An SR-22 crashed in florida .Hit a house saturday night after take -off.Burst into flames 1 person on board was killed.Aircraft was registered to Jerry Ballard Homes Inc., of Gainesville, Ga.
Was the accident pilot involved in a struggle to interpret conflicting instrument indications? With his considerable time on type, recent training and experience he stood a good chance, but apparently couldn’t overcome whatever he was facing. On a training flight, you tend to know what instrument has failed. On a normal flight, when an instrument starts to lie, determining which one is bad is a big part of the challenge.
Is this a significant clue?
“According to maintenance records, the PFD had been replaced on June 4, 2004, at 12.2 hours, on September 14, 2004, at 55.2 hours, and on December 20, 2004, at 80.6 hours.”
What are the typical failure modes of the PFD simulated during training?
What I’m getting at is if the normal way for the instructor to fail the PFD is to simply turn it off (or cover it up), that presents a very different situation from the PFD showing bad attitude info. (As Steve D. noted, if an instructor turns off or covers the PFD there’s no question that it’s bad and should be ignored.) Is there any way for an instructor to fail the attitude source alone so the pilot under instruction will get a true feel for what it would be like in the real world?
I know this isn’t a problem unique to the PFD (the same applies to an AI), but an inaccurate PFD would probably “scream” at your senses even more loudly than a failed AI.
I presume you’re taught to turn the PFD off altogether once you’ve lost confidence in it, particularly if the attitude is suspect. Right? Or are you taught to keep it on for the info that might still be good (heading, airspeed, etc.)? (I doubt it, but I had to ask.)
Joe Mazza
Four brand new PFDs in under a 100 hours??? How is this possible? I thought the whole point of the glass panel is its reliability. If the panels were truly going kaput that frequently, that’s insane. No way was that plane airworthy for IMC conditions.
In reply to:
(Andy Groth) Oregon, WI United States “Another SR-22 crash” Post in Public Forum
Posted on
02/01/05 08:52 PMEveryone did a nice job of ignoring that stupid and only post by “jim727” five minutes after registering the user-name (obviously a troll or just someone who doesn’t like Cirrus). Now Steve Demy (Lancair owner, good guy, and productive poster) has unwittingly brought it right back to the top of the public forum.
Anybody for continuing to ignore the thread?Andy Groth SR22 #428 N74AG MSN
In reply to:
dane (Dane Jasper) Santa Rosa, CA United States
Re: “Another SR-22 crash” Post in Public Forum [re: agroth]
Reply Posted byPosted on
02/02/05 05:09 AMI would also suggest a good strategy is to overwhelm the thread by providing good followups in OTHER threads - it’ll quickly move to the bottom!
-Dane
Andy, I appreciate the compliment, and enjoy your posts too. I admit, I’m a bit of an engineer. Electrical engineer by education, but all around analytical type who wants to get to the bottom of things. Why? For the safety and enjoyment of all aviators. I don’t really care what planes we fly, but I do have a certain affinity to plastic planes, since I fly one. No it’s not a Cirrus, but I consider myself to be one of the extended family.
If I sound a little harsh, especially after an accident, it’s because it could be me, or any of us in that accident, and I want to get to the bottom of whatever it was, be it human factors, ergonomics, design problems or some combination, so that we can learn from it, improve and continue with the business of having fun with our planes. I think we share that as an objective. Looking at the COPA mission statement, there is a lot of commonality here:
“The Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association (COPA) is a not-for-profit membership organization established to educate, promote the safety of and support the owners and pilots of certified aircraft manufactured by Cirrus Design Corporation, encourage ownership of these aircraft and provide social activities for its members. Additionally, COPA will promote goodwill towards the general aviation community.”
With that in mind, I have two problems with the tone of the discussion that’s taking place. First, the interest in sweeping discussion on these important issues under the carpet. Does that educate? Does it help safety? Does it support Cirrus pilots?
No.
Second, along the same lines, there is a tendency to look to find each accident as some kind of unique anecdote. The pilot was inexperienced. He flew into bad weather. Etc. You know what I mean. Sure these are factors and will continue to be factors in any accident. But why ignore opportunities to discuss the technology and make improvements in the plane, where those improvements will certainly save lives over the years?
