Cirrus SR22 down in N.E. Ohio - 2 dead

[kenhughes]

From Fox 8 News, Cleveland: (http://www.fox8.com/wjw-planecrash-txt,0,2856687.story)


MAYFIELD VILLAGE, Ohio - A single-engine plane crashed Tuesday afternoon in Mayfield Village east of Cuyahoga County Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The plane went down just after taking off, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.

Cuyahoga County Coroner Dr. Frank P. Miller tells Fox 8 News two adults perished in the crash.

The plane went down in a wooded area behind the parking lot of St. Bartholomew Episcopol Church and near the North Chagrin Reservation of Cleveland Metroparks.



Not many details at this time - the incident happened around 5pm EDT Tuesday. Weather was wet with cloudbase around 700ft. The aircraft was leaving KCGF - Cuyahoga County Airport, OH - for KBUF - Buffalo, NY.

This is the second light-aircraft to go down in the area this week. A single-engine home-build crashed on Saturday afternoon, killing the solo pilot.

[CantWait2Navigate]

From some of the news articles I have been reading, it would appear the pilot was not instrument rated, nor did he file an any flight plan, and as you mentioned the ceiling was about 700 feet. Actually, I flew in to CLE about an hour before the crash and the ceiling was more like 200 feet. I hope that I am wrong, because otherwise this was just plain stupidity resulting in the death (or murder) of a passenger who was probably completely oblivious to what he was getting himself in to.

[007helicopter]

More bad news for the cirrus community, this is fatality number 51

Prelimanary report here, note the weather.

************************************************************ ********************
** Report created 4/29/2009 Record 1 **
************************************************************ ********************

IDENTIFICATION
Regis#: 504MD Make/Model: SR22 Description: SR-22
Date: 04/28/2009 Time: 2016

Event Type: Accident Highest Injury: Fatal Mid Air: N Missing: N
Damage: Unknown

LOCATION
City: MAYFIELD State: OH Country: US

DESCRIPTION
AIRCRAFT CRASHED UNDER UNKNOWN CIRCUMSTANCES, THE TWO PERSONS ON BOARD WERE
FATALLY INJURED, MAYFIELD, OH

INJURY DATA Total Fatal: 2
# Crew: 2 Fat: 2 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:
# Pass: 0 Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:
# Grnd: Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:

WEATHER: SPECI 2014 010/08 4SM -RA BR OVC002 07/06 A3038

OTHER DATA
Activity: Unknown Phase: Unknown Operation: OTHER

[kenhughes]

The weather certainly was not VMC yesterday afternoon - though could have been if they flew in to CGF yesterday morning, (IIRC, the clouds came over around 10am local). I had assumed (dangerous, I know), that they were flying IFR.

From the local newspaper website:

The two men who died in the plane crash Tuesday in Mayfield Village have been identified as attorneys from the Buffalo, N.Y. area.

Michael H. Doran was a partner at Doran and Murphy LLP and Matthew J. Schnirel was a young associate attorney, according to Colleen Murphy, Doran’s law partner.

Doran and Schnirel had been in Ohio to represent railroad workers during a case, said Michael Torcello, who also worked at Doran & Murphy.

Doran was the likely pilot of the Cirrus SR-22 that crashed near the Hickory Drive neighborhood in Mayfield Village. He was an experienced pilot who had been flying since 1996.

The National Transportation Safety Board and Ohio Highway Patrol have not confirmed that Doran and Schnirel are the decedents yet.

A Ohio State Police captain said on the news last night that they were "trying to locate the tail to get the number of the aircraft so that we can determine where it was coming from and going to". There wasn't much left of the aircraft from the few pictures that are on the Fox News site.

[Aviationlaw]

Here is another crash of a Cirrus which in all liklihood will be attributed to pilot error along with all the others. How many more will there be before someone at the FAA focuses on the real problem? This is a bad plane and no matter how many flight control fixes they patch work onto it ..this will always be a bad plane with a poorly designed flight control system.

