Jim, I completely agree with your caution against prematurely coming to conclusions on the unfortunate Lexington accident.
However, wouldn’t you add to the list of facts that the pilots attempted to deploy the chute and were unsuccessful? I thought that was in the Cirrus e-mail, and presumably was factual.
Andy
I had such an experience; the CFII was quite competent and had a good reputation but our personalities just didn’t match at all. When he stepped out of the plane, I felt like someone had just climbed in! Doubtless he reacted to me in a similar way. This mismatch got in the way of my learning much of anything, and after two flights I moved on to someone else.
Report created 03/20/2002 Record 1 **
IDENTIFICATION
Regis#: 244CD Make/Model: SR20 Description: 2001 EXP CIRRUS SR-20
Date: 03/16/2002 Time: 1731
Event Type: Accident Highest Injury: None Mid Air: N Missing: N
Damage: Substantial
LOCATION
City: LEXINGTON State: KY Country: US
DESCRIPTION
AIRCRAFT DEPARTED LEXINGTON RWY 4, REQUESTING APPROACHES, ADVISED HE HAD A
PROBLEM, PULLED HIS CHUTE, AND ACFT CRASHED IN A FIELD 2-4 MILES NE OF
LEXINGTON, KY
INJURY DATA Total Fatal: 0
# Crew: 1 Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:
# Pass: 1 Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:
# Grnd: Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:
WEATHER: SA 161645Z 02010KT 5SM BR OVC006 07/06 A3015
OTHER DATA
Activity: Pleasure Phase: Approach Operation: General Aviation
Departed: LEXINGTON, KY Dep Date: 03/14/2002 Dep. Time: 1731
Destination: LEXINGTON, KY Flt Plan: IFR Wx Briefing: U
Last Radio Cont: 3.5 NE LEX
Last Clearance: REQUEST FOR INFO 1735Z
FAA FSDO: LOUISVILLE, KY (SO01) Entry date: 03/18/2002
In reply to:
but what if you are right and he shouldn’t have been flying but made an error and LIVED…unlike JFK who should not have been flying and died…
I say again: My comments had absolutely nothing to do with the KY incident and were just a reaction (some would say overreaction) to Dave’s statement about pulling the 'chute if the AI failed. I’m just saying that you pull the thing if you lose control of the aircraft, which hopefully will not happen just because the AI fails.
Gordon -
At the risk of carrying this a bit farther than it merits, you seem to be hiding behind a disclaimer in your original post that bears very little on the real issue here, and an oblique admission that you may have over-reacted.
Actually, you did not over-react at all, IF you really thought Dave was stupid or incompetent enough to pull the chute at the first sign of AI failure. No, your mistake was not over-reaction, it was presuming that Dave was an idiot, and teeing off on him without giving him the benefit of the doubt that what he really meant was a loss of control stemming from an AI failure, not an AI failure per se.
I’ve made that mistake myself here and have learned from it.
In reply to:
No, your mistake was not over-reaction, it was presuming that Dave was an idiot, and teeing off on him without giving him the benefit of the doubt that what he really meant was a loss of control stemming from an AI failure, not an AI failure per se.
I agree. I was hair-triggered by a recent flight as safety pilot in a Bonanza that was just horrendous. I had to take control of the airplane.
Regarding my “disclaimer” - I had a couple replies that clearly inferred that I was referring to the KY accident, which I very clearly was not, and I wanted to make that clear. (I hope that’s clear [:)].)