4 fatal - crash nw of Waterloo ON Aug 24 2012

[iflyforpie]

Except the chance when 15G are left and might not be 100% equal both sides over the course of 2hrs plus ... when turns are involved.

C172 have "Both" on the fuel selector.

Except both rarely ever burn at an even rate owing to the single fuel vent.

[slam525i]

Except the chance when 15G are left and might not be 100% equal both sides over the course of 2hrs plus ... when turns are involved.

C172 have "Both" on the fuel selector.

Except both rarely ever burn at an even rate owing to the single fuel vent.

But, within reason, one can assume fuel in either wing will feed the engine when the fuel switch is on "Both", hence making fuel-starvation due to uneven tanks unlikely?

[BverLuver]

Pdw,

I can assure you that this accident is unrelated to density altitude, so perhaps you are out of your element in this discussion.

slam525i,

You are correct except if the pilot was flying un-coordinated in a slight bank. The Gravity feed from the downsloped wing would not be able to feed the engine. However, I do not believe this will be attributed as a fuel related accident.

My condolences to this young mans family as well as the family of the passengers. It's a very sad day when we lose such young people with such bright futures!

BL

[Ivan42]

This sounds very much like a 'fuel' issue.

Sad, sadder still if it was indeed preventable.

Can you please clarify 'fuel' issue?

Also, I understand people wanting to draw conclusions based on what has been reported through the media, and how everyone is commenting on spin training, and how you should or shouldn't fly an airplane. But I feel that this thread has been hi-jacked for far too long. There was 4 deaths, in a tragic accident, and everyone is arguing over proper flight training.

Did this pilot receive "too much" stall/spin training that he felt he could do it outside the utility categorey of the aircraft? Or was it that he received NO stall/spin training and was not familiar with the recovery technique? Then there is the fuel issue. They took off from Kitchener with 4 adults on board. That means he had to sacrifice fuel to accomodate his load. They did an approx 2 hour flight to and from the Falls, likely spent 15-30 mins sight seeing at the Falls before they started back. Then they overflew Kitchener and flew an extra 30(ish) SM to the practice area, at night, why?? 2 1/2 + hours?? Unless he stopped for fuel that we dont know about, it would be pushing the range for this particular aircraft.

There are many unanswered questions and you are witnessing dozens of professional pilots discuss the possible causes. Instead of viewing this as a disrespect to the 4 young people lost, try to look at it like a bunch of experts in the field are offering potential senarios of how this played out. Id be willing to bet that at least one of us has nailed it, and it will be read about 12-18 months later in the TBS accident report.

With Respect,
FTB
Fly safe all.

I'm highly skeptical of the factors you mention here. This guy wasn't a beginner, dodgy pilot. He went through the Cadets had his CPL and according to reports, had rented from WWFC several times. I'd say that someone with that kind of experience would have some idea about W/B, fuel and stalls/spins. I think this tragedy may be more a case of unfortunate bad judgement as opposed to incompetence. Maybe he'd made the same manouevre several times previously, but that evening the 19/20 odds didn't fall in his favour.

For me the one mystery is why the pilot decided to head to the practice area. As many have mentioned, that zone is in the middle of nowhere as far as Toronto and Niagara are concerned and is used primarily for flight training. Maybe he was showing off Lake Conestoga, flew too low and slow and stalled the plane...I don't want to believe that intentional spins or fuel were an issue. Any pilot attempting that with passengers on board would have to be mental. From news reports and all, it doesn't seem as if Marko Misic was that kind of guy.

Edit: an update from the WWFC website:

http://www.wwfc.ca/
"It is with great sadness that the instructors and staff of the Waterloo Wellington Flight Centre mourn the loss of Marko Misic and his three friends. Marko was a long time pilot with the Waterloo Wellington Flight Centre and the recipient of the Top Commercial Pilot Award this past year at the WWFC Annual Wings Banquet. Instructors and staff remember Marko as a bright, enthusiastic and positive young man who loved aviation. Our thoughts and prayers are with Marko's family and the families of his friends."

[flyinthebug]

Ivan42...although I agree with some of your statement, I do not find it "mental" for the pilot to think he could pull this off...nor to think that an intentional spin COULD possibly be part of this equation. You do not have to be "mental" to try something outside the envelope. If that were the case, then 80%+ of the pilots on this board could be hoarded into that category. I am neither glamorizing or acting like a hero with sharing my story...I got lucky that day and im a foolish idiot for ever attempting it. What if we do find out in 18 months from the TSB that it was infact an intentional spin...and your calling anyone that would do that mental? Do you understand the implications this could have on the surviving family? How it may affect their memory of this nice young gentleman? You do not have to be crazy to try crazy things!!

Name calling whether direct or indirect (all the while knowing you read the story I shared about my "stupid" moment earlier in the thread) is not going to further this thread in any positive direction. I spun a plane with 3 ppl on board. I am not mental, nor stupid. I made a DUMB decision with limited experience as a PPL. This young pilot held a CPL but had limited experience and exposure to real world flying. I think its worse to be so certain that he wouldnt have done something, that many of us admit or at least know, we have all done as well (when we had little experience).

