Originally Posted by
jonkster
Read the report
https://www.aopa.org/asf/ntsb/narrat...20080222X00232
The aircraft was not fitted with an AI or DI.
It did have a venturi powered T&B.
Forecast was a 70% chance icing at 2000' amsl.
Terrain along the track was around 2000' amsl.
He was unfamiliar with the aircraft having just purchased it that morning (and which for what it is worth had done 2.6 hours since last annual and that had expired ).
He had received 3 weather briefings that morning, all indicating IFR conditions along his route. He departed anyway in an aircraft he had just purchased, that had barely flown in 12 months, that had no AI or DI, had a venturi powered T&B, in forecast icing conditions with vis below VMC in mist and rain, a cloud base forecast to be 600' AGL, for a long, multistage cross country flight to make a family get together later that day.
He ended up in cloud and soon after impacted the ground.
Poor bastard but I don't care how many hours he had - that to me is really bad judgement and was an accident all set up to happen.
Do you really believe the most likely cause of that accident is unexpected turbulence from a wind farm? Sorry smells like a textbook loss of control in IMC accident to me.
I guess the idea of wind tower turbulence is so new to some that it just don't register as a possibility.
What we have seen demonstrated from the fog clearance photos posted earlier in this thread is the way wind tower turbulence splays out and affects the air above and below the actual tower rotor disc area i.e., cleared the fog. The effects are also mentioned in the research done in relation to the 'fog photos'. I would put that as evidenced by the fog photos that there is a high possibility of the wind turbine rotor turbulence 'lifting' the cloud base down wind of the turbine. Thus allowing a pilot to do figure 8 orbits whilst reprogramming a GPS. I would suggest that if a pilot were forced onto a basic T+B they would be more likely to fly away on a direct heading after doing the initial visual wind tower clearing 90º turn rather then doing figure 8's on the T+B.
The problem with the down wind of wind tower reference is the report places the accident roughly upwind of the nearest towers. Except, (using the GPS lat/long provided) there is a further larger number of wind turbines just roughly north and west of the accident site.
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