A single-engine plane has crashed into a house in California.
"The pilot appeared to be coming down low for some kind of maneuver that brought him to within 500 feet of the rooftops," Gunther said. "And then he appeared to lose control and crashed into one of the houses."
You can never tell, of course, but this seems to be yet another example of an idiot pilot losing control in low-level maneuvering. It boggles my mind that there are still accidents like this when the causes are so well-known and so easily avoided.
The description provided by the witness seems to be a classic case of a stall by a pilot who was "buzzing" something on the ground (usually a friend's house or something similar). Aerodynamically, what happens is the plane's nose is pointed down in the descent and the plane builds airspeed. When the pilot wants to level off, he pulls back on the stick, but the plane's path is still downward, so the angle between the wings and the relative wind (i.e., the airflow over the plane) becomes too high and the wings stall out.
You can recover from a stalled condition (essentially, you just need to put the nose down), but it takes altitude and when you are buzzing your friend's house at 500 feet, you don't have enough of it to make it. Splat.
This is why maneuvering at low-altitudes (and particularly at low airspeeds) is so dangerous and should be avoided.
Every pilot knows this. You can't possibly get your private ticket without understanding why it happens and why you should never do it. Flying obviously involves risk and pilots have a responsibility to know those risks and avoid them when possible. There is no reason to knowingly put yourself in a no-win situation.
But people still die every year from this nonsense. It just drives me batty.
5 comments:
Interesting.
You've written about two crashes on this blog, and both of them appear to involve stalling at low altitudes/low airspeeds. Of course, it seems that one was the result of an approach gone bad, while the other may have been a foolish move (buzzing a house - ridiculous!) gone worse. the first one was unfortunate, while the second may have been natural selection at work.
As you say, this is something every pilot should know. Absurd.
You see it on the water too, usually the result of speeds that are too high. It seems like people have a tough time remembering that moving through a fluid is so different than moving over the ground. Maybe because we're so far removed from the oceans and the air...
Can you say Randy Rhodes?
The Rhoads accident is a great example.
I've heard of the Rhoads accident, but not the Rhodes accident.
Was that the one where the low flying piano stalled and crushed an 80's pop producer who was about to use the Rhodes DX7 patch once again?
Wrongist!
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