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James Gosling Report of Reno Air Crash
Earlier today, a tragic crash at the Reno National Championship Air Races killed at least 12 spectators, and left at least 75 injured. Reader xmas2003 writes with a link to Java creator James Gosling's first-hand account of the crash, which he describes as "better than most of what is being reported in mainstream media so far."
The potential of crashes is indeed part of the point. But in general people prefer the thrill to be derived from those engaged in the pursuit risking their lives, not those in the audience. Messed up, but true.
Though I live in Phoenix now, all of my family is there, and though its unlikely they went to the show, for some reason I can't get a hold of anyone but my dad and aunt--who are both out of town.
The Reno Air Races have a long history, and this is apparently the first time a plane crashed into the stands. The previous crashes didn't stop the event--that is, it went on again the next year--and I hope this one doesn't either.
also the planes are cool
i saw it first hand, the galloping ghost lost control and did a barrel roll over the stands and crashed 50 feet away from me into the edge of the box seats. it looked like its aileron got stuck and he couldn't correct it. i love the air races like no other and iv been involved with it literately my whole life, but i will never forget what i saw.
Thought the potential of crashes was the point or do I just not understand air shows?
As someone who attended quite a few air shows growing up I feel it is safe to say that people go to see the airplanes. Hell I would have gone to see a P-51 sitting on the tarmac let alone fly. Seeing one crash and be destroyed is not something that an aviation or history enthusiast wants to see, nor does anyone want to see people get hurt.
You totally misunderstand airshows.
Being *live* at the field when a F-(insert any number here) flys by is no match for any theatre surround sound. It's also just beautiful to watch these things move.
Then of course there are the antique aircraft. Yes, there are some "thrills" too, like wingwalking; but nobody wants to see a wingwalker die. I bet a significant portion of the crowd would like to try wingwalking just for the sheer experience of flying like a motorpowered bird on the outside.
A pity that some people can't see anything other than bloodsport in all this. Their loss.
A number of people have commented on it appearing to climb abruptly, stall, and fall. The pilot was quite old—perhaps he experienced a heart attack or stroke, or there could have been a mechanical failure that caused loss of control, resulting in it drifting far off course before stalling over the crowd.
From the two videos I saw, it didn't look like the pilot lost control. It looks more like he attempted an inverted loop, but misjudged the amount of altitude he needed to complete it. Then again, I wasn't there.
I'm alive
Friday September 16, 2011
Just fucking barely. I'm at the air races in Reno with a bunch of friends and a horrific accident just happened. One of the very high end racers, going about 500 mph, lost control and nose dived straight into the audience. The news is currently saying that the plane missed the grandstand, but that's only technically true: in front of the grandstand there are several rows of box seats. It impacted right in the middle of them. I was in a box seat with my friends only 50 feet from the impact. I was watching the plane as it lost control, so I saw the whole thing. The impact happened so fast, there was hardly any sound: just one huge shock wave. No fireball. The plane, and many people, disintegrated instantly, right in front of me. There were bodies everywhere. No crash you've ever seen in a movie is even remotely authentic.
Update: it's already on YouTube. I was in the middle of the dust cloud you see around the impact. They're saying "30 serious injuries" but I know that's a long way from the truth. At least that many died instantly in the impact. I suspect that there were not a huge number of serious injuries. It was not a small airplane. You either died or you didn't. I didn't. My brother and I are still shaking.
Another Update: They're now officially calling it a "mass casualty situation". The plane was Galloping Ghost, piloted by Jimmy Leeward. It was a very cool, highly modified, P51 mustang with a very unusual approach to engine cooling. I doubt that this was at all connected to the accident - it looked like a control system failure.
"Better" as in "more accurate."
Not "better" as in "things weren't quite as bad as reported."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs98xkTIBQU
about the 3:30 mark
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zusClmg4IQg :30 second mark
about the
Horrible looking, but amazingly not an explosion.
"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that, it's called everyone, they meet at the bar."
It wasn't an air show, it was a race.
Better known as 318230.
As others have said, it's not a show, but a race. Also, unlimited class race planes are not normal planes. They chop the wings and boost the superchargers. Tiger Destifani once said that without a significant amount of thrust, the modified P51s have the aerodynamic capability of a cannonball. As they must for those speeds. One of the most amazing things I've ever seen was a P51 (I think it was the Red Baron, notable for having counter-rotating props) diving into the main straight to do a qualifying lap and see vapor trails coming off the wings at 1000ft. P51s aren't supposed go get anywhere near those speeds. The point being: these aren't normal planes, and they aren't doing normal activities, and they are always on the edge of the envelope.
