TNFlygirl crash analysis
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TNFlygirl crash analysis
Stumbled across this tonight and thought it was an interesting watch.
Clearly she was struggling with the autopilot and it’s likely that’s what brought her to an untimely end. Seems she was completely missing the basics of power and pitch and was potentially more interested in making YouTube videos with 400 hours total time, than going back to basics.
The significant part is around the 18 minute mark, onwards, however the whole video is interesting,
especially how she was getting little value from her IFR instructor.
Clearly she was struggling with the autopilot and it’s likely that’s what brought her to an untimely end. Seems she was completely missing the basics of power and pitch and was potentially more interested in making YouTube videos with 400 hours total time, than going back to basics.
The significant part is around the 18 minute mark, onwards, however the whole video is interesting,
especially how she was getting little value from her IFR instructor.
What with the distraction of the auto pilot, the function of which she did not understand, the continual referencing of the additional i-pad, or whatever it was, fiddling with the GPS......
and the instructor sitting right there, but not instructing.....
And she forgetting the basics of how to fly the aircraft....all with some 400 hours.
The mind boggles.
And then later with her father on board....disaster.
But, it really is all very sad - especially with the standard of her 'training'.....
and the instructor sitting right there, but not instructing.....
And she forgetting the basics of how to fly the aircraft....all with some 400 hours.
The mind boggles.
And then later with her father on board....disaster.
But, it really is all very sad - especially with the standard of her 'training'.....
Besides the fact there are some mistakes and things that could have been improved, IMHO i do not agree some comments on this YT link advocating 400 hours are quite few.
Back in the middle 90's, half of my CPL class here on EU vast lands started doing TGL's circuits on the L-1011 on the right hand seat right after finishing it with some 170 hours TT.
All of us succeeded till this very day, except me due disease needed to remain on the ground since 2012 unfortunately.
May she rest in Peace <3
Back in the middle 90's, half of my CPL class here on EU vast lands started doing TGL's circuits on the L-1011 on the right hand seat right after finishing it with some 170 hours TT.
All of us succeeded till this very day, except me due disease needed to remain on the ground since 2012 unfortunately.
May she rest in Peace <3
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Poor basic training is so often the problem. ...
In some training organisations there is far, far too much 'rush' to get onto more 'attractive' aspects of training that plodding away at getting the basics right at early stages gets missed. And then later that lack of understanding and ability comes back to bite, like ...
In some training organisations there is far, far too much 'rush' to get onto more 'attractive' aspects of training that plodding away at getting the basics right at early stages gets missed. And then later that lack of understanding and ability comes back to bite, like ...
N4790P
And the sad reality is that the type of people now running famous universities in America that have been in the news lately, will leap to hire someone like her over me for the same reasons that they hired Harvards plagiarizing and bigoted president, all the while accusing people like me of being what they in fact actually are.
How sick society has become.
How sick society has become.
Currently I work in ME, moving back to EU in a few months, can't believe that I will actually miss some stuff here
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On a separate subject,
Here is an interesting quote from the Youtube video comments:
"I was part of the team that developed and certified the Century 2000 Autopilot system and I could not have explained its functions any better myself. Excellent job as usual Juan.Over my many years working for the manufacture of this autopilot, I had many opportunities to train pilots on its use. I won't say I've seen it all but certainly too much.
I have also been involved in accident investigations involving other autopilots models from the same manufacturer. In those cases, the root cause was autopilot miss management as well. I think you are right on track to suspect some sort of mis-trimmed situation that precipitated this accident. And, in my opinion, its not the actual mis-trimmed control forces that can't be overcome as much as the extreme distraction and confusion such a situation causes. I believe pilots misdiagnose the problem as "I can't disengage the autopilot" when in reality the autopilot is disengaged. The remaining high control forces from an out of trim aircraft causing them to put all their efforts into finding a way to disengage the autopilot, which is of course fruitless at best and fatal at worst.
During STC certification flights, trim runaway analysis requires placing the plane in power dives with as much as 60 lbs of back pressure on the controls to maintain redline. Yes, I said back pressure. Surviving those test took lots of planning, preparation and mental fortitude. So its not hard to understand how a moderately to severely miss trimmed situation could go wrong in a hurry for a low time pilot, or most pilots in IMC conditions. The irony of this accident is that this version of the Century 2000 didn't have electric trim, as you so accurately explained. So if miss trimming was a contributing factor, it had to have been mis-trimmed by the pilot, manually"
Here is an interesting quote from the Youtube video comments:
"I was part of the team that developed and certified the Century 2000 Autopilot system and I could not have explained its functions any better myself. Excellent job as usual Juan.Over my many years working for the manufacture of this autopilot, I had many opportunities to train pilots on its use. I won't say I've seen it all but certainly too much.
