Accident Case Study: Faulty Assumptions
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 เม.ย. 2021
- In the early morning light on April 22, 2019, the pilot of a Beechcraft Baron 58 preflights his aircraft at West Houston Airport in Texas, before he heads to the terminal to greet his five passengers.
The flight will take just over one hour. But the pilot’s mistaken beliefs about existing onboard fuel will prove disastrous and clinch the flight’s outcome.
Join the AOPA Air Safety Institute as we follow the Baron’s flight and learn how an unfortunate chain of events ultimately led to tragedy.
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I personally flew with this pilot on several occasions. He was always very meticulous and every time I went with him, flew by the book. But, at the same time, all it takes is that one time, that time you get complacent, or push just a little more than the last time. Good friend and a great guy, but also a lesson that we should all learn from.
It's so sad to see a good pilot leave us this way.
So sorry to his loved ones for his loss. By studying his very human mistakes that any of us are capable of making, may his loss save the lives of others.
@@banjo2019 Why is it easier for you to have faith in the report rather than faith in a PROVEN PILOT, far from stupid? A defective fuel gauge - unnoticed - is STUPID! He keeps track of fueling and what he estimates he needs! If the last time he fueled, he expected to need 40 gallons and had to get 60 - that's a RED FLAG his fuel gauge isn't working! He can also calculate estimates based on mileage - so what's next? BS about defective mileage? They lied about September 11, so don't expect them to be reliable now because the DEFECTIVE report on September 11 was NEVER CORRECTED!
Was this some charter company plane?
@@terracotta6294 Go outside, get some air.
sad tale... A wise old pilot once told me "the only time you have too much gas onboard is when you're on fire"
It would be nice if pilots had a way to dump fuel quickly as the fires kill all the time during a mild crash that if not for the fire the pilot and passengers would’ve survived. Big airliners have the ability to dump fuel, why not GA?
@@baseballlife5884 they run out of fuel enough as it is, giving them the ability to dump fuel will not help, also they use gasoline and fly at significantly lower altitudes... dropping gas all over the place is probably not a good idea
@@billbrisson thanks for the reply but I kindly disagree with most of what you say.
@@baseballlife5884 meh.... I'll get over it
@@billbrisson lol, that was funny as shit
Can someone tag Netflix to start a weekly series on this? Best narrator, research and presentation in the industry
There’s a plethora of GA crashes to analyze.
Why when there is already a commercially created series on Aviation Safety and Accidents for the past 14+ years now??
@@terrymichael5821 What's it called? I can't imagine one being as good as this one
Netflix will find a way to ruin it.
Don’t put this information behind a paywall, everyone needs to be able to access the mistakes of others so we may learn from them
This one hit home, I fly a baron and I know that feeling of “I should’ve taken 10 more gallons” I’ve also traded weight for fuel before and when I landed I swore on my life I would never do that again. This video solidified that thought and definitely humbled me some more. I appreciate these videos because younger pilots can learn from mistakes that can cost lives.
kuck pilot.
@@Mike-zf4xg lmao
I had that bad gut feeling once and vowed to never repeat it. I never have!
Why does the tradeoff of fuel and cargo have to be made this close? Are the fuel tanks on a Baron smaller than they should be?
@@edb7742 dont think so its just the desire to bring all pepole that want to come, get paid for that too, but that should never be done. should have left one or rather two persons and filled up with same weigth in fuel, the limiting factor is weight, even three persons. so all those seats filled are just for very short flights.
Heartbreaking that this accident happened. Please continue to make these videos as every pilot can learn from watching them and it will hopefully saves lives in the future.
I agree 100%..This is such a great series!
Yes. We may never know how many have already been saved by these videos. I'm sure it's > 0.
By this pilots fuel management practices it seams he was taught to mange fuel from zero gallons. It looks like a better method may be to estimate fuel from full tanks, at least on occasion. This would give a reasonable approach to a more accurate accountability of fuel volume remaining.
MP
5 more gallons of fuel and this video wouldn't have been needed.
I have waited so many many months for more case study stories. They are incredibly wow and they teach so much. They remind me to not skip anything and go to the letter, giving a reality check. Thank you, and I hope and wish more are to come and sooner. absolutely incredible work!
I agree. I wish they’d do them more often because, unfortunately, there’s plenty of source material to draw from.
You not alone
I love this channel .story on soccerTEAM running out of fuel be nice touch
This also mean, if we want more content, we need accident...Even if thoses videos are great materials, we should avoid generating them.
true that. I am also pleased that it is still Morgan Freeman who narrates it.
@@rvstube2010 I don't know who the the narrator is, but I do know it isn't Morgan Freeman. Close, but not Morgan.
I've worried mightily when the gas gauge in my car dips into the red. I cant even imagine the sweat that I would break if it happened "up there".
