Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

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Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby J » Thu Nov 30, 2017 1:22 am


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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby 3WE » Thu Nov 30, 2017 12:19 pm

Interesting- The controllers do seem to lack a lot of understanding and were almost a PITA for the emergency declaration, but also agree with the video statement to dumb it down- "instrument failure, I need to stay clear of clouds" and also STAY clear of clouds.

And doing real IMC with no back up and an OLD OLD vacuum pump... almost makes one wish for more regulations...

It's spooky to think that with only 100 hours, I think I've seen 5? instances of instrument failure.

I wonder if they had extra bad luck and lost the turn indicator too?

I want to believe I would be totally competent without an AI and HI...I found the turn 'and bank' indicator to be powerful for a whole 3 hours of hood time... but stats say otherwise.
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby 3WE » Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:09 pm

***The controllers do seem to lack a lot of understanding and were almost a PITA for the emergency declaration, but also agree with the video statement to dumb it down- "instrument failure, I need to stay clear of clouds"***
I also seem to recall some sort of 'insider jargon' of declaring "no-gyro" and that ATC was supposed to know the ramifications of that and maybe have a set of 'actions' they could consider to help with the situation.

Of course, with modern digital, glass-panel mentality, "I lost my vacuum pump" probably told the controller that the pilot was going to have a bad time cleaning up the cookie crumbs from the seat and floor boards...
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby Not_Karl » Thu Nov 30, 2017 10:17 pm

Ban:
-Vacuum pumps.
-Flying in IMC.
-The Beechcraft Bonanza.
-General Aviation.
-Airplanes in general.

Problem solved.
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby Gabriel » Sun Dec 03, 2017 11:41 pm

And doing real IMC with no back up and an OLD OLD vacuum pump... almost makes one wish for more regulations...
The turn coordinator or turn-and-slip indicator and the wet compass are the "official" back-ups for the loss of a vacuum pump. Not that they are very good back-ups.

A real problem in this accident was that the cloud system was very large and there was nowhere close to get down without flying into the clouds.

I also wonder if the plane had and HSI slaved to a remote compass one of those old rate-based autopilot that can be engaged in heading mode only, or even wing levels only.

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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby 3WE » Mon Dec 04, 2017 1:48 am

And doing real IMC with no back up and an OLD OLD vacuum pump... almost makes one wish for more regulations...
***Not that they (TCs) are very good back-ups.***
Disconcur.

I found the TC to be an excellent bank indicator (don’t go technical on me, it basically does indicate bank for practical purposes). (Although it would come and go in the 150).

Yeah, the big weather system was a factor- but also, an even BETTER reason to not be up there with a ragged out vacuum pump and not even an intake manifold backup...
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby Gabriel » Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:33 am

And doing real IMC with no back up and an OLD OLD vacuum pump... almost makes one wish for more regulations...
***Not that they (TCs) are very good back-ups.***
Disconcur.

I found the TC to be an excellent bank indicator (don’t go technical on me, it basically does indicate bank for practical purposes).
I believe that the problem with the TC as a backup for the AI is not the TC itself, but that it takes so much workload to manage the pitch by trying to follow trends on the ASI, ALT and VSI that one doesn't pay proper attention to the TC.

In any event, loss-of-control, crash, burn, die is a quite typical outcome for loosing the vacuum pump in IMC with only a TC and wet compass as back-up. So the back-up system (not just the TC itself) doesn't seem to be so great.

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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby 3WE » Mon Dec 04, 2017 8:46 am

***In any event, loss-of-control, crash, burn, die is a quite typical outcome for loosing the vacuum pump in IMC with only a TC and wet compass as back-up. So the back-up system (not just the TC itself) doesn't seem to be so great.***
A little hair splitting, but a lack of currency, practice, and competence is where “the system” breaks down. :mrgreen:
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby elaw » Mon Dec 04, 2017 11:45 am

Or a lack of computers to fly the airplane, depending on who you ask.
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby 3WE » Mon Dec 04, 2017 2:46 pm

***I believe that the problem with the TC as a backup for the AI is not the TC itself, but that it takes so much workload to manage the pitch by trying to follow trends on the ASI, ALT and VSI that one doesn't pay proper attention to the TC.***
My recollection was that the TC and the VSI became the primary instruments to monitor attitude.

Yeah, you always scan all six of them.

The other nuance to the statistics (and not this incident) is the slow death of the vacuum where you are focused on the AI as "the primary" instrument...and then...when things are all FUBARED you have to get it back with the limited instrumentation.

I concede that straight and level, and slap suction cups over the gyro instruments AND THEN KEEP IT STABLE is a much easier exercise.
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby Gabriel » Mon Dec 04, 2017 7:53 pm

***I believe that the problem with the TC as a backup for the AI is not the TC itself, but that it takes so much workload to manage the pitch by trying to follow trends on the ASI, ALT and VSI that one doesn't pay proper attention to the TC.***
My recollection was that the TC and the VSI became the primary instruments to monitor attitude.

