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

[Lem]

Smac posted this

Is it possible that Pres. Nelson has embellished the account? Yes.

For one hot second I thought, “omg, Smac does have the sense god gave a 10-year-old,” but then I read the rest of his post:

Is it possible that Sky West, a small regional airline, having had their inventory of aircraft experience three separate engine failures within a five-week span, might have undersold the severity of the incidents in their official reports to the Civil Aeronautics Board? Also yes.

Is there perhaps something of a discrepancy in the CAB report, which states, on the one hand, that "{i}nvestigation revealed cylinder base studs sheered" but, on the other, that there was "{n}o damage to aircraft"? Also yes.

Thanks,

-Smac

Come on. One can only hope the nonsense Smac perpetuates in the cause of his religion doesn’t spill over into his career, or any other aspect of his real life.

[Craig Paxton]

I read that. It's an interesting phenomenon that believers never apply any skepticism to the bizarre claims of their leaders. Nelson took a boring flight diversion story and embellished it to make it a faith promoting story with him as the central hero. Oh look at me I wear garments and have been sealed, I'm bullet proof and so can you be. What BS.

[consiglieri]

The only way to preserve President Nelson’s credibility is to undermine that of everyone else involved

Funny how history repeats itself.

[Dr Moore]

Smac isn’t really reading the material. Both of these “maybe sorta maybe” comments are wrong and uninformed.

Smac wrote:
Is it possible that Sky West, a small regional airline, having had their inventory of aircraft experience three separate engine failures within a five-week span, might have undersold the severity of the incidents in their official reports to the Civil Aeronautics Board? Also yes.

Is there perhaps something of a discrepancy in the CAB report, which states, on the one hand, that "{i}nvestigation revealed cylinder base studs sheered" but, on the other, that there was "{n}o damage to aircraft"? Also yes.

Skywest didn’t issue the report to the CAB. The CAB reported on a special FAA investigation. There isn’t room for an “undersell” because this all took place within months of the 3 incidents, and the CAB report says FAA made a thorough review of those incidents.

The discrepancy he cites isn’t a discrepancy at all. Internal engine damage is specifically reported separately from aircraft damage in FAA and NTSB reports.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I’ve never been to the Delta airport so I had to go find it on Google Maps:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.3871304 ... 312!8i6656

I don't know about you, but that sure does look like a field to me. If I had to have an emergency landing of any sort and the plane landed there, I would think that we were in some random field.

The absolute brainlet-tier reasoning of a Morgbot astonishes me to this day.

- Doc

[DrW]

The only way to preserve President Nelson’s credibility is to undermine that of everyone else involved

Or, in Smac's case, attempting to undermine that of everyone else involved, while succeeding only in a demonstrating his own ignorance.

Is it possible that Sky West, a small regional airline, having had their inventory of aircraft experience three separate engine failures within a five-week span, might have undersold the severity of the incidents in their official reports to the Civil Aeronautics Board? Also yes.

Well actually, no. The "severity" of an engine mechanical failure is immaterial if the damage was confined to the engine, the affected aircraft landed safely, and there was no engine fire or personal injuries. The binary choices here with regard to the requirement for NTSB notification are (1) engine fire or (2) no engine fire.

When the facts were reported regarding the damage found to the engine, the report was either true or false. The cylinder base studs were sheared off, or they were not. Given the criteria described above, there is no motivation or benefit for misrepresenting the damage to the engine. The only one lying here is Nelson. The one showing his ignorance is Smac.

Nelson not only claimed an engine fire, he also claimed an engine explosion and the right side of the fuselage covered in burning gas and oil. None of these statements, which Nelson made verbally and in writing, on multiple occasions, were true.

Is there perhaps something of a discrepancy in the CAB report, which states, on the one hand, that "{i}nvestigation revealed cylinder base studs sheered" but, on the other, that there was "{n}o damage to aircraft"? Also yes.

Again, nope. There is no discrepancy whatsoever. In aviation, there is a bright line distinction between the airframe and the power plant. When the US sells military jets to Saudi Arabia for example, the Saudis first select an airframe (McDonnell Douglas for the F-15 family), then a powerplant supplier (Pratt & Whitney for the F-100 engine or the GE for the F-110). For commercial airliners, the powerplant selection is even larger. Boeing 777 operators, for example, have their choice of Pratt & Whitney, Rolls Royce, or GE.

As described in the regulations discussed upthread, if in-flight damage is confined to the engine, and does not extend to the rest of the aircraft, then the aircraft (by which the are referring to the airframe) itself is considered to be undamaged. Again, the main defining issue of inflight engine failure severity, and the requirement for NTSB notification, is fire vs. no fire.