If you're driving and a problem develops, you pull over to the curb and get out. If you're flying and something goes haywire at 10,000 feet . . . well, it'll be an interesting experience for all concerned. . . .
Good point. No calling AAA when you're in the sky!
I have the same anxiety just flying a drone. When the battery reaches "critical", it definitely changes one's focus. The huge difference of course, is that if the drone dies, I have to go find it, and hope it's not broken. Only my ego gets hurt.
Great video and a great reminder to not just make assumptions. As a pilot who regularly relies on my engine monitor for my fuel amounts, a chilling reminder to check the actual levels before every flight.
I wish they made these more often. They are binge watch quality content.
Always stick the tanks 😊
Safe flights!
I find it strange that supposedly intelligent people would make this mistake, you guys must have no mechanical knowledge.
I only trust the stick.
Dripstick... A life saver.
I love the narrator's voice. Calm, authoritative and compassionate.
Very soothing I fall asleep to this whole Playlist 25 videos I'm usually gone by the third one lol,I very much agree with your comment 👍
Reminds me of the Forensic Files narrator
Agree. Just excellent. Perfect for this series.
The narrator is Walter L Travis Jr.
Agree, he’s superb. Pitch perfect.
"You guys and gals don't nearly make enough of these safety videos, and I support AOPA".
Sad thing is, for each video there is a personal tragedy involved
The real irony is that, had he taken the additional 4 gallons, he would still have been under MTOW - his calculation would've been based on 75lbs of fuel that he didn't have onboard.
Yep, he could have taken 10gallons...60lbs and still been under weight and alive. Too bad that he didn't take a minute to actually stick the tanks.
Exactly! I'd love to know his reasoning. We've all flown with less than optimal fuel levels, but even the 54 gallons he thought he had was still cutting it extremely close. Second that first engine stalled he knew he was done. Must be an awful feeling, especially with passengers.
I fly a Baron, exact fuel is always a challenge. When I am in doubt I fuel to the max then reset my fuel computer. These lessons keep reminding me of my choices and when I have to make a decision, I error on the conservative side, even if it is disappointing to the passengers. Thanks for posting, excellent.
Would you please expand on why knowing the exact fuel in a Baron is always a challenge? Is there a design limitation in the aircraft? Thank you
Hey, just an old guy here, don`t fly, but find these vids very interesting. Seems to (I know easy to say) me top off those damn tanks ! when I run low on gas in my van, darn next station I`ll pull in, but you guys haha no way, again easy for me to say but.....no second chances for you guys ! Happy flying.
@@edb7742 Simple explanation is that ALL fuel gauges everywhere are unreliable and cannot be trusted. Right tank on my C172M reads 3/4 when topped off. Ive been in Piper’s where the fuel gauge reads full after two hours of touch n gos.
Best way to keep track of gas is to have a fuel burn journal. However the documentation before the accident in this video was off from a previous miscalculation in records.
@@Mr_Bones. Thank you
Agree. God bless you ❤ Amen ❤
These are great videos. I'm not a pilot, nor have I ever trained but I find these videos super interesting to learn about.
same deal - there's something powerful about the videos. Maybe we're all feeling our own mortality watching these disasters, especially listening to the voices of people we know are about to leave this Earth. Profound, educational, and something I can't quite put my finger on....
Same I really enjoy these videos and the nartirarion
Agree
Likewise. I'm subscribed to half a dozen aviation channels (The Flight Channel, Mentour, 74Gear, etc.) and I'm ineligible to be a pilot by virtue of color blindness, nor have I ever really been interested in becoming one. But this sure is interesting content!
Agreed. I’d like to fly some day but watching these videos makes me only want to do it if I can give it the time and attention it deserves. I’m busy right now and have a lot of hard deadlines that would have get-there-itis. Maybe when I retire, if I have the funds, I’ll pick up and learn on a DA-40.
For me it would be a total luxury, because I would not want to take any necessary trips with hard deadlines in the plane. I’d even want to be able to cancel or delay if I didn’t sleep well the night before or if the weather wasn’t 100%. And right now I can’t have vacations with three day windows on either end. It’s easier to drive or fly commercial.
As a pilot who sometimes pushed the limits of fuel, similar to this guy, this one sent a chill up my spine. These videos probably have saved more lives than we would ever know. Thank you for producing these.
Fuel doesn’t sound like a thing with pushable limits to my untrained ears. You either have enough to continue powered flight, or else you don’t, in which case you come down on the green initiative known as gravity. I don’t even understand how so many pilots see this as a negotiation of some kind. It must be way more complicated than it looks to a civilian, because all the pilots seem to think so.