What I'm pissed about is that we're fed imaginary crashes, gore and "reality" daily and lo! the REAL reality, the real gore is immediately banned from youtube and such. Oh, the hypocrisy.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Only in the sense that the potential of a disaster is what makes roller coasters fun. People greatly enjoy near disaster. It's exciting. But when it turns into actual disaster, it's horrifying. Another example is NASCAR races. Crashes are exciting, but only because the safety systems in the cars are robust enough to keep the drivers and fans safe. Nobody wants to see someone killed.
It's hard to tell. When there's a problem where the pilot feels he needs to bow out, it's usual for them to declare mayday and climb up and around to land while the race continues. I was there, and when I first saw the plane climb I thought it was just another routine failure, but when he flipped over I could see it wobbling a bit, and it seemed like a control surface may have malfunctioned and stuck in a position outside its normal range of motion while the pilot fought for control. Also don't forget that it was windy all day. (I don't remember which way it was blowing)
As for claims of him having a heart attack or some other medical problem... It MAY be possible, but I don't think so. I personally think a person in his position would know better than to fly if he was in bad shape, not to mention the physicals they go through regularly.
Most people that age have difficulty driving cars.
I guess it needs to be pointed out that the pilot was an individual, not "most people". Different people age at different rates. If the pilot's health and faculties were good, then they were good, regardless of what other 80 year olds are like.
That said, I hope that all pilots in events like these (and in fact, all pilots period) are required to undergo regular physical exams.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
lo! the REAL reality, the real gore is immediately banned from youtube and such. Oh, the hypocrisy.
Is it hypocrisy, or is it respect for the families of the victims, who might not want to have mangled pieces of their loved ones served up as entertainment for the masses just yet?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
not sure how it works in the US but here in Canada pilots have to take a medical once a year, twice a year if over the age of 40. They also add more tests, such as hearing tests and ECGs on a more regular basis as you get older.
P
seems to have misplaced his
jeeez. watch the video. See allllll the other planes flying past well away from the spectators and in a COMPLETELY different trajectory than the one that crashes? I'd say they were following the rules. The real question here isn't who was in charge that can be sued. The question is why the hell was this one plane coming from way out of left field? I mean, really, had he not crashed, he'd have been flying OVER the crowd to keep in the race. The pilot must have turned waayyyy wide at the last pylon. Maybe sticky ailerons or rudder? They mention the guy was 74 years old, you certainly can't rule out a heart attack or stroke causing him to be this far off course.
Horrible judgement on the part of the pilot if it wasn't medical. You can have all the rules you want, but only the guy in the cockpit can really enforce them. RIP to all that died.
There is a huge difference between an unlimited air race and a display airshow. Display airshows are flown ate relatively slow speeds nowhere near the 500mph of unlimited racers
"Second, air show performers â" both civilian and military â" are prohibited from performing maneuvers that direct the energy of their aircraft toward the area in which the spectators are sitting."
The race course is parallel to the runway so clause has been followed. The issue is that a 500mph unlimited racer with control issues can come down miles away from where the control problem happened and in any direction. They don't usually just fall out of the sky like display aircraft. Even if the planned direction was not toward the audience there is no way of knowing where an aircraft with control problems will come down.
"Third, the industry and regulatory authorities strictly enforce minimum set-back distances that were developed to ensure that, in the event of an accident, pieces of the aircraft will not end up in the spectator area."
That only works if the aircraft crashes under the planned flight path. If it veers off course due to a control problem this is moot.
It's not uncommon to have a vehicle accident with 5 patients and also declare that an MCI. That just means the first responders were overwhelmed by the amount of patients and injuries and they need to declare an MCI, which prompts a number of things: additional emergency personnel, overhead to manage the incident, notifies local hospitals so they can start taking action prior to patient arrival, etc.
Here are some interesting photos which may show that there was mechanical failure: Elevator trim tab missing
Another scary series of photos: Impact
--jeffk++
ipv6 is my vpn
He was 74, not 80, and he held a current 2nd class medical certification from the FAA. Most private pilots only have a 3rd class; his health was fine and almost certainly had nothing to do with it. You can read more about his credentials here: http://www.av8rdan.com/2011/09/before-assuming-age-was-the-cause-of.html Also, photos are circulating that show control surfaces missing from the aircraft before the crash. Something went wrong mechanically - please do your research before making mindless assumptions. http://corduroyplanet.blogspot.com/2011/09/chilled.html
Yeah great, more government control of our activities. What a solution. How about, some shit is dangerous, flying in and spectating air races can kill you. 'nuff said. Purchase entertainment accordingly. You have a brain...
