Light plane crash near Mt Gambier
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Don't know the original source of this but reproduced from the recreationalflying website:
"Mt Gambier Holden dealer Peter Roberts, who knew Mr Gilbert for 45 years, said he was “always having a crack” and his enthusiasm and passion would be sadly missed.
He said the former car dealer was “out there, passionate about the things in his life and always outspoken” during their lengthy relationship.
“He was certainly an icon in the car industry,” he said.
Mr Roberts said he had been worried when Mr Gilbert turned to flying in his 70s, but his long-time friend had shrugged it off.
“He said he was never too old. But without beating around the bush, I thought if he was ever going to go this is the way he’d go,” he said."
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I have a personal list of people, who when they die in an aircraft, I'm not going to be surprised about.
"Mt Gambier Holden dealer Peter Roberts, who knew Mr Gilbert for 45 years, said he was “always having a crack” and his enthusiasm and passion would be sadly missed.
He said the former car dealer was “out there, passionate about the things in his life and always outspoken” during their lengthy relationship.
“He was certainly an icon in the car industry,” he said.
Mr Roberts said he had been worried when Mr Gilbert turned to flying in his 70s, but his long-time friend had shrugged it off.
“He said he was never too old. But without beating around the bush, I thought if he was ever going to go this is the way he’d go,” he said."
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I have a personal list of people, who when they die in an aircraft, I'm not going to be surprised about.
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Nothing wrong with what your saying about spacial disorientation, however, we don't know if this is the case yet. personally I'm prepared to pay the benefit of the doubt at this point. Given he only just landed, unless there is a witness that can say I could hear it takeoff but I couldn't see it because of the fog, then we have to accept that he didn't, in which case carby icing would be my next choice in those conditions.
If he didn't notice the power degrade on takeoff, it would get worse he could have just simply descended into the fog in the south west corner, the outcome would be exactly the same. The evidence would melt away and we would never know.
Just thought I would offer an alternate sequence of events at this point
If he didn't notice the power degrade on takeoff, it would get worse he could have just simply descended into the fog in the south west corner, the outcome would be exactly the same. The evidence would melt away and we would never know.
Just thought I would offer an alternate sequence of events at this point
AND YES the airport WAS fogged in. Twenty minutes later it was clear. Why did the commercial flights not take off. Because it was too foggy for them.
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The reason we do it is because its a natural human factor. Its not so easy to change a plan once you're doing it, there's a level of annoyance if your'e compelled to.
For example your driving your car and come to a detour and complled to drive around side streets only to emerge 100 metres down the road, we do it because we are compelled to but there's a level of annoyance. That level of annoyance is dependant on how much inconvenience is involved.
Take the classic example, you are more than half way through painting the loungeroom wall when the other half comes in and says, oh no that isn't right, it needs to be darker. Your reaction isn't no problem luv, I'll just add some darker tint and start again. is it.
The reaction to a plan change once executed is dependent on the level of inconvenience and whether or not you are compelled to.
For example your driving your car and come to a detour and complled to drive around side streets only to emerge 100 metres down the road, we do it because we are compelled to but there's a level of annoyance. That level of annoyance is dependant on how much inconvenience is involved.
Take the classic example, you are more than half way through painting the loungeroom wall when the other half comes in and says, oh no that isn't right, it needs to be darker. Your reaction isn't no problem luv, I'll just add some darker tint and start again. is it.
The reaction to a plan change once executed is dependent on the level of inconvenience and whether or not you are compelled to.
I have a very good idea of what went wrong - but I am prepared to wait for the report from the ATSB.
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I cant believe Dick Lang on Chanel 7 last night crapping on about how AF needs better processes for vetting pilots blah blah blah.
If AF had to invest in training and checking and ensuring pilots meet minimum criteria higher than that already required, they wouldn't be able fund the service that they operate.
It is a volunteer organisation - that doesn't mean compromise on safety but it can't all of a sudden demand 1000 hour minimums with sim checks by an AF FI every year - who will pay for that? And will it actually ensure a higher level of pilot competency?