But allow me to suggest that y’all keep it simple, stupid. Think like the ignorant in this case, and you’ll never be trying to put your plane in neutral and push it off to the shoulder like this. 👍🏻 ❤
There is truly no other channel that excites me more when a new video is released. The opportunity to learn, even at another’s catastrophic mistake, is something that no person, pilot or not, should ever pass up. Thank you Air Safety Institute for your continued dedication to producing quality content. You really are saving lives.
Absolutely agree; they're saving Lives. The amount of helpful, specific info they reveal is incredible. Making use of someone's devastating experience, in order to help others, is still an exercise in walking a fine line. And these folks have that act down PAT. 👏🏽
For some reason the algorithm thought I didn't want to see these anymore. I had to search this one out because I thought "hey it's been a minute since I've watched an accident case study video". I love watching them too but at the same time it makes me sad a new one had to be made. It's a weird relationship I have with this channel.
I too love these videos. But in this one, I think they missed a great opportunity to talk more about the mountain flying mistakes. They make it sounds like his fate was sealed when he departed, but this is far from the case.
Instead of circling over the airport to climb, he could have used ridge lift to climb more effectively. Instead of flying over the valley, he should have been flying over the ridges. This always gives you a safe place to turn out, etc. Many more lessons from this than the four relatively vague ones they offered.
@@skydvrboy speaking of mistakes….posting to the wrong video is another :)
@@Paddave Not sure how that happened. I was watching the recent video "Into Thin Air." Thanks for letting me know my comment ended up on the wrong video.
Like most aviation accidents, it is not the first mistake that gets you....it is the second, or third. Great video.
The three most useless things in aviation: sky above you, runway behind you and fuel left at your departure airport. If he was incorrect about his fuel load for several flights beforehand, this was literally an accident waiting to happen sooner or later. It's just unfortunate that he took five with him...
not necessarily. all it takes is one top off of the tanks to completely reset the calcs.
Even going by his miscalculations, he still flew when he should not have, not an accident.
“Pilots who have pushed fuel limits can attest to the sinking feeling as seconds grind by….” - yes! Happened to me once and I vowed to never let it happen again. I was fortunate, unlike this poor chap and his passengers. Let the inexperienced learn from these errors …
Ditto. Only once.
guess i should be taking a ton of notes
I don’t know who the narrator is but his voice and technique is spot on. A pleasure to watch and listen to these instructional videos. Thank you
I have a funny feeling this is the narrator guy in this video.
th-cam.com/video/viiIBz1AEnQ/w-d-xo.html
@@documax123 Yeah its Paul
@@rykehuss3435 oh, thank you. Yes, he's a great narrator on these.
@@documax123 Oh hell no it ain't Paul.
@@dryan8377 really?
Never run on 1/4 or less. The fuel gauge is only a general guide, not a precision readout.
I'm amazed that a pilot with this much experience and time 'made the trade'. Can't bow to compromise.
As soon as checked the forecast in Kerrville he had to know, at least in part, what was coming.
i like how they used the new Microsoft flight sim !!! its looking clean in this study!
MS flight sim should actually be called an awesome flight game. It’s beautiful and is great for recon but if you want a flight sim you need XPlane.
@@baseballlife5884 It really depends on the addon aircraft, sure perhaps the default GA aircraft in Xplane fly a little more realistically but I have faith more realistic addon aircraft for MSFS will get here. Personally i think the 172 in MSFS flys just fine and I've used it for VFR cross country familiarisation before doing the flight in the actual aircraft. I've never thought, wow this feels off, when using it in MSFS. Besides that, controllers like yokes or whatnot are never really going to feel exactly like the real aircraft anyhow. Simulators are great procedure trainers but are no substitute for learning to fly real aircraft.
I’ve watched seven of these videos in a row. I’m attending Embry-Riddle next month after serving 9 years in the Marine Corps.
In the Marines we always say safety is paramount and religiously weigh risk/reward using an operational risk management matrix.
No amount of ego will prevent me from being the safest pilot every flight.
Godspeed to those lost in all of these videos.
I'm amazed at how casually some people gamble with their lives and other peoples' lives. It's one thing to do this stuff in a car, well, you run out of gas, you pull over and call the triple A. But in a plane, kind of ridiculous to take the chance.
Precisely the point, sir.
If you're driving and a problem develops, you pull over to the curb and get out. If you're flying and something goes haywire at 10,000 feet . . . well, it'll be an interesting experience for all concerned. . . .
These AOPA videos are so educational. Pilot would have been better off fuelling and departing with slight overweight, or better yet leaving one passenger. So sad that in those last moments he forgot about prop and flaps despite his experience.
I like to think these videos save lives. I am glad AOPA makes them available to the public, even non members.
Those are definitely things he did wrong but ultimately the cause of the crash was he didn’t maintain minimum airspeed required to fly the plane. This fact should be the main thing stated over and over during these videos. Everything else he did is valuable info on how to not make mistakes that led to this tragedy but ultimately no matter what, you have to keep airspeed or you will stall and fall out of the sky.
