Student jumps to their death
 

https://www.news.com.au/travel/trave...366203aef21d66

Does anyone have a photo of a Cessna C168?

No such thing.

Original Sun article here - shows a photo of a "re-creation" of the incident by police, and seems to show a C172/182-type interior.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/962731...ascar-student/

Poor reporting or a typo or faulty "auto-correct", I expect.

This is very sad....without knowing the exact circumstances it reminded me of Donald Crowhurst and his boat Teignmouth Electron on the ill-fated solo round the world voyage. He is presumed to have committed suicide when it became clear he would - in his mind - let down his supporters and sponsors and being alone with no support structure ...cracked and ended it all. Hopefully lessons will be learned from this.

No but it's very similar to the Cessna 173.

I can only imagine it's a 172/182, very odd.

I guess someone said it somewhere and the press has just run with it.

Dubious
 

It's really, really difficult to force open the doors in flight against the prop wash - and with two passengers trying to stop you. I find this story completely implausible.

Difficult but not impossible. For a bit of fun, masquerading as training, my instructor showed me how you can steer a 172 by opening left and right doors in flight. Just in case you happen to have lost aileron and rudder while still somehow keeping elevator control ;)

As someone who believes nothing I hear and only half of what I see, my first reaction is the unusual nature and details of this incident; the interior of the aircraft shows that it has no front right seat, yet it has a back seat. This seems to be a very unusual configuration for a four seat single; it's neither in a full pax / parachuting / cargo configuration.

Next, the only story about the event comes from the two survivors. There is absolutely no way that the deceased could have 'surprised' either of the other two occupants for the reasons already given; she would have had no previous experience in forcing open Cessna doors (especially during cruise with the high forces required as already mentioned), so there would have been quite some time while she (a) undid her seatbelt, (b) suddenly lunged forward towards the door, (c) grappled with the door handle and started to push on the door. Startled onlookers in the cabin would likely have had more than enough time for the startle effect to diminish enough in order for them to react to this odd behavior.

Perhaps the event did occur, but not as some would want the world to believe.

Obviously I wasn't there so I don't know what happened but I was in a Cessna 206 which had not long taken off from Dallas Fort Worth doing about 80 knots when the front passenger accidentally opened his door and panicked - door did not swing shut despite prop wash - perhaps because of high wing? passenger was more worried about losing his hat than realising he might fall out - he had either failed to properly attach his seatbelt or somehow undid it during this - it took pilot holding onto his leg with his right hand me unbuckling myself in rear seat and reaching over him to hold him in and eventually get door shut.

Cessna doors, if opened, will trail a little open, and not easily be closed in flight. For the right side doors whose window cannot be easily closed, there's nothing sound to grab on the inside of the door to pull that hard on. If the window opens,open it to grab the window frame, to close the door. A person could get out the door in flight, but they'd have to work on it, they're not going to just fall out.

There's no such thing as a C 168, it's a careless typo. The aircraft pictured is either a 172, or 182. The rest of the story is perhaps true, perhaps dramatized....

It looks to me as though the right front seat as been leaned forward (to allow access to the rear seats).

The rear upper door segments on the C208 and some C400 series (I only flew the C402 and C404) are very easy to open in flight. In fact one caravan I flew had a loose latch and would fairly regularly pop the left aft door open in a little turbulence.

Not saying that it was one of these types but it clearly wasn't a C168. 😆

There was, or is, a Cessna 162. It is in the light sport airplane category.

No 168, though.

The 162 was only a two seater so that rules it out of consideration.

It does seem that the story doesn't add up in many ways. The police need to follow a robust line of questioning with the two survivors I suggest.

They are now saying anti malarial medication may have been a factor. Larium can have a pretty awful effect on some people, so I do wonder if that may be the case.

Well, its on the BBC now, so you can't just blame the Sun: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-...herts-49192865

Not really; if you are determined to get out you only need a gap of, I dunno, 30cm/10 inches to slide through. What's difficult is to open the door the full 90 degrees. I confess that I've never tried to open a C172 door in flight, but I have done it in an Auster to drop bags of mail to troops on exercise.

And it was the pilot and 1 passenger trying to hold her back, not 2 passengers. Either the girl or the other passenger would have been in the front RH seat for C of G management, I would have thought; I have never flown a C172 or similar with 2 in the back and just me in the front and I wouldn't want to try. Either way, the other passenger would not have found it easy to grab and hold her, let alone pull her back, and nor would the pilot while trying to fly the aircraft.

The planform of a small Cessna (in fact most small GA planes) is basically shaped like an airfoil. It's just a function of fitting "fat" cabin and engine space into the most streamlined shape possible.

It will produce Bernoulli/Venturi suction to pop open unlatched doors and windows - up to the point that the suction pull balances with the slipstream/propwash "push" - a few inches or cms.

I've had the front door pop open in a Bonanza, not a Cessna. It trails about 3 or 4 inches open and is very difficult to open further or close. In my case it happened just after takeoff at about 100kts. We had to come back around and land to get it shut.

