Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by DrW »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:48 am
The problem is what is in the databases. The databases themselves tell us what is in them.

FAA Accident and Incident Database (AIDS): no records of accident or incidents before 1978.
NTSB Accident database: no images of original records during the decade of the 1970s. NTSB personnel prepared summaries of final reports (all include probable cause determinations) of all accidents and "selected incidents." A search of all records from Utah during the entire decade generates 55 or 56 accidents and only a single incident -- an incapacitated pilot on a commercial passenger jet. Given the disparity between the number of accidents and the number of "selected incidents," as well as the nature of the single incident (commercial passenger jet), there is no basis for assuming that database is complete enough to draw conclusions from the absence of a record for some other incident.

If any aircraft sustained an engine fire that was limited to the engine, followed by a safe landing with no injuries (just like the example you posted upthread) at any time during the 1970s, we could not find it in either database because neither includes all incidents for that time period.
Images below are (1) Items 1-10 from the 1973 list of Incidents and accidents reported in Utah, and (2) example of the detail data available for each listing. Overall this data base includes close to 400 entries (not 55 or 56), for incidents and accidents reported in Utah from 1973 through 1979. (Note the image header on the first screenshot.) A few of these reports are repeats. The NTSB version of this list is comprised of essentially the same entries for the years 1973 to 1979.

Upthread I offered to copy these and post them as a favor to RI. He did not seem interested. After again seeing RI's claim regarding unavailability of these records before 1978, I thought it best to post at least two screenshots from several days ago.

Each report allows access to the details, by clicking on the Details, as shown in the second screenshot below. These records were scraped and digitized and are available on the internet from 1973 on. The only Navajo (PA31) incident I saw anywhere near Cedar City was for a minor incident on the ground. It did not occur in 1976.

Image

As can be seen below, these reports cover minor incidents as well as accidents. There were very roughly 40 per year in Utah and the numbers of reports seemed pretty consistent year to year from 1973 through 1979.


Image
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Everybody Wang Chung »

DrW wrote:
Sun Apr 11, 2021 12:02 am
Res Ipsa wrote:
Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:48 am
The problem is what is in the databases. The databases themselves tell us what is in them.

FAA Accident and Incident Database (AIDS): no records of accident or incidents before 1978.
NTSB Accident database: no images of original records during the decade of the 1970s. NTSB personnel prepared summaries of final reports (all include probable cause determinations) of all accidents and "selected incidents." A search of all records from Utah during the entire decade generates 55 or 56 accidents and only a single incident -- an incapacitated pilot on a commercial passenger jet. Given the disparity between the number of accidents and the number of "selected incidents," as well as the nature of the single incident (commercial passenger jet), there is no basis for assuming that database is complete enough to draw conclusions from the absence of a record for some other incident.

If any aircraft sustained an engine fire that was limited to the engine, followed by a safe landing with no injuries (just like the example you posted upthread) at any time during the 1970s, we could not find it in either database because neither includes all incidents for that time period.
Images below are (1) Items 1-10 from the 1973 list of Incidents and accidents reported in Utah, and (2) example of the detail data available for each listing. Overall this data base includes close to 400 entries (not 55 or 56), for incidents and accidents reported in Utah from 1973 through 1979. (Note the image header on the first screenshot.) A few of these reports are repeats. The NTSB version of this list is comprised of essentially the same entries for the years 1973 to 1979.

Upthread I offered to copy these and post them as a favor to RI. He did not seem interested. After again seeing RI's claim regarding unavailability of these records before 1978, I thought it best to post at least two screenshots from several days ago.

Each report allows access to the details, by clicking on the Details, as shown in the second screenshot below. These records were scraped and digitized and are available on the internet from 1973 on. The only Navajo (PA31) incident I saw anywhere near Cedar City was for a minor incident on the ground. It did not occur in 1976.

Image

As can be seen below, these reports cover minor incidents as well as accidents. There were very roughly 40 per year in Utah and the numbers of reports seemed pretty consistent year to year from 1973 through 1979.