Exactly. Four US gallons would have weighed about 25 pounds, Imperial gallons about 30. Passengers don't help with aircraft performance, fuel does. Those four gallons would have broken the chain of events that led to this crash.
Quite. I know it's heretical to some, but until you're looking at a marginal field or ridiculous density altitude or some underpowered, beat up old airplane, you're way better off a little overweight on take-off than you are running out of fuel. In this case, I doubt the Baron would even have noticed the extra 30 lbs or so.
@@MikeGranby That's exactly what I was thinking. Seen how with special permit they flew a plane with huge overweight (to cross Pacific) and beside lethargic claim performance there was no adverse effect. Baron would not even have felt the difference of those extra few gallons.
Best video produced by AOPA to date, IMHO. The pilot of this aircraft was a good man (I had met him on a couple of occasions at his hangar), a very experienced pilot, and a friend of a friend of mine, who co-owned a Bonanza with him. Sadly, he was trying to please his 5 passengers and had tragic results.
NEVER PLEASE PASSENGERS. This was such poor piloting...not even having legal reserves. You shouldn't even push it that much, leave yourself at least an hour. Yes I'm a pilot so I can speak here :)
@@gringoloco8576 Wow...a pilot AND an arm chair quarterback...
@@xbpbat21x Every time something like this happens it's important to point out all the mistakes that were made so we can learn from them. Unfortunately, the mistakes made here are not new. Not only was he illegally flying IFR by not carrying enough fuel for 45 mins reserve he took off either without calculating weight and balance or did so knowing he was out of tolerances on BOTH. Both cases are absolutely unacceptable. 7 people would be alive today had he made the right call and scrubbed the flight or made two trips.
@@Jdubbz89 I get tired of all these "perfect" pilots on their pedestal. I don't know these dick holes from Adam. For all I know, they are talking about their sim flight trips. The mistakes are pointed out in the video. I don't need to know how perfect a pilot you are, or how bad a pilot this guy was. Do your learning in the air, not in the comment section.
@@xbpbat21x It’s our responsibility to learn from other’s mistakes. In aviation we don’t get the chance to make these mistakes for ourselves as you tend not to live through them. Obviously we should respect the dead but at the same time there was an aspect of negligence here that cost 7 people their lives. For me the key lesson here is that pushing the limits even just a little can be deadly. I have been tempted to push the fuel limits myself, but this story reinforced that we often don’t have an accurate measure of exactly how much fuel is really in the tank.
The narrator is the primary reason I watch these presentations. I’m not even a pilot. lol
Very sad... Ive been flying for forty years and have about the same hours as this poor chap. I’ve had a couple of high time very competent and meticulous pilot friends make simple errors that cost them their and their passengers lives. So glad these videos come out so we can all learn and keep being reminded.
World class narration, research and writing.
An old (but NOT bold) pilot once told me the only time you have too much fuel is when you are on fire.
Cheers
Or when it puts you overweight, in which case gotta go back to the drawing board
@@adam1885282 Ridiculous. A plane with all fluids, fuel and crew is never overweight. Everything you add to it puts you overweight. Let's remove some of the oil, we really don't need ALL of it. Besides it's putting me overweight. That way I don't have to leave out what really matters to the flight like passengers/luggage.
I said it and I say it again: Other than fuel leaks or fuel line blockages, Engine failures due to fuel exhaustion are the dumbest way to get yourself in trouble in an airplane - even like in cases like these where the pilot was mislead. Idk, at least my own personal minimums are: Wheels on the ground with 45 minutes left of fuel at the latest. No exceptions.
The problem here was the inaccuracy of the instrumentation. Your personal minimums do not matter if the instrumentation is lying to you, telling you they are met when they are not. Even if he added these 4 extra gallons of fuel, the accident might have happened in a later flight anyway since measuring errors were adding up flight after flight.
@@uski I disagree. If I'm flying IFR, Max gross in a twin, with limited fuel reserves - which I regularly did in the 414A - weather HAD to be VMC in destination on a direct flight. I don't care if the instrument is lying or not, I know that I'm pushing the envelope of performance of the airplane in more ways than one and adding the IMC part is just asking for trouble.
@@fdzaviation Thanks, that's a good perspective. I am working toward getting my PPL, so I am still learning.
I think it all stemmed from the initial overload. I think that was the motivating factor behind cutting fuel down to minimum allowable levels. Just because an aircraft has 6 seats (or whatever) doesn't mean you can strap in 6 and their bags and go as far as you want. The Baron is not a 737.
shutting down the incorrect engine is another beauty
Truly a tragedy wherein the pilot did so many things wrong. When I used to fly, we used to say “only believe the fuel gauges whey they read empty”....
