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California Flying

California crashes

According to the NTSB ( www.aopa.org/asf/ntsb/), 31 fatal general aviation airplane crashes occurred in California during 2002, resulting in 63 fatalities. One of the crashed airplanes came to rest along the shoreline of a lake where an estimated 200 to 400 people were enjoying a summer day. The pilot and copilot as well as two others died, while nine were seriously injured. There were also 88 accidents in which no fatalities occurred.

These accidents, and what appear to have been the causes, are valuable for California fliers.

Daytime VFR — is it really the most dangerous time to fly?

Because that's when most flying is done, the records show that both fatal and nonfatal accidents are most likely to occur during day VFR flight. The numbers are not going to add up perfectly because some NTSB reports are incomplete, but 68 nonfatal accidents occurred in VFR flight; one took place after daylight hours.

The numbers for the fatal flights are almost exactly the same. Twenty-seven of 31 of these flights were VFR, with 23 taking place during daylight hours.

One of the fatal night crashes occurred at 1:23 a.m. on August 11 near Bishop Airport. According to the NTSB report, the pilot lost control of the airplane, an Aero Commander 690A twin turboprop, during a steep turn to final for Runway 30 and struck the ground 1.6 miles southeast of the runway threshold. This crash killed the pilot, a friend, and famed nature photographer Galen Rowell and his wife, Barbara, an author and photographer. There was no moon that night.

Another nighttime fatal accident appears to have been the result of scud-running — at night! The commercial pilot departed from Temecula at 4 a.m. for a VFR flight to Fullerton Municipal Airport. He almost made it, but the flight was cut short when the borrowed Cessna 152 he was flying hit power transmission lines 150 feet above the ground 15 miles east of his destination. Fullerton airport was reporting 800 overcast with one and one-half miles visibility in rain and mist. The visibility may have been less than reported since there was only a one-degree split between the temperature and dew point. The flight would have been a gamble even in the daytime.

Structural failure

There were three accidents attributable to airframe structural failure — one involved low-altitude maneuvering. A Piper PA-24-250 Comanche had just been cleared to intercept the localizer for an ILS approach into John Wayne Airport-Orange County Airport. According to the NTSB report, the radar controller observed the airplane make an unusually hard right turn, and then the radar target disappeared from the screen. A 6-foot section from the outer section of the left wing and sections of the left and right horizontal stabilators had broken off the airplane. Both the private pilot and his passenger died.

The second in-flight breakup occurred near San Jose on March 6 when the pilot of a Cessna 425 Conquest twin-engine turboprop lost control during instrument conditions six minutes after takeoff. The NTSB report said the pilot reported having "just lost my needle...give me...." The airplane entered a series of erratic maneuvers before breaking up.

The third breakup can be categorized as a "maneuvering" accident. A lot of preventable accidents fall into this category because of the danger that's inherent while showing off and buzzing people or property on the ground. To help reduce the number of maneuvering accidents, ASF has developed a safety seminar titled "Watch This!" See AOPA Online for a seminar location near you.

On April 11 at 10 a.m. the tail section of a Beechcraft G35 Bonanza separated from the airplane during low-level, high-speed maneuvering near the Thunderhill Park area of Willows, California. The result? Two dead and a sight no one will ever forget.

The Nall Report numbers

Each year the AOPA Air Safety Foundation reviews the accidents of the previous year and prints out the conclusions in a document titled The Nall Report. The 2002 report (with data from 2001) again concluded that fatal accidents most often occur during two phases of flight — the takeoff/climb phase and when maneuvering. There are more accidents during landing, but they're usually less serious. The California accidents support this conclusion. Thirty-nine (45 percent) of the nonfatal accidents occurred during landing — these included taxiing into the fuel truck, landing gear collapses, ground loops, landing short, landing long and running off the runway, veering off the runway, and hard landings. There was even a Cessna that crashed on its own without a pilot on board.

On September 22 at 6:45 a.m. a pilotless Cessna 172 crashed in the median of Interstate Highway 5 a short distance northwest of the Weed Airport. According to the report, the pilot had hand-propped the engine without tying the airplane down or chocking a wheel. The engine roared to life, and the airplane took off and flew several hundred feet before returning to terra firma. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Controlled flight into terrain (CFIT)

On April 3 at 9:15 p.m. the two occupants of a Cessna 152 received only minor injuries when they flew their airplane into terrain during cruise flight near Lake Elsinore. Not all CFIT accidents ended so well.

On January 30 at 6:54 p.m. a Piper Aerostar hit St. John's Mountain at the 6,700-foot level near Stonyford. The maximum elevation figure (MEF) in the area is 7,400 feet. The pilot had received a vector from the air route traffic control center (ARTCC) to his destination airport, and the next quadrangle had a MEF of 6,700 feet. It may be the pilot assumed that because he was in contact with ARTCC that he was guaranteed terrain clearance, or he may have thought he had traveled far enough to be over the lower-altitude quadrangle.

On April 6 about 3:30 p.m. four people died when a Piper PA-28-180 struck mountainous terrain at the 5,900-foot level during a summer afternoon flight near Sequoia National Park. Although the NTSB doesn't publish conclusions, this accident may have been caused by the degradation of airplane performance because of heavy loading and density altitude effects.

There were the six who died on June 30 at 11 a.m. when the report suggests that two Beechcraft Bonanzas flying in formation, a V35A and an S35, tried to outclimb a box canyon near Ojai. The airplanes came to rest on a 45-degree slope 475 feet below the top of the last ridge.

Midair collisions

The year 2002 saw one midair collision in California. The ASF found that 82 percent of midair accidents involve faster airplanes overtaking slower ones. These accidents are most likely to occur at low altitude on VFR days within 10 miles of an airport, and of these, 78 percent occur at nontowered airports. Only 5 percent of midairs involve head-on collisions, yet that seems to be what happened at 1 p.m. on December 17 about one mile northwest of the McClellan-Palomar Airport when a Beech BE-76 Duchess and a Mooney M20E collided. The Duchess had just taken off and was making a right-crosswind departure — the Mooney was flying a 45-degree entry to right-hand traffic from the north when the midair occurred. Both pilots had been alerted to the presence of the other airplane by the tower controller.

Conclusion

The 2002 Nall Report ( www.aopa.org/asf/publications/02nall.pdf) statistics show that there were an average of 1.22 fatal accidents and 6.56 nonfatal accidents for every 100,000 hours of flight in 2001. Looking at these numbers, pilots may believe it will never happen to them. One way to increase the odds that you'll never be involved in an accident is to learn what contributes to accidents. Bruce Landsberg, ASF's executive director, wrote that simple things prevent accidents — carry enough gas; when you're flying VFR, remain in VFR conditions; don't stall or fly close to the ground; and polish your takeoff and landing skills. Do these simple things and the chances are excellent that you won't become the nameless pilot on a future NTSB report.


E-mail the author at [email protected].

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