the phonetic for the transition never bravo romeo lima alpha november kilo sierra roger lengths transition climb maintain 11 000 expect 15 000 within five minutes uh departure freak is one two four point three and the uh squawk is six six seven seven for six four bravo romeo you can begin to get an idea of all the complicated issues this pilot is beginning to face on this departure on his own melbourne 6-4 bravo romeo rebecca ground navajo romeo at jet center we're ready to taxi for departure on one floor navajo 6-4 bravo romeo medford ground runway 1-4 taxi via out 1-4 taxi via alpha for 6'4 navajo 6-4 bravo romeo advise the tower when ready for departure [Music] 3937 medford tower over on my one-fourth cleveland third land one forest goes 39-37 cops reported five hundred bases at minimums first up and ready to go at alpha six for runway one for departure navajo 6-4 bravo romeo medford tower hold short runway 1-4 landing traffic the sky west aircraft has to land on runway 1-4 check out the observation that the sky west has about the weather romeo read back hold short instructions with call sign please roger hold short for 6-4 bob romeo skywest 3937 turn right off of three tax the terminal v tax rate alpha monitor ground point eight good evening all right up three outfits terminal point eight it's got thirty nine thirty seven and that was right at minnow was 39.37 right that means he broke out right at a half mile or 200 feet i believe it's the ceiling the visibility is the controlling minimum on that instrument approach however he's not going to see that the uh end of the runway or the lights at the end of the runway until 200 feet above the ground so it's right at minimum so that's telling you that this weather is not good for the departure also good catch by the controller to require bravo romeo to read back the entire hold short clearance precisely because it's foggy he's got to know to hold short for this landing traffic level 6-4 bravo romeo medford tower runway 1-4 clifford takeoff brute 7 departure 6-4 bravo romeo uh saved the departure of boots 7 departure 6-4 [Music] kind of slow on the read back but that's 6-4 will you be calling my turn for the route 7 no hold it right there right there that just to me that just says everything right there that this pilot is not prepared for this standard instrument departure and it's much too late now to get this sorted out no you do the standard thing you climb out straight ahead to 400 feet and then you begin to fly the procedure the right-hand turn level 6-4 bravo romeo negative just fly the uh sid as published climb right turn and you got to know this level 6-4 bravo romeo you're going to make a right turn climbing and overfly the ndb or the approach end of runway 1 4 which of course you can't see so it's the ndb using the ndb or your gps and then proceed to brute intersection and then proceed to links and then on the course roger 64 he basically described the entire sid to the pilot but the pilot right now he's 200 feet he's rotating poof he's up into the soup in a matter of seconds he's got his hands full helmet fire you can hear it in his voice that means he's just becoming task saturated overwhelmed low altitude alert navajo 64 bravo romeo check your altitude immediately bedford altimeter 303 niner your altitude indicates one thousand seven hundred remember medford about thirteen hundred feet only about four hundred feet navajo six four bravo romeo are you on top and the fog was quite thick nevo six four bravo romeo medford terra how do you hear truck 80 medford tower the aircraft appears to have crashed over by the subaru chevron dealer approximately one mile from the airport due south chuck haiti it was a navajo pa-31 as far as i know there was only one person on board but i can't verify that so the ntsb will need to comb through what's left of the wreckage and determine the condition of the engines ensure that both engines were operating normally or was there some kind of a problem with the engines there was no distress call from the pilot regarding any kind of mechanical malfunctions and then there was the loss of the beechcraft bonanza uh near visalia in visalia california about the same time this was a vfr takeoff at night into imc conditions that particular aircraft with the whole family on board never got higher than a couple hundred feet on departure before doing what appears to be a controlled flight into terrain just off the departure end of the runway both of these accidents being tragic reminders of just how careful you need to be when operating this time of year in low visibility conditions how well prepared you need to be and how well trained you need to be for dealing with these sort of conditions thanks so much for your support of this channel especially over on patreon that make this content possible see you here [Music] you

Channel: blancolirio

Views: 257,631

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Id: Gk7fi7P0i3s

Length: 25min 38sec (1538 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 09 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/tjulr]

Solid review