During my training, I maintained always maintained a fuel reserve of 1 hour cruise time at my destination. A rule easier to follow when not carrying payload, of course.
So sad that a highly experienced ATP commits such grave, overt errors, especially with pax on board. I love the narrator's voice! I always look forward to these. Such great teaching moments and fantastic quality productions. Already looking forward to the next one!
Yep. Arguably, the deaths of the passengers are not accidental but homicides. Gross negligence on the pilot's part.
As a tractor trailer driver who drove between 2500 miles to 3800 miles a week, I make sure I always fuel up before departing for the day and then fuel at any terminal I stopped at and I if was below 1/2 or if I deemed I may have a very long leg before my next scheduled stop, if I needed to lose some weight then I lost some weight or had a nice talk with my safety department, of course driving a big rig (I had 2 - 150 gallon tanks) and flying a plane are 2 different things but I never wanted to have no fuel, especially in the winter/mountains, plus I always carried bottles of fuel deicer, didn’t trust fuel stations even up north !! R.I.P. to those who lost their lives !
I’ve said it before: this is why I’m an AOPA member. Well done!
I can only imagine how it must have felt in those last few seconds, especially after going through with that roll, knowing you'd crash (presumably with 5 panicked passengers behind you) and still doing your best to at least soften the impact. And yes, failing to retract flaps and feather the engine was a mistake, a deadly one that cost 6 lives, but still, even then...
When the 1st engine quit you know those passengers had something to say.... it probably lead to even more confusion not taken into account.
@@michaelmccarthy4615 yeah I bet, a good briefing also helps with that, I personally think his ultimate mistake was not manually checking the fuel tanks and ensuring he was starting off with the fuel he assumed he had and not 16 gallons less then what he planned for. There’s certainly a lot of other things that could of changed the outcome, like knowing he was stretching fuel limits and choosing the circle approach from the East which would have put him on the ground sooner, to feathering the prop and cleaning the flaps, to changing the flight characteristics to begin with, less passengers / cargo more fuel reserve or planning a fuel stop along the way. You can’t foresee every danger but certainly there were many in this flight that even just one change could have changed the outcome.
Andy Smitty.
You can’t manually check the fuel unless you fill it up to 80 gallons.
With the Baron and a lot of light twins.. virtually their entire wings are fuel tanks. You open the cap and it’s dry yet you still have 50 gallons of fuel on board.
It seems like this guy likely took a lot of passengers all the time, so could never fill it to a known amount like 80 gallons without being hugely overweight.
Later Barons solved this by having inboard fuel caps (which creates another problem if you accidentally open them when the tanks are full) and mechanical fuel gauges on the wing roots so you can visually see how much fuel there is when you do your walk around.
But yeah.. you can only calculate based on assumed fuel for so long. Soon even the accumulated inaccuracies from rounding, temperature, leakage, venting, evaporation, and variances in the totalizer will make your fuel load very inaccurate. You need to zero it with a known quantity every so often.. preferably every three or four legs.
This is also an important check to determine the health of your engines by the actual fuel burn you are achieving.
@@Bartonovich52 I suppose I assumed they all had the inboard fuel tank, as the only one I’ve been around had the inboard caps. Still, there were a bunch of mistakes there, anyone of them solved could have changed the outcome
@@Bartonovich52 I am not a pilot but please help me understand something. Why doesn't the FAA mandates a retrofit of mechanical fuel gauges in the wing roots on all of these air planes ? Would it be that costly to do ? Because evidently it would have saved people here, and it is super likely other airplanes are flying blind as to the exact amount of fuel onboard for the exact same reason
I love listening to the narrator...great voice.
It's been SO long waiting for a new video.
I wonder how many pilots have found themselves flying and noticing things going wrong who when they start to talk themselves into pressing ahead vs safer action have started hearing that narrator's voice and decided to land and fix things instead.
When you hear that voice, you know it is not going to be a happy ending.
Thank you for continuing the series. As soon as you mentioned Baron with 6 people I knew it was going to be an issue.
An older Baron would have no problem. I fly an old D-55 and 6 people that weigh 200 pounds, you’ll only be a few gallons short of the 136 useable. Every airplane type gets heavier as they get newer.... sadly.
@@russellbedell8198 I understand that for cars but why does that happen for airplanes?
@@yamkaw346 Usually bigger more powerful engines, a stronger structure, internal customizations (a simple thin basic seat vs a fancy leather one) now imagine 4 seats like that. Each one adding weight. FInally lets not forget people. Obesity is rising, everywhere you look bellies hanging out. I see cop shows on TV and I doubt many of them could run 30cm without fainting.
@@russellbedell8198 thanks for pointing that out! Must say I was scratching my head as to why this Baron seemingly couldn't cope with 6 people and the legal fuel required for about 70 minutes? I used to ride in a D55 in PNG, P2-MFA, beautiful aeroplane!
