Three Dead in Houston Cirrus Crash

You chose the fish?


Lasagna.


Always go with the lasagna.
Surely you must be serious??

seriously, none of us is immune to have a bad day and start making mistake after mistake, but at some point, the buck has to stop. We gotta know where to draw the line. And as my dad says, Pray that your msitakes don't kill you. I can certainly agree on that.

Take Care
 
Yup. It's not like an ATP is required to fly into Houston's airspace.

Of course that doesn't preclude exercising some preplanning, familiarization with the general area, and some due diligence, prior to going into there if one isn't familiar with the airspace or has limited exposure.

Agreed. I did my discovery flight out of KHOU; to be night current, I've done stop and goes off 35/17. I can empathize perhaps with the pilot's experience because I've heard those exact words from ATC on a few occasions into Hobby, so I know what she may have been thinking. Keep your speed up, go around, keep it tight. . .oh yes, it's as if they were talking to me. . .and they had been previously.

It does make me wonder, Mike how she planned for this flight and if she had options thought up in advance.
 
It does make me wonder, Mike how she planned for this flight and if she had options thought up in advance.
Yup. But then again, like I said earlier, there's KIWS, KSGR, KEFD, KDWH in the Houston area as well. I just hope this flight wasn't a "I HAVE to get into KHOU"
 
It does make me wonder, Mike how she planned for this flight and if she had options thought up in advance.

Yup. But then again, like I said earlier, there's KIWS, KSGR, KEFD, KDWH in the Houston area as well. I just hope this flight wasn't a "I HAVE to get into KHOU"

Agreed. But if she desired to go into HOU, for whatever reason.....doesn't really matter, I would hope that there was some preplanning done so that as things occurring would be expected or at least familiar, as much as possible, rather than everything being a surprise.
 
The "IM SAFE" issue is real in this situation. They were flying to visit the father of the husband and brother-in-law who was at M.D. Anderson Hospital.
 
Agreed. But if she desired to go into HOU, for whatever reason.....doesn't really matter, I would hope that there was some preplanning done so that as things occurring would be expected or at least familiar, as much as possible, rather than everything being a surprise.
Likely very little. Stangely, that very important aspect of aviating is often not emphasized sufficiently until well into a person's flying evolution. And lack of proper prior planning doesn't apply just to Class B excusions. It can and does get people in trouble into little backwoods strips, too.
 
Agreed. But if she desired to go into HOU, for whatever reason.....doesn't really matter, I would hope that there was some preplanning done so that as things occurring would be expected or at least familiar, as much as possible, rather than everything being a surprise.
Exactly. The destination airport is irrelevant, the problem starts when you *HAVE* to get somewhere. My old man taught me this:

Pilot Professionals fly to where they must. You are a Professional pilot. You fly where you can.
 
If you knew the family and friends were reading would you write the same? I'm just curious because I have trouble criticizing or blaming anyone in this accident (many accidents for that matter). It makes me want to believe our deaths are predetermined.
 
Last edited:
If you knew the family and friends were reading would you write the same? I'm just curious because I have trouble criticizing or blaming anyone in this accident (many accidents for that matter). It makes me want to believe our deaths are predetermined.

No disrespect intended either, but I have difficulty trying to validate your hypothesis. How does comments made about her flying prowess correlate to the outcome being that specifically predetermined? <notice I said "comments" and not 'criticism' or 'blame?" Until more data is provided, no one is in a position to accurately do either as it relates to cause.
 
I don't agree.

When you are a licensed pilot in command of an airplane, you alone are responsible for its safe operation. It doesn't matter who is saying what on your headset, you have to manage that without killing yourself and others in perfect daytime VMC.

Some people get it right away; some learn it, and some never do get it. As Acrofox stated, if someone can't make good decisions on the ground, they will never be able to in the air. However, for all we know she was a perfect student with a great CFI.

For what it is worth to those speculating about fuel - the KOCO article quoted a firefighter as saying there was 'no fuel spill.'
While what you stated is true, when it comes time to divvying up the blame, it does not work that way.
 