[soay]

Here is another crash of a Cirrus which in all liklihood will be attributed to pilot error along with all the others. How many more will there be before someone at the FAA focuses on the real problem? This is a bad plane and no matter how many flight control fixes they patch work onto it ..this will always be a bad plane with a poorly designed flight control system.
I don't think you've grasped the concept of pilot error. Taking off into mist, with a cloud base at 200 ft, is not the fault of the plane.

[vanHorck]

except the plane would be less forgiving after such a stupidity than a PA28 or similar

[Fuji Abound]

except the plane would be less forgiving after such a stupidity than a PA28 or similar

Goodness are we moving once again into the realms of tabloid journalism - I shall look forward to your justifying such a sweeping statement.

Aside from the flying qualities, an aspect on which we are doubtless about to be enlightened, I would have thought the air bags in the belts, the energy absorbing design features of the cockpit, the carbon re-enforcing frame and egress from doors both sides all contribute to improve your chances of surviving a crash compared with a PA28.

Just a thought. :)

[vanHorck]

Oops, don't get upset....

Clearly these features have a limited effect (which are no doubt much appreciated during a forced landing,) during an outright crash of (what I understand to be!) a plane in IMC just after take off flown by a non IFR qualified pilot.

So my OPINION is that if the plane has control issues which more old fashioned designs have not, it is even less wise to take off as a non IFR qualified pilot in IMC condition in this plane.

Perhaps such safety features give a false sense of safety (I refer to comments made recently during the Greece crash)

[L'aviateur]

The more advanced aircraft you progress to, often the less forgiving it is. Hence why you need experience and training to progress, usually that would include knowing when to decide whether to go or not to go.

[Fuji Abound]

Oops, don't get upset....


Dont worry, it takes much more than that to remotely upset me. :) I was only spicing up my response.

.. .. .. never the less

I am still intrigued to know more of these control issues that concern you.

I have flown a few types including having a few hours on the 22. I am yet to discover the issues you have in mind but always keen to learn.

[soay]

The main concern I have with the Cirrus design is the lack of protection for the fuel tanks in the wings. I don't think their accident rate per hours flown is out of the norm, but the incidence of post impact fires is. (10 out of 26 of the Cirrus fatal crashes in the US, up to the end of 2007. This compares with 3 out of 162 for the C172.) However, I have no data on whether the crashes in the NTSB database (http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp) that resulted in fires were otherwise survivable.

[vanHorck]

Hi Fuji!

AviationLaw is the one to ask.

He was refering to "constant fixes of the flight controls". It suggests trouble, trouble which I am not personally aware of, being a true Piper man.

Glad you were not upset, we keep on rocking (wings included)

Bert

[soay]

Cirrus had several goes at fixing a potentially dangerous problem with the bungee chord interconnecting the ailerons with the rudder, so that might be what AviationLaw was alluding to. (Why does that sound like the username of an ambulance chaser?) Anyway, N504MD was first registered in 2008, which makes it an SR22 G3. The rudder/aileron interconnect was eliminated in that model, so it's a red herring.

[IO540]

I have a negligible flight experience in a Cirrus but so far as I know there isn't anything actually wrong with the type.

The slightly "elevated" accident profile seems to be caused by Cirrus having marketed the type at non-anorak types, without a supporting training/regulatory framework to enforce any kind of

- type specific training;

- for pilots flying IFR (legally or otherwise), some decent training on weather appreciation appropriate to planes which are not exactly de-iced tanks with radar

The Cirrus marketing strategy was essential if anybody was going to make any progress in GA and shift anything remotely innovative into a market which is highly conservative and borders on totally stagnant.

The downside is that Cirrus attracted more than their fair share of pilots who incorrectly (some would say "arrogantly" but there is a high correlation between ebullience and the ability to shell out $500k, so the difference is only in the training or lack of training) think the plane is a car which can go anywhere.

