Pending Review
In-Flight Shower
Wendy says, "Added to the Archive."
ORIGINAL SUBMISSION:
NTSB Report, Montana Standard Newspaper
The States is a big place. Crazy big. So when you buy a new car, you don't buy it on one side of the nation and drive it home. Less of a problem, however, when you buy a small plane. That's easy: hop airports, refueling each time, until you're home.
A pretty easy task for our fine gentleman, who with an estimated 11,200 hours of flying experience was no stranger to the task. Licenced both to fly big commercial airliners AND to teach others how to fly, perhaps his expertise bred his contempt.
To quote the official report into his death: " After landing at the accident airport, the pilot spoke on the telephone to a mechanic familiar with the airplane. The pilot reported to the mechanic that, after both of his earlier refueling stops, during the take climb, fuel had entered the cockpit, but after flying for a while, it stopped. The pilot stated that someone was helping him inspect the fuel system, but they were not able to find anything wrong. The mechanic stated that it sounded like a fuel venting problem and recommended that the pilot not fly the airplane until the issue was resolved. The pilot told the mechanic that he needed to get the airplane home and said that he was going to depart with all electrical power off."
In plain English: Every time he took off he was getting an aviation fuel shower, he had to ask if that was bad, and was told in no uncertain terms to stop flying it. His response? "Nah man I'll just turn off the power and fly in the dark. I got this."
Oh, and that chap he found to help him check the fuel system? A ruse to try and convince the mechanic all was well. Nobody at the airport remembers any such thing or even saw the pilot inspect his plane on his own.
This time, he opted after departure to perhaps not continue flying with fuel gushing into the cockpit and try to turn around. He told nobody; he couldn't, because no electrical power means no radio. We do know that he never made it back to the runway and since dead men tell no tales he was unable to explain away his fine decisions. Of course, with fuel leaked through the bit where people go and fuel doesn't, the all-consuming postcrash fire was inevitable.
https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?EventID=20151014X92113&AKey=1&RType=Summary&IType=FA
Submitted on 05/28/2019
Submitted by:
Iona Macdonald
Reference:
NTSB Report (URL too long, see submission box)