@@davidpartridge9459 thought the same thing myself! They make a 6 seater that can only fly for an hour, with weight within the margins? Seems crazy. Something doesn't compute. That's a million $$ + aircraft with little utility, when being used as designed.
I am currently working on my Private License & find every one of these useful & a great reminder that we should never grow complacent or arrogant!
I remember seeing this in the magazine, and reading this in the narrator's voice.
One of the best narrator’s voices ever IMO.
Between this and the sad music at the beginning, it always gets me.
I’m so confused. How do planes not have a fuel gauge that shows how much is in the tanks like a car??? How is this is not a thing? I’m sure there’s a reason for it lol but I just can’t understand it lol
@@lukycharms9970 6:02 - 6:27: It does (all planes have to have a fuel gauge for each tank), but there were problems with both of them. Apparently he knew about that which is why he calculated as a workaround, but his calculations had a wrong baseline (and it's illegal to fly with inoperative fuel gauges)
YOU REMIND OF LIL GIRLS ON CRIMEWATCH
DONT LEAVE FRIENDS BEHIND & NARRATOR VOICE ANNOYING can you please include those lines,pretty please with strawberry and cheeessy
Wish you’d do more accident case study videos. They are interesting and a good teaching tool!
Stunning graphics. Thankyou for such a professional presentation done with dignity
This guys voice is so soothing and relaxing
Good lesson for drivers as well. Always keep your fuel tank filled. When then tank reaches the empty point and the little yellow low fuel light is illuminated it distracts you from driving as you constantly look at the gas gauge and you worry if you're going to run out before the next exit that has a gas station...in some places they are far and in between.
I've stretched it 20 times when the yellow light comes on, usually because I want cheaper gas. 19 out of 20 times I made it. One time I had to pull over and wait for AAA to give me 3 gallons of fuel. I wouldn't roll the dice like that on a plane.
If you're driving and a problem develops, you pull over to the curb and get out. If you're flying and something goes haywire at 10,000 feet . . . well, it'll be an interesting experience for all concerned. . . .
@@orvilleh.larson7581 Yep. The consequences of running out of fuel on the highway and running out at altitude are....quite significant.
Excellent series and valuable information for both pilots and non-pilots.
The narrator is one of the best ever!
He would give Mike Rowe a serious run for the money! Clear, concise and empathetic. He is the best!
I can't believe a machine of any kind was built without some reliable way to check fuel, that just blows me away
Ditto
This how every air crash investigation video should be like. A simulation of what happened and someone explaining it. Its so much better than may day or air crash investigation where the acting is absolutely horrendous
I can't watch this beyond the 5 minute mark. As a Long time professional pilot and a former flight instructor, I see all the mistakes made by this pilot. One after another the dominos fall.
Amen, so many mistakes, the Baron group has training instructors, damn good ones who are a great resource for keeping current on procedures. It noted that the pilot was highly experienced, but experience, skill and training are completely different animals, he no doubt had lots of experience with ( in) hours and hours of problem free flying.
Rarely are any serious incidents the result of only 1 specific error. Usually there are a series of errors, some even innocuous, which contribute to a tragedy.
According to the video, he departed overweight, out of balance and short on fuel. With all respect to those who perished, that seems like very poor judgment.
@@edb7742 "Dirty Harry" Callahan put it best:
"A man's gotta know his limitations!"
@@orvilleh.larson7581 beautiful line... Magnum Force. A largely forgotten classic.
I wish you guys would make a lot more of these. We could use em.
Every week
These videos and narrator are the best and I’m not a pilot and have barely even been in a plane as a passenger
Excellent presentation. I've not flown in 20+ years, but I still remain interested in learning why planes crash. My 13k-hour instructor answered my question, Why to planes crash. His answer was even more direct than just, 'pilot error". Get-there-itus is what causes flaws in judgement. As it was here. The pilot simply did not have a plan that included not going.
It's a 178 miles to Kerrville, we have a quarter tank of gas, we're overweight, out of balance, and we're wearing sunglasses.
Any time you are at max weight or near max weight you have to be precise on your performance calculations. Being surprised by his loss of fuel and the stress of trying to keep his passengers calm caused an experienced pilot to completely fail something he could probably rattle off in seconds under no pressure.
Tend to agree with your assessment of stress upon his behaviour.. But, I can´t see an experienced pilot, apparently, not informing ATC of low fuel and the need to shorten the approach sequence in light of the urgent need to land and most importantly, his responsibility for the safety of the passengers. Without attempting to judge the pilot, not accepting a mistake on the fuel/mtow decision compounds the possible solutions for a safe landing. When limiting oneself in such a flight from the planning stage is a show of irresponsible overconfidence. It is happening too many times.