While what you stated is true, when it comes time to divvying up the blame, it does not work that way.

. . .and presently, there's no "blame," responsibility," accountability," to be directed "negatively" towards anyone. One point I've heard continually is to stay ahead of the plane. Anticipate the actions of ATC. I say this specifically because, during the approach phase of flight, I have a strong probability of the directive going to made by ATC from transition to tower then ground control. Their verbalization actually reinforces what I believe will happen. Only speculating but doing the final seconds of flight, ATC was communicating; others in the tower were also watching the airplane and observed her deviation. I wonder if she were half-hearted listening and actually focusing on flying the airplane? Again, it is a question; I am not drawing any conclusion based upon this outcome.
 
Just read that a couple days ago. Perhaps a bit contrived to make the point, but it makes the point. I sent it to a colleague to whom I had to say no recently. Had been asked to work an illegal flight. I think he, and management, were pissed at my "recalcitrance", but so be it. If the FNG in the company has to be where the buck stops, so be it. Shoot the messenger if they wish, but the least the message could not be ignored.
 
That's a horrible assumption to blanket all pilots with. She was signed off and legally had every qualification to fly in that airspace. She flew with an instructor, and DPE who saw that she was perfectly capable. Unfortunately, on this day she was probably feeling pressured, overwhelmed and wasn't able to execute a landing that she had done 100s of times before.

With that being said, I flew into a Class B airport multiple times in an airplane I had never been in before 1 month after obtaining my PPL with no problems. Blanket statements like that are not accurate.

Also don't forget, this could happen to any pilot on this board. Alls it takes is some extra pressure combined with a lack of sleep or food, have to pee, other worries on your mind, or just a bad day and you could find yourself in this same situation in what others have described as a very unforgiving airplane.

It wasn't a blanket statement about pilots in general so much as it was inexperienced ones. She had a relatively fresh PPL, flying an airplane that's been noted to be a handful to the inexperienced, in an airspace that's probably much busier than she's used to beings that she lives in Oklahoma, while flying into an airport that's likely much busier than she's used to. Do you see the holes of the swiss cheese aligning here?

At the end of the day, what I said wasn't incorrect. She was clearly in over her head flying into KHOU, we can tell that by the ATC recordings, and that was likely driven by inexperience, coupled with an airplane that's less forgiving than most.
 
If you knew the family and friends were reading would you write the same? I'm just curious because I have trouble criticizing or blaming anyone in this accident (many accidents for that matter). It makes me want to believe our deaths are predetermined.
I've lost dear ones in an aviation accident. Uncle of mine was asked to fly in an ultralight with this CEO to debut the then new invention: a GoPro camera. They flew into a canyon and got tangled in the only electric (unmarked) wire in the canyon. As much as I loved my uncle, his decision making wasn't sharp that day and eventually boxed himself into a situation he couldn't get out of.

So no, if a relative or known one is taken by the aviation deities, doesn't change things. Unfortunately we just have to keep praying our own mistakes are not serious enough to get our number called.

Take Care
 
No disrespect intended either, but I have difficulty trying to validate your hypothesis. How does comments made about her flying prowess correlate to the outcome being that specifically predetermined? <notice I said "comments" and not 'criticism' or 'blame?" Until more data is provided, no one is in a position to accurately do either as it relates to cause.

How? Because no one is perfect and we all have made mistakes we were able to learn from and continue to live. Do you trust the data is accurate always?

All those "I learned about flying from that" in flying mag where written by poor decision making pilots but luckily survived? I think it is fair to say the majority of is have been beyond the power curve or questioned how much fuel we had left. If not than it is likely to happen the more one puts in the time.

No one knows if life is predetermined I just wonder about it sometimes.
 
It's known that she struggled greatly with patterns and landing while in flight training. May have been some bad habits resurfacing in a stressful situation.
 
It's known that she struggled greatly with patterns and landing while in flight training. May have been some bad habits resurfacing in a stressful situation.

Being high and fast was something I struggled with even after I earned my PPL. It took a while (and a lot more practice) to stop doing that. Is that common with new-ish private pilots?
 
Back
Top