Good Case Study of Crash

[Wingtipvortex]

Watch first the clip of the crash of a single engine plane.

YouTube - Cameron Park plane crash

This is the link to the NTSB preliminary report on the crash. According to NTSB, the pilot was commercial rated.

LAX07FA258

And then watch this demonstration of what happened, on a simulator.

YouTube - Re: Plane Crash Caught on Tape(killing 2) 08-30-2007

There are numerous things that went wrong and all could have been avoided by the pilot in command. I am fast learning that flying is very save, but only because it is made safe by following strict protocols. If we treat flying like we drive a car it is very unsafe.

[jrbauerjr]

Have to disagree with you, there was only one thing wrong. The pilot forgot about density altitude and overloaded the plane on a 107 degree day. Very common out here in Northern California........... If you're lucky you can hold the thing in ground effect and get out of trouble, but he was flying into rising terrain....

Jim Bauer

[airfreddy]

Hello guys:

Jim I have to agree with you. I actually got into a long discussion with a pilot examiner this week about this subject.

I train students here at falcon field in Mesa, az. alt 1392 MSL. and have been for 20 years. We fly out here over 100 degrees probably at least 3 months out of the year.

I always train students to lean the engine for every takeoff. The flight test was on a 45 degree day. The examiner sent me back on his comments that the student leaned when DA was below 3000 FT.

He sent me some links to the Book " Fly the engine" talking about excessive heat on takeoffs if you lean the engine when generating more than 75% power.

In our long discussion I stressed the reason for me having everyone lean was a story about when I was first flight instructing and almost hit a fence at the end of the runnway. Yes I was trained for density altitude but was never in the "HABIT" of leaning the engine.

I have a little saying" If you lean it in San Diego it won' hurt you, if you forget it in flagstaff AZ it will kill you!

So the examiner agreed that the habit was as important is his side of the argument.

So I am going to change my syllabus to

1: lean the engine
2: Check density altitude
3: If DA is below 30000 FT Then push the mixture back in. like almost all POH's Say

This way my students will always be in the habit of leaning the engine.

Almost every POH I have seen states

MIxture - Rich below 3000 FT.

I don't think that I have seen any that stress this should be density altitude and not field elevation.

My guess is that the NTSB found that mixture control full rich just like the checklist says since the field elevation was 1200 FT DA Was probably pushing 6000-7000 feet

of course being 100 lbs over weight didn't help either

airfreddy