Young lady crashes on first solo x-country.
 

Billings teen recounts surviving plane crash in mountains near Amelia Earhart?s Wyoming cabin

Could have been a man or a woman.
Lucky young woman - that someone saw the crash, in such a remote spot.

In the video she spoke repeatedly of being supposed to "follow the water" as a navigation method, and in the newspaper article it is said "After leaving Greybull, Wyo., Morgan became disoriented and started flying in almost the opposite direction of where she needed to be going".

Perhaps she should be told what a compass looks like, although I guess that is a little judgemental on my part!

Some instruction in Situational Awareness may also be appropriate.

This needs looking into by the US authorities
 

Nobody, irrespective of age or sex, should have been sent on a first cross country in this sort of terrain, especially not in an aeroplane probably incapable of climbing clear of the surrounding high ground.

Add to this the fact that her navigational skills seem to have been at best rudimentary, and you have the makings of a serious accident. She was very lucky to get away alive and in one piece.

I think the US authorities should move in and start asking some pointed questions.

BP.

So lets get this right... a young teenager flies off on her first solo, decides to fly up into the high mountains in a low performance Cessna, presses on into the mountains until the valley she is climbing into is too narrow to turn round and the ground is too high to get over. Then the inevitable happens!

So who supervised her route? Or did she get hopelessly lost and fly in a totally different direction to that briefed. If so, surely she might have noticed the mountains coming up?

Perhaps supervision & training might be investigated.

Either way, a lucky young lady to walk away from the crash.

Yes it's easy to blame the student for flying into trouble.
But what was the instructor thinking, sending her out on her first solo so badly briefed?
Did he really agree a flight plan that was 'follow the water'? That's not navigation!

There is an easy solution to this - just buy a GPS and follow the magenta line - simples!

One photo showing the twisted remains of the prop caught my eye. It looks to me like c/s hub and checking the FAA registry N516MA it turns out to be a Cessna R172E.

If that's a Rocket with a 210hp Continental it might explain how she got it so high but also raises the question of students in what EASA describes as complex.

SGC

The FAA are a lot more proactive and do pull tickets of pilots and instructors who don't come up to the required standards.

And its not uncommon for routes to be set which shall we say take into account natural features that help navigation.

The problems occur when the student picks up on the wrong feature.


My ppl test in the states was basically follow a highway and then the diversion "occurred" 5 miles before a waterway and the diversion point was right next to a bridge on the water way.

Conversely my CPL test in the UK had me going to a disused airfield on the chart which had got a pig farm built on it and in no way or form looked like an old airfield in the middle of the vale of York. You had to State that you were over you point due time etc but you couldn't identify it.

Unfortunately the magenta line solution means that there is nothing the pilot can do when in the future the GPS goes tits up.

Everything in Wyoming is high altitude flying near mountains. Even the flat bits start at 5000ft+.

Supervision and briefing are obviously an aspects which should be questioned.

C/S prop complex? C/S stands for constant speed! It's even more simple than fixed pitch!

I think much of today's avionics are much more complex than a C/S propeller could be. And much more likely to lead to less safe flight with distraction and automation, with temptation to fly eyes in all the time. A C/S prop on most engines is pretty well set and forget, and if you somehow forget to set it, it's just loud and wastes gas....

I've often wondered why a cs prop is regarded as complex too. How many times during a normal flight do you touch the blue knob? Twice?

Its the management of said prop in an engine failure I think is the issue. Not normal operation.

I haven't looked at the EASA stuff but you used to be able to do your PPL on a CS prop and retractable as well if you liked.

Thank God we are blessed with the wonderful D&D. :ok: :ok: :ok:

There seems to be rather a lot of criticism when we have few actual facts.

A guy at my local field in the UK has just completed his ppl in a C182. CS prop and G1000!
D.O.

I can find no reference to the word "Complex" in any of the EASA documents or definitions. The items described simply require differences training but, if you haven't flown anything else that is covered in the basic instruction.

What's not normal about a C/S prop on a piston engine at the time of an engine failure? If you do nothing, it's going to behave like a fixed pitch prop. If you choose to secure the engine, and coarse it right out, you will improve the glide a little, but other than that?

As whopity says its considered a difference.

To be honest I wouldn't have a clue either about a SEP CS operation as I did my CPL in a twin so never had to do all the single engine stuff.

Hmm, I wonder what the criteria is for "difference".

I would wonder if it should be "differences" to go from an "On - Off" fuel system to one with multiple tanks, particularly with no "Both" selection. I bet there are a lot more accidents resulting from non proficiency with the fuel selector than with the propeller control!

Am I right in seeing her face, still inside the plane, in the pic of it upsidedown?