If AF had to invest in training and checking and ensuring pilots meet minimum criteria higher than that already required, they wouldn't be able fund the service that they operate.
It is a volunteer organisation - that doesn't mean compromise on safety but it can't all of a sudden demand 1000 hour minimums with sim checks by an AF FI every year - who will pay for that? And will it actually ensure a higher level of pilot competency?
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So since there seem to be several AF volunteers on here, I have a question. I have always been led to believe from all the ads on TV about Angelflight, that it was only for people who have long distances to travel for medical reasons & have no access to RPT flights. It would appear that this is not so, given that YMTG has RPT flights that this unfortunate girl & her mother could have gone on instead.
So, what is the criteria - or isn't there any?
DF.
So, what is the criteria - or isn't there any?
DF.
too. But I at seventy plus, all that travelling and 15 hours terribly emotional trips was slowly wearing me down. My daughter organised AF so save my health. Tracy was our only daughter and I wish I had died instead of those two beautiful human beings - "The world is a sadder place with their going"
Greifandpain, I feel your distress and I am sure all persons here feel the same way. No matter what is said, we are all terribly, terribly sorry for your loss and we all grieve with you.
Thread Starter
A reply from the father of TRACY- For Ten weeks I had been driving my daughter and grand daughter to Adelaide and back the same day, three times a week. My daughter was trying to save the life of here daughter who on that same day was going to be admitted to the eating disorder clinic. I would suggest all here go and research anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. I told our Tracy there is a 30% chance Emily was going to die of the mental illness, no matter what everybody was doing for Emily. "Dad, shes my daughter, I have to do this". Tracy was our daughter and I had to do this
too. But I at seventy plus, all that travelling and 15 hours terribly emotional trips was slowly wearing me down. My daughter organised AF so save my health. Tracy was our only daughter and I wish I had died instead of those two beautiful human beings - "The world is a sadder place with their going"
too. But I at seventy plus, all that travelling and 15 hours terribly emotional trips was slowly wearing me down. My daughter organised AF so save my health. Tracy was our only daughter and I wish I had died instead of those two beautiful human beings - "The world is a sadder place with their going"
DF.
Greifandpain, I am so sorry for your loss. I do know what anorexia nervosa & bulimia nervosa means. However my question was because I was trying to find out how Angelflight worked. I always thought it was only for people who didn't have access to RPT flights, because that is what the TV ads portray.
DF.
DF.
I'd also like to express condolences. I know the pain of loss of a loved one decades before their time. I've often thought about offering my services as a pilot to AF but in my view you should have a current CPL/MECIR to operate a reasonable level of certainty about being able to go when planned, in order to make the patient's specific appointments, and I don't. Not sure what capacity RFDS has. They certainly fly a lot of flights.
greifandpainforever - I/we feel your pain (and I for one don't mind if you vent a bit) but I would like to inform you in advance that the reports coming out these days are not very good. They try not to hurt any persons feelings alive or dead.
They don't have flight data recorders or cockpit voice recorders or I assume video footage of the exact time of the flight showing weather conditions. The wreckage also wont give much information is weather is the factor.
The long and short is ATSB will be reluctant to say what should be said as they don't have 100% proof and eyewitnesses can be called to any court cases later (as a result of the report) and be proven wrong then that makes a fool of the ATSB and they wont take that risk.
Just want you to be prepared in what may be a long time a very watered down ass covering report with little detail.
And very sorry for that - take good care of yourself mate and the ones around you.
They don't have flight data recorders or cockpit voice recorders or I assume video footage of the exact time of the flight showing weather conditions. The wreckage also wont give much information is weather is the factor.
The long and short is ATSB will be reluctant to say what should be said as they don't have 100% proof and eyewitnesses can be called to any court cases later (as a result of the report) and be proven wrong then that makes a fool of the ATSB and they wont take that risk.
Just want you to be prepared in what may be a long time a very watered down ass covering report with little detail.
And very sorry for that - take good care of yourself mate and the ones around you.
Now, what should be said when yer don't have proof ?...
.
