Chap wrote: ↑Sun Sep 15, 2024 5:47 pm
drumdude wrote: ↑Sun Sep 15, 2024 4:33 pm
Initial reports made it sound like an act of nature, but when you watch the video breakdown of what happened you quickly discover it’s that unique Mormon businessman mindset that got everyone killed:
I have had some flight training, and although I do not hold a pilot's licence (I never tried to get one, since it was very unlikely I would own a plane), I do know something about the easiest ways to kill yourself and your passengers when in the air.
A very good way to do that is to ignore warnings of an incipient stall, and pull the nose up instead of lowering it to increase airspeed and decrease attack angle, and hence increasing lift back to a level sufficient to keep the airplane from falling out of the sky. Astonishingly, despite a built in stall warning system that kept on trying to lower the nose as he took off at an unusually steep angle (in a snowstorm, with ice accumulated while on the ground still on the tail and its control surfaces), the pilot kept on yanking the nose up. Oh, and did I mention the aircraft was overloaded, and tail-heavy? It went into an unrecoverable stall and crashed shortly after takeoff, killing several generations of the family, including the pilot.
The pilot had been warned of the impending very bad weather conditions by the man from whom this family had been renting a hunting cabin. "We can put you up here for an extra night", he said. The answer "No thanks, we need to get home tomorrow". The ground control at the airfield pointed out that the runway was covered in uncleared snow and repeatedly suggested that takeoff under these conditions was unwise. But the pilot knew better - or maybe his family refused to accept that they might have to get home a day late.
A horrible story.
Yes it is. On a recent vacation, I met a person who coincidentally was from where I grew up, was a long time pilot, and had been involved with the agency that, many decades ago, spent many hours and days searching for the small plane that went down with one of my family members in it. I thanked her and her agency for this help, and for helping so many others over the years. Sincerely, this agency in my home state is composed of many,
many truly heroic people.
During the conversation she said that after all her years of experience she, under no circumstances, will pilot or get in a small plane with another pilot if they have been informed of adverse weather and the recommendation is to postpone flight. Seems like a no-brainer, but far too many fatal crashes show us that apparently, it is not.
There is simply no reason to ignore facts, she said. She said she tells her students to always envision the worst possible thing happening given the weather, amount of light, location, etc., and then to plan your flight by assuming that will happen.
We didn't directly discuss religion, but I got the distinct feeling that a belief that god will protect you because you are special is a reason for flying in bad weather that she would have found laughable.
