Comments on: I saw my first airplane crash today. I saw a Piper Saratoga land with it’s gear up. Have you ever seen that?

By: jettech

jettech — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:45:59 +0000

I’ve never been witness to a fatal crash, despite working at an airport for close to 10 years, thank God for small favors. I have seen a couple of gear up landings, both Baron drivers that for whatever reason simply forgot to extend the landing gear. The sound of propellers hitting concrete is very loud.
And I got to watch as a friend had the NLG of his Merlin II snap away on landing. I reached the airplane before the fire crews did.

And I lost a friend to an off airport crash when he took off in his V-35 with his fuel selector set to a tank that only had about 6 min’s worth of fuel in it.

In a seperate incident, I’ve had to quarantine my FBO’s avgas trucks for inspection and go deal with an aircraft owner’s hysterical wife.

I’ve lost a coworker to a bird strike while he was giving a lesson; leaving behind a wife and infant.

It sucks, but it happens, and it’ll keep happening without regard to any practices we put in place to try to minimize it. Currently, all we can do is minimize incidents and injury; it’s unfortunate, but crashes will continue to happen, pilots will continue to make an erroneous judgment or just have brain farts.

Training, intimacy with the airplane, and discipline with regards to obeying the checklists is the only thing I can think of that will help abate the disasters.
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experience, training

By: ChrisAV8

ChrisAV8 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:31:59 +0000

saw a Mooney do the prettiest gear up landing at sun n fun. he greased it on, but forgot to lower the gear.
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By: JAN

JAN — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:13:59 +0000

So sorry to hear of the fatalities. Have children that love to fly. I hate to hear of crashes. Very high accident rate, sounds like they could use a control tower there.
Where are you located that you are having such high winds?
We had high winds today in Minnesota. Hope there was no small aircraft up here today.
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By: Valley R

Valley R — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:36:59 +0000

nope .. never seen that … I was in a private plane once that crashed … I was only 17 yrs old and our neighbor took us up for a flight. We landed about 90 miles from home to get some lunch. When we came out to take off again the pilot read the wind sock wrong and tried to take off with the wind. We hit the lights at the end of the runway, rolled about 100 yrds across a field and landed upside down in a ditch.
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By: G. M.

G. M. — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:51:59 +0000

Pilot Error
the cause of many accidents
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pilot
GM

By: Rosanna

Rosanna — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:19:59 +0000

That sounds terrible. I have not seen a plane crash, plenty of car crashes though, and I survived a car crash that totalled two cars. I cry when I see things like that.
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By: lollipop

lollipop — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:29:59 +0000

No, I haven't see a plane crash, but a Blue Angel crashed a few miles up the river today.
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By: brutabrutobrutos

brutabrutobrutos — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:16:59 +0000

no, never seen that
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