Thread Starter
Thread Starter
Why on earth would you ask such a question on this website DF? It's not exactly renowned for its unbiased, unemotional objective comment you know.
Try the AF website if you're really serious about finding out how they operate, unless there is some agenda in your question of course.
https://www.angelflight.org.au
Try the AF website if you're really serious about finding out how they operate, unless there is some agenda in your question of course.
https://www.angelflight.org.au
DF.
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greifandpainforever - I/we feel your pain (and I for one don't mind if you vent a bit) but I would like to inform you in advance that the reports coming out these days are not very good. They try not to hurt any persons feelings alive or dead.
They don't have flight data recorders or cockpit voice recorders or I assume video footage of the exact time of the flight showing weather conditions. The wreckage also wont give much information is weather is the factor.
The long and short is ATSB will be reluctant to say what should be said as they don't have 100% proof and eyewitnesses can be called to any court cases later (as a result of the report) and be proven wrong then that makes a fool of the ATSB and they wont take that risk.
Just want you to be prepared in what may be a long time a very watered down ass covering report with little detail.
And very sorry for that - take good care of yourself mate and the ones around you.
They don't have flight data recorders or cockpit voice recorders or I assume video footage of the exact time of the flight showing weather conditions. The wreckage also wont give much information is weather is the factor.
The long and short is ATSB will be reluctant to say what should be said as they don't have 100% proof and eyewitnesses can be called to any court cases later (as a result of the report) and be proven wrong then that makes a fool of the ATSB and they wont take that risk.
Just want you to be prepared in what may be a long time a very watered down ass covering report with little detail.
And very sorry for that - take good care of yourself mate and the ones around you.
Result 2 innocent people who trusted pilot to look after them are dead.
Failing that a mechanical condition of plane or medical incident of the pilot, the cause will be "Spatial disorientation". Possibly combined with some situation that drew the pilot's attention away from instruments.
A very experienced pilot has difficulty in this situation but with training and experience has a very good expectation of only wetting his trousers.
An inexperience pilot just needs to keep the plane straight, get air speed, rotate, listen to engine sound and use instruments to keep wings level until aircraft clears fog bank. All relatively easy UNLESS something goes wrong - that is where experience and training come in to be very important.
Example: conditions induce carburetor icing, engine starts to loose power, vibration. Realization forgot heater. eyes off instruments, find heater control, possibly stall alarm, enrich fuel, loses 200 RPM due to carburetor de-icing, stall warning still sounding, lower the nose to keep up air speed. What the hell is going on!!!!! Start turn to airport. If stall alarm had stopped, the turn brings it back on. Where am I?? stall alarm should not be sounding, Iv'e put the nose down!!!! Looks to instruments it's all confusing!!! inside wing finally stalls, aircraft rolls over hits the ground at a 30% angle and flips. That is what happens without training and lack of experience with IFR will do. Dose that sound plausible. I flew gliders fifty years ago.
If the problem turns out to be medical or mechanical it all could possibly have been better handled by a pilot flying VFR instead of IFR.
The same pilot took his grand children on joy rides apparantly, I bet it was never in IFR conditions though.
The really sad thing is Twenty minutes later fog lifts completely to a clear sky.
Thank you for your kind words. Just so everybody knows. The AP was starting to fog in on the approach (see tracking) as pilot tries to find AP. Before the plane departs, fog set in fully. Commercial flight also at AP at the time prefers to stay on ground. AF takes off in IFR, eventually impacts terrain inverted and flips over.
Result 2 innocent people who trusted pilot to look after them are dead.
Failing that a mechanical condition of plane or medical incident of the pilot, the cause will be "Spatial disorientation". Possibly combined with some situation that drew the pilot's attention away from instruments.
A very experienced pilot has difficulty in this situation but with training and experience has a very good expectation of only wetting his trousers.
An inexperience pilot just needs to keep the plane straight, get air speed, rotate, listen to engine sound and use instruments to keep wings level until aircraft clears fog bank. All relatively easy UNLESS something goes wrong - that is where experience and training come in to be very important.
