Pilot's Selfies Could Have Caused Deadly Air Crash

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."

Comments

Natural Selection in action

[Anonymous Coward]

The good of the many outweigh the vanity of the few....

Seriously, last thing our species need is more self-aborbed behavior.

Effing sad

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Effing sad

[gl4ss]

if it was night time, he could have just taken the photos after landing and nobody would have known any different.

Re:Effing sad

[JaredOfEuropa]

Texting while flying, a new low (pun definitely intended)

Re:Effing sad

[hax4bux]

Of course you did. Happy for you both.

As for military aviation.. well... you fly the way the company tells you or you don't keep the job. I do not miss flying w/a helmet.

Aviation is serious (and so is driving). If you are really that intimidated to fly, then perhaps you shouldn't act as PIC.

I own two aircraft, one of which I built. I also commute to work in my aircraft (which requires transit across a MOA and Class B, rain or shine). No drama.

It is hard for me to believe that a camera flash was so disorienting they couldn't maintain straight and level until the spots went away. Don't they teach you "danger rangers" how to trim an airplane? I rarely engage the autopilot, half my flight to work is hands off and drinking coffee.

You can now return to your FBO lounge bull session on the merits of checklists and other "real pilot" circle jerking.

Picture

[Anonymous Coward]

So, where is picture for Darwin awards ceremony?

Re:Picture

[houghi]

So, where is picture for Darwin awards ceremony?
http://myselfiestick.org/871

Re:Picture

[SeaFox]

Unfortunately, cell phones are not as durable as flight recorders.

Re:Picture

[Neil Boekend]

That's why the cloud sync should be instantaneous.

Re:Picture

[Megane]

Just watch out for the mountain slope on the other side of that cloud...

Re:Picture

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

The second picture on that page is pretty funny. It's the whole family, gathered in front of the Christmas tree for a nice picture. Mom, Dad, the kids, Granny, weird Uncle Bob, and A BIG BLACK POLE AIMED AT THE CAMERA.

Re:Picture

[theArtificial]

The Narcissistick(tm).

Now we know....

[Anonymous Coward]

Snapchat.

The silent, but bright, killer.

Come on, a better headline

[franzrogar]

"Death by selfies", or "The Killer Selfies" or "Selfies will kill you" or something alike.

I truly miss the headliness as "Headless body in a topless bar", don't I?

Priorities

[Maxwell'sSilverLART]

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.

Re:Priorities

[hcs_$reboot]

Nevertheless,

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."

sounds like the NTSB was out of [relevant] options.

Re:Priorities

[Neil Boekend]

Uploading a selfie is communication of a sorts.

Re:Priorities

[Vihai]

Totally agree, there is no way taking a picture could by itself be the cause of spatial disorientation. There are tasks in flying a plane needing much more attention than taking a picture and handling such workload is everyday practice.

Re:Priorities

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

In this case the cellphones received specific attention because a video recording of the pilot and passenger using them survived the crash; but isn't some flavor of "The plane seems to have been fine except for the effects of hitting the ground really fast, the pilot must have fucked up" the standard verdict if inspection of the wreckage, and any cockpit chatter, suggest no mechanical issues and there is no notable weather in the area?

Re:Priorities

[FatLittleMonkey]

Only in the sense that flying an airworthy plane into the ground is aviation, of a sorts.

Re:Priorities

[FatLittleMonkey]

there is no way taking a picture could by itself be the cause of spatial disorientation.

At night.

With a flash.

(FTFA)

Re:Priorities

[bobbied]

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.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

I never thought how serious spatial disorientation was until performing some simulated instrument flights while pursuing my PPL. I had the hood on, and I was leaning over in my seat, body was telling me I was flying straight and level, and yet that artificial horizon was pegged at 30% bank. It took so much control to get the plane level, even though straightening out felt like I was banking in the opposite direction.

That really opened my eyes to how easy it is for people to ignore the instruments, fly by 'feel' and end up in the ground 30 seconds later.

Re:Priorities

[conoviator]

The pilot in command wasn't very high time; but, was instrument rated. He didn't have a lot of experience with actual IMC (instrument meteorological conditions). And he was zipping around the airport pattern at night and in very poor conditions.
You are so right about the ease with which spatial disorientation can come on. Given his low altitude, he had no room for recovery. Pretty bone headed.

Re:Priorities

[FatLittleMonkey]

Hmmm,

"http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/04/taiwanese-jetliner-cartwheels-into-river-frantic-rescue-saves-some"

I'm guessing here, but that article might be about the Taiwanese jetliner crash. You know, coz of the headline, which is also in the URL.

