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Pilot's Selfies Could Have Caused Deadly Air Crash

Posted by Soulskill on from the reasons-selfies-will-cause-the-fall-of-civilization dept.

alphadogg writes: A deadly air crash that killed a pilot and passenger in Colorado last year was likely due to a loss of spatial awareness brought on in part by taking of selfies while in flight, the National Transportation Safety Board has concluded. An examination of the aircraft revealed no apparent problems that would have caused the accident so, based on the previous patterns of behavior, the NTSB concluded that "it is likely that cell phone use during the accident flight distracted the pilot and contributed to the development of spatial disorientation and subsequent loss of control."

6 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Effing sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Flying is cool in part because of the apartness and eliteness of obtaining your cert and people seeing you in the left seat at the controls, master and commander of a magical craft. There is massive ego in humble bragging flight time amongst your selfies if you are into a photo based social media.
    But holy shit, camera flashing your eyes during a night flight is terrifying, it is far worse than any idiot on the ground lasing you, WTF!
    Real aviation is following the checklist and rules; flying, navigating, and communicating safely, not effing around to impress your pals except in maneuvers approved for your aircraft and certification.

  2. Priorities by Maxwell'sSilverLART · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As a pilot, I was always taught that my priorities were "aviate, navigate, communicate." As a CFI, I tried to always impart the same lesson.

    Taking self-portraits somehow never made the list.

    --
    Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
    1. Re:Priorities by bobbied · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I can see you don't fly much... Spatial disorientation can be caused by just turning your head to look out the side window and if you are not specifically trained to recognize it and fly the gauges instead of what your inner ears are telling you, spatial disorientation will kill you. It's called a "death spiral" for a reason and VFR pilots who wonder into IFR conditions often unknowingly kill themselves when they don't recognize the problem and fly the gauges.

      I can tell you that it is REALLY HARD to tell yourself that what you feel may not be what's actually happening and when the gauges and the inner ear are in conflict it's pretty difficult to do what the gauges tell you unless you have practiced it. VFR pilots don't practice this that much because it takes "flying under the hood" which requires a safety pilot to be riding along and you have to do stuff to induce the disorientation feeling purposely. Most VFR only pilots don't take the time to do such training.

      Now if you are blinded and cannot see the gauges.... You have serious problems and your best bet is to throttle up a bit and go hands off holding your head straight for about 30 seconds. Hopefully you have a well trimmed aircraft and won't crash before the fluid in your ears stops moving and you can fly again.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  3. He should have known better! by geogob · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The reading of the GoPro video description is bluffing. how in the word did someone with such a behaviour and attitude made its way on a pilot seat, worse on an instructor seat.

    Something is definitely wrong here. And with his experience he should have known better. From the report (emphasis is mine):

    The pilot, age 29, held a commercial pilot certificate with ratings for single engine land, multi-engine land and instrument airplane. The pilot also held a ground instructor certificate. The pilot was issued an unrestricted first class medical certificate on August 29, 2013.

    A review of the pilot's logbooks revealed that he had accumulated about 726 total flight hours, 38 hours in the last 30 days and 4.5 hours in the 24 hours preceding the accident flight. He had 27.1 hours in night conditions and 0.5 hours in simulated IMC in the last 60 days. He accumulated a total of 99 hours in simulated IMC and 14.7 hours in actual IMC.

    That is not a huge experience, but definitely enough to know better. Using a mobile phone in flight is one thing. But using it in a critical flight phase? To take selfies?

    This guy was an accident waiting to happen. I feel sad for his passenger.

  4. Evidence for the assertion ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He took selfies before.
    He crashed.
    Therefore: taking selfies caused the crash ?

    Or is there more evidence ?

    1. Re:Evidence for the assertion ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Pictures taken with a flash of the pilot just after the takeoff at low level at night just before he lost control of an otherwise mechanically sound plane isn't exactly a thin correlation. While I may not be an expert (it's been a whole month since I flew a Cessna 150), it doesn't take an expert to know that a flash in your eyes in the dark can ruin your night vision, and that low altitude in a critical phase of flight is probably a dangerous time to be flying blind. And even though it doesn't take an expert to realize this, they used many experts anyway, as the NTSB is fairly good at accident investigation, far more experienced than the random internet commenter claiming "correlation isn't causation!"

      The video taken from the inside of the cockpit during the incident probably helped them come to this conclusion, too.