Example: conditions induce carburetor icing, engine starts to loose power, vibration. Realization forgot heater. eyes off instruments, find heater control, possibly stall alarm, enrich fuel, loses 200 RPM due to carburetor de-icing, stall warning still sounding, lower the nose to keep up air speed. What the hell is going on!!!!! Start turn to airport. If stall alarm had stopped, the turn brings it back on. Where am I?? stall alarm should not be sounding, Iv'e put the nose down!!!! Looks to instruments it's all confusing!!! inside wing finally stalls, aircraft rolls over hits the ground at a 30% angle and flips. That is what happens without training and lack of experience with IFR will do. Dose that sound plausible. I flew gliders fifty years ago.
If the problem turns out to be medical or mechanical it all could possibly have been better handled by a pilot flying VFR instead of IFR.
The same pilot took his grand children on joy rides apparantly, I bet it was never in IFR conditions though.
The really sad thing is Twenty minutes later fog lifts completely to a clear sky.
Result 2 innocent people who trusted pilot to look after them are dead.
Failing that a mechanical condition of plane or medical incident of the pilot, the cause will be "Spatial disorientation". Possibly combined with some situation that drew the pilot's attention away from instruments.
A very experienced pilot has difficulty in this situation but with training and experience has a very good expectation of only wetting his trousers.
An inexperience pilot just needs to keep the plane straight, get air speed, rotate, listen to engine sound and use instruments to keep wings level until aircraft clears fog bank. All relatively easy UNLESS something goes wrong - that is where experience and training come in to be very important.
Example: conditions induce carburetor icing, engine starts to loose power, vibration. Realization forgot heater. eyes off instruments, find heater control, possibly stall alarm, enrich fuel, loses 200 RPM due to carburetor de-icing, stall warning still sounding, lower the nose to keep up air speed. What the hell is going on!!!!! Start turn to airport. If stall alarm had stopped, the turn brings it back on. Where am I?? stall alarm should not be sounding, Iv'e put the nose down!!!! Looks to instruments it's all confusing!!! inside wing finally stalls, aircraft rolls over hits the ground at a 30% angle and flips. That is what happens without training and lack of experience with IFR will do. Dose that sound plausible. I flew gliders fifty years ago.
If the problem turns out to be medical or mechanical it all could possibly have been better handled by a pilot flying VFR instead of IFR.
The same pilot took his grand children on joy rides apparantly, I bet it was never in IFR conditions though.
The really sad thing is Twenty minutes later fog lifts completely to a clear sky.
But, as I understand it, the aircraft took off into a fog layer, which is different than departing IMC into cloud. The pilot had only recently landed, so he would have had an understanding of how high the fog extended. From the altitude the aircraft reached, it’s conceivable that he was through the fog layer. In which case it was not simple spatial disorientation. Even if you are not completely climbed through fog, vertically upward you can see sky and have a sense of the horizon. I would be surprised if the pilot didn’t have some sort of horizon at the high point of the flight.
With any sort of reasonable climb rate, one might have thought this aircraft would have climbed through the fog in maybe 45 seconds, by which time the aircraft is on its way in the same VMC conditions that the pilot arrived in only maybe 30 minutes earlier. I don’t know whether or not the aircraft had an autopilot, but a simple wing leveller would have made getting through a fog layer reasonably easy.
It not clear to me if there was a base under the fog. But it’s also possible the pilot was visual at 100 -200 ft AGL. In which case it would be conceivable that the pilot could get back to Mt Gambier safely - albeit illegally low.
Fog is odd stuff. It’s not homogenous and it’s not static. Maybe the pilot thought he was taking off during a temporary thinn8ng of the fog. I would expect that the ATSB will have a number of witnesses with experience ( ie pilots, met officers, etc) who will be interviewed on the conditions at the time.
In my opinion, this accident is more much more complex than a VFR pilot becoming disoriented in IMC.
This was a tragic accident that saddens me greatly. But, until the ATSB bring down their findings, I like to give the pilot credit for being more experienced than the vast majority of charter flight pilots and that he was ( if for no other reason than self preservation) making his best effort to conduct a a safe flight.