Joe Mazza had to endure a virtual flame thrower when he suggested there may be room for improvement in the PFD to reduce the probability of a CFIT accident. Wouldn’t it be a better approach to take a look at these types of suggestions for inclusion into the next product revision?
Take a look at the second last FXE Accident. Bottom line, the pilot, reasonably well experienced, didn’t think of activating the alternate static port, when that simple move would have saved the day. Why not put the alternate static control right in front of the pilot, well labeled so that it will more likely be remembered in a situation like this? All the discussion was about the wonders of the parachute. Well yippee for the parachute, but wouldn’t a happy runway landing have been better? We now have an opportunity to focus on an improvement to the plane. I’m not a COPA member, but if I were, I’d be advocating a strong lobby to Cirrus on this one.
The same goes for this most recent FXE accident. There are bugs in hardware and software, then there are BUGS, where the thing tries its best to kill you. You don’t replace a component like a PFD for the 3rd time without a suspicion that something in the plane is causing it to fail. The discussion should be centered on what contributes to the failure of these things, what happens when they fail, how to recognize it and what to do.
Clearly, training is a first priority for all of us. But I can only train myself. Not the thousands of plastic plane owners out there. What I can do for the thousands, is to advocate a continuously critical look at our new hardware and software, and look for ways to improve it.
If nothing else, I’d be encouraged by a tone of discussion where all avenues to improving safety are openly discussed, including on the public forum, and the culture of sweeping bad news under the carpet is actively discouraged.
If it’s me in that next accident, I want EVERYBODY involved in making improvements, and not busy candy coating the story for public consumption.
To the Sysop:
The post to which this message is a reply is in violation of the COPA rules. Please delete it immediately.
In reply to:
From the Member’s Discussion Forum area instructions:
Please do not copy, reproduce, or post members’ discussion posts in other public areas (either on the COPA site or elsewhere). These discussions are intended to be private among COPA members only. Members: Please don’t feed the trolls!
In reply to:
Andy, I appreciate the compliment, and enjoy your posts too. I admit, I’m a bit of an engineer. Electrical engineer by education, but all around analytical type who wants to get to the bottom of things. Why? For the safety and enjoyment of all aviators. I don’t really care what planes we fly, but I do have a certain affinity to plastic planes, since I fly one. No it’s not a Cirrus, but I consider myself to be one of the extended family.
If I sound a little harsh, especially after an accident, it’s because it could be me, or any of us in that accident, and I want to get to the bottom of whatever it was, be it human factors, ergonomics, design problems or some combination, so that we can learn from it, improve and continue with the business of having fun with our planes. I think we share that as an objective. Looking at the COPA mission statement, there is a lot of commonality here:
Steve,
You are one of the extended family, and I thought your post on the topic was good–complete with a link to the NTSB report. I just wanted to get rid of, right or wrong (I know many would argue, wrong [:)]), the post that points out nothing but that a Cirrus “Hit a house saturday night after take-off…Burst into flames…1 person on board was killed.”
The three responses (including yours) to “Another SR-22 Crash” raised very interesting topics that I believe were worth discussing in more detail on their own without being attached to the insensitive header. This is why I split the thread into three public posts including, “Unusual Attitudes in IMC (which specifically mentions the SR22 crash and includes a link to the NTSB report),” “PFD Reliability (which also specifically mentions the SR22 crash and includes the aforementioned link),” and “Losing Your Attitude Indicator in Training vs. IMC.”
Anyway, I understand where you are coming from, and I agree 100% that we can all benefit from what is learned about these accidents, and hopefully apply those lessons in a practical way that will help us become old pilots. [:)]
Steve: Your points are pretty much spot on, and there is at least one conversation on the Members Forum discussing them as we speak. I think one of the comments was that the initial reaction to the first post as being at “Troll” may have been a bit aggressive. I myself have spoken out against it.
