Apples to oranges here. Am I going to remove inspection panels to verify that that exhaust nut is safety wired? Nope. Am I going to sump tanks after fueling to make sure it doesn't look out smell suspicious? Yup.
Crash in Las Cruces, NM kills 4
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Apples to oranges here. Am I going to remove inspection panels to verify that that exhaust nut is safety wired? Nope. Am I going to sump tanks after fueling to make sure it doesn't look out smell suspicious? Yup.
Agreed, but you can sump them right then and there, maybe even 5 minutes later, and you'd probably show light blue still. Patient is waiting, med crew has to get going, what's the holdup? We don't have 30 minutes to wait here to confirm that fuel is fuel. Lets go!
See the difference?
It's more than just selling and checking for contaminants. Remember, 100LL should be blue. If it's mixed with any other fuels, it turns clear. His fuel would have been clear. A pretty clear warning sign something was amiss.
With the amount of pressure it hours in with, it would have been pretty well mixed up.
Edit to add: And I do get it. I've had a heart coming, with a helo waiting at the other end, engines spooled up and waiting because it is such a time sensitive organ. You make sure all it's right, our you don't go. What is the point of all of it if the mission isn't completed?
Hard to say, depending on the concentrate. My point is maybe he would've noticed a difference, maybe not. One can't cross check that everyone, everywhere in aviation have done their jobs right 100% of the time on every single little thing. It's just not possible. Safety and mission accomplishment are balanced against one another, it's not 100% one way or the other. It's very likely that had the plane not been on an active mission, the pilot may have waited to sump the tanks. As it was, they had to go, mission was in progress.. That's real world.
Sometimes you can't spend a long time dotting every I and crossing every single T, every time. The BL is, he should've been at the aircraft, but again, was there a mission time crunch to where he had to do three things at once, to where he couldn't be at the aircraft, where maybe he normally would? Possibly. That's real world.
The primary causal factor to this accident is the misfueling of the aircraft. While it's best practice to be able to supervise the fueling operation, it's not always possible and not always required. The PIC didn't do anything legally wrong by not doing so, as it's recognized that this isn't always possible real world. The legal onus was not on the PIC to ensure that the fueler does his job right, that's on the fueler; anymore than it's a PICs job to QA that an A&P has done his work correctly. Maybe it could be made a policy to supervise fueling, but absent that, the pilot did nothing legally wrong nor otherwise failed to do his own job.
Mike, you're missing the point. I've been there, with either a patient, our organs waiting, at go time. I've had to get back up out of my seat to double check stuff, because people make mistakes. Sumping the fuel is something we all learn from day -0- in a piston. And this is the exact rain why. Maybe it wouldn't have shown anything, maybe it would have. Speculating it's of little relevance now. It's already happened. The point I am making, it's when you are rushed, that's when it's time to slow down. Because that's when stuff like this happens.
I've been there, with a sick patient, and time sensitive organs, told to hurry up.
"What's the point of all of this if we never make it there because I missed something?"
You're right. I rarely supervise fueling. Almost never in fact. But I am going to double check some random person's work, even if it's just a cursory look into the tank to make sure the fueler didn't accidentