The NTSB has determined that the probable cause of the Galloping Ghost’s crash at last year’s Reno Air Races was flutter. No surprise there — I wrote about flutter within hours of the accident. At its presentation, the NTSB even showed the same NASA video demonstrating flutter that I had posted last year.
Flutter can
At first glance, one might expect that high density altitude was the cause of last week’s fatal Comanche crash at Truckee-Tahoe airport. The pilot first attempted to depart with three aboard, but aborted the takeoff. He then offloaded his two passengers and tried again. It was on the second attempt that the pilot crashed into
No conclusion yet as to exactly what caused the Galloping Ghost to crash last September at the Reno Air Races. But the interim report the NTSB issued today disclosed that the Galloping Ghost experienced an “upset” 6 seconds before it lost its left elevator trim tab. That, in turn, caused the aircraft to go out of control.
Robinson Helicopter Company likes to say that its helicopters are safe in crashes. According to an excerpt from Robinson Safety Notice SN-10:
The R22 and R44 have demonstrated excellent crashworthiness as long as the pilot flies the aircraft all the way to the ground . . .The ship may roll over and be
The pilot says he warned Lauren Scruggs away from his propeller. According to the NTSB’s preliminary report:
After [the pilot] opened the door, [Scruggs] started to get out of the airplane.
Upon noticing that she was exiting in front of the strut, the pilot leaned out of his seat and placed his right hand
“Investigators aren’t sure why Scruggs didn’t see the propeller” she walked into last night.
Um, maybe because a spinning propeller is pretty much invisible? Especially at night
?
News reports are that incidents such as Lauren Scruggs’, who is a model and fashion blogger, are rare. Maybe, but it would depend on what one means
The NTSB blamed the pilot for the last Blue Hawaiian helicopter crash into the side of a mountain. The NTSB concluded that while flying near bad weather, the pilot inadvertently entered clouds, became disoriented, and lost control of the helicopter. According to the NTSB, the probable cause of the accident was:
The pilot’s inadequate decision by which he
The NTSB is underfunded and understaffed. So it investigates accidents using the "party system." That means the NTSB relies on those who may have caused the accident for help in investigating the accident’s cause. Unfortunately, the "party participants" seldom point the NTSB towards evidence in their files that would tend to incriminate them. As a result, NTSB reports
go easy
Hall of Fame aerobatic champion Patty Wagstaff says that it was just bad luck that Jimmy Leeward’s accident involved spectators.
At the speeds Leeward was moving, had the malfunction occurred four seconds earlier or later, or almost anywhere else on the course, it would have terminated in the desert. This was not an accident waiting to
That’s what some press reports are saying. Had Jimmy Leeward not maneuvered the stricken plane as he did, things could have been much worse.
"The way I see it, if he did do something about this, he saved hundreds if not thousands of lives because he was able to veer that plane back toward the tarmac,”