However, in the interests of keeping all conversations constructive, you did go a bit overboard yourself by copying a “Members” post to the Guest forum. In my opinion, you’ve gone beyond boundaries of courtesy and certainly deviated from COPA’s policy/request to respect contributors’ wishes and not copy posts from the Members forum here.
Now that you mention it…
Steve, your comments sync perfectly with my perception of many here. When a criticism is made the typical reaction falls into one (or both) of two categories:
- It’s an insult personally. (How dare you question my judgment in buying a Cirrus!)
- It will hurt economically. (All this talk will drive my re-sale value down!)
A while back a potential buyer asked whether there were any issues with not having nose wheel steering in the Cirrus. Most posters pointed out, correctly, that it’s pretty much a non-issue and may actually have some advantages (simplicity, tighter turning radius, etc.). I agreed, but pointed out that without nose wheel steering a brake failure could be a problem, whereas with it it’s much less so. The reaction was similar to that spurred by my PFD comments: knee-jerk denial – and even after a Cirrus had already departed the runway and was badly damaged in that very scenario! ( http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20040129X00128&key=1 )
Guys, when a plane crashes itÂ’s in the public domain however much you wish to keep it in-house. (BTW, youÂ’d better hotfoot it over to the AOPA board because (horrors!) theyÂ’re discussing it there too. …and, no, I didnÂ’t start it.)
I submit that the reaction to criticism here has done much more damage to the perception of COPA/Cirrus than the criticism itself.
In reply to:
However, in the interests of keeping all conversations constructive, you did go a bit overboard yourself by copying a “Members” post to the Guest forum. In my opinion, you’ve gone beyond boundaries of courtesy and certainly deviated from COPA’s policy/request to respect contributors’ wishes and not copy posts from the Members forum here.
You are right Marty and I won’t do that again. I became concerned when I saw the co-ordinated effort to bury a safety-related thread. I’m not a big fan of threads with inflamatory titles either, but sometimes we just have to face, not cover up the ugly stuff in order to save lives.
It won’t happen again.
Steve
In reply to:
When a criticism is made the typical reaction falls into one (or both) of two categories…
Joe,
I’ve been on this board for about 1 1/2 years. I joined before I bought my demo SR22.
I know it’s subjective, but while there are exceptions, I have not found your concern to be the case.
Specifically, I have NOT found that COPA members gloss over deficiencies. In some cases I’ve found small deficiencies (real or perceived) blown out of proportion. An example was when it was proposed that not showing terrain on the PFD was a deficiency and possibly causative in at least one accident. I think that’s really reaching, but there was still an interesting discussion, pro and con.
Similarly, I don’t recall too many members reacting defensively or denying the possibility of an issue with the lifters.
In your nose-wheel-steering observation, it’s hard to deny that brake failure in our planes is more critical than with a steerable nosewheel. It’s a design trade-off that apparently Lancair, Diamond and Grumman agree with. Brake maintenance, never a minor concern, becomes all the more important in our planes where the brakes serve an additional function.
By your own admission, “most posters” responded “correctly” on the nosewheel issue. I think it’s a reach, therefore, to consider the minority position as being “typical”.
Anytime anyone wants to discuss what I consider deficiencies in the design/manufacture of the Cirrus, I’d be happy to oblige. Overall, though, I think the Klapmeirs (sp?) have produced a fine product (pretty much from scratch) and should be applauded for their successes, not just criticized for their failures.
My personal experience has been completely opposite to what you are asserting. Anytime you get a large enough group there will be some people who present the point of view that you seem to be saying is the majority of COPA members and IMO is the vast, vast minority.
When I was doing my due diligence on buying an airplane I joined COPA to learn more and I would say that people were so candid about their experiences and pros and cons that I almost went another direction.
I do think that since Cirrus has attracted a lot of new GA types that some people, appropriately so, have tried to temper some of the criticism because a lot of the squawks are common to any airplane and some of the gripes are a result of being new to aviation and not necessarily Cirrus specific.
Anytime any plane has gone down whether it be a Cirrus or not there has been a lot of serious discussion about what can be learned from the tragic incident.