I have also been involved in accident investigations involving other autopilots models from the same manufacturer. In those cases, the root cause was autopilot miss management as well. I think you are right on track to suspect some sort of mis-trimmed situation that precipitated this accident. And, in my opinion, its not the actual mis-trimmed control forces that can't be overcome as much as the extreme distraction and confusion such a situation causes. I believe pilots misdiagnose the problem as "I can't disengage the autopilot" when in reality the autopilot is disengaged. The remaining high control forces from an out of trim aircraft causing them to put all their efforts into finding a way to disengage the autopilot, which is of course fruitless at best and fatal at worst.
During STC certification flights, trim runaway analysis requires placing the plane in power dives with as much as 60 lbs of back pressure on the controls to maintain redline. Yes, I said back pressure. Surviving those test took lots of planning, preparation and mental fortitude. So its not hard to understand how a moderately to severely miss trimmed situation could go wrong in a hurry for a low time pilot, or most pilots in IMC conditions. The irony of this accident is that this version of the Century 2000 didn't have electric trim, as you so accurately explained. So if miss trimming was a contributing factor, it had to have been mis-trimmed by the pilot, manually"
Last edited by punkalouver; 14th Dec 2023 at 19:35.
Avoid imitations
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Besides the fact there are some mistakes and things that could have been improved, IMHO i do not agree some comments on this YT link advocating 400 hours are quite few.
Back in the middle 90's, half of my CPL class here on EU vast lands started doing TGL's circuits on the L-1011 on the right hand seat right after finishing it with some 170 hours TT.
All of us succeeded till this very day, except me due disease needed to remain on the ground since 2012 unfortunately.
May she rest in Peace <3
Back in the middle 90's, half of my CPL class here on EU vast lands started doing TGL's circuits on the L-1011 on the right hand seat right after finishing it with some 170 hours TT.
All of us succeeded till this very day, except me due disease needed to remain on the ground since 2012 unfortunately.
May she rest in Peace <3
Back in the middle 90's, half of my CPL class here on EU vast lands started doing TGL's circuits on the L-1011 on the right hand seat right after finishing it with some 170 hours TT.
Despite the excellent makeup making her look younger she was actually 45. Thats not old but it's not like most pilots who start young when you are more alert and learn more quickly.
I have watched several of her videos now and her situational awareness was never there. She couldn't multitask. She always depended on the passenger helping. Someone blamed this on these being woke times. I very much doubt she was a lefty. More a case of women getting independently wealthy like the rich doctors this plane was killing back in the '60s. She was focused on the gear and not the fundamentals.
I have watched several of her videos now and her situational awareness was never there. She couldn't multitask. She always depended on the passenger helping. Someone blamed this on these being woke times. I very much doubt she was a lefty. More a case of women getting independently wealthy like the rich doctors this plane was killing back in the '60s. She was focused on the gear and not the fundamentals.
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... an industry that has never been as safe ...
Sad. But true.
how do you see the fact that some people are wearing beards is going to lead to a rise in accidents Trossie?
An example of that though it's not aviation are the Iranian soldiers during Iran Iraq war. Masks couldn't protect them from chemical weapons cause beards allowed toxic air enter the mask.
I am pretty sure that a report of a future accident will include it.
I think that I am not the only one who thought that, still no one is bothered to enforce regulations
And of course the oxygen leak cause of hairs in case of cabin pressure loss
Oxygen masks are designed to seal with the skin. In case of toxic smoke in the cockpit beard hairs won't allow this sealing.
SFU STUDY BUSTS MYTH ABOUT FACIAL HAIR ON PILOTS
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Even Lufthansa, who are known nitpickers with regard to these things, have discarded their "no beards"-policy more than two decades ago.
And regarding the topic: One is not supposed to talk badly about deceased persons, but after watching a couple of her latest videos - partly in fast-forward-mode to be honest - I really wonder what she did in the cockpit during those (alleged) 400 hours of flying. If she had come to me for her instrument training I would have done everything that I can to persuade her to go boating or horse-riding instead of instrument flying. All her instructors who were not brave enough to tell her that share some responsabilty in the sad outcome.