I much prefer my TB20GT for various reasons but I am sure that if Socata had done "Cirrus marketing" they would have ended up with the same accident profile. Fewer fires perhaps but a CFIT kills nearly every time so the difference is only in how much material is left over to go into the body bag. In fact, Socata's marketing was crap, even in the USA, so they ended up being flown mostly by picky fussy and often slightly weird anorak types who probably know more about light aircraft ops than Cirrus owners.

[englishal]

Demographics of a *typical* Cirrus owner when cirrus first came on the scene was probably the Agelina Jolie and Brad Pitt types - lots of money, little experience - though giver her her due she did her IR/CPL in a PA28 (in the same aeroplane as me ;) ).....Aeroplanes in the States are a good tax dodge too, and I know of people who buy very expensive aeroplanes, rarely fly them, because the tax man ends up paying for them. Of course to do this you have to be loaded / have a business making so much money and paying so much tax......

[IO540]

Does the US IRS really have a more lax attitude to benefit in kind?

My understanding is that a lot of people out there have bought planes for leaseback to a school, and it is the aggressive writedown of the purchase cost against their personal taxes which is why they do it.

This worked for many years, because new prices kept rising so fast (10-20% a year in 2000-2002) and this propped up the used values.

Now the bottom has fallen out of the market, especially on plastic planes, so I don't see the benefit of a leaseback anymore. The tax saving would be wiped out by the real depreciation.

One can do that in the UK too, and it would be a waste of money for the same reasons.

In the UK, the only time a leaseback would not draw HMRC attention is if you were not at all interested in flying. The moment you show the slightest interest in flying that plane, they will be attracted like flies to a lump of **** :) and then you have all the crap to do with benefit in kind. Maybe the USA has subtly different rules there?

[OFBSLF]

Here is another crash of a Cirrus which in all liklihood will be attributed to pilot error along with all the others. How many more will there be before someone at the FAA focuses on the real problem? This is a bad plane and no matter how many flight control fixes they patch work onto it ..this will always be a bad plane with a poorly designed flight control system.
The crash just occurred, the NTSB inquiry has barely begun, weather was poor, but you have already determined that the crash was due to a design defect? :ugh:

[vanHorck]

OFBSLF

Not quite.... the tendency seems to concentrate on a non IR rated pilot taking off into a 200ft cloudbase..... At best design issues according to some could be a contributory factor

[mm_flynn]

Does the US IRS really have a more lax attitude to benefit in kind?US Tax law is more rational, stable and less vindictive, but also much more encompassing. The benefit you receive (i.e. market value of actual use less amount paid) is taxable, the fact you 'could have used the aircraft 24/7' doesn't matter vs. the UK where you have a BIK of say 35% of the purchase price (less any real rental) each year. (Simplified opinion, Lots more details ..... back to the thread.....)

[OFBSLF]

Not quite.... the tendency seems to concentrate on a non IR rated pilot taking off into a 200ft cloudbase..... At best design issues according to some could be a contributory factor

How do we know he was non-IR rated, other than just a post here on pprune? Has there been a statement to that affect by FAA and/or NTSB? If that is confirmed, yes that would appear to be the proximate cause. But I haven't seen any confirmation of that.

I have found the mainstream media to almost always make a total mess of anything remotely technical, so unless there is something more substantial than:

from some of the news articles I have been reading, it would appear the pilot was not instrument rated,

I would suggest that the jury is still out as to whether he was instrument rated or not.

[IO540]

Fortunately, unlike the UK/Europe where all kinds of "claims" regarding "qualifications" are "possible" ;) you can check the bona fides of any U.S. pilot in a minute or two using faa.gov.

[OFBSLF]

I take it you have already done so and the pilot in question does not have an IFR rating?

[soay]

According to this obituary (http://www.buffalonews.com/obituaries/story/657659.html), the pilot, Michael H. Doran, was a Federal Aviation Administration-certified pilot, holding a multiengine instrument rating, and had many years of flying experience.

[stepwilk]

So he was instrument-rated yet didn't bother to file? Stunning. Hell, I file IFR when it's severe clear.

