Fatal plane crash video released 25 years after it happened

[Redbaron]

This is kind of a hard video to watch but right near the end of the clip you can see when he tries turn around he enters a stall/spin trying to avoid rising terrain. Be safe out there guys

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=316_1249535759

[barnstorm2]

I for one am glad gyroplanes can not stall nor spin.

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[GyroDoug]

That is sad to watch, but avoiding that very stall - spin situation was the main motivation behind the invention of the Autogyro. That doesn't mean that we can't get into trouble in a Gyro because man has yet to invent anything that someone hasn't figured out a way to mess up. But it is nice to know that Gyros are not going to stall and fall out of the sky when you get down to slow speed and try to turn too sharp (like the guy in this video did).

[ScottTinnesand]

I was shown that video on the first day of an aviation safety class at UND in 1988. The instructor said he wanted to show us a flying video with lots of nice scenery. The end of it was not expected by any of us and was quite sobering.

As an attention grabber - mission accomplished.

[Chuck Roberg]

For some reason my computer will not let me watch it. Say's waiting to install plug in's.

Guess I have to catch it somewhere else.

[Dale Young]

High Altitude + Low airspeed + increasing bank angle = crunch!

[SnoBird]

It always amazes me how unexpectedly death can seemingly come out of nowhere and at the same time how banal it often is when it happens. As an aviator you've got to know what you're doing and keep robot-like vigilance at all times. To do otherwise is to end up like this poor soul and his passenger(?). Hopefully they didn't suffer.

[All_In]

Originally Posted by Chuck Roberg

For some reason my computer will not let me watch it. Say's waiting to install plug in's.

Guess I have to catch it somewhere else.

Looks like Adobe Flash player here is a download. http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html

[E6B]

Hmmm. Can't say I saw a stall or a spin there. I saw the terrain rising up to smack a guy that made a right turn, for no apparent reason, when lower terrain was to the left.

This seems to be an example of one of the many dangers of mountain flying: lack of a natural horizon, and lack of, or inattention to, the artificial one.

Pat

[SnoBird]

Originally Posted by E6B

Hmmm. Can't say I saw a stall or a spin there. I saw the terrain rising up to smack a guy that made a right turn, for no apparent reason, when lower terrain was to the left. This seems to be an example of one of the many dangers of mountain flying: lack of a natural horizon, and lack of, or inattention to, the artificial one. Pat

You can hear the stall alarm buzzing as the aircraft starts to struggle just before impact.

[PW_Plack]

Originally Posted by SnoBird

It always amazes me how unexpectedly death can seemingly come out of nowhere...

Bill, that does happen, but this one is like so many other head-shakers. Nothing that went wrong here should have been a surprise. The plane had performance charts which included service ceiling; the area to be inspected (including terrain and required altitudes) was known in advance; the humidity and temperature were readily available. Even if all that was missed, the trees kept getting closer, and nothing was done until after a shallow 180º turn became impossible.

The lessons for me here are (1) determine ahead of time whether the machine is up to the mission, and (2) once you're in the air, when the little voice says, "uh-oh, this is not good," pay attention.

Now, I'm going back to re-read some of Vance's posts involving decision making, just for contrast.

[SnoBird]

Originally Posted by PW_Plack

Nothing that went wrong here should have been a surprise.

I agree Paul, that's why I described it as "banal". It reminded me a bit of a particular gyro flying lesson I took one time. We were on final and a medivac helicopter taxied out on the runway preparing for a non-emergency takeoff. As we approached we moved to the side and remained airborne off to the side at about 100' altitude at a low airspeed of about ~35mph (I was in control of the aircraft at the time). As a beginner I wasn't sure what to do, but figured since my instructor was with me it was ok to start looking down at the rotors of the medivac copter spinning and admire the beauty of the sleek Dauphin helicopter from above while flying low and slow (in a mac powered Parsons at that). My instructor deliberately let me get into that situation to teach me about situational awareness and then barked "look at your airspeed, look at your altitude!" I had lulled myself into a sense of complacency and was momentarily distracted from the business of flying to the business of gawking at a helicopter from above instead. Fly the aircraft! Goddamned right.

That's what happened to this poor guy. He was distracted by the beauty of the rockies and probably wasn't very skilled or experienced and was "suddenly" lulled into a fatal scenario that took only seconds to unfold. From his perspective it "came out of nowhere". From an experienced aviator's perspective after the fact, it was an obvious situation just waiting to happen.

[E6B]

Originally Posted by SnoBird

You can hear the stall alarm buzzing as the aircraft starts to struggle just before impact.

Yes I can. It's a stall warning horn.

Bitching Betty says: "Pull up! Pull up!" not "Oh my God, we're going to die!"

I've done trillions of stalls and thousands of spins. If he actually stalled before hitting that last tree, that was smart. It reduced his speed as much as possible.

BTW, I didn't hear an increase of power either.

Pat

[Redbaron]

guys I dunno how true this report is but this is what I found on google!


Text from Source:

Document #1 -- The tragic tale of the missing Cessna L-19E

Cessna serial number 24527 - FAA Reg. Number N4584A - January, 2009 Intended Flight Route: Granby, Colorado to (Jeffco County)Denver, Colorado. Lost: August 10th, 1984 More.. at approx. 13:00hours Found: August 23rd, 1987, near Tabernash, Colorado

It’s a very tragic tale – unwittingly caught on film by the gentleman who died in the crash along with a friend riding in the back seat. It was first shown to me (along with many others) at an FIRC (Flight Instructor Renewal Clinic) over 20 years ago.