"This was a tragic accident that saddens me greatly. But, until the ATSB bring down their findings, I like to give the pilot credit for being more experienced than the vast majority of charter flight pilots and that he was ( if for no other reason than self preservation) making his best effort to conduct a a safe flight."
The pilot wasn't experienced nor did he have an Instrument Rating and previously had a fright, which should have been a lesson, but not so.
The pilot wasn't experienced nor did he have an Instrument Rating and previously had a fright, which should have been a lesson, but not so.
The pilot wasn't experienced nor did he have an Instrument Rating and previously had a fright, which should have been a lesson, but not so.
I have read nothing about a previous fright, so know nothing of it. And I'd suggest that unless you know this first hand from the deceased pilot, then you don't actually know either.
The flight was not required to be IFR. He had successfully from from Adelaide VFR. Whether or not the take-off was in VFR conditions is a key question that will be addressed by the ATSB. But I reckon that only people who were physically at Mt Gambier at the time know the answer.
But, I think the flight path raises questions about whether fog was the root cause. But until the ATSB report, this is all idle gossip.
I can understand the grief of the husband and father of the passengers. But I don't think its any more or any less than the grief of pilots family. The pilot didn't set out to harm anyone and he was duly qualified by CASA to be safe to conduct such a flight.
There is a lobby that says a Commercial Pilot would be safer. But, speaking as a commercial pilot, a CPL does not create pilots that are necessarily better or safer. The CPL licence is primarily to teach pilots to operate within the environment of working in an environment of commercial operators and operations manuals.
I think that pilots have an unfortunate tendency to be overly critical of other pilots that have accidents and that there is an air that we could have done better. Sometimes this is true, sometimes it is not. I think there are too many unknowns in this accident to pass judgement yet.
At least the CPL training provides experience in a wider field of operation and planning than a PPL. The CPL allows you to fly an aircraft for hire or reward, I'm at a loss to work out what the other definition stated means. Not too many CPLs are ending up in the news headlines at the moment but a lot of PPLs are.
The question is: Who has taken over LL’s PPRuNe account?
The real LL would know that a majority of the recently-reported serious accidents and incidents had CPLs or above at the controls. The real LL would know that plenty of PPLs have broader flight planning and actual operational experience than many CPLs. Finally, the real LL would know that there are a variety of operations that can be conducted, for hire and reward, that don’t require an AOC or CPL.
The real LL would know that a majority of the recently-reported serious accidents and incidents had CPLs or above at the controls. The real LL would know that plenty of PPLs have broader flight planning and actual operational experience than many CPLs. Finally, the real LL would know that there are a variety of operations that can be conducted, for hire and reward, that don’t require an AOC or CPL.
At least the CPL training provides experience in a wider field of operation and planning than a PPL.
I loved my CPL training. But in terms of flying skills, frankly I learned more from Mountain flying in NZ, VFR in haze in Thailand, Aerobatics in Australia and doing navs in aerobatic aircraft with no nav instruments. Most of the pilots whose skill and judgement I really admire hold a simple PPL.
The CPL allows you to fly an aircraft for hire or reward
You don't need a special licence to drive a car or truck for hire or reward. You don't need it for a boat. Why are aeroplanes so special? If the CASA flight training syllabus and BFR regime does not equip a pilot with all the skills required to be safe for this type of flight, then it should be fixed.
An Angel Flight accident is tragic and tear jerking and I find it as distressful as anyone. But quite frankly, the life of an Angel Flight passenger is worth no more and no less than that of one of my own kids. I think this goes for all Angel Flight pilots.
Not too many CPLs are ending up in the news headlines at the moment
A question that should be asked however, is why is there such a small proportion of the pilot population in Australia that have IFR ratings compared with the US ? Why does CASA make instrument ratings so difficult? How many lives would be saved if it was as cheap & easy to get and maintain an instrument rating in Australia as the USA?
You don't need a special licence to drive a car or truck for hire or reward. You don't need it for a boat. Why are aeroplanes so special? If the CASA flight training syllabus and BFR regime does not equip a pilot with all the skills required to be safe for this type of flight, then it should be