Thats where im going to leave this.
Fly safe all.

[Ivan42]

Ivan42...although I agree with some of your statement, I do not find it "mental" for the pilot to think he could pull this off...nor to think that an intentional spin COULD possibly be part of this equation. You do not have to be "mental" to try something outside the envelope. If that were the case, then 80%+ of the pilots on this board could be hoarded into that category. I am neither glamorizing or acting like a hero with sharing my story...I got lucky that day and im a foolish idiot for ever attempting it. What if we do find out in 18 months from the TSB that it was infact an intentional spin...and your calling anyone that would do that mental? Do you understand the implications this could have on the surviving family? How it may affect their memory of this nice young gentleman? You do not have to be crazy to try crazy things!!

Name calling whether direct or indirect (all the while knowing you read the story I shared about my "stupid" moment earlier in the thread) is not going to further this thread in any positive direction. I spun a plane with 3 ppl on board. I am not mental, nor stupid. I made a DUMB decision with limited experience as a PPL. This young pilot held a CPL but had limited experience and exposure to real world flying. I think its worse to be so certain that he wouldnt have done something, that many of us admit or at least know, we have all done as well (when we had little experience).

Thats where im going to leave this.
Fly safe all.

wow - ok, that was a poor choice of words on my part. I didn't mean it as an insult and should've been aware of that fact that the word carries a stronger negative connotation here than in colloquial British English.

The basic point I was trying to make is that, based on reports and the pilot's experience, it would've been highly unlikely for him to intentionally spin the plane, and stating that as the cause of the crash wasn't entirely fair to our memory of the pilot. As you said you'd have to make a really poor decision to do so with passengers on board and I want to believe that Marco would not have taken that risk. That's it. I'm sorry if that came off as a direct or indirect insult on anyone, but I didn't intend that at all.

[flyinthebug]

Thank you for the clarity Ivan42. Greatly appreciated. I fully understand all you say.
Cheers. Fly safe.

[DaveC]

From the reports the gentleman sounded like he knew what he was doing. How long does it usually take for the TSB to publish their reports?
The Toronto Star included this picture.



If a Cessna were to do a forced in a corn field, would there be more of a linear trail from the corn field (it looks like it this aircraft dropped into position)? Or maybe it hit so hard that it stayed in one place?

[Taiser]

That's a straight drop. All the corn around is not damaged. Earlier it said the wing was cut off by EMS when they got to the site so everything was in one piece when it hit. No roll or tumble appears to have happened once it hit.

[lilflyboy262]

You don't hit so hard that you stay in one place, and have the wreckage stay in one peice.
That plane came straight down.

[Colonel Sanders]

Looks eerily similar to Paul Lopez:



He was fun to drink with. Blue skies, Paul.

[iflyforpie]

From the reports the gentleman sounded like he knew what he was doing. How long does it usually take for the TSB to publish their reports?
The Toronto Star included this picture.



If a Cessna were to do a forced in a corn field, would there be more of a linear trail from the corn field (it looks like it this aircraft dropped into position)? Or maybe it hit so hard that it stayed in one place?

The cornstalks would have been cut to facilitate access to the wreckage.... as it is where the EMS is. It is possible that the stalks behind the aircraft simply didn't snap.

Given that it was a fatal accident and the condition of the wreckage would support a minimum amount of forward travel after impact. Whether it was a spin or simply a very steep impact is impossible to determine form the picture.

[cgzro]

Very unfortunate

Agree it looks like a right spin. Rudder is also to left a bit but that could be due to impact.

Presumably there are radar tapes that they will pull and learn a bit more.

[Bede]

The cornstalks would have been cut to facilitate access to the wreckage.... as it is where the EMS is. It is possible that the stalks behind the aircraft simply didn't snap.

Given that it was a fatal accident and the condition of the wreckage would support a minimum amount of forward travel after impact. Whether it was a spin or simply a very steep impact is impossible to determine form the picture.

You can tell the difference. During a very steep impact, the tail is often bent up. As well a very steep impact usually implies high speeds as well. This aircraft isn't damaged enough to be indicative of high speed high impact terrain contact.

Compare to images in this link:
http://www.seqair.com/FlightTest/KillYo ... rself.html

[iflyforpie]

Except that there is nothing left to hold the tail up in that position as all but the lower supporting structure has been cut away for extrication.

There was also no post-crash fire.

[Siddley Hawker]

There was also no post-crash fire.

Nope. That says something there, no?

...the tail is often bent up.

Look at the first picture on page 1. Looks like the left stab is bent upward.

[trey kule]

Ok.