Just a guess.

Re:Priorities

[hcs_$reboot]

Oh my.... Indeed!

Innocent victims

[myid]

Unfortunately the passenger died, besides the pilot. Also the families of both people are now grieving. It's horrible to lose a loved one. I send my best wishes to the families of these two people.

Re:

[cirrustelecom]

Does the same thing happen when you take your selfie now at McDonald's?

He should have known better!

[geogob]

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.

Re:He should have known better!

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Something is definitely wrong here. And with his experience he should have known better.

Well . . . this shows something very insightful about "certifications" in general. They can guarantee that someone should know better . . . but a certification cannot guarantee that someone will not do something stupid.

I see a lot of folks recently who put "Certified ScrumMaster" in their email footers. What that really guarantees . . . is debatable.

Re:He should have known better!

[cascadingstylesheet]

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.

Mental illness, maybe? Having known some sufferers, I know they create this "how could they do that?" brain spinning in everyone around them. Because "doesn't make sense" is practically the definition of mental illness, but we try to make sense of it anyway.

Re:He should have known better!

[AK Marc]

Most motorcyclists crash 6-months to 2 years from their first ride (for ones that ride regularly). Their confidence goes up faster than their skill. That applies to almost any task. That's why Dunning-Krueger exists. He knew better and did it anyway. It's called "human factors".

Re:He should have known better!

[rotorbudd]

Never underestimate the stupidity of a pilot.
First rule of aircraft mechanics.

Re:He should have known better!

[lexman098]

Hm. Where did this report come from? Engadget reports the NTSB claiming "that the pilot didn't meet experience requirements for flying in the poor nighttime conditions he faced".

Re:He should have known better!

[delt0r]

The Vast Power Of Certification

Re:He should have known better!

[geogob]

The reports comes from the NTSB, which I believe is a more trustworthy source as Engadget. See for yourself:

http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/n...

Evidence for the assertion ?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Or is there more evidence ?

Re:Evidence for the assertion ?

[CrimsonAvenger]

What's worse is that's not the evidence.

The evidence seems to be that his PASSENGERS took selfies before. Then he crashed. Therefore he took a selfie.

More likely, the /. headline was garbled, and what was really asserted is that his passengers were taking selfies, and he was disoriented by the flashes from the selfies taken by someone else.

Re:Evidence for the assertion ?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Evidence for the assertion ?

[Translation Error]

The fact that there isn't more evidence of anything that would have caused the crash is what points to irresponsible and distracting behavior by the pilot during key portions of the flight, of which there is a documented history, being the likeliest cause.

Re:Evidence for the assertion ?

[doti]

"Could Have Caused". I see nothing poorly written in that.

And yes, taking a selfie while doing tasks that require your attention definitely can cause something.

Re:Evidence for the assertion ?

[Trailer Trash]

Exactly. Note that when a plane crashes the NTSB goes nuts figuring out everything that they can about the crash and about the airplane right before the crash. They've been doing so for decades. This is why planes are so very safe and why they can pretty accurately determine the cause of the crash in almost all cases.

I doubt they took this lightly, especially since they're speaking ill of a dead man (at least it could be taken in that way).

Re:Evidence for the assertion ?

[Rich0]

I don't have a lot of time in the air, but from the little time that I've flown at night and my general understanding the cockpit of a small aircraft is typically kept very dark, since most of the time you're relying on visual navigation and sighting of stuff that isn't well-lit. A bright flash of light would probably make it hard to even see your instruments until you fumbled for the brightness dial (which would be even harder to find in the dark).

My CFI tried to discourage chit-chat of any kind during critical flight phases.

Now, my understanding is that airliners tend to operate with more light in the cockpit in general and they tend to land at fields with very bright runway lighting and of course they're always in instrument flight rules and most of the time during critical flight phases they're in controlled airspace besides. So, night-blindness would be less of an issue in an airliner, but of course any airline is going to forbid messing around with cameras while in critical phases of flight.

Re:Evidence for the assertion ?

[Zalbik]

No, the evidence is:

1) Flying a plane takes a lot of attention. Sometimes things happen in a plane that require immediate attention.
2) There is no evidence of any mechanical failure with the plane.
3) There is evidence that the plane was operating correctly.
4) Therefore, based on (2) and (3), the crash was caused by pilot error.
5) The pilot's was taking selfies at critical points during the flight. This requires some attention.

Therefore, based on 1, 4 and 5 the act of taking selfies could have contributed to the crash.

Re:Evidence for the assertion ?