The distinction between the airframe and the propulsion system in aircraft design and maintenance is also reflected in the way that aircraft mechanics are licensed. They hold an A&P (Airframe and Powerplant) mechanic's licenses. An A&P license requires a minimum of some 1,900 hours in classroom and shop instruction, three written tests, followed by an oral test and a hands-on practical applications demonstration. In other words, about $15K to $20K in total out of pocket and more written and practical hand-on testing than is required for a commercial pilot's license.

Add to this years of practical experience repairing and maintaining all kinds of aircraft and it's why tapirrider's comments on this thread carry weight. When tapirrider posted the lol emojis to ko9s' comments about the CAB letter lending credibility to Nelson's story, it was "case closed" for me.
___________________________________________

ETA: With regard to Dr. Moore's comment above about an inspection, recall that the FAA has the right to inspect the operations or records of a Part 135 air carrier or scheduled commercial airline at any time. The three reported engine failures of SkyWest aircraft in a five week span of time apparently triggered an investigation of SkyWest maintenance practices which, according to the CAB letter, were found to be generally adequate. (They did recommend more frequent checking of the torque on the Navajo Chieftain engine cylinder base stud nuts.)

[consiglieri]

Yeah. It’s not like the pilot would have announced they were landing at an airport or anything.

Or that President Nelson ever got off the plane and looked around.

[Lem]

A nice little shout out for our board:

nomanknoweth [score hidden] 4 hours ago

This would be a good one for RFM to investigate. After he did the almost plane crash of Nelson.

--
LittlePhylacteries [score hidden] 2 hours ago

I agree but I also want to point out that RFM didn't do the hard work of debunking Nelson's plane story.

That credit goes to the posters on DiscussMormonism.com. RFM is a frequent contributor over there but as far as I can tell the debunking was the work of other users.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mormon/comment ... e/h6vwree/

[Gabriel]

Yeah. It’s not like the pilot would have announced they were landing at an airport or anything.

Or that President Nelson ever got off the plane and looked around.

It's amazing how just adding the visuals to Russell's story makes it even more ridiculous. For example, the church, with its stock footage of the interior of (what looked like) a passenger jetliner, really dropped the ball in providing the gravitas needed for this miraculous, faith-promoting story. I am thinking that with CGI animation, and an interior set mockup of a Piper Navajo Twin engine aircraft, and a small crew of actors, the church should have stood by its man and provided a proper film that would do his story justice.

Now on average, if skydivers want a good 60 seconds of freefall, then they need to jump from no lower than 14,000 feet. If memory serves me right, DrW said that a Piper Navajo normally cruises at 10,000 feet on a commercial run. So, I am figuring with the forward momentum and the drag of the wings and rudder, and accounting for each 360-degree rotation of the plane on its downward spiral being roughly every 500 feet, that should give us a good 18 full spirals, (give or take a few) before we reach the 1000 foot mark for the miraculous recovery to start happening. So here is where the explosion and fire on the right side of the aircraft begins. Here we should have an inside view seeing nothing but a solid wall of orange from the windows, accompanied by a manifest lurch, with head bobbing from the screaming woman sitting two feet away from Russell. The pilot, at least, should be seen as competent (Google Dieter Uchtdorf https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJ ... e&ie=UTF-8 the world-famous "German Aviator").
Now I'm writing my ideas on the fly and I'm the first to admit that I don't speak pilot talk, but I think that the pilot should at least have a good supporting role in Russell's movie. First, I would have Russell calmly watching the pilot toggle a bunch of switches, shake his steering wheel a couple times, then grab his radio mike, shouting to the control tower:

"Mission Control! Mission Control! This is N4728N! Our right engine"s blown! There's flaming fuel engulfing our right aileron. Mayday! Mayday! We're at the point of no return!"

"N4738N! This is Mission Control at Delta Municipal! You need to shut off all engines now! I say again, shut off all engines now!"

"I already DID that! But she's still burning!"

"Damn it! You got to put out that fire! ENGAGE PHASE TWO! I say again, ENGAGE PHASE TWO!"

"The DEATH SPIRAL?!! Jeepers! I've only done that twice in the simulator!"

"Well, welcome to the Real World, Son! It's time to put your Big Boy pants on and engage on my mark at the count of 3. One....Two....THREE!"

"We're gonna die!"

"Son, I want to see you and your passengers at Delta Municipal in 20 minutes ALIVE! Now that's an ORDER! I say again, THAT"S AN ORDER!

"It will take a miracle!"

