Pilot Crashes perfectly good airplane: What's wrong with this picture?
A month or so back, a pilot of a 1.2 million dollar airplane killed himself and his girlfriend in a perfectly good airplane on a perfectly great day with the mechanical features of the airplane in perfect working condition.
So, why did Alan Ram and Krista Buchanan die with prejudice?
All his electrical equipment stopped working. Ram's last words tell the story:
"I'm still having an electrical issue. I had one on Friday and ... I'm about to go dead".
In-other-words, he had no instruments.
I can only speculate on whether or not the engine -- a 350hp turbine -- was still capable of running without direct electrical power. But logic tells me, being just a half mile away from the airfield where he crashed that he probably didn't.
Let's take a look at the way "old school" conventional aircraft controls look.
Since the pilot in Command flies in the left seat, the flight instruments are on his side.
From top to bottom, the first is an electrically driven compass. The mechanical one you can't see in this picture is is above the instrument panel and in the center. Below the electrical compass is a turn and bank indicator.
The middle top is an attitude indicator. Below it is a vertical speed indicator. The last three -- yes, there are three, yo just can't see the last one -- is a Very-High Frequency Omnidirectional Range (VOR), an altimeter and an air speed indicator.
This particular Cessna 172 can be flow in bad weather conditions and I'm guessing is used to train pilots who need to get qualified using Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) conditions.
If electricity goes out on the instrument panel, enough of these controls are functional based on an air induction system.
The plane that Ram was flying has a cockpit that looks like this:
In fact, this is exactly what it would have looked like with an electrical failure.
Don't know about you but the last thing I would want to be flying in is a dead stick plane with a display panel and control stick that looks like someone just turned off my X-Box.
Could you land the aircraft safely? I doubt anyone could. Especially if all the controls are based on electrical inputs.
For those of you who aren't pilots who don't know anything about private aircraft, we don't just kick the tires, light the fire and take off .
Most of us are very professional. We take flying seriously and have a great respect for the planes we fly and for the people in the plane and outside of the plane that could be affected by pilot error.
In fact, at this very moment, your car would be left in the garage until you fixed the issues it has with the same scrutiny we apply to flying our airplanes.
If you had an electrical issue that could directly result in the destruction of your aircraft with you inside of it, you get it fixed, you get it tested and certified that it was fixed and you don't fly the airplane until it is fixed.
Rest in peace, Alan Ram and Krista Buchanan.
So, why did Alan Ram and Krista Buchanan die with prejudice?
All his electrical equipment stopped working. Ram's last words tell the story:
"I'm still having an electrical issue. I had one on Friday and ... I'm about to go dead".
In-other-words, he had no instruments.
I can only speculate on whether or not the engine -- a 350hp turbine -- was still capable of running without direct electrical power. But logic tells me, being just a half mile away from the airfield where he crashed that he probably didn't.
Let's take a look at the way "old school" conventional aircraft controls look.
Since the pilot in Command flies in the left seat, the flight instruments are on his side.
From top to bottom, the first is an electrically driven compass. The mechanical one you can't see in this picture is is above the instrument panel and in the center. Below the electrical compass is a turn and bank indicator.
The middle top is an attitude indicator. Below it is a vertical speed indicator. The last three -- yes, there are three, yo just can't see the last one -- is a Very-High Frequency Omnidirectional Range (VOR), an altimeter and an air speed indicator.
This particular Cessna 172 can be flow in bad weather conditions and I'm guessing is used to train pilots who need to get qualified using Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) conditions.
If electricity goes out on the instrument panel, enough of these controls are functional based on an air induction system.
The plane that Ram was flying has a cockpit that looks like this:
In fact, this is exactly what it would have looked like with an electrical failure.
Don't know about you but the last thing I would want to be flying in is a dead stick plane with a display panel and control stick that looks like someone just turned off my X-Box.
Could you land the aircraft safely? I doubt anyone could. Especially if all the controls are based on electrical inputs.
"I'm still having an electrical issue. I had one on Friday"
Seriously? Exactly why folks like me shake our heads in amazement. You take a perfectly good airplane into the air with a known electrical problem that could and in this case did result in a catastrophic ending and you don't expect to become a statistic?For those of you who aren't pilots who don't know anything about private aircraft, we don't just kick the tires, light the fire and take off .
Most of us are very professional. We take flying seriously and have a great respect for the planes we fly and for the people in the plane and outside of the plane that could be affected by pilot error.
In fact, at this very moment, your car would be left in the garage until you fixed the issues it has with the same scrutiny we apply to flying our airplanes.
If you had an electrical issue that could directly result in the destruction of your aircraft with you inside of it, you get it fixed, you get it tested and certified that it was fixed and you don't fly the airplane until it is fixed.
Rest in peace, Alan Ram and Krista Buchanan.
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