[tlhIngan]

I don't have a lot of time in the air, but from the little time that I've flown at night and my general understanding the cockpit of a small aircraft is typically kept very dark, since most of the time you're relying on visual navigation and sighting of stuff that isn't well-lit. A bright flash of light would probably make it hard to even see your instruments until you fumbled for the brightness dial (which would be even harder to find in the dark).

My CFI tried to discourage chit-chat of any kind during critical flight phases.

Now, my understanding is that airliners tend to operate with more light in the cockpit in general and they tend to land at fields with very bright runway lighting and of course they're always in instrument flight rules and most of the time during critical flight phases they're in controlled airspace besides. So, night-blindness would be less of an issue in an airliner, but of course any airline is going to forbid messing around with cameras while in critical phases of flight.

Night vision is very important for pilots - because when you're away from the bright lights of a city (say, by flying above it), it gets very dark very fast. And what was one easy landmarks to see become quite difficult - that highway you routinely flew along becomes a thin black line amongst the blackness of the ground surrounding it. If you're lucky, you chose a busy highway so you can see the line of cars.

Cities on charts have outlines that show their approximate light profile because all you can really see is blobs of light.

Oh yeah, navigation lights and beacons of other aircraft in the area aren't that bright, but bright enough to be seen for miles in the blackness of night. Even at 1500 feet over a city the light dropoff is so startling you can see the stars again. (If you've lived in a city all your life, it's quite a change. I was in a dark suburb growing up so I saw stars, but I haven't seen them ever since until I did night flying).

And night vision is so easily destroyed and not easily gained back - it takes 20 minutes to recover. Worst thing is to have to return to the FBO after doing the preflight because the preflight gets your night vision going, but once you enter the FBO, the lights kill it. Also why one must never leave their strobes on upon leaving the runway because that'll kill night vision for everyone on the ramp.

As for brightness dials? They're easy to find since they're knobs located in areas where there usually aren't as many knobs. The problem is not the instruments, but seeing *outside*. Very few landings are made CAT III ILS (full to the ground guidance powerful enough to use the autopilot), so there's always a few hundred feet where you have to navigate visually and land visually.

As for chitchat during critical phases? Your instructor is right - there is what's known as the sterile cockpit rule - during crucial phases of flight, the cockpit goes sterile - no unnecessary chatter related to the task at hand or other distractions during phases like takeoff and landing. It applies not only to big iron, but little insect buzzers as well.

And no, commercial aviation isn't much different - the cockpits are still dark and while the airports are brighter, it's still dark and you have to see the runway in the dark (remember, few airports have a full CAT III ILS so the majority of landings are hand-flown)

It's why a laser flashing into a cockpit is so very dangerous - besides potential eye damage, the bright flash ruins night vision. (Since people generally don't use RED lasers, as the high powered ones are green/blue - red light doesn't destroy night vision much which is why you have red flashlights in the cockpit).

Of course, if you want to be an armchair captain, the correct course of action is aviate, and if you're blinded in a crucial phase like landing, you immediately execute a go-around where you want to put as much air between you and the ground as quickly as possible. Then navigate to try to avoid any obstacles in the path (like a mountain), then tell ATC so they can block off an area so you can circle around a bit to get your night vision back.

Re:Evidence for the assertion ?

[bobbied]

Actually the FAA demands for pilots of commercial aircraft that you not engage in ANYTHING other than flying the aircraft under 10,000ft AGL. It is known as the sterile cockpit rule. A pilot is only allowed to discuss or do things related to flying the airplane during this time. So no fumbling with taking pictures or digging out your cell phone or discussing sports scores.

Re:Evidence for the assertion ?

[Rich0]

Didn't realize it was an FAA rule below 10k, but it obviously makes sense.

For small aircraft the 10k bit wouldn't make sense (the whole flight is often below that), but certainly I'd say that there should be a sterile cockpit anytime you basically aren't in the cruise phase of flight.

Re:Evidence for the assertion ?

[bobbied]

Personally I observe an 1000 foot AGL 3-5 Miles from the airport version of this when I'm flying with passengers. Basically when I'm in the pattern or talking to approach/departure, I'm pretty much going to ignore passengers. I warn them about this as part of the preflight and then on approach I'll tell them we can talk again once we are parked on the ground.

Sometimes when I'm in "teaching mode" and they are enjoying the experience, I'll enlist them to perform a specific tasks like looking for traffic, setting flaps, carb heat, or even adjusting the throttle at my request but I do the flying. It's amazing how "professional" people get when they have something to do. Not to mention it usually thrills them to tell others that they "helped". Just be careful with that.