And here is where, I think, that Russell and the man at the control tower should both look up slowly in a mutual act of discernment, both understanding who the passenger is on board and what he was called to do before the world began. I think that things should go in slow-mo for a bit while the background music plays "Come, Come Ye Saints" (preferably with a Sitar playing the melody over a layer of cellos and basses, with some soft humming from the tabernacle choir at temple square. I would make it soothing, not too triumphalistic. Sometimes less is more). Then the man at the Control Tower will say, in a fatherly way:

"One miracle coming up, Son. Just remember to restart your left engine at the last possible moment. I say again, restart your left engine at the Last. Possible. Moment."

"Aye, aye, Cap'n."

So with the 15 or so spirals in the dive, we've got at least a good 50 seconds of film time to pack in a lot of information. To add context, we should see the incident in real-time from the passengers' view, looking downwards through the pilot's front window as the patchwork ground spins round and round beneath them. (I would hope that by now that technology has advanced enough so that the church doesn't resort to showing stock footage of that cheesy, black spinning spiral against a white background as in the movies' Vertigo or High Anxiety). I believe that the first five spirals in real-time should be enough for everyone to get the point.

Of course, we should have an external view from the distance of an aircraft with its flaming engine and a 5000-foot lingering trail of spiral smoke. This should be a slow-mo shot. In passing nod to the culture at large, they should make it reminiscent of Gandalf's fall with the Balrog in the caves of Moria. Add music to taste.

I am also thinking that the hysterical woman's lipstick-smeared face could be pressed against the window for a brief slow-mo close up during the descent, as viewed from the outside of the craft. Then it can cut to Russell looking beatifically out the window as a triangular flock of seagulls gets passed on the way down. This would be done in hyper slow motion as Russell and the Seagulls pay a passing nod to each other in memory of miracles past. Then Russell should face forward and down to the front window for a second or two, then look at his wristwatch, adjust his tie, and perhaps pull out a bottle of breath spray from his coat pocket and give himself a couple squirts, then breathe into his cupped hand, nod and smile. Cut back to the woman with frazzled hair, screaming wide-eyed in absolute horror at Russell. Of course, it would be over the top to listen to the screams. This should be strictly a video shot, sans screams, preferably to a soundtrack that portrays the peace that Russell feels. (While I'm partial to the Sitar at the moment, I have no objections to the music of Enya. If the church can't afford her royalty fees, I do know that there are plenty of decent open-source soundtracks that people are free to use for their YouTube videos). Then pan to Russell, all gentle and avuncular, looking at her with a sigh (for how oft would he have gathered such a one under his wings, but they all heeded him not). This should be enough footage for 4 or 5 more spirals.

Then we should get a close-up of Russell's face and zoom into one of his eyes so closely that the next scenes switch to his interior vision. Despite the fact that this is the raison d'etre of the story, it is also the part most nebulously described in Russell's accounts. All we really have to go by comes from Russell himself. He said that he had a perfect recollection of his entire life before. One could take that in any direction, but we only have a good 5 or 6 spirals left. Besides, this perfect recollection appears to have been a special dispensation that was soon taken away (as evidenced by his varied later accounts of this story). So all we really have to go by is Russell's general overview. Russell was at peace because he checked off all the boxes. Here I think it might be classy to show them listed in the wet sand of an ocean beach. Baptism, Priesthood, Temple Marriage, Children, Obeying the Word of Wisdom, etc, should all be listed next to their respective boxes. As he ponders each, I think that it would be cool to see a luminous hand draw a checkmark in each box. Temple Marriage with his True Love! For Time and all Eternity! Faithful and True to his Eternal Companion! That Dream within a Dream! The luminous hand scratches its checkmark slowly in the sand. This can be repeated for all the other boxes. I think creative license might be warranted for the Word of Wisdom. Here I think that the camera should pull back from Russell's eye and face until the fuzzy image of the passenger sitting two seats behind Russell becomes crystal clear. For it seems that the unnamed man had been smoking one last cigarette during the last 8 or 9 spirals of the plane. Here would be a good time for him to take the cigarette out of his mouth and look at it pensively, wondering internally "What win I if I gain the thing I seek? A dream? A breath? A froth of fleeting joy? Who buys a minutes mirth to wail a week? Or sells eternity to gain a toy?" Fortunately for this fellow, thanks to Russell, he can live to quit smoking another day.

At any rate, I could go on and on with this stuff. But, I think that tonight I will end here. Brothers and Sisters, Adieu.

[Dwight]

Yeah. It’s not like the pilot would have announced they were landing at an airport or anything.

Or that President Nelson ever got off the plane and looked around.

Maybe when you are a Salt Lake City fancy heart surgeon the Delta airport looks like a farmer’s field.