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
YouTube is censoring the videos as fast as they pop up. You can post movies of your dog picking its own nose, but factual, on-site amateur reporting is apparently forbidden.
I've been attending the Reno Races for over 20 years, know many of the Unlimited pilots. I've illegally flown backseat several times in Unlimited class races. I knew Jimmy. He was probably the most liked and experienced pilot there. I wasn't there this time, but I understand he had turned outer #8 pylon (a 50 ft high pole with a barrel on the top) and was headd toward the pit area preparing to turn again and go down the straight in front of the stands. The FAA mandates no aircraft can fly closer than 1500 ft from people. A pilot can lose his license, and some have, for violating that hard rule. I think Jimmy had a medical or mechancial problem and tried to gain altitude to bail out or glide to a landing. He must have not had power in the 3000hp engine, or had pulled the throttle back - preparing to bail out. The plane ran wide over the crowd and he probably tried to fly it to a safe place to crash. Jimmy would do that, sacrifice himself for others. In the short video, the plane isn't completely vertical, but about ten degrees from vertical. That's imporant since it indicates loss of control. The P-51 is falling rather than diving nose completely first. One wing is full of high octane fuel, the other full of water alcohol. Yet there was no fire. That's weird. My guess is that many more spectators won't make it. A Mustang is two or three car lengths long and very heavy. The impact area had to be huge with lots of shrapnel. What a sad day. A good man gone.
US Airshows
Wrong.
This was an Air Race not an Air Show.
Was the race allowed to weasel out of those regs by not calling itself an airshow, even though that's exactly what it is?
The Reno Air Races operate under far stricter regulations than air shows. Unfortunately, sometimes aircraft fail in unpredictable ways. Nothing is completely safe.
"Second, air show performers Ã" both civilian and military Ã" are prohibited from performing maneuvers that direct the energy of their aircraft toward the area in which the spectators are sitting."
So much for that rule.
These aircraft travel at well over 400MPH. They can travel a long way in a very short time. There's also no way to determine which direction an aircraft might travel in the case of mechanical/control failure or pilot incapacitation.
It appears from the video that the pilot experienced a control failure. In that case, there's not much anyone including the pilot could do to avoid tragedy. The pilot appears to have lost all control of the aircraft, likely due to the aforementioned control system failure.
In this kind of scenario with no way to control the aircraft, the only way to be totally safe is to be outside of the distance the fuel onboard could carry the aircraft. This could be up to 100 miles or more in any direction, even with the limited fuel load of a race aircraft and depending on the point in the flight where directional control is lost.
The poor guy probably sacrificed his own life by staying with the aircraft and not bailing out/ejecting in a last-ditch attempt to try to avoid hitting the stands.
I hope the FAA employees, airshow promoters, and airport employees who approved the airshow plan are all charged criminally.
You may want to re-think your rant. The world cannot be made toddler-safe, and nobody would like living in it, even if it were possible. There is always an element of risk to practically any activity, even laying in bed at night under your covers.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
First, he was 74, not 80. I don't know where you get that bullshit. Second, the crash was due to mechanical failure. See photo here. Third, you think maybe because the guy is living life, racing fighter planes, is why he's above ground at the age of 74 when many of his peers are six feet under or pissing themselves at nursing homes? He passed the physical exams with flying colors, which include reflexes and eyesight. I'm sure he would be the first to disqualify himself if he felt even the least bit unworthy to fly.
Yes, you're the only one who thinks it's strange. Asshole.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
IANADoctor but I can't think of a medical emergency that causes that sort of erratic manoeuvring, passing out certainly doesn't. Moreover, the plane was already in trouble, since the pilot called in a mayday and started to pull up according to protocol when the fatal problems happened. Mechanical failure is simply more likely at this point: video showing the sequence of events
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
It's a small elevator on the large elevator. The elevator control surface is the horizontal tail which controls pitch (up-down), and the trim tab is a strip of separately controllable surface on the tail edge of the elevator (or other control surface), which gives the pilot the ability to semi-permanently give the plane an up/down bias (or left/right roll or rudder bias). Since it's part of the surface, if the trim tab disappears, the surface won't work as designed any more, and might be more unstable. In particular, only the left-hand side tab seems to have gone, which might mean that the trim setting would be unbalanced, possibly giving the left elevator more lift than the right, and so possibly causing the plane to roll right (among other things).
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
That's not true.
Did you look up the rated speed of a P-51 in level flight with armor, ammo, and so on, at a certain altitude to get that number? I ask because that figure is listed in a book I have, but its an "official" speed based on a combat ready plane at a certain altitude.