[BeechNut]

So he was instrument-rated yet didn't bother to file? Stunning. Hell, I file IFR when it's severe clear.

He may have been "rated". But that doesn't mean he was current.

Beech

[Frank Hadad]

I find it truly disheartening that we are so quick to make ANY determination regarding this accident, even though we consider ourselves “professionals”. It’s so sad to see the ignorant posts about Michael Doran NOT being Instrument rated or perhaps not current. I happened to know Mr. Doran and he WAS Instrument Rated and he WAS current. He was also Multi-engine rated as the last few posts have indicated. The sad thing is that the people posting the early threads didn’t even bother to do the 3 minutes worth of research to find out Mr. Doran was indeed IFR Rated. Sure, there was 200ft overcast, but that's not really a big deal. In the North East we fly in these conditions constantly and as long as there aren’t thunderous activities in the vicinity, it’s just IFR folks. It’s what we’re trained for. IFR is IFR and if we're in the soup starting 200 or 2000 feet… what's the difference? Why don’t we allow the NTSB Accident Investigators to do their jobs, and stop trying to guess what happened and write completely made-up stories and theories? This goes the same for blaming Cirrus, let the NTSB do their job and worry about your own safety for now... meanwhile, respect the fact that 2 young Men lost their lives and have grieving loved ones mourning their loss. For the post about the “murder”, shame on you CantWait2Navigate… shame on you.

[soay]

In the North East we fly in these conditions constantly and as long as there aren’t thunderous activities in the vicinity, it’s just IFR folks. It’s what we’re trained for. IFR is IFR and if we're in the soup starting 200 or 2000 feet… what's the difference?
The difference is the risk of an unfavourable outcome, if there's a problem such as an engine failure. Just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should, especially in a single engined aeroplane, but it depends on how risk averse you are. There is some evidence that seat belts and air bags in cars lead to more risk taking by drivers, so it's possible that glass cockpits and airframe parachutes have the same effect on some pilots. This is an area that's ripe for research.

[Riverboat]

Having flown the Cirrus SR22 a fair number of hours (maybe 100) in all weathers (I hold an IR), to various places in Europe, I feel that it is a very fine aircraft. OK, it is a bit different, but more importantly, it is not a simple aircraft and not ideally suitable for a less than average pilot. And even an average pilot will need to get used to it. The sidestick control is initially quite jerky, and I can see that it would be easy to quickly lose control if entering cloud unexpectedly or without the autopilot being in. The rate of roll is quick and it is not always easy to recognise.

And then there is the questions of whether to use the autopilot or not. An inexperienced pilot really should only use the autopilot in good VMC, because the autopilot is quite sophisticated and unless you really know what you are doing, it could catch the inexperienced out, and that could cause real problems if one is not in VMC.

Having said that, I still think it is a fine aircraft, but an advanced one. The Spitfire is a fine aircraft, too, but everyone knows that it's advanced and you have to be a decent pilot to fly it. The same goes for the Cirrus, but in a lesser way.

[paulp]

I find the SR22 quick on the controls which is fun in VFR but a bit touchy in IMC. Trim is sensitive too. Control feel is a little "remote" feeling due to the spring centering. I find the avionics easy to use once you master the Garmin 430. I have no time in Perspective. Like any high performance plane things happen quickly compared to a 172. There seems to be a lot of SR22 accidents but if you compare the number of accidents to the planes in the system on Flightaware it looks better than a BE35 or C/P210 and similar to a BE58, Mooney, BE36. In other words, when you look at fast general aviation trip planes it looks like most others as far as accidents.

What will be interesting on this accident is if the flight data recorder is recovered. I think this was a late 2008 plane apparently purchased in the Oct/Nov time frame with the pilot having joined the Cirrus owners' group in November. That means the plane should have the new data recorder in the tail. It also means that time in type needs to be considered since he may have been new to the SR22.