Image
Dr. W,

Excellent information. This thread has been a very interesting learning experience.
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by DrW »

Everybody Wang Chung wrote:
Sun Apr 11, 2021 12:35 am

Dr. W,

Excellent information. This thread has been a very interesting learning experience.
It should be noted that this data base was originally found and reported to the thread by Dr. Moore. Here is a quick link.http://aviationdb.net/aviationdb/AidQuery#SUBMIT

After confirming the site contents for this and the analogous NTSB data set, I provided instructions upthread on best values for each search parameter in the Query Menu in order to return all reported (notifications of) incidents and accidents in Utah for a given year, or span of time by year and month. (See heading on the top screenshot.)
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by IHAQ »

DrW wrote:
Sun Apr 11, 2021 12:02 am
Images below are (1) Items 1-10 from the 1973 list of Incidents and accidents reported in Utah, and (2) example of the detail data available for each listing. Overall this data base includes close to 400 entries (not 55 or 56), for incidents and accidents reported in Utah from 1973 through 1979. (Note the image header on the first screenshot.) A few of these reports are repeats. The NTSB version of this list is comprised of essentially the same entries for the years 1973 to 1979.

Upthread I offered to copy these and post them as a favor to RI. He did not seem interested. After again seeing RI's claim regarding unavailability of these records before 1978, I thought it best to post at least two screenshots from several days ago.

Each report allows access to the details, by clicking on the Details, as shown in the second screenshot below. These records were scraped and digitized and are available on the internet from 1973 on. The only Navajo (PA31) incident I saw anywhere near Cedar City was for a minor incident on the ground. It did not occur in 1976.

Image

As can be seen below, these reports cover minor incidents as well as accidents. There were very roughly 40 per year in Utah and the numbers of reports seemed pretty consistent year to year from 1973 through 1979.


Image
This appears to remove any oxygen from the idea that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Not a single shred of corroboration for Nelson's tale exists. More than that, the corroboration that should exist, doesn't.

Does anyone know any journalists that might be interested in the contents of this thread?
Does anyone know the journalist that reported on the first false story found in the Sheri Dew/Nelson biography?
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Hit up what's her nuts that writes for the sltrib.- Doc
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Res Ipsa »

DrW wrote:
Sun Apr 11, 2021 12:02 am
Res Ipsa wrote:
Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:48 am
The problem is what is in the databases. The databases themselves tell us what is in them.

FAA Accident and Incident Database (AIDS): no records of accident or incidents before 1978.
NTSB Accident database: no images of original records during the decade of the 1970s. NTSB personnel prepared summaries of final reports (all include probable cause determinations) of all accidents and "selected incidents." A search of all records from Utah during the entire decade generates 55 or 56 accidents and only a single incident -- an incapacitated pilot on a commercial passenger jet. Given the disparity between the number of accidents and the number of "selected incidents," as well as the nature of the single incident (commercial passenger jet), there is no basis for assuming that database is complete enough to draw conclusions from the absence of a record for some other incident.

If any aircraft sustained an engine fire that was limited to the engine, followed by a safe landing with no injuries (just like the example you posted upthread) at any time during the 1970s, we could not find it in either database because neither includes all incidents for that time period.
Images below are (1) Items 1-10 from the 1973 list of Incidents and accidents reported in Utah, and (2) example of the detail data available for each listing. Overall this data base includes close to 400 entries (not 55 or 56), for incidents and accidents reported in Utah from 1973 through 1979. (Note the image header on the first screenshot.) A few of these reports are repeats. The NTSB version of this list is comprised of essentially the same entries for the years 1973 to 1979.

Upthread I offered to copy these and post them as a favor to RI. He did not seem interested. After again seeing RI's claim regarding unavailability of these records before 1978, I thought it best to post at least two screenshots from several days ago.

Each report allows access to the details, by clicking on the Details, as shown in the second screenshot below. These records were scraped and digitized and are available on the internet from 1973 on. The only Navajo (PA31) incident I saw anywhere near Cedar City was for a minor incident on the ground. It did not occur in 1976.

Image

As can be seen below, these reports cover minor incidents as well as accidents. There were very roughly 40 per year in Utah and the numbers of reports seemed pretty consistent year to year from 1973 through 1979.


Image
Dr W, please link to the query page you are posting from. The 1978 is not “mine.” It is the FAA’s. To get to the FAA’s own query page, you have to click on a link that tells you that the database does not include incidents before 1978.

“Scraping” is not how old paper records were added to a database. One electronic database can “scrape” data from another without a human having to manually enter data. But an online database cannot “scrape” a piece of paper.

The 1978 date is consistent with the paper records from which the FAA database was originally constructed. The National Archives contains a collection of the paper FAA Accident/Incident reports from which the FAA database was constructed. The date range of that collection of documents starts in 1978 — not 1973.