In WWII, Chuck Yeager came near the sound barrier in a P-51, locking up his controls and nearly dying because of it. They routinely chased Nazi jet aircraft by diving at them.
The racers are using modified P-51s with more powerful engines, components stripped out, no ammunition, etc.
As other comments point out, he had lost one elevator trim tab. With the airplane going at high speeds, the pilot will trim the elevators nose-down to counteract the lift. When a trim tab falls off, it causes a sudden pitch up which at high speeds causes many Gs of acceleration (say, 10G), which can cause loss of consciousness in the pilot. It all sounds plausible to me and could explain why he wasn't sitting upright in the cockpit.
The reason Gosling's is better is because the mainstream media articles are written for specific audiences ("Plane Crashes Because of Poor Visibility Due to Lax Environmental Controls" or "Plane Crashes Because Overzealous EPA Regulations Forced Pilot to Replace Perfectly Good WWII Part with Less-Polluting Part from China"), while his was truly written to be platform independent. He could write one report that anyone with a Web browser could read anywhere, regardless of their leanings.
Pictures show the elevator trim tab broken off. At those speeds the aircraft needs significant nose down force to stay level, and if the trim tab breaks off then the aircraft will nose up violently (and violently at 4-500 mph is a violent action indeed). It is quite possible that he suddenly hit between 5-9 Gs (my bet is in the higher part of the range) while unprepared. The human body can't do anything in those conditions. Quite different if those forces are expected and you can prepare through breathing and muscle contraction, but he probably got smacked down and possibly slammed his head into the instrument panel (as this was on the straight which is a place for going through and changing settings, the easy and fun part of the race).
Broken trim tab:
http://external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQD53IBQjMbO0oqC&w=90&h=90&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.graytvinc.com%2Fimages%2Fplane%2Benlarged.jpg
No pilot showing in canopy during dive:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/09/16/us/20110917_RENO-IPAD-4.html
AIRRACE, not an airshow.
In races, it is pretty normal for objects to go out of control and leave the trac. From cyclists to horses to cars and of course airplanes.
Why does turd after turd come up with airshow rules when it is pretty clear from all the reporting and of course the bloody video that his is a race?
Did you watch the challenger crash and go, "but you shouldn't strap rockets to your plane to begin with"?
AIR RACE.
Gosh and this on a tech site where we complain how ordinary people keep thinking computers are magic but the moment a story happens a tiniest bit out of the common for most and everyone turns into a tabloid writer.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Evidence (photgraphs) suggest that the elevator trim tab broke off. Due to the speed making a nose up moment the plane was fairly probably trimmed pitch down. Elevator tab breaks off = plane pitches violently up, hurting or killing the pilot (imagine an instant, unexpected 9 Gs when you are setting the turboboost setting. BAM face in instrument panel!). The plane then careens up, past vertical, and down again, with the pilot probably incapacitated. The plane is at around 450mph when this occurs. It can travel quite far in a few seconds, and in this case that was,sadly, towards the spectators. Sad, but shit does happen. This is a racing incident, and has always been one of the risks of racing.
My heart goes out to all those who are injured or have lost a loved one.
It takes one. Just one.
There has been a lot of research into this field and the basic conclusion is that there are only a few "real" people in the world, the rest are filler.
Simple setup, at a busy public location an actor fakes an incident, say collapsing on the pavement. The results are filmed. What shows? Nobody does anything UNTIL one person does something, then others rush to assist as well following that ones persons example.
It is wrong to think this is malice. There are leaders in our society and there are followers and the followers need someone to give them an example of what to do. How should I react?
Babies already have this, experiment: place a thick glass plate between two solid objects, making a bridge. Place child on one of the objects and encourage it to crawl over the glass bridge (height) to the other. Baby will be happy to do so, or drool, or poop (whipe, change and repeat). If it notices the drop below it, watch its reaction. It won't have one UNTIL it sees its mother. Mother looks happy? Baby happy. Mother looks scared? Baby is scared. Suddenly the height is something it must apparently fear, and it will.
What do you do when an incident happens? I actually know some emergency training because it was forced on me when I did my national service. A few years ago I had a chance to use it... no, that isn't right, a few years ago buried training emerged and took over. I didn't know what to do but my training did. It was on automatic. Had I had to give instructions to someone else to do the same as I was doing, I wouldn't have been able to. If you asked me afterwards what I did, I couldn't really tell you, CPR but not the actions itself.
People are cattle, performing well rehearsed tricks, my trick just happened to include CPR.
If one person shows the right example, the rest will follow and humanity can show itself at its best. If one person shows the wrong example... well... read up on history, things can get very dark indeed.
