Discussion for article #227336
Is there no way to check the seal before take off or some emergency indicator that warns the pilot as it’s climbing that there may be a problem?
I think the answer to your first question is no and the pilot was responding to something obviously that would make the second part of your question yes. I don’t have experience flying pressurized aircraft but even in little Cessna’s that could barely reach altitudes where there is insufficient oxygen there are typically handheld oxygen bottles or even built in systems. I don’t understand and I think this is the big question why if he knew there was a problem he did not use emergency oxygen or or perform some sort of emergency descent maneuver that could get the plane to a lower altitude in a hurry. It sounds like ATC didn’t understand the magnitude of the problem because the pilot was being a little coy with what he seemed to be sensing was a serious situation. I would guess if the depressurization was rapid it would suck the air right out of your lungs causing you do do something like drown. It seems like there was an indication of a problem and then an escalation of the situation that came after that very rapidly. I wonder how many hours he had in this type of aircraft. It was brand new, so it was certainly new to him.
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doG do work in mysterious ways…
Maybe the guy just pissed him off.
Shouldn’t you be shooting an elk from the sky or something?
I’m pretty sure WHO has enough on their plate with Ebola rather than worry about real estate developers.
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I think that it’s pretty obvious that the pressurization problem was the cause of the crash and fatalities. It is possible that the pilot and passenger were already dead from hypoxia when the aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed.
This is the problem with high performance aircraft being flown by weekend warriors. Most of them are not adequately familiar with the pressurization systems (or any of the other very complex systems on the aircraft) to detect the failure of the system until it’s too late. The FAA has allowed these amateurs to fly at altitudes with 400 seat passenger airliners without sufficient training and, far more importantly, rigorous twice annual recurrent training such as airline pilots are required to submit to. If you want to play with the big boys, you best be prepared to pass the same flight checks as the airline pilots must. Otherwise you create situations like this that are a deadly hazard to other traffic operating in these high altitude environments.
Anytime an aircraft is certified to fly above 12,500 ft., the FAA should required a specific type rating training and check-ride as rigorous as airline pilots must pass to be allowed to fly the aircraft by yourself. And the FAA must require 6 month checks of pilot ground school training and flight capabilities in the airspace requirements with a flight-check that is just as difficult as the original check-ride to have the privilege to renew your currency in the aircraft for legal flight. People who break these rules should face revocation of their flight certificates and jail time Otherwise, these accidents are going to keep happening with more dead bodies strewn across the landscape. I don’t blame the Glazers for the accident. This is squarely upon the bloody hands of the FAA for not properly regulating these high performance aircraft.
If you think I am exaggerating, I am a medically retired airline pilot before I became a lawyer. I will relate to you 2 incidents that I was involved in up in the so-called “Positive Control” airspace above 18,000 ft. Above that altitude, aircraft are required to be in an instrument flight rules flight plan and MUST be in communications with Air Traffic Control.
I was happily motoring along with my jet containing 80 passengers and four crew-members when ATC (Air Traffic Control) suddenly called to us that we had unknown traffic at 12 o’clock (directly in front of use) with a transponder readout that was at the identical altitude to us and closing at a high rate of speed. We were cruising at around 490 knots/hour and the aircraft (it later turned out) was cruising at a speed of about 250 knots/hour. Doing the math, that gave us a closure rate of 740 knots/hour, a speed faster than the speed of sound. That means we were on a collision course at a rate of 1250 feet per second.
We barely had time to react and bank sharply away from the aircraft and climb, while my First Officer declared an emergency to allow us to deviate as necessary. The aircraft, which both of us clearly identified, passed us at a distance of less than 200 feet. The dipstick who was flying it was a Private Pilot with fewer than 1000 total flight hours and fewer than 100 total flight hours in that type of complex aircraft. He was a rich guy that bought his own aircraft and was legally allowed to fly it with absolutely no training, flying at an altitude that he was legal to fly at if he had been on a flight plan and had clearance from ATC.
We had to dump the flight attendants on their backsides because this dipstick was flying at an altitude that his high performance turboprop was legal to fly at, but had a moron at the controls who did not abide by the rules of the road. He had no formal training in his aircraft and was legal to fly the aircraft with absolutely no knowledge of how to operate it so that he could fly safely with other aircraft. When the FAA finally caught up with him, their response was that he had to take a check flight in any other airplane, including a Cessna 150 (one of the simplest aircraft to fly) and had a large fine. What should have happened is that the FAA jerked this guy’s license to fly permanently.
In the meantime, the airline I was flying for had to conduct a very premature, full inspection of the aircraft, including wing X-Rays of the wing spars, at a very expensive cost of several million Dollars because of the stress we put on the aircraft to save 83 lives and mine. The aircraft had just come out of a major inspection that is routinely required of large passenger planes with fewer than 50 flight hours on it and nearly 1000 hours away from its next major, total tear-down inspection to insure that it is safe to fly. But now the airline had to conduct another complete check because some dork was flying an airplane at an altitude that he may have been technically qualified to fly, but in reality he had no business flying that aircraft at that altitude.
The second incident that I was a victim in was very similar except that the particular dipstick forgot to set his altimeter to the standard setting that everyone is SUPPOSED to use above 18,000 feet. Another scaring of 89 passengers and four crew-members who nearly lost their lives because of a pilot and aircraft that had no business being where he was unless he had rigorous training and check-rides to allow him to be there. But the FAA is content to endanger the lives of dozens of innocent paying passengers so that they don’t have to do their jobs and enforce the regulations.
If the FAA continues their lax policies toward amateurs flying aircraft that are beyond the knowledge that they have received, these accidents are going to continue to happen. And these incidents are not nearly as isolated as that “expert” indicated. The continue to happen at the rate of about 1or 2 per year. Sooner or later one of these amateurs flying an aircraft that they are insufficiently trained for is going to run head on into a 747 or Airbus 380 with 400 passengers on board and the FAA is going to stand around with their collective thumbs up their butts claiming that they didn’t know that this could happen.
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That’s how my brother died. He was a pilot instructor doing touch and goes at our local general aviation airport in 1978. They were in a Cessna. My brother had over 7500 hours and was just getting ready to sign on with United Airlines. His student that day was a Vietnam Vet, getting his license to fly etc., to begin a career in it. Some dipstick with less than 100 hours in his co-owned plane taking his father up for a birthday ride, didn’t listen to the tower, came in for a landing while my brother & student were on their final touch and go, and struck my brother’s plane from the rear in mid air, knocking off the the tail sending my brother and his student spiraling down and landing on a house in a nearby neighborhood. Luckily for that family, they were on vacation and not home. Somehow the dipstick got his plane landed without much damage.
We lost my brother, only 28 at the time, and his student because some dipstick didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
And…the asshole tried to sue our family and the student’s family for damage to his plane! He lost of course.
I had so much fun flying with my brother when I was a kid. He was the oldest I am the youngest, 14 years difference in age. I’ve thought so many times over the years of all the fun we would have had flying, I might have even gotten a license myself, who knows.
Dipsticks suck.
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Outstanding comment. Thank you very much for taking so much time to share your experiences with us. Your contribution was vastly more informative than the dismal reporting so-called journalists offer us these days.
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Knots/hr? Really? You’re a former professional pilot and you don’t know the difference between knots and miles or km / hour? Somehow this whole sordid tale seems fabricated by a wannabe.
Maybe not. But what professional uses knots/hr?
Well, there’s this.
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080603125037AACaVtv
Hey TomAgo, aircraft terms are based on nautical terms - dipstick.
Chuck Yeager would have declared an emergency.