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NTSB Says a Downdraft Killed Steve Fossett
jd writes "The National Transportation Safety Board has now released the text of its examination (full narrative available) into the crash of Steve Fossett's aircraft on Sept 3rd, 2007. It concludes that downdrafts were the likely cause of the crash, dragging the plane into the mountain with such force that, even at full power, it would have been impossible to escape the collision. Pilots experienced in the area report that those winds can rip the wings off aircraft; and Mark Twain remarked that they could roll up a tin house 'like sheet music.' One must wonder why such a skilled aviator was taking a gamble with such hostile conditions, given that he was looking for a flat stretch of land to race cars on, but that is one mystery we shall probably never know the answer to."
One must wonder ...
...how pilots experienced in the area and are still alive know that these downdrafts can rip the wings off an airplane?
Whale
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Monty Python quote. Seemed germane.
To Mr. Fossett,
"The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next."
-- Ursula K. LeGuin
Sudden deceleration is what killed him.
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All aviation is taking a gamble with gravity. If a potential for a downdraft anywhere became a limiting factor, no one would ever leave the ground.
Even in the best situations with the most accomplished pilots, the atmosphere can still prove a greater force than our best technology and minds. And these forces can crop up in any place and time, even with the best weather reports.
One must wonder why such a skilled aviator was taking a gamble with such hostile conditions, given that he was looking for a flat stretch of land to race cars on, but that is one mystery we shall probably never know the answer to."
Stated as though it was soooo-oo obvious that eeeveryone knew not to fly in that area.
One must wonder why such a skilled aviator was taking a gamble with such hostile conditions, given that he was looking for a flat stretch of land to race cars on, but that is one mystery we shall probably never know the answer to."
Even if we did know the answer, I doubt it would be very interesting. It's probably a little of Steve being an adrenaline junkie mixed with underestimating the danger.
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One must wonder why such a skilled aviator was taking a gamble with such hostile conditions, given that he was looking for a flat stretch of land to race cars on, but that is one mystery we shall probably never know the answer to.
I wondered, but in about a second I came up with this: An adventurer and thrill-seeker, in the course of looking for a place for future thrill-seeking, decided to seek some thrills?
Sure it's just idle speculation... but based on what little I know of the man, taking gambles with danger while tooling around alone in his private plane sounds exactly like something he would do. It makes enough sense for me, at least.
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When you register your flight, does the FAA (or whoever) give warnings about dangerous areas?
During your flight does the ATC tell you, "Be careful, you are about to enter a dangerous area?"
I guess what I want to know, is if he had a chance to know what the local pilots knew.
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The proper term for what they're describing is a mountain wave or wave action. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_wave contains a good description of the effect.
Mountain waves can be felt in small piston powered aircraft even flying significantly above the tops of the mountains, even several thousand feet above the peaks on either side of the valley you're crossing.
If you're holding altitude, you see that you speed up when you're crossing falling terrain and slow down when you're crossing rising terrain -- because as you cross the rising terrain, you're in the downdraft and so to maintain altitude, your airplane "feels" like it has to climb to stay at the same altitude in the falling air. Climbing requires additional power over simple cruise flight, or you slow down.
I've seen airspeed of an aircraft that should cruise at 150 knots, range from 90-180 knots, depending on whether you're on the uphill or downhill side of the wave. In severe conditions, you just cant' maintain altitude without slowing down too much, and you have to vary altitude to ride the waves.
It can be a scary experience knowing you don't have enough power to out-climb the wave -- That's the reason that you typically fly significantly higher in the mountains, even with good visibility -- You're not worried about hitting the mountains because you can't see them, you're worried about getting sucked by these waves and not having enough altitude to ride them out.
Pilots experienced in the area report that those winds can rip the wings off aircraft; and Mark Twain remarked that they could roll up a tin house 'like sheet music
Just thought I'd ask.. me thinks Mark Twain died before the aircraft age.
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The turbulence on the downstream side of the mountain peak, the "rotor", will!
Just like in a stream, you can get trapped on the downflow side.
Fosset was in the area because its an incredibly beautiful section of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I've been backpacking through there several times and have been in the area where he crashed.
This has some photos of the area, and some info on the conditions
http://www-ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/soaring/pics/040730South/index.html
Who cares about this guy? He is called an "adventurer"? Our navy (Australian) already had to fish this idiot out of the sea after he failed *another* balloon flight. He was a billionare.. but he cant even have a fucking plan b? His many rescuers should get the credit, not this idiot.
What sort of adventurer goes man vs nature... fails (often), lives only cause of others... but is still considered so brave / adventerous?
Even I can fuck up and get saved by the professionals. Its not that impressive!