It appears there was a Flightaware track so I suspect this was an IFR flight with a flightplan. As best I can tell there is no obvious indicator of either a pilot issue or a plane issue. Conditions were challenging but that is what you get a plane like this for and he was an experienced pilot if perhaps (unknown) low in SR22 time.

Paul

[Fuji Abound]

The rate of roll is quick and it is not always easy to recognise.

How were you expecting to recognise it?

[Riverboat]

Well, I feel that the only way to recognise it is by looking at the HSI. There is no real "feel" to a roll like there is in some aircraft. I fly a few types and the SR22 is more likely to give me 30 degrees of bank without my sensing it than any other aircraft I fly.

I just think the SR22 deserves the description of "being slippery". But a decent pilot will be able to master it and then it is a great aircraft. A bit like a thoroughbred racehorse: not everyone can ride one, but if you can. they're FAST!

RB

[IO540]

Well, I feel that the only way to recognise it is by looking at the HSI.

You mean the AI or the TC, presumably? Spotting a roll on the HSI is going to take a good while longer ;)

I just think the SR22 deserves the description of "being slippery". But a decent pilot will be able to master it and then it is a great aircraft. A bit like a thoroughbred racehorse: not everyone can ride one, but if you can. they're FAST!

I think this is being over-cooked. I fly a TB20 which is of similar performance to the SR22 and while it is obviously quicker than a C152, enroute the difference is meaningless other than one arrives 1/3 sooner.

I think the main difference between flying at 100kt and flying at 150kt is that in a 100kt plane you can arrive at the destination circuit and just join in, whereas if you are going at 150kt you need to slow down quite a bit, and you can't do that if you are descending at the same time, so one needs to think ahead a lot more in the arrival phase.

I fly a few types and the SR22 is more likely to give me 30 degrees of bank without my sensing it than any other aircraft I fly.

I think that may be because of the SR22 side sticks being easy to over-control. I have flown in an SR22 once or twice and found it pretty difficult to control the roll as precisely as one can easily do with a yoke. One needs to use the aileron trim a lot and I think most pilots just use the autopilot the whole time. I prefer the yoke but the side stick is clearly a better long range touring setup than a centre stick.

[Fuji Abound]

You mean the AI or the TC, presumably? Spotting a roll on the HSI is going to take a good while longer


Hmm, the original comment made me wonder, and the response confirmed my concern.


I think this is being over-cooked.


It depends.

In the approach phase the 22 takes a lot more slowing down compard with most types and even the majority of twins where the U/C can be dumped to get rid of energy. In the 22 the flap limiting speed is reasonably high and it is easy to end up hot and high.


I fly a few types and the SR22 is more likely to give me 30 degrees of bank without my sensing it than any other aircraft I fly.


Hmm, what that is all about I have no idea. How big do you want the AI or, even the screen to be. :confused:


being easy to over-control.


I understand your comment, but if anything I find the opposite. On one particulary turbulent crosswind approach in conditions I found quite unpleasant I found I didnt have enough aileron authority never mind enough to over control. Too many hours on more aerobatic aircraft perhaps.

[007helicopter]

Worth starting a Cirrus handling Thread ?

As far as this accident in Ohio there are no facts yet to confirm if Pilot error or somthing else, the vast majority of Cirrus accidents from the 53 fatals can be directly linked to Pilot error, in my opinion there is not a lot wrong with the aircraft or instruments.

The missions Cirrus are capable of and the relative automation combined with the perceived security CAPS gives may well lead some into situations they can not handle.

Without thread drifting to far ,the Lidle NYC accident is still going through the legal process despite the NTSB saying Pilot Error.

Miles O'Brien - Uplinks - Lidle Lawsuit is Frivolous - True/Slant (http://trueslant.com/milesobrien/2009/05/14/lidle-lawsuit-is-frivolous/)

[kenhughes]

There is now an updated preliminary report on the NTSB website:

http://ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=CEN09FA267&rpt=p

The debate about IFR/VFR is resolved:

The flight was being conducted under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 on an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan. Instrument meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident.

But, as mentioned above, still no comment on the cause.