If whatever database you are searching in purports to include information from the FAA’s database, it is reporting information that the FAA itself says is not in the database and that cannot be found by searching the FAA database itself from the FAA database.

So if you will please post a link to the query page, I’ll try to figure out where the database you are searching is getting information that the FAA says is not in its database, as well as replicating your searches and reading the returns.

ETA: I noticed that the detailed report you selected to post an image of is from a 1979 incident. Ever since I took the several minutes required to go to the FAA website and read what the FAA says it contains, I’ve said that the incidents contained in the database start in 1978. You said you looked at a bunch of detailed reports. Why did you choose one from 1979? It has zero relevance to the point in which we disagree: whether the incidents in the database start in 1973 or 1978. Can you locate in the database you searched a report of an incident that occurred before 1978?
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Gadianton »

How common is it for a pilot to "nose dive" to put out the fire out? Seems like a dramatic, hot-shot move. I poked around for an answer to this, but nothing was really coming together for me. My impression was that it's an old-school fighter-pilot move, and perhaps more important in a one-engine scenario. However, I definitely found flight-blog material saying "rapid descent" is an option for small civilian planes. Of course, RTM's "nose dive" and pulling up just before impacting with the ground is an extreme form of rapid descent. It's not an option at the top of the list, and intuitively, I would think a commercial pilot would be even more reluctant to pull such a stunt if there's another way.

There also seems to be a fork here -- pick losing either the rook or the queen. A topic of discussion has been that certain reports aren't necessary if the fire is contained to the engine, and engine compartments are built to do this isolation as much as possible, sometimes they even have extinguishers built in (?). Imagining the fire is such that it wasn't severe enough to merit a report also seems to dramatically reduce the likelihood of needing to nosedive and pull out one blink before annihilation in order to put it out.

anyway, for those who have perused the database, how often are commercial pilots nose-diving to put out fires?
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Res Ipsa »

Oops, I missed the link in DrW's response to Everybody Wang Chung.

So, DrW is just doubling down on his claims from nine or ten days ago -- the claims that started our exchanges on the topic of what is and what is not contained in the database he's looking at. And, although I've spoon fed him the explanation for why he's wrong, he still refuses for reasons that completely baffle me, to lift a finger to understand what is and is not in the database before he runs a query in it.

My entire point about the database in which DrW is searching is that it does not contain any reports of "incidents" as opposed to "accidents" before 1978. This is important because the date everyone is focussed on is in 1976.

Now, go look at what DrW has done in his post. First, he posts a screenshot of a list of what the screenshot itself refers to as a list of occurrences. Each item in the list is from 1973. If any of those 10 items is an "incident," I'm wrong. It's that easy to test what I've been saying about the database for nine days now.

Following the screenshot of list, Dr W posts this:
DrW wrote:As can be seen below, these reports cover minor incidents as well as accidents. There were very roughly 40 per year in Utah and the numbers of reports seemed pretty consistent year to year from 1973 through 1979.
So, what does DrW show us below? Does he show us the detail from one of the 10 items in the list? No. Does he show us a report of a "minor incident" before 1978? No. He shows us a record of an incident from 1979. How is that record relevant in determining which records of incidents exist in the database before 1978? It isn't. At all. In fact, the way DrW presents an irrelevant record in his post is 100% misleading.

If you replicate DrW's search and look at the individual records for the list he posted, you'll see that all 10 are categorized as "accidents" based, at least in part, on "substantial" damage to the aircraft.

What DrW has failed to show is a single counterexample to my description of what is and is not in the available online databases.

Once more. The two relevant databases for the 1970s are the FAA's "Accident & Incident Data System" (AIDS) and the NTSB's "Aviation Accident Database & Synopses." The FAA database does not include any records of accidents or incidents before 1978. The NTSB database includes summaries (i.e., synopses) of accidents and "selected incidents" for the entire decade of the 1970s, but the "selected incidents" for the entire decade total exactly 1: an incapacitated pilot on a commercial passenger flight.

DrW is relying on a secondary source that scrapes data from those two databases (along with data from other databases) and combines them into a site for one-stop shopping. Nothing wrong with that, but the site incorrectly describes what's in the database DrW is searching in. The reports of incidents start in 1978, not 1973. And the "accident" data before 1978 (and I suspect for sometime after 1978) is being scraped from the NTSB, not the FAA.

