Cessna 172 Accident in Colorado in 2022
 

This accident occurred on September 11th last year. Two pilots flew extremely low over boats on a lake and then flew up a ravine but were unable to do a 180 or climb over the rising terrain. They crashed causing severe damage to the aircraft and minor injuries to themselves.

A couple of photos taken before the accident.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....03ee322ed.jpeg

The pilot's report of how the accident happened is a must read! See below

https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket/Documen...dacted-Rel.pdf

If the elevator on the C172 was really jammed it seems unlikely that the movement of the relatively small trim tab would have any significant aerodynamic effect. I guess the accident investigators should be able to determine whether there was any pre-accident control obstruction…

Pilot Charged After Allegedly Buzzing Boats, Then Crashing...

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/...MailingID=1212

If the controls were really jammed,then you can try using `reverse trim tab`,and full power; also,his passenger could ,with a bit of difficulty,climb into the rear cabin,baggage area,to change the CofG to further aft.....

The pilot tells an entertaining story. Presuming he was qualified on the 172, he would have read the POH, which (page 3-10 for the 172M) provides a procedure for "Landing without elevator control". As I said... an entertaining story!

He says here on page 3 of his report that "I was using full power but the terrain was climbing faster than the aircraft", but shortly before that it seemed that they couldn't climb at all. Obviously, his story was all BS & they were extremely lucky not to have been killed (or killed someone else) with their behaviour.

Perhaps they had just watched the latest Top Gun...

Of note, a long-term drought has left Horsetooth Reservoir 32 feet (9.8m) below normal level. If it had been full.........

An aviation writer flew under a bridge. No complaints from people on the ground, but security cameras caught her registration. It took the FAA about a year to revoke her license, allegedly for turning off her transponder while in the river valley (Lawyers can't hack physics or trig and have trouble understanding that ATC radar can't see through terrain).

The story reminds me of an individual who ditched a Robin in a Yorkshire river after "suffering an engine failure" a few years ago. My recollection of the AAIB report is a certain incredulity could be read between the lines - they didn't believe him, evidence to the contrary was slim but they were pretty certain he'd been water-skiing. Same guy flew a PA-28 into a Swiss mountainside in rubbish weather a couple of years later.

A long time ago, a historic club that I used to rent aircraft from lost a Cessna 150 when a young private pilot decided to buzz his parents in a boat on a nearby river. They rescued him.

Care to elaborate? I'm having trouble visualising it.

My spelling error.

"a young private pilot decided to buzz his parents in a boat on a nearby river."

Watched an idiot in a 150 buzzing yachts at mast height off two tree island in the Thames estuary…phoned up southend airport tower and asked for the flying club telephone number but was given some bullsh@t by the controller. So asked for his license number as I would contact the CAA. Got through to the CFI and presume said idiot got a rollicking.
For those who haven’t flown a seaplane it is extremely difficult to judge height over smooth water surface.
Done my fair share of being a yob but don’t do it where there is a significant chance of getting caught.

Ah yes - Sipan Osman. An eye witness stated previous occasions where the Robin 2160 had made low passes down the River Derwent. The PA-28 accident report was a chilling read.. nasty business.

As for the 172 jammed elevator story... very Jeffery Archer! I suspect the pilot's school homework was delayed due to abduction by Nuns etc!

NUNS Now you are talking..took my then BEA hostess girlfriend to SOHO to see a film called ain’t misbehaving with music by Fats..featured Victorian silent porn film including a few nuns..them were the days.

I rather suspect you missed pilotmike's humour, your fix repairs the misspelling of 'buzz' but still does nothing for the grammar/sentence construction.

Your original statement read something like 'the young pilot was using a boat to buss [sic] his parent', which I found quite funny... presently the young pilot is buzzing along in a boat with his parents, which is slightly better I guess, but probably not what you intended! :}

FP.

FP. Been reading Punkalouver for near 20 years. He's an addition to read and ponder. Don't know you. You're wasting bandwidth. ​​​​​​​rgds. Conc​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Okay, okay... you caught a grammar error... Good eye, none of us is perfect. Let's get back to the topic at hand:

Consider, before you do something in a plane: "How will the explanation of doing this sound later, when I have to wrote a report about it?" Then maybe rethink what you're about to do, and just fly normally instead!

er, quite. :)

Perhaps our sense of humour is different in the southern hemisphere. To avoid any misconception my comment wasn't an attack on punkalouver, far from it, down here if someone said something similar in a group discussion and someone else pointed it out we'd all have a good laugh and no-one would think worse of anyone else. Being more than a little imperfect I've been at both ends of that, and probably will be again, all in good jest.

Anyway, as PilotDAR suggests, back to the subject in hand; I was surprised to read a redacted statement that included the pilot's name, and that of his relative. I don't recall that in recent times, although it was de rigueur a few years back, I wonder if it's the publishers subtle way of making comment on the story therein?

That said, as much as it might seem improbable, until any investigation concludes I guess we can't be certain while they may have been doing stupid things before, the controls really did jam at a critical moment and they crashed as a result of that, rather than anything else. Sadly that happened here; a good man who'd been doing aero's in his 'plane dislodged a 7/16" spanner that had been laying about the fuselage post maintenance, said spanner then jammed up the controls with fatal results. It does happen :(

FP.