The family of the deceased had put a 20-year moratorium (via the FAA) on the release of the film to the general public with the only stipulation that it (at the FAA’s request to the family of the deceased) be shown ONLY to Flight Instructors at FIRC’s and workshops such as the ones I attend every two years (for the purpose of renewing my flight instructor’s license; along with discussing the lessons learned herein with private & commercial pilot applicants so that the knowledge gleaned from the tape could be used and disseminated to help prevent this kind of thing from happening to someone else). Last year the moratorium was up and not renewed – so it effectively became “public domain”.

Here’s what happened: The gentleman flying this aircraft (a restored single-engine Cessna L-19E 0Bird Dog” - commonly used by the US Army (beginning in 1962, it was also known as the “O-1” during the Vietnam War – the last one retiring from active service in 1974) & the USAF in Korea & Vietnam for general spotting (F.A.C.) & liaison duties as well as a basic training airplane in the US) had been offered a contract by the Colorado Dept. of Forestry to videotape a particularly nasty type of beetle infestation that had been ravaging hundreds of acres of Colorado forest in and around some of the higher-elevation foothills surrounding some of the Rockies. One thing that was unique about this particular flight was that the pilot had mounted a VHS video camcorder atop the instrument panel for the purpose of visually recording any beetle infestation that was observed along the flight route. The pilot started the camera shortly after takeoff and it ran until the aircraft crashed down through the trees – approx. 6-1/2 minutes later.

The problem, as you’ll see in this (approx.) 6-1/2 minute video, was that he was flying into what can be clearly seen as gradually ever-ascending terrain altitude. However, because of the density altitude conditions which existed at the time of the accident (remember, this was in August), he was already at or above the airplane’s effective “service ceiling” – the point at which a plane cannot maintain at least a minimum of a 100 foot-per-minute rate of climb – in this case, he was flying a normally-aspirated (meaning no turbocharger or supercharger on the engine) single-engine plane at or above it’s normal level of (density) altitude for which it was capable of maintaining – again, considering the abrupt bank angle attempted at the end of the flight which culminated in the crash itself.

As he flew along – with his friend in the back seat (this being a “tandem-seat” aircraft - fore-and-aft seating – like a Piper Super Cub), you can see the terrain continually slowly increase in altitude, until right at the very end of the tape, when he makes his second – and fatal – error. He makes a moderately steep turn to the right (in excess of 45 to 50 degrees angle of bank) in an attempt to turn around quickly – the plane loses considerable lift and initially stalls twice; then on the 3rd stall (with the stall warning horn blaring in the background), enters the traditional “stall/spin” syndrome and flips upside down as the left (up-wing) wing stalls completely and the plane, flipping over on it’s back, plunges straight down through the trees – but not before capturing the pilot’s last mournful cry to his friend in the back seat: “Damn, hang on Ronnie!!”; the plane smashes downwards through the thick tree branches (you can hear the heavy “thuds” as the plane’s wings smash into these while heading for the ground); it crashes & burns – killing both the pilot and bac k-seat passenger.

There is a small fire which consumes some of the wreckage but no forest fire is started and since the plane plunged straight down through the trees to the ground, there was no visible tree damage for any would-be rescuers to use to spot the wreckage or crash location. One additional important factor that added to the delay of the discovery of the wreckage was the fact that the fuselage (the main body) of the plane came to rest upside down – on top of the ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter) antenna, effectively silencing its emergency signal to satellites and other would-be rescue aircraft.

Note: The above photo text is wrong in that it was just over three (3) years from the crash date of Aug. 10th, 1984 until its initial discovery on Aug. 23rd, 1987.

The wreckage laid there for approximately 3 years ( Aug. 10th, 1984 to Aug. 23rd, 1987) until it was found by a pair of backpackers hiking through that particular location. The wreckage was removed and after the NTSB & the FAA released their findings (based on both crash evidence as well as lack of prior logged maintenance problems with the plane); the wreckage was then released to the family of the deceased pilot as the plane had belonged to him. The family kept what they wanted and gave the rest to a scrap yard for final disposition.

Dale Wood, a Colorado deputy sheriff investigating the wreckage and the crash scene, discovered the shattered video recorder within the wreckage and “rebuilt” the tape (which was in pieces and had been exposed to the elements for 3 years – some of it hanging from tree branches during that 3 year period of time!!) and turned it over to the NTSB for final review. The end result was what you see here – the pilot had recorded, on video tape, his “…continued flight into rising terrain – combined with a high density altitude condition existing at that time – along with an abrupt maneuver (approx. 45 - 50+ degrees angle of bank) resulting in a fatal “stall/spin” accident…” – he had unwittingly recorded his own death.

The fire had warped and partially melted the VHS recorder into a misshapen hunk of plastic that no one at the NTSB or FAA could recognize, so they initially passed on a closer examination – thinking it was apparently some sort of item that could not be attributed to playing any conceivable role in the accident.

This is that tape – converted to DVD/WMV file format. The intermittent gaps in the “engine rumbling noises” and the electronic “glitches” in the video and audio portions of the tape were caused by tree and ground impact damage along with heat from the fire as well as exposure to the elements for three years – I saw this tape approx. 20 years ago and its exactly as I saw it back then. - Finis -

The Cessna L-19E “Bird Dog” – 2-seat (“tandem” – fore & aft seating) spotter (F.A.C.) and general-duty liaison aircraft used extensively in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars as well as in the US as a US Army and USAF basic training aircraft. Engine: Continental O-470-11, 6-cylinder, 213 hp.

Introduced in the very early 1950’s (around the start of the Korean War), this aircraft is the “forerunner” of what eventually became the Cessna 170 series of civilian light planes. There are approximately 120 Cessna L-19’s (also known as “O-1’s”) still registered & flying in the US today.

[Chuck Roberg]

"Looks like Adobe Flash player here is a download. http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html"

Thanks John, But it seemed to be my Puter or internet connection. Today it worked for me on the second try.