In my mind, speculating about a crash that people lost their lives in, is , well, a bit ghoulish.
And it is just speculating. If there are lessons to be learned we should be looking at TSB reports from a year or two ago...the causes tend to be repeated.
But, as it seems I am pretty much the only one to feel this way, and I read post after post about how great it is to discuss this, even if some of the family of the ones who died might not think so, how about we pause and everyone post exactly what has been learned. I am all ears.
Dont spin planes outside the utility catagory weight? Watch the C of G? (Do we even know if that is what happened...nope.) If that was the case, do you really need someone to actually spin one in and kill four people to learnnot to do it?

I am going to say it.. The wounds in these accidents are fresh. The victims families are still alive.
Is there really such important lessons to be learned that we can not worry about their feelings.

I do not wish anyone ill, but I hope that some of you who are gawking at pictures and speculating all over the place show a bit of sensativity..

my rant for the day

[Doc]

If TSB woulld take less time than a Mars shot, and didn't sanitize their reports, I might gave a rat's six about their "opinion". Bottom line. They weren't there either. Sorry, but calling all but a few accidents "pilot error" is a cop out. They not only know no more than we do, they have the political clout to call their BS "official".

[trey kule]

So what if it takes time. We can learn the lessons from accidents of a year ago.
But lets be honest here. They do have access to all the avialable facts .

In any event, what lessons were learned here by all the speculation, that could only be learned by posting pictures of a plane people died in. Of discussing pilot error, fuel stoppages etc without really any pertinant fact.
My best wishes go out to the families of all involved .

[Doc]

So what if it takes time. We can learn the lessons from accidents of a year ago.
But lets be honest here. They do have access to all the avialable facts .

In any event, what lessons were learned here by all the speculation, that could only be learned by posting pictures of a plane people died in. Of discussing pilot error, fuel stoppages etc without really any pertinant fact.
My best wishes go out to the families of all involved .

I could do without the pictures as well.

[CpnCrunch]

So what if it takes time. We can learn the lessons from accidents of a year ago.
But lets be honest here. They do have access to all the avialable facts .

In any event, what lessons were learned here by all the speculation, that could only be learned by posting pictures of a plane people died in. Of discussing pilot error, fuel stoppages etc without really any pertinant fact.
My best wishes go out to the families of all involved .

We learned how to recover from an unrecoverable flat spin for a start.

[Colonel Sanders]

unrecoverable flat spin

Speaking of learning some lessons ...

There seems to be a misconception amongst pilots that
if you enter a flat (or otherwise non-vanilla) spin,

YOU WILL DIE

This is totally false. It is quite simple to flatten and/or
accelerate a spin, both upright and inverted, and yes
you can recover from them.

A couple of lessons I wish pilots would learn about spins:

1) C of G. Yes, everyone knows that you don't want an
aft C of G but I can put two identical-looking aircraft on
the ramp with identical weight and C of G and one will
be much, much nastier in the spin, because it has a higher
polar moment of inertia.

2) recovery. When an aircraft is certified for spins, the
FAA wants to see a very benign recovery, without much
intelligent inputs from the pilot. This leads to the restrictive
envelope for approved spins. It is actually quite possible
to recover from a spin outside that W&B envelope, keeping
in mind (1) above, with correct pilot input, above and beyond
what is required for certification.

If you want to see some non-vanilla spins and their
recoveries, click on: http://beasafepilot.com/videos.htm

[Sulako]

...
If you want to see some non-vanilla spins and their
recoveries, click on: http://beasafepilot.com/videos.htm

The inverted flat spin looked pretty wild - never seen one of those before. Nice that the recovery technique seems to be the same as for all other spins.

[Colonel Sanders]

The really weird thing is that the inverted flat spin
is one of the safest spins you can do! It is very
common to see airshow pilots start their routines
with an inverted flat spin down to performance height.

The reason is that when you are inverted, the rudder
is in clean air - it is not blanketed by the elevator, and
thus is very very effective. I can stop an inverted flat
spin in 1/4 turn by pulling the power (reduces prop
gyroscopics and drops the nose) and opposite rudder.

However, the upright flat spin is extremely dangerous
because of the blanking of the rudder mentioned above.

In the Pitts it takes TWO TURNS to recover from a fully
developed upright flat spin! The problem is that people
are pumped and they lose the faith (and stop using the
correct control inputs) in the upright flat spin when they
don't see an immediate response.

tl;dr

inverted spins are actually safer than upright spins. Bet
you didn't know that.

[SoundAir11]

[quote]Speaking of learning some lessons ...

There seems to be a misconception amongst pilots that
if you enter a flat (or otherwise non-vanilla) spin,

YOU WILL DIE

This is totally false. It is quite simple to flatten and/or
accelerate a spin, both upright and inverted, and yes
you can recover from them.

YOU ARE WRONG.
All aircraft have different spin characteristics. When was the last time you saw a 172 doing aerobatics at an airshow??? A Pitts is certified in the Aerobatic category. What works in a Pitts or any other a/c may not work in a 172. I could talk about how spin recovery techniques are different in a light twin with wing tip tanks, but what's the point?
Go flat spin a 172 and let us know how it worked out.