Very smart move, sir - safer than trying to mess with the door in flight. /thread drift off/

Journalists have jumped to the conclusion that since it is likely the student would be taking antimalarial tablets, that Larium might be to blame. Quite how they might know what antimalarial she might be taking. I have to say I first took Larium in 2001 and there was a lot of speculation its links with mental health problems and suicide, oddly most of the cases as I recall, seemed to be young women. I'm not sure if any scientific link was ever made with mental health problems and Larium and it has now been around for twenty years. The only thing was at the time, my AME instructed me as a pilot not to take it, I think that was more down to the potential problems with pilot disorientation.

Do not we all remember something similar in the UK in Jan 2002 - over the Brize zone
Cessna 172 - passenger jumped out

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...ndation-widget

A Cambridge University student described as a “bright, independent young woman" forced open the door of a light plane and leapt 5,000ft to her death during a research trip to Madagascar.The parents of Alana Cutland, 19, had become so concerned about her state of mind they sent a family friend to the island to bring their daughter home.But it now appears that on the first leg of the flight back to the UK Miss Cutland grew so agitated she fought off the friend before jumping from the Cessna light plane.

The friend, 51-year-old Ruth Johnson, is understood to have grappled with the student in a desperate attempt to prevent her falling from the plane last Thursday.At one stage the Cessna’s pilot is also thought to have grabbed Miss Cutland’s leg in a bid to stop her.But local police said Miss Cutland, from Milton Keynes, was able to free herself from their “exhausted” grip as the plane flew across the island, off the coast of east Africa.

Following a mid-air between a PA28 and C152 nearly ten years ago, I understand one of the students in the 152 is believed to have jumped from altitude to his death. Lighter door than larger Cessna's but similar forces required.
NTSB Identification: WPR09FA437A

I've twice had Piper doors open on me just after takeoff. Once in a PA28, and once in a PA38. If Piper brings out a PA48 I'm not driving one.
There was enough suction/cabin pressure from the ventilation to pop the door ajar, but enough pressure from the external airflow no prevent it opening further. Couldn't open it to slam it, couldn't pull it shut. My solution, as an 18 y.o., 16 hrs in his log flying scholarship student on his first solo cross-country, was to climb to 5,000 ft, fully stall it, at which point I could open the door to slam it shut properly, and proceed to my next waypoint - inside the Boscombe Down MATZ, if I recall correctly.

Didn't bother writing that particular incident up in my logbook.

Reckon someone would need to be having a full-blown psychotic incident to muster enough strength to push the door open enough to get out. Dreadfully sad for the student and her family.

But clearly not in a light Cessna, Pearly White?

Student jumps/falls to their death
 

Maybe the simple answer to the aircraft type is not to stare blindly at the Cessna but to suggest that this may have been a Partenavia 168???
That might also put paid to the propwash theory as the resistance on a twin-engined P 168 may be less severe than on a single engined Cessna?

ReddestBaron

Not a Partenavia 168. Photo of the actual aircraft here;

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...O-minutes.html

Which doesn't exist.

The airplane pictured is a Cessna 182E. Though difficult to get yourself out the door in flight, if you worked at it you could. The open door will stream 4 to 6 inches open, being more difficult to close or open more. However, if a person forced themselves out the door and made it part way out, pulling them back in would be extremely difficult, as the streamlining door would pinch on them. I would estimate that a person whose torso was mostly out the door would be near impossible to pull back in, even if they wanted back in. I speak this as a former jump pilot in many types of Cessnas. Once a jumper is part way out, they're not coming back in. and that's with a jump door, as opposed to a regular door. There would be no way that the pilot or other passenger could have made a better outcome once the passenger was part way out the door.

Sideslip would affect the open door. I've had the door open solo in a Pa28 and with a pax in a C152.
I've never tried keeping the ball in the middle in a Cessna while holding onto to someone (who is struggling) with my right hand, arm at full stretch.

Desperation to complete the task will add to the young lady's strength.

Am I alone on here in feeling sorrow at her passing?

Pretty sure that's not the only one out of a 172 and didn't a woman open the air stair and jump from a King Air on approach to Leavesden about 30 years ago.

Reminds me of this,

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/artic...to-3236673.php



I can see her getting the door open using her body weight and the strength in her legs.

If she was sitting in the front passenger seat and slid it all the way back she could crack the door open enough to squeeze through, particularly if the aircraft was sideslipping and there was less pressure on that side. Once partially out, gravity and slipstream would do the rest.

Any news paper which gets the manufacturer's name right is doing well, let alone the correct type. Stock photographs are often used which is all a Sun reader needs.

That's where the evidence seems to point Timmy. There are quite a few prescription drugs listing psychotic side-effects in the literature, so this, perhaps in association with her "difficulty managing her personal life and studies" were the cause. If this is the case, it's highly unlikely investigators would dare to implicate a widely prescribed pharmaceutical drug in her death, or bother to investigate her relationships with lecturers. If "The Mentalist" was on the case, that's where he'd be looking....