Re:

[Paradise Pete]

Does the same thing happen when you take your selfie now at McDonald's?

"Would you like plummeting to Earth at 9.8 m/s/s with that?"

First sighting of the selfie gremlin?

[KaLeVR1]

I've begun to hear many TV talking heads dumping on "the selfie" lately. Anything that gets over-hyped will reach burnout. But come on guys, really? A selfie brought down the plane? Should be only a matter of hours before some politician jumps onto a soap box and calls for anti-selfie legislation. Maybe they can vilify selfies like they did vaccinations.

Remember Sarah Palin's sad story about the little girl who "came down" with autism after getting some vaccines? Well that's nothing. Take a selfie on a plane...and you'll die in an inferno of brimstone as new-fangled selfie-demons destroy your plane! This is nothing but the typical hype/anti-hype cycle but taken to a new level due to 24-hour news media. This may have influenced investigators.

Having spent time behind the wheel of a Cesna myself, I can't imagine this. This is a plane you can fly literally hands-off. It will fly straight and level. Even if you take your hands off in the middle of a turn the plane will continue that direction for a short time while starting a slow drift. A selfie couldn't cause the plane to go down unless he was fumbling with the phone to film the critical point of a risky maneuver in which case the maneuver would be the catalyst. Do we know that he was fumbling with the phone?

Re:First sighting of the selfie gremlin?

[FatLittleMonkey]

A selfie brought down the plane?

Flash photography in the cockpit at night at low altitude during touch-and-go's.

This was not a smart pilot.

Re:First sighting of the selfie gremlin?

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Remember Sarah Palin's sad story about the little girl who "came down" with autism after getting some vaccines?
No, I do remember Michelle Bachmann's story. But hey, it's easy to confuse which conservative woman from fly-over country said which stupid thing when the only place you get your news is from the Daily Show or the Colbert Report.

Re:First sighting of the selfie gremlin?

[dcollins117]

This is a plane you can fly literally hands-off. It will fly straight and level. Even if you take your hands off in the middle of a turn the plane will continue that direction for a short time while starting a slow drift.

Clearly, it took a lot of talent to drive this plane into the ground. Good job, pilot!

bad title

[Iamthecheese]

"contributed to" != "caused" The pilot shouldn't have done that. However it's a mistake to just blame the whole accident on that single error in judgement. Many things have to go wrong for an accident to happen.

That's something a lot of organizations do. It's politically expedient and it's relatively efficient to just find a scapegoat (human or technological) but it ends in not actually fixing the problem.

At a bank I used to work at there was a problem backing up data to an off-site tape storage unit. The problem was complex, involving three sections in five locations. The internal DNS system wasn't passing the right IP to the server initiating the backup, which was set (after a timeout) to ask a different system for an alternate IP, which sometimes worked. The backup site wasn't recognizing any error because from its side it was fulfilling all requests. The server initiating the backup recognized incomplete backups but not the real cause. It took two weeks to find and fix the problem. A manager involved wanted to just blame and change the backup software at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars. It was a popular solution. It (barely) didn't happen simply because a slightly better connected manager wanted to find the real problem.

Here's the thing: Changing the software could have fixed the immediate problem setting it up would have fixed the DNS side of things) but the REAL problem was poor communication between the backup guy and the DNS guy. The solution was very easy and saved a boatload of money over the "scapegoat" solution. A one-sentence addition to the procedure for new hires. Introduce the backup guy to the DNS guy. But finding that solution was politically very hard. The scapegoat solution would have fixed the immediate problem but it would have just pushed the whole mess down the road a bit.

Finding a scapegoat, such as the title of this story suggests, is an almost inevitable mistake. How did the selfie result in an accident? What can be done to prevent that *kind of* judgement lapse from causing an accident in the future? Blaming the pilot will not answer these questions.

Re:bad title

[ruir]

I still have to understand what kind of distortion field taking a selfie creates...did not know it was so powerful.

Re:bad title

[AK Marc]

How did the selfie result in an accident? What can be done to prevent that *kind of* judgement lapse from causing an accident in the future? Blaming the pilot will not answer these questions.

The issue is that we aren't reading the NTSB report, but a 3rd (or worse) hand report of a report. I've seen someone else say that the passengers taking selfies, not the pilot, could have given night blindness sufficient to cause spacial disorientation. The pilot could have done nothing wrong, other than to not disallow the passenger's flash.

Re:bad title

[FatLittleMonkey]

How did the selfie result in an accident?