In reply to:
You are right Marty and I won’t do that again. I became concerned when I saw the co-ordinated effort to bury a safety-related thread. I’m not a big fan of threads with inflamatory titles either, but sometimes we just have to face, not cover up the ugly stuff in order to save lives.
It won’t happen again.
Steve
No problem. You are a good contributor. I know that you, as a Lancair Owner and member of that type club, are always exceptionally careful not to offend others when you visit this site. As you know, failure to do so would just make you look mean spirited. When I spoke out (as you did) against that post, I was told that the selected post was really a bad example of a “troll.”
I believe that members should always be respectful and courteous regardless of what forum or venue they post to, but I also believe that 'guests" should be no less than equally courteous and respectful of their hosts, and probably more so. Walking in someone’s house and spitting at them just ain’t right, regardless of whether the ‘house’ is a home or web site. Posting that there was an accident without any other comment, sympathetic or otherwise, is hardly a neighborly thing to do. It is likely that the pilot may have friends on the site.
BTW, I’m not sure that I would call an announcement of an accident a “safety-related thread.” That might be a bit too generous as to its value. Let’s just call it factual and leave it at that. [;)]
In reply to:
My personal experience has been completely opposite to what you are asserting.
All I’ll say is, anyone who wants to can read either the PFD or nose wheel steering thread and draw their own conclusion.
Joe,
Maybe the exception proves the rule?
Here’s another example:
I had the terminal for the field wire on ALT 1 break. I expressed the opinion that I thought the wire/terminal/post juncture was poorly designed. IIRC, I used words like “miserable” and “flimsy” to describe what I thought was an inexcusable weakness in an all-electric plane.
I sent the broken connector to Cirrus with a report - it took over 10 months to get a response. From what I can see, $400,000 airplanes are still rolling out of the factory with this “Achilles Heel” in place, and every couple of months we hear of another Cirrus with the same problem.
So, what’s my point? I don’t recall a single instance of anyone on the site defending the design with any kind of a “reflex”. I don’t recall being attacked by anyone. More than a few agreed the design was deficient and at least a handful have sought ways to take preventive action, as have I. Like the SR20 breather issue, the oil on the belly issue, the cracking oil cooler issue, etc. etc., I just don’t see the defensiveness that you perceive, at least as a general rule.
In reply to:
All I’ll say is, anyone who wants to can read the either PFD or nose wheel steering thread and draw their own conclusion.
The problem with all of the forum threads, and the issues that they raise are that they are like the “eye of the camera”
When the News camera pics a news story to focus upon, the world thinks that the problem is pervasive and everywhere.
It’s not.
The result is a myoptic view of Cirrus both good and bad.
If you don’t buy it, just ask anyone following an airplane crash. Suddenly, aviation is unsafe.
Don’t confuse me with facts, I know what I want to know.
Hope this is the right place to put this. A SR-22 crashed yesterday in Norcal Donner Summit area. Do not have details.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/12266279p-13130348c.html
I hope the deployed parachute means there’s at least a chance they survived.
Brian, thanks for your post. And for your continued interest in COPA. Your post is appropriate and appreciated because you are one more set of eyes that can see and respond to what’s happening.
There has been considerable discussion of the Lake Tahoe accident on the member’s side, so please consider a membership:
60 posts in a thread on the accident reports, including weather analysis and decision making
9 posts on the idea of another COPA stand down, similar to 2003
16 posts on safety and reasons for pilots to trust the technology rather than their judgement
24 posts on exhorting COPA actions in response to recent fatal accidents
3 post on the idea of Paying It Forward, suggesting COPA mentors
Thats over 100 posts in less than 12 hours with truly amazing depth and concern by COPA members. (and 3 more while I prepared this reply! [:S])
Cheers
Rick
No survivors. They did find the chute deployed with some debris. He called atc said he had ice and was going down. The investigation will determine if the chute was pulled or no. I hate to ask but alot if not all the sr-22’s accidents seem to be pilot error? Are these guys getting into stuff they shouldn’t be in? It seems they all get inot weather or whatever the reason and just lose it. Is training doing it’s job for the aircraft?