Fossett flew off, no one knew where he went exactly... he didnt take sufficient supplies in case of trouble. What sort of retard is he? He knows better than anyone how often his stupid ass would crash. Its the one time he couldnt call for help to save his ass.
I assume the Fossett family wont ask me to speak at any family functions :)
From experience, the steeper the ridges the greater the impact. My old partner picked me up at my local airstrip in a Piper Tri Pacer (a lighter, tube and fabric airplane). We had to climb and then cross perpendicular to the ridge line, the least you can do to avoid the well known affects of a hill that rises 1000' in less than a mile. Even though we had at least 500' above the ridge, it was a bumpy ride. And when we were well past ridge face, it tipped us really hard and really fast! Thank god for padded radio headsets! It tipped us past 45 degrees in a fraction of second, with the window hitting my head and rang my bell some.
It's interesting that the brief linked to mentions radar hits with readouts of 14500 and 14900 feet but doesn't say anything about whether the aircraft was equipped with an O2 system or not. Above 12500 the pilot would be required to use supplemental O2 by FAR. Extended periods near 15000 without oxygen would definitely set you up for impaired judgement. Maybe it's considered in another document but it's not in the brief.
In contrast, the NTSB specifically mentioned lack of supplemental O2 in another crash: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009415709_webntsb04.html
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I used to fly out of the Bay Area, and the club I flew with specifically prohibited us from flying over the Sierra without supplemental training. Every pilot in California and Nevada is usually trained of the danger, not to cross the Sierra without several thousand fleet of ground clearance.
And when I took hang gliding lessons, there were many many stories of pilots who tried to fly the huge lift coming off the eastern slope, only to return to earth under a parachute with pieces of their broken gliders falling all around them.
Mountain flying can be tricky - one of my flight instructors was killed several years ago in the Rockies, flew into the end of a canyon. He was not a risk taker, and had been regularly flying between the Bay Area and Lake Tahoe for many years,
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Where I live, sometimes the clouds from the mountain waves are visible in long rows at over 25,000 feet elevation, in lines for a hundred miles downwind of the mountains themselves, and every one of those is strong enough to shake a plane like a ragdoll. A B-52 bomber had its vertical tail ripped off and lost part of a wing in clear air turbulence 5000 feet above the nearest mountain.
As another example of the danger of clear air turbulence from mountain waves, on March 5, 1966, BOAC Flight 911, a Boeing 707 on a flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong, broke up as it was flying near Mt. Fuji in clear weather, possibly in order to give the passengers a good view of the mountain.
First of all, in the USA, there is no requirement to "register your flight" with the FAA at all. You don't have to call up the police and request permission or register your planned trip to drive your car from your home to the shopping mall, or go on a pleasure drive, do you?
If you're a private pilot and have your own plane, you can pretty much, for the most part, just simply hop in it, and take off to go fly whenever you please. You do not need to seek permission from the government to go fly.
Now there are some limitations and exceptions. Large airports, and even smaller ones with great volumes of air traffic do have control towers, which exist solely for the purpose of imposing order and safety on the sequencing of arriving and departing aircraft. The Tower is a traffic cop who controls permission to enter a runway for takeoff and also for permission to land on a runway at that particular airport. There is also "Ground Control" who is in charge of controlling aircraft movements on the taxiways. These exist to help prevent collisions from happening.
In larger cities' airports, there may also be "Approach" and "Departure" air traffic controls to help sequence the air traffic flowing into and out of the airport regional area.
Most small general aviation airports do not have, nor do they need these. At these airports, the pilot general self-announces his intentions over the radio just to let other pilots who are coming and going to that airport know who he is, where he is, and what he's doing. There's not even any real legal requirement to do that. You can keep your radio off and talk to no one. You just get in your plane and fly. And that is perfectly legal.
And furthermore, the FAA regulations actually state that it's up to the pilot to determine for himself whether or not there are any severe weather conditions or hazards before he begins his flight. As a pilot, it's totally up to you to plan and prepare for your own flight.
Now Steve Fossett was a very skilled and knowledgeable pilot. He knew exactly what kinds of treacherous winds existed in that mountainous terrain environment. He was well trained and skilled for handling them too... except sometimes in mountain flying, the winds can abruptly get so crazy without warning that they can catch even the most seasoned veteran mountain-flying pilot off guard and swat his airplane down into the ground like a giant flyswatter on a mosquito. Mountain flying has a hugely great element of danger to it. It is horribly unforgiving, even if you're an expert at it. Even one of the most famously skilled and respected mountain pilots, Sparky Imeson, who wrote the "Mountain Flying Bible", died himself in a mountain-flying crash earlier this year.
...and was quite aware of the Wright Brothers and other early airplanes, but the only airplanes he would've known about were those primitive fabric-covered wooden ones.