Flash photography in the cockpit at night at low altitude during touch-and-go's. Part of a pattern of such behaviour by the pilot.

What can be done to prevent that *kind of* judgement lapse from causing an accident in the future? Blaming the pilot will not answer these questions.

Actually, blaming the pilot is the only thing that might help prevent a repeat. It really is just a "seriously guys, don't do that, it's retarded" situation.

Re:High wing, positively stable Cessna

[AK Marc]

The number of controlled flight into terrain (not just hitting a mountain, but flying below the horizon until you crash) is quite high. Stability of the aircraft doesn't help when you are telling to to do the wrong things.

I've seen bicyclist, motocyclists texting

[peter303]

while driving. One of the laws everyone ignores, including cops. Also common sense ignored.

Re:High wing, positively stable Cessna

[bobbied]

Controlled flight into Fixed Terrain is NOT difficult. How do I know? I've almost done it a number of times, twice in one day actually. I was lucky, I didn't crash but it showed me that my hubris was going to kill me if I didn't start paying attention so I didn't get into dangerous situations and keep working on being the best pilot I could. The next week I started my instrument rating and started working on my commercial ticket, not that I was going to use either of them much, but that I needed to have the skills in case my simple VFR trip on sever clear day went bad.

ANYBODY flying low and slow needs to put down the cell phone distractor device and keep your mind on the flying task. At 1,500 ft AGL you don't have much margin and doing stupid stuff at that height is unnecessarily risky. There is a REASON the FAA has the sterile cockpit rule (No idle chit chat between pilots below 10,000 ft, nothing discussed but the flying of the aircraft) and private pilots would be wise to adopt similar personal rules. For instance, I don't engage passengers in conversation below about 2,000 AGL or within 5 miles of an airport. I tell them as part of a preflight briefing that my FIRST responsibility is to fly the aircraft and that I may not respond to them if I'm busy doing that. I also tell them to put the cell phones away until we get out of the pattern...

Re:They call that, Doing the JFK Junior

[bobbied]

JFK Jr. wasn't taking selfies... He was just a VFR pilot who wasn't properly prepared for the flight he attempted. VFR at night over Water is dangerous territory for those who's IFR skills are not up to par. Doing it in a high performance aircraft is even more risky.

Personally, if I had attempted this flight VFR, I would have conducted it *like* an IFR flight, including flight following and asking for a "practice IFR" approach from the controller. I'd do this to keep it in the front of my mind that I had to stay on the gauges in this situation as much as possible.

Re:Vaccinations?

[bobbied]

Don't fly much eh? Spatial Disorientation is a REAL problem for pilots, especially VFR at night. Ahla JFK Jr. Then you add temporary blindness caused by the flash and it make sense to me...

Re:Meh, student pilots are dumb

[bobbied]

Even that's not new. My CFI took his cell phone along on most of our trips and once in a while actually made a call. Once he called the Flight Service Station to file an IFR flight plan when we where VFR at night but the weather went south and the radios didn't seem to be working well enough to get it filed that way.

Oh and that was 30 years ago...

Re:Whaaaa?

[cstacy]

What article did you read? The one i read said:

"It added the pilot didn’t have sufficient certification for night flight with passengers or flying on instruments alone."

I guess its possible, but ive never heard of someone getting their commercial before their IFR.

The Commercial certificate does not require an Instrument rating.
However: The pilot, age 29, held a commercial pilot certificate with ratings for single engine land, multi-engine land and instrument airplane.

But he did not meet the currency requirements, particularly FAR 61.57(b).
According to all available documentation, the pilot undertook an illegal flight for which he was not qualified.

Flying at night can be very disorienting, hence the currency requirement. That alone could have caused the crash. This has been happening since long before portable electronics were invented. There is no evidence that cell phone cameras were used on this flight. Actually, we know that his GoPro camera definitely was not used. He had a habit (documented on GoPro) of careless and reckless operation: using a cell phone in critical phases of flight (including allowing passengers to use their flash cameras). On some previous flights, both were used, which is why the NTSB is wildly speculating that cell phone/camera usage is what happened this time.

Re:black box?

[no_go]

On a cessna 150 "Black boxes" will be found only if black boxes were used for luggage....
It's a two seat aircraft (pilot + one other perso), used mostly for recreation.
What are popularly called "Black boxes" are mostly used on aircraft that are much larger .

Flash?

[BrendaEM]

Many of the news reports mention a GoPro and flash photography. No.

And people want flying cars

[CanadianMacFan]

Where this sort of thing will happen a lot more often when relatively untrained (driving compared to a pilot) people will be in control.