@@gerardpully762 As I understood the report the pilot was not aware of the critical fuel situation until the engines stopped running. At that moment the approach was just a straight line to the runway. So no re-routing could have saved him at that moment.
@@TheNixie1972 There's a big difference between saving the airplane and saving the lives on board. Keeping the speed up, feathering the prop and raising flaps for a controlled off-airport crash landing would have wrecked the plane but all could have survived.
I’m still studying for my written PP test but have learned so much from all the case studies and trying videos I’ve seen. I am a safer student pilot by watching these videos. Thank you.
Same here!
I used to think the "I Learned About Flying From That" articles in the back of Flying Magazine were good for post-certificate learning. But these videos are superb. Well-produced and full of good information, analysis and thought-provoking conjecture. Every pilot (or student pilot) should watch these.
Even before I was a student pilot I read those articles in my Dad's "Flying" magazines religiously. I still remember the one where a limo-driver tossed a clothing bag over the elevator of a Cessna as it was taxing away from the apron. They got airborne, barely, and back on the ground, barely, but I was dumbfounded at the stupidity of the limo-driver. I am still perplexed by the complacency of experienced people who know better, and still take short-cuts in spite of their abilities. Both my parents were pilots and I flew with them as much as I could when I was a youngster. My folks did not like surprises, especially not in the air. Thinking and preparation on the ground always prevails over making emergency decisions in the air. The only thing they could not "plan" out was unpredictable weather changes. There was more than one trip aborted after getting airborne when they saw the weather was just not what they expected from weather reports. Even when you are 100% prepared, you have to be prepared to scrub the flight and drive. Aviation is not rewarding if it becomes terrifying and/or lethal.
These are really well produced. They also convince me that my policy of never flying nowhere with nobody, never, is a fine policy. A policy I will stick with.
On average, GA is about as safe as cars on a per-mile basis. Based on that, I'd approach it the same way I do when choosing whose car to ride in. I trust some people, but not most people.
Of course, the airlines are safer than staying home in bed. Lol
@@JETZcorp I’ve always heard as dangerous as a motorcycle, I already ride so I don’t want to double my chances. Plus I work on GA aircraft and see the condition of many of these planes flying around.
"The pilot believes..." "The pilot expects..."
Can't win 'em all!
Mechanical errors will always occur (noticed or not). That is why the strictest of integrity is required while operating. At least if nothing else, when problems add up you the PIC are giving yourself the absolute best chances. The often missed hitch is this: operating integrity starts 24-48 hours before a flight (rest, food, alcohol, stress, etc). Stay safe everyone
Oh, how much alcohol should we intake to combat the stress?
I absolutely love this video series. I'm an AOPA member, and I hope the pilots here are as well. I'm a new pilot, and I've learned so much about being safe over and above the routine PPL training. The videos are well made, and the narrator is outstanding. I'm sorry for those who died, and I hope these videos use their sacrifice to save the lives of others.
A bit of wisdom:
"There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots. However, there are no old, bold pilots."
"A man's gotta know his limitations!"
--"Dirty Harry" Callahan
One would have thought that engine failure procedure is the one to know by heart while flying an aircraft, especially twin engine...
I remember my old instructor from years ago said to me that once you allow yourself to get complacent and you think you know everything that plane you’re flying will turn around and bite you in the ass.
I wonder if pilots are like motorcycle riders and, well, just about anything potentially dangerous. They have done studies that show that motorcycle riders that have the most crashes are riders in their first year (don't know what they are doing) and people who have been riding for over 10 years (complacency).
Great vid ASI. I really like the narrator, he does good work.
I wonder how many lives have been saved by these very important videos?
Maybe 2 or 3.
9
Finally another study
aviation, firearms, driving, sports...
Everyone thinks that they can 'rise to the occasion'...
In reality you 'rise to the level of your training' when the occasion presents
More like they fall to the level of their training. Even sim pilots could land a plane once or twice, but they won't do it consistently without training. All it takes is one failure.
No. It’s definitely rising to the level of your training.
Thousands of hours of routine operations and practicing engine failures a couple of times a year-if that.
And all routinely. EFATO or V1 cuts in the sim or at altitude, precautionary shut downs.
Never a double engine failure due to fuel exhaustion followed by a single restart in the middle of the approach. You’re all spring loaded to do control power drag identify verify feather when your instructor or check pilot pulls the lever back... but not on an approach where you in your mind are still trying to start the second engine. And then you are trying to finish the approach. Deer in the headlights.
My instructors and check pilots loved to throw me curveballs during training. Load me up and push me off the straight and narrow path of SOPs and checklists and rote memorization so that I could think.
And you keep going through that. Control.. airspeed is dropping, maintain blue line.. drag... OH, flaps! Identify.. ok, easy, verify.. and FEATHER. Ok... back to the approach or landing of forced approach.
