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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
Sudden deceleration is what killed him.
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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.
The enemies of Democracy are
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.
Your basically correct. This page has a nice brief explanation. Even if Fosset were flying IFR (Instrument Flight Rules), where the pilot would file a flight plan, it's not clear that a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) (sexist assumption noted) would mention winds over the Sierra Nevada. Now, one of the pilots the investigators talked to who had flown over the general area that day said the weather was "weird". Perhaps, if enough pilots had mentioned some unusual conditions, the local controllers might have issued a NOTAM, but this is pretty much in the middle of nowhere so it may not have attracted much attention.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) (sexist assumption noted)
(illiterate lesbian noted)
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Just thought I'd ask.. me thinks Mark Twain died before the aircraft age.
Reports of his death were greatly exaggerated.
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,
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
To someone who isn't an experienced pilot, it isn't obvious. But you should know that it is a significant part of the training for all private pilots.
I've been licensed for more than 20 years as a private pilot. I've taken mountain flying instruction. I've flown around and over the Rocky Mountains. This hazard is a simple issue of flight planning.
I know exactly what performance my aircraft is capable of, as should every pilot who sits in the left seat. I read reports of the winds aloft. I set personal minimums for what I'm willing to fly in. I know, for example, that if the winds aloft at 3000' are approaching 30 knots, that I can expect significant turbulence and down-drafts from the Appalachian mountain chain for up to 100 miles East. I might fly in those conditions if I'm going Eastward. However, if the winds aloft are 35 knots or greater at 3000, I know I'm staying on the ground.
It's not that I can't handle those situations; I can and I have. My goal is to have a reserve in case the forecast is wrong. I've seen blown forecasts more times than I care to think about.
Steve Fossett had a momentary lapse of judgment. It happens to the best of us. Every year, people crash while flying around mountains and canyons from exactly the same damned thing that bit him. There is little room for error when flying in the mountains. Each flight should include a careful evaluation of local and regional weather conditions, terrain, and aircraft performance. Yeah, there are people who launch in to the blue without checking this stuff. Most of the time, they survive without incident.
Those who don't do adequate flight planning in this terrain are accidents waiting to happen.
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