Yeah, you always scan all six of them.

The other nuance to the statistics (and not this incident) is the slow death of the vacuum where you are focused on the AI as "the primary" instrument...and then...when things are all FUBARED you have to get it back with the limited instrumentation.

I concede that straight and level, and slap suction cups over the gyro instruments AND THEN KEEP IT STABLE is a much easier exercise.
The VSI is very lagging. Good luck trying to track it. With nothing to "fix" the pitch, you will end up chasing it up and down.

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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby 3WE » Mon Dec 04, 2017 8:45 pm

The VSI is very lagging. Good luck trying to track it. With nothing to "fix" the pitch, you will end up chasing it up and down.
Look, man, I know what you are saying is technically correct.

However, let me go Boeing Bobby on you and say that I have a whopping 5 hours of flight time managing pitch using the VSI.

It's a critical instrument skill to establish a 500 fpm descent or climb...and on partial panel it is a skill you can develop to maintain reasonable attitudes using the VSI (and trim, of course)...

You are super duper critically relying on both your buttocks to detect a CHANGE in vertical speed, and then count to 15 (or something) and see what the VSI tells you is actually happening...you actually train yourself to 'stay ahead' of the VSI...

Absolutely you do not CHASE it...although you may check it, interpret it and put in a measured correction...but (somewhat at a loss for words), it's relies on pausing and using your buttocks and ears to keep track of 'short-term generic changes' without focusing too much on exactly what the ear tells you....
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby 3WE » Tue Dec 05, 2017 3:19 am

...a wonderful exercise is “Vertical Ss”. Establish: -500 fpm, + 500 fpm, -400, + 400, -300, +300, - 200 +200, -100, +100...

Many of those cause minimal VISIBLE change on the AI... it was more muscle and buttock memory.

Check VSI... make appropriate pitch input from memory... count to 10... check VSI... etc.
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby Gabriel » Tue Dec 05, 2017 8:43 am

... make appropriate pitch input from memory...
Good luck.

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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby elaw » Tue Dec 05, 2017 11:41 am

Or... make no pitch input at all! Or roll input.

If you're flying along straight and level with the plane properly trimmed (having rudder trim available helps here) and you suddenly find yourself in the soup, it seems like the best short-term course of action would be to remove your hands from the yoke. The plane, not knowing it's in the soup, *should* continue flying along straight and level.

Then if you think a small altitude change would fix the problem, you could add or remove a little throttle to make the plane climb or descend gently.

What if you want to turn? I have no idea on that one.

Of course none of this would fix the problem that's the subject of this topic. If you're airborne and your goal is to land at an airport, a level flight path will never intersect the ground... unless you happen to be in just the right area with rising terrain. And flying straight is pretty unlikely to a) get you to an airport (at least a nearby one) and b) get you properly lined up with the runway.
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby 3WE » Tue Dec 05, 2017 12:17 pm

... make appropriate pitch input from memory...
Good luck.
Read, damn it...it’s a skill... no luck involved and I did it mr outsider [/ BBie flame]

It’s not rocket surgery, a dumbass Aggie did doed it!!!!!

The challenge is 1. The skill to recognize when your vacuum gyros crap out, and then 2. having some recent practice on partial panel.
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby Gabriel » Tue Dec 05, 2017 4:27 pm

... make appropriate pitch input from memory...
Good luck.
Read, damn it...it’s a skill... no luck involved and I did it mr outsider [/ BBie flame]

It’s not rocket surgery, a dumbass Aggie did doed it!!!!!

The challenge is 1. The skill to recognize when your vacuum gyros crap out, and then 2. having some recent practice on partial panel.
Well, in the way you describe it, and in my opinion for whatever it's worth, it is a strange skill akin to riding a bicycle in the middle of the forest with your eyes blinded and avoiding the trees by smelling them and detecting the echo of the ambient noise on them. I am much closer to the approach you described in your other post. Something somewhere in the middle between the method described in "The last 167 seconds" (or whatever seconds they were, have you ever actually read that report?) -which consist of not touching the yoke, touching the trim only once and only if needed, and then manage the average trends with throttle and rudder without trying to keep anything nailed and without reacting to oscillations-, and what we normally call flying a plane. I didn't invent it. My ground trainer instructor taught it to me.

About landing, an instrument approach down to ILS minimums without an artificial horizon would be very challenging and risky for any pilot no matter how experienced, unless he has the skill you mentioned and he keeps practicing that skill continuously (which would mean that 1) he has the opportunity to fly an ILS approach close to minimums often and 2) whenever he has that opportunity he does it partial panel. So if you cannot get out of the soup laterally, at least aim for an airport with the highest ceiling you can get, and this still can be less than 1000 ft and hence still officially IMC, but more than 400 ft.

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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Engine Failure

Postby 3WE » Thu Dec 07, 2017 2:42 am

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... op-story-1


We crashed one today in flyover.

I always thought this airport had really good backup parallel highways for emergency backup for westbound landings- although power lines and such AND he got close to making it.