And regarding the topic: One is not supposed to talk badly about deceased persons, but after watching a couple of her latest videos - partly in fast-forward-mode to be honest - I really wonder what she did in the cockpit during those (alleged) 400 hours of flying. If she had come to me for her instrument training I would have done everything that I can to persuade her to go boating or horse-riding instead of instrument flying. All her instructors who were not brave enough to tell her that share some responsabilty in the sad outcome.
The Royal Navy has had fighter pilots with beards, wearing oxygen masks in fighter cockpits, since WW2 to my certain knowledge. I've never heard of it causing a safety hazard.
Personally I think that some 2000+ years after the razor was invented, a smooth chin remains smart and preferable, and I have no desire to ever grow this sort of face fungus. But, that's a matter of personal aesthetic - I know of no sound safety reason a pilot needs to be cleanshaven.
Knowing all of the onboard systems, and having proper trimming discipline on the other hand - essential.
G
Personally I think that some 2000+ years after the razor was invented, a smooth chin remains smart and preferable, and I have no desire to ever grow this sort of face fungus. But, that's a matter of personal aesthetic - I know of no sound safety reason a pilot needs to be cleanshaven.
Knowing all of the onboard systems, and having proper trimming discipline on the other hand - essential.
G
Were I critiquing this accident giving a training session to instructors after watching this film my perspective in back engineering this woman's troubles would be geared more toward the macro than the micro involved with how this unfortunate incident ended.
When these things happen it's always a temptation to get right into the minutia seeking to find something in the details that we can then assign as either part of or directly to as the cause.
Quite frankly, in this film I see a great deal of concentration on the autopilot and its associated functions as a major issue involved with this accident. All this might be true but as instructors we should be looking deeper into what we are witnessing on our monitors.
After a lifetime spent analyzing aircraft safety and accident detail what I saw watching this film disturbed me as almost immediately I became aware that there was more to learn from this accident than the mistakes being made with the autopilot.
First of all, I am not now nor have I ever been a huge fan of allowing ANY third party activity in the cockpit while a dual session is active. This includes additional passengers in the plane and most certainly allowing the student to be filming the session with intent to publish the film on the internet.
With these factors in play there is no way to totally eliminate them as distractions. I won't delve deeply into the psychology involved here as it's quite complex and frankly beyond the intended scope of this post.
What I will say is that ANY activity not directly involved with the interface between instructor, student, and the aircraft contains huge potential to split the concentration of the student between several sources and this is NOT conducive to quality flight instruction.
In this film we see an instructor with a student who is having trouble understanding the functions of the autopilot. It is right here we see the need to examine the micos further.
Lesson plans need to be flexible and instructors need to be flexible. The instant while in flight the instructor notices that a student lacks working knowledge of a system that is a critical factor in the dual being given the instructor MUST depart from the lesson plan and solve that issue by a switch into remedial education to solve that missing factor in the equation.
If something of value can be taken from this unfortunate incident it has involve instructors taking a serious look at the instructor's role in this and what could have been done differently in how this student was handled from the very beginning.
Dudley Henriques
When these things happen it's always a temptation to get right into the minutia seeking to find something in the details that we can then assign as either part of or directly to as the cause.
Quite frankly, in this film I see a great deal of concentration on the autopilot and its associated functions as a major issue involved with this accident. All this might be true but as instructors we should be looking deeper into what we are witnessing on our monitors.
After a lifetime spent analyzing aircraft safety and accident detail what I saw watching this film disturbed me as almost immediately I became aware that there was more to learn from this accident than the mistakes being made with the autopilot.
First of all, I am not now nor have I ever been a huge fan of allowing ANY third party activity in the cockpit while a dual session is active. This includes additional passengers in the plane and most certainly allowing the student to be filming the session with intent to publish the film on the internet.
With these factors in play there is no way to totally eliminate them as distractions. I won't delve deeply into the psychology involved here as it's quite complex and frankly beyond the intended scope of this post.
What I will say is that ANY activity not directly involved with the interface between instructor, student, and the aircraft contains huge potential to split the concentration of the student between several sources and this is NOT conducive to quality flight instruction.
In this film we see an instructor with a student who is having trouble understanding the functions of the autopilot. It is right here we see the need to examine the micos further.
Lesson plans need to be flexible and instructors need to be flexible. The instant while in flight the instructor notices that a student lacks working knowledge of a system that is a critical factor in the dual being given the instructor MUST depart from the lesson plan and solve that issue by a switch into remedial education to solve that missing factor in the equation.
If something of value can be taken from this unfortunate incident it has involve instructors taking a serious look at the instructor's role in this and what could have been done differently in how this student was handled from the very beginning.
Dudley Henriques