Kobe Bryant Joins a
Long List of Celebrity Death Flights
They may all have one shocking
thing in common?
(CNN)In his final transmission, the pilot of a
helicopter that crashed, killing nine people including NBA legend Kobe Bryant,
told air traffic control he was climbing to avoid a cloud layer, the National
Transportation Safety Board said Monday.
When air traffic control asked the pilot what he
planned to do, there was no reply, NTSB board member Jennifer Homendy told
reporters. The last radar contact was around 9:45 a.m. (12:45 p.m. ET) Sunday,
she said.
Radar data indicated the helicopter climbed 2,300
feet and began a left descending turn, she said.
Here is a post from
THE HOT WIRE TIMES from 7 February 2015:
Why
pilots fly on instruments instead of looking out the window
Most people believe that flying an aircraft in cloud is really not much
different to flying in clear air, after all they must still know which way they
are going, which is up and which is down, whether they are turning or flying
straight, climbing or descending. It should all be easy. If they can’t see,
there is nothing to stop them going by feel. Okay, they may find it a little
hard to locate a destination airport but getting to the general vicinity should
be a piece of cake. What could possibly go wrong?
Unfortunately, many
low-time private pilots also believe this dangerous fallacy. During the
earliest years of aviation, accidents were common. Structural failure and loss
of control was the most common cause, but as aircraft design, performance, and
pilot training improved, another hazard presented itself. Pilots flying in
reduced visibility often encountered a new kind of hazard that they were
untrained and unprepared for. It was called spatial disorientation.
Spatial disorientation is a sneaky but rapid killer. Many victims strike
the ground at high speed before they even realise there is a problem. Others
fight for control, but rely on their senses or feelings, rather than their
instruments for situational awareness. Spatial disorientation can take several
forms. Typically, a pilot who is untrained for instrument flying, will feel a
slight rotation about one of the three axis of his machine; he will feel pitch,
roll or yaw. So, he will make a small correction to bring it back on even keel,
but that will be when his troubles may really begin. He may over-correct, or
under-correct. For example, if he detects a slight turn to the right, he will
apply opposite control (the same inputs for starting a left turn), but as the
rate of turn decreases it will already feel as though he has started a turn in
the opposite direction and as there are no external reference points to tell
him otherwise, he will believe his feelings.
But that situation is only the beginning of the pilot’s problems because
turning an aircraft, in terms of dynamics, is not a simple matter. It involves
rotation around all three axis. It rolls, pitches and yaws all in the same
movement and the pilot must control all three simultaneously. If he fails to do
that accurately a fourth dimension immediately comes into play and that
dimension is airspeed. So now the pilot has four things to control and the
minor disturbance (or misconception) that started with a small correction on
the controls has quickly become a complicated but crucial situation. The
pilot’s actions in the next few seconds will determine whether he lives or
dies. Most modern aircraft can fly straight and level for a time without any
input from the pilot. They are inherently stable, but only until they start to
turn. Left to its own devices the angle of bank will get progressively steeper,
the radius of turn will tighten and the nose will drop allowing the airspeed to
increase. Within a few seconds, perhaps a minute or two at the most, the gentle
turn will have developed into what is commonly known as a graveyard spiral. The
only uncertainty with a graveyard spiral is the question of which will come
first – structural failure, or impact with the ground.
and Vertical Speed Indicator
The pilot’s instruments will tell him early in the event exactly what is
happening, but if he doesn’t understand them, they will be of little use.
Before undergoing thorough instrument flight training all pilots believe their
bodily senses, just as we do all day every day on the ground when we have
external reference points. He will also believe the forces on the seat of his
pants and the balance mechanisms in our ears. That’s the natural thing to do.
But instrument flying is not natural. Without training, understanding and
self-discipline, an untrained pilot in cloud or fog, will fare no better than a
scared cat on a multi-lane, busy highway. Control and panic do not belong
together.
Flight safety started to improve after research and development work by
the legendary American pilot, Jimmy Doolittle. In 1929, Doolittle made the
first successful take-off, circuit and landing, flying solely by reference to
instruments. His developments included the artificial horizon and the gyro
compass. Within a few years most airline and military flying was conducted
using Instrument Flight Rules and aviation became safer.
When this blogger started flying in 1954 there was a rule that pilots
who were not instrument rated, or not flying on an IFR (Instrument Flight
Rules) flight plan had to stay at least 500 feet vertically and 2,000 feet
horizontally from cloud. They were limited to VFR (Visual Flight Rules) and
they operated in airspace away from IFR controlled airspace. It was a sound
rule. But many pilots, deliberately or accidentally, strayed from the rule, and
many paid with their lives.
But even today, many people including some pilots, believe that their
natural senses will be all they need to survive in cloud or fog. When that
thinking is combined with a poor understanding of the weather and visibility
along the route, rugged terrain and over-confidence, accidents are bound to
happen. In the worst-case scenario, marginal weather can change to no-go
weather, a pilot can be caught en route with nowhere to go and
may be forced to land away from an airport. Visual flying by the inexperienced
can be hazardous even when the intentions are good. Even now 40% of all general
aviation accidents can be attributed to loss of control due to spatial
disorientation.
There is a long list of celebrity visual pilots and passengers who died
trusting their senses instead of getting the correct training and trusting
their instruments.
Singers Patsy Cline
and Jim Reeves had more than singing in common. Cline’s pilot and Reeves were
trained by the same flight instructor. Neither pilot was instrument rated but
both died while attempting to fly in instrument conditions. Buddy Holly died when
his non-instrument rated charter pilot took-off into a snowstorm at night.
Boxer Rocky Marciano died in a Cessna 172 flown in poor visibility by a pilot
who was not instrument rated. More recently, John F. Kennedy Jnr died when he
lost control of his aircraft during a flight over water on a dark night. He was
not instrument rated.
After I had been flying for several years I undertook the training for
an instrument rating, including cross-country navigation, various instrument
approaches and recovery from unusual situations, not so that I could file an
IFR flight plan and cruise above the clouds, but just for insurance against my
own errors of judgement while flying VFR. I believe every pilot should be
trained to IFR standard.
Many of the spatial
disorientation accidents happen in aircraft fully equipped for instrument
flying, but to pilots who are not instrument trained. Some of them seem to
believe that having the instruments is more important than the training, but
they continue to believe their natural instincts instead of the instruments and
continue to die with only seconds warning.
No comments:
Post a Comment