The other thing is that you never get to the point of a Vmc roll in a twin. If your needle is going to the red... close the throttle and land wherever you can. You will survive but only if the aircraft remains under control until it stops.
A survivable deceleration from a light aircraft flying speed is only 200-300 feet. A stall or spin? Watch it... the plane hardly slides if at all, it just stops. That’s why it’s so important to keep the plane flying no matter what you are looking at.
While training is obviously primary, comprehension is dominant. That's a characteristic most CFI's can't quantify in another person, and in fact most lack in themselves. Probably explains the increase in accidents, many piloted by very high time ATPs. You're grabbing a checklist, rote training, at a critical time because you don't fully understand what's at hand and what makes this aircraft fly under this condition.....my opinion.
@@scottpatterson4105 Training gets you to comprehension...
@@eski152 If that were true there wouldn't be so few in any endeavor that are known for their abilities. Remember "The right stuff"?
Thank you for this series.
Keep up the great work ASI! I always have a good lesson learned from the case study series.
Best flight safety video production anywhere by far. Keep up the good work! I dedicate time for every video to keep all these reminders close at hand.
Best ASI video to date, really.
They're back! I love these so much, and I truly believe the videos have made me a much safer pilot. Thank you so much!
I love these vids, I could watch them all day. I look forward to the next one!
Thank you for these videos. They are always informative
Whenever you lose an engine
Remember the 3 F’s:
“F***! Flaps and Feather!!!”
Those are great things to remember and there is a checklist with a few of those on it but the main thing that has to be remembered that is more important than everything else is airspeed.
@@baseballlife5884 Airspeed is life.
It’s about time you started making these “replay” VIDS again AOPA. Thank you!!!
Thank you for making more of these Case Studies! Always a valuable lesson, and an excellent reminder not to get complacent.
As expected, exceptional educational video from Air Safety Institute.
I'm not a pilot and after watching a bunch of these (great) videos, I'm never going to be a passenger on a small plane either! The number of things that can go so easily wrong on these kinds of planes is absolutely terrifying.
I associate myself with your comment.
I have an academic interest in aviation, but I've never wanted to get a pilot's license. If anything, the more I read about general aviation crashes dissuaded me!
I've never been in a small plane--nor do I intend to.
I think you're drawing the wrong lesson from videos like these. Nobody makes videos doing meticulous minute-by-minute analyses of the hundreds of thousands of successful civil aviation flights that happen for every one that runs into trouble. If you drive, you're already accepting a risk level similar to that of routine civil aviation. Videos like this help make a safe form of transportation even safer.
@@isomeme Is general aviation really the same as "routine civil aviation"? Never seen a video about passenger jets called "178 Seconds to Live". But then again, there's Air France 447... Guess when it's your time, it's your time.
These videos are amazing. I wish there were more. Thank you for making them!
I adore this series, please keep up the fantastic work!
Keep doing them, they are LIFE saving! Great job.
Love these videos! please keep them coming!
What a powerful presentation. Thanks for posting these, they almost certainly save lives.
I can’t get enough of these videos
you guys need to do more of these on a regular basis though. I really enjoy these Accident Case Study videos
My late husband learned to fly watching "Sky King" in the late 50s.
God rest his soul.....
Another fantastic Case Study. TY!
These case studies are fantastic. Excellent professional video and the narrator has the perfect voice for this content.
Excellent video, very helpful.
That low-fuel feeling is real, I think we have all been there. So easy to think "it'll be enough" and at that point, leaving passengers behind isn't even an option in our minds. Well-made video that will stick in my mind for years to come
Yep, low fuel is a snake surprise sometimes. What baffles me more is the non feathering of the dead engine, startle factor I presume.
@@12345fowler both of your points are valid but still miss the biggest point that was the actual cause of the crash and ultimately the deaths of all on board. Airspeed!! If he just would’ve maintained his airspeed they would all most likely still be alive. Of course this is depending on what and where you’re about to put the plane down but in Texas they should’ve had plenty of highways or fields.
Fantastic! Great case study, thank you for posting. Please keep them coming
Excellent, as always. By far the best publication AOPA produces!
Excellent content and narration 👍
"The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli."
A hole in one!
Thanks for sharing the accident details. Air Safety Institue video is always helpful for us in GA. Thanks for making this and we support AOPA. Your effort will saves lives for long run.
These videos are so well put together. I wish you would make one a week.
Nice presentation
"Always carry extra fuel for Momma and the kids" (an old USAF saying) to never end up in this situation! : (
Glad to see this series back. It and the "real pilot stories" thing is why I'm subscribed
These videos have done more for my disposition towards safe flying than any other single thing. I'm so glad they're back! I hope we see more!