Wing spar AD?
Timothy wrote:
It is not their innocence, but their implied consent (by being there) which is the issue.
At airshows this may be a (bad) argument, not in this case however. This plane came down fairly far away from the place of departure, about 11 miles straight line, about 15 track miles after departure. He had climbed to 7800 ft before whatever happened caused the loss of control and break up.
Timothy wrote:
I am imagining an engine disintegration shaking the engine off the wing.
According to the NTSB the debris field is about 4 blocks long, which is quite a bit but would not suggest the plane broke up at nearly 8000 ft but later on the way down. One engine appears to have been found with the cabin, the other one came down a significant distance away, together with a wing which caused the fire in one of the houses struck. The airplane appears to have been built in 1981. The pilot was 75 years old, retired police officer and restaurant owner.
This video gives a good overview over the crash area.
https://www.fox5dc.com/news/387316565-video
I think this one is wide open at the moment as for causes. If it had broken up at the altitude it reached, I would have expected the debris field to be larger.
Timothy wrote:
I think that the significance of multiple fatalities of uninvolved people on the ground will be even greater (cf Shoreham.)
Well, one thing is that it happened in the USA and not in Europe. In Aviation terms this would suggest more common sense about such things. If something structural failed, I would not be surprised if there was an AD, like alioth sais, or some other regulatory fall out in case that e.g. the reason was medical or something like that.
Timothy wrote:
After all, think what the US public accepts, in some case encourages, in the face of the almost non-existent risk of international terrorism.
But they don’t accept it – about the closest to acceptance is begrudging tolerance. Most people in the US, at least when I was living there in the immediate aftermath of Sept.11, reject vehmently all the security stuff around terrorism labeling it as ‘security theatre’. I don’t know a single person in the US who benignly accepts all the security stuff implemented. The TSA is one of the most reviled branches of government.
For attitudes over loss of life due to accidents in the US, you only have to look at the fairly lax rules around driving and the relatively high rates of deaths in car accidents and the way even drunk driving isn’t taken particuarly seriously to see that the US population will have forgotten about this incident by this time next week. Most drivers in the US for instance never took a driving test as we would understand it – they got given their driving license practically effort free for completing “drivers ed” in school, and if you do take a driving test it lasts around 10 minutes and you pass it if you basically don’t crash.
Here is one more cam with a rather disturbing sound recording:
https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=bQxV_1549311198
The engine seems to be running at very high RPM, way over normal. Whether it is one or both I can not say from this, but the engine sound is definitly not normal at all.
Timothy wrote:
Some poor lady doing her washing up in her own kitchen, or a lad cycling on the A27, are not only truly innocent, but also have given no consent to the risk whatsoever.
I think this is a controversial topic.
Arguably society as a whole has accepted the risk of General Aviation (or Aviation in general) by allowing it to happen in the first place. The old lady watching telly in her living room, whether she likes it or not, has consented to the GA flight taking place and accepts the risk. Or, in other words, society has accepted on her behalf that she takes that risk.
Alpha_Floor wrote:
Arguably society as a whole has accepted the risk of General Aviation (or Aviation in general) by allowing it to happen in the first place
That was certainly true when aviation and other risks first were concieved, but imho it has now changed massively in recent years. People nowadays have a very different perception of acceptable risks. and most of such cases will increase the anxiety certiain folks feel about what is going on around them.
In the end, it is not really what “society” as a whole accepts but what those with the biggest media exposure will accept or not, coupled with how courts and state attorneys will prosecute any incident. The assessment of what is practicable today has gone a very long way since the early days of civil aviation. Most of the early achievements would no longer be possible. Or does anyone think Lindberg would get a permit for his flying fuel tank which now resides in the Smithonian?
Interestingly, I personally think that people are far more ready to take the risk of flying airlines because they have to and it’s so “remote” that something happens than they are willing to accept a risk of something they do not use themselfs, such as GA.
But in a society where nowadays man and women need to use separate elevators out of fear of legal retribution, how do we expect someone to accept any form of risk at all? I suppose the only risks people do accept are those which if they refrained would interfere with their lifestyle so they weigh the risk less than the loss?
Risk management is something people are notoriously bad at. Risk avoidance is much easier but at the same time it will take away a lot of fun out of your life.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Timothy wrote:
It is not their innocence, but their implied consent (by being there) which is the issue.
At airshows this may be a (bad) argument, not in this case however. This plane came down fairly far away from the place of departure, about 11 miles straight line, about 15 track miles after departure. He had climbed to 7800 ft before whatever happened caused the loss of control and break up.
If you reread what I wrote, you’ll see that that is exactly my point.
In order of consent given from very high to none:
It will be very difficult to do any on-the-fly regulation after an isolated accident, people at NAAs usually like to see the full trend to safety from a specific aircraft or operations but headlines accidents tends to draw public and political attention and bring some pressure to just “do something”, with todays social media the pressure is even huge and you may get a random DfT guy (who did only politics in his glorious service life) to just ground the whole lot if that secures a seat in the next 5 years…
Mooney_Driver wrote:
The engine seems to be running at very high RPM, way over normal. Whether it is one or both I can not say from this, but the engine sound is definitly not normal at all.
I guess that that’s the combination of Vne+ and Doppler. It doesn’t speak much to the situation before the break up.
Yesterday I was flying the sim at home when it went violently out of control (I put my SD iPad down on top of the ControlPad and it set the CoG to somewhere in the tail, but I didn’t know that at the time.)
The feeling of trying everything to regain control over a period of maybe two minute as it descends from 130 to the ground is appalling, and that’s just sitting in a kitchen chair in my office. I cannot imagine what it is like in reality, especially with pax.
It’s one thing to remain calm and to try different things when what you do has some effect on the trajectory, but when you have lost all control it must be very hard.