Also of note is that the approach used to be over farm fields... its now a huge strip mall / movie theatre, etc. I can see some political pressure to ban all airplanes to protect the Wally world, Lowes and Home Depot shoppers.
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Engine Failure

Postby 3WE » Thu Dec 07, 2017 9:21 pm

***We crashed one today in flyover.***
Todays news:

4000 hour pilot.
2001 Aircraft (pretty new)
Correction (or I read it more slower) that the plane was arriving FROM Arizona and on short final to the intended destination reporting engine problems. The fact that it was at the end of the flight (not sure if there were refueling legs), but regardless, fuel starvation is on the parlour-speculation list.

Weather...I THINK it was VFR...

Alternative airports if fuel was running low (many).
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby 3WE » Thu Dec 07, 2017 10:05 pm

***Well, in the way you describe it, and in my opinion for whatever it's worth, it is a strange skill akin to riding a bicycle in the middle of the forest with your eyes blinded and avoiding the trees by smelling them and detecting the echo of the ambient noise on them. I am much closer to the approach you described in your other post. Something somewhere in the middle between the method described in "The last 167 seconds" (or whatever seconds they were, have you ever actually read that report?) -which consist of not touching the yoke, touching the trim only once and only if needed, and then manage the average trends with throttle and rudder without trying to keep anything nailed and without reacting to oscillations-, and what we normally call flying a plane. I didn't invent it. My ground trainer instructor taught it to me.***
Cool story about the ground instructor bro.

My FLIGHT instructor made me do lots of vertical-S drills described above...it was pretty cool...I could maintain and tweak my vertical speeds by 100 to 200 fpm.

My FLIGHT instructor (who was getting a lot of experience with partial panel training) told me of actually losing his vacuum gyros in the soup.

He did not_disorient_spiral_crash_burn_and_die, but instead lived and did seem to like having me do partial panel work.

And to re repeat- this was INSTRUMENT training. I believe the "167 seconds" is the average life span of a private pilot who encounters IMC and not_the life span of the instrument pilot who loses his vacuum gyros.

It is a new level of precision handling of a set of controls using steam gauges...(the fundamentals are behind it, but precision is the deal).

I've done my best to put it into words as someone who has done it. I also acknowledge the slow decline and acknowledge that real IMC vs some potentially useful shadows and cues under a hood and that somatographic illusions and currency of practice yeah, stats do show it as dangerous and other stuff does complicate it.

***BUT***

It is not_riding a bicycle in the forest with blind folds. It is precise integration of buttocks and VSI and control inputs. It's tricky but it can be done.
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby flyboy2548m » Sun Dec 10, 2017 7:21 pm

I was going to weigh in on this, but then I realized Gabe would just disagree and post a 4-page discourse on why he disagrees, so I decided to save us both the effort.
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby 3WE » Mon Dec 11, 2017 1:39 am

I was going to weigh in on this, but then I realized Gabe would just disagree and post a 4-page discourse on why he disagrees, so I decided to save us both the effort.
My loss.

I'm sure I would fudge up and spiral, crash, burn and did died (like most all 'good pilots' do)...complacency, shock and momentary disorientation are powerful things...

I know I over simplified things, but maintain that the turn indicator and VSI were 'primary instruments' guiding carefully-measured inputs...and, yeah...there could have been a shadow here or there to help.

...still, I also believe my puppy mill instructor who survived a moderate amount of stress to tell the tale that it could be done.
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Engine Failure

Postby Rabbi O'Genius » Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:27 am

fuel starvation is on the parlour-speculation list.
It seems like it burned too well for a total absence of fuel.
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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Instrument Failure

Postby ocelot » Mon Dec 11, 2017 7:07 am

It strikes me as insane to not have a backup horizon in a plane that one is obviously using for primary transportation in all weather conditions.

That said, I really didn't like the video. I thought it didn't organize its points well and it didn't concentrate on the right ones. Seems to me the key points for this one should be (1) carry enough fuel to get out of the weather system, just in case; (2) talk to ATC effectively; and (3) know your limits as a pilot and how this intersects with the properties of your equipment. It mentioned all of these, but scattershot, and it didn't put the two parts of point (3) together explicitly at all.

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Re: Discussion of Beech Bananza Crash - Engine Failure

Postby 3WE » Mon Dec 11, 2017 11:19 pm

fuel starvation is on the parlour-speculation list.
It seems like it burned too well for a total absence of fuel.
Understood.

That being said, please list the other things likely to cause an engine to fail 1 mile short of your intended destination after a multi-state flight.

Ironingly, I said fuel starvation...well, how about fuel starvation from some crud on the bottom of the tank being stirred up by lower fuel levels and then plugging something up in the fuel system...I'd expect a 4,000 hour pilot to be somewhat religious about his reserve fuel...but 45 minutes worth might have some extra slosh factor, and indeed, burn fairly well.

Not exactly the same as fuel starvation from running out of gas...

Of course, the key word is "speculation". We recognize that we will have to wait for the final report.
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