Oh as for an aid giver being sued? I did crack some ribs of my "patient" an elderly woman who suffered an heart attack right in front of her house, she died a few days later. Her son came to me and thanked me because although cracked ribs hurt like hell and she still died, she died amongst family in a warm bed, not on the street alone. Only in America would a person think of sueing for giving aid. One person showing the wrong example and the rest followed.
We make our own society far more then we think but it is always up to a single individual to lead the way. One must go first.
Just pray you are the one when the call comes unexpected. For 20 years my training went to waste and then I needed it in an instant... those that falter are not evil, they are human. The ones who exploit it, like those who sue or steal from victims, they are the ones to hate.
So don't blame the persons standing around that accident, blame the guy who wanted to sue you for creating the atmosphere of being afraid to help in the first place.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This is silly and irrational. He passed an only objective test of ones ability and got the highest class medical rating. The numbers are irrelevant, nowadays it's not uncommon to see heart attacks and strokes in people barely out of their 20s.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
There is no "safe distance" really. As I stated in my previous post, one of those aircraft could conceivably travel up to 100 miles or more in any direction.
Given that he was 74 years old the odds of him passing out due to the forces involved were quite high.
You don't understand the thorough testing those pilots must pass. If he wasn't physically & mentally capable he wouldn't be allowed to fly, especially racing, period. Besides, having that many decades of experience flying means I'd trust him before I'd trust some twenty-something to safely pilot an aircraft I was a passenger on. It was also reported by eyewitnesses that it appeared there was a control surface failure of some sort. It wouldn't matter in that case how young or old the pilot was, how the course was laid out, distance, etc.
You're opining out of ignorance here.
In the 21st century people should be doing better than Waldo's Flying Circus, it's as simple as that.
But this is the equivalent of a "Flying Circus" (in the form of a race) that people are *paying* to spectate at through their own free will. Just as in any activity involving large human-controlled/piloted/driven objects/vehicles traveling at extreme velocities at the edge of control, there is risk both to the actual participants and to spectators.
The risks can be mitigated to some extent but not eliminated. The risks are part of the draw both for participants and spectators. If it wasn't risky, there would be little challenge and little interest. Heck, spectators have died at freaking baseball games for crying out loud.
One must accept some risk of injury or death if one desires to spectate in person at an inherently dangerous event like an auto or aircraft race. If you are unwilling to accept the risks, then watch it on video from your home.
You're *much* more likely to die or be critically injured on the drive to or from the air race than spectating. Spectating at air races has resulted in far, far fewer spectator injuries than car racing. That's despite the fact that you can't build a "retaining wall" around the sky as you can around auto racing tracks.
With the level of fear and risk-aversion you demonstrate by your comments I'm surprised you're able to leave your residence. Or get out of bed.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
We have become numb to genuine tragedy because we celebrate fictionalized tragedy as plot devices and then squeeze every possible $ out of genuine tragedy. Fuck those who say they have a "right to know" or "right to see" - that's crap and intellectually you know better. If it's your sister / mom / daughter who is burning to death in a video nobody has a *right* to watch that on youtube while they chow down on cheezy-poofs.
My condolences to the many many victims of this whose lives will never be the same. Such a horrible loss and I wish that your lives would never have been so affected.
P.S. I know somewhat of what I speak. E! Entertainment did a show on my daughter's murder on their program "True Hollywood Stories." My daughter was a high school student murdered by her ex-boyfriend. There was NO "Hollywood" story, true or otherwise. They just wanted to make $$$ off of my poor daughter's death so they could buy more cheezy-poofs. Nothing but parasites.
JAGga.me ----> Producing video games addressing emotional health and wellness issues affecting teens.
But they don't always work: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-23-samaritan-accident_N.htm
Moral of the story is to familiarize yourself with the laws in your state.
Chance favors the prepared mind.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
"because the guy is living life"
Tell that to the 8 people this guy killed.
"He passed the physical exams with flying colors, which include reflexes and eyesight"
citation needed.
" I'm sure he would be the first to disqualify himself "
People are the worse judge if they are able to operate a machine. Every try to take the keys away form an 70 year old person who clearly should not be driving? Add someone with a pilots ego and they would be a terrible judge.
I am not saying he was ill or not able to fly, only that your reasoning is flawed.
Finally, it IS strange he was piloting. Not wrong or suspicious, just strange.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The pilot was not visible in the cockpit in photos I've seen during the final seconds of the flight. Why?
Leaning back at a sharp angle while hauling on the joystick with all his strength?
Having flown an out-of-trim aircraft, I would dispute that. Control pressures can rapidly build to an unmanageable level at high speeds without proper trim.