The bottom line: If whatever happened on Nelson's aircraft occurred before 1978 and was categorized as an "incident," we know that the chance of finding that event in the online databases is exactly zero before we ever run a query. That's not because an incident didn't happen. It's because the databases do not include reports of "incidents" for that timeframe.

Confirming my understanding of the database requires doing some research and reading, as well as running several different queries to test what type of documents are included for which years. Falsifying my understanding should be easy peasy. Post a list of the aircraft incidents in Utah before 1978 from the database, and the search parameters you used to find it. DrW's single record from 1979 does not falsify my description, which applies to incidents before 1978.

My goal from the beginning has been to have an accurate understanding. If I'm wrong, I want to know that, so that I can fix my understanding. I asked DrW to do this nine days ago. He has yet to provide a single counterexample.
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Res Ipsa »

Gadianton wrote:
Mon Apr 12, 2021 2:06 am
How common is it for a pilot to "nose dive" to put out the fire out? Seems like a dramatic, hot-shot move. I poked around for an answer to this, but nothing was really coming together for me. My impression was that it's an old-school fighter-pilot move, and perhaps more important in a one-engine scenario. However, I definitely found flight-blog material saying "rapid descent" is an option for small civilian planes. Of course, RTM's "nose dive" and pulling up just before impacting with the ground is an extreme form of rapid descent. It's not an option at the top of the list, and intuitively, I would think a commercial pilot would be even more reluctant to pull such a stunt if there's another way.

There also seems to be a fork here -- pick losing either the rook or the queen. A topic of discussion has been that certain reports aren't necessary if the fire is contained to the engine, and engine compartments are built to do this isolation as much as possible, sometimes they even have extinguishers built in (?). Imagining the fire is such that it wasn't severe enough to merit a report also seems to dramatically reduce the likelihood of needing to nosedive and pull out one blink before annihilation in order to put it out.

anyway, for those who have perused the database, how often are commercial pilots nose-diving to put out fires?
Dean Robbers, I've spent lots of time in the relevant databases, and here's the problem. I don't think we can gather the information you describe without a manual search of individual records. In the time period we've been looking at, all we have access to are summaries of NTSB final reports of accidents. The general description of the accident events is usually a fairly terse sentence in the "Remarks" field.

As we go forward in time, we hit a point where we can find the reports themselves, including all incidents that were investigated. They contain very detailed descriptions of whatever happened. I think it would be reasonable to expect to find what you describe on those. I don't recall when that starts for each database. Maybe we get to a point at which we have functional text search and use parameters to narrow down a search to two-engine piston aircraft of the types commonly used in Utah at the relevant time. If we can't, we're going to pull up occurrences for multi-engine jets, etc.

It sounds like you and I read the same material. I wonder if the best starting place to answer your question is a 1970s operating manual for the Navajo Chieftan or similar aircraft. I'm guessing that the emergency procedures for a given aircraft are listed there.
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Re: Fact Checking Nelson's "Doors Of Death" light aircraft near death experience

Post by Res Ipsa »

Folks, I've grown weary and discouraged after watching folks make the same basic mistake over and over again. Before running a query in a database and drawing a conclusion from the absence of results, we have to know which types of records are contained in the database and for which dates. Before making FOIA query of an agency and drawing a conclusion from a "couldn't find it" result, we have to know which types of records the agency has in its collection of paper, and which types of record and date ranges have been either been destroyed or shipped to the National Archives for permanent storage.

The "due diligence" for databases is relatively easy. Read the descriptions and use queries to make sure that the type and age of document you are looking is actually contained within the databased.

It's harder for FOIA, in part because the people who respond are required to look for what you ask for and let you know if they can't find it. It doesn't look like they routinely suggest other places you could look. So, you have to turn to looking for indexes of documents or document management policies. The latter should tell you what happens to records over time, including when they are destroyed or, if they are retained permanently, when they are sent to the National Archives.

I've understood confirmation and other brain biases and motivated reasoning on an intellectual level. Now I understand it on a real-world, visceral level. Same with the BS asymmetry principle. So I guess that's something.

Y'all do what you're going to do how you're going to do it. And I'll do what I'm going to do how I'm going to do it. But I'm done with this thread. The usual "pleasure of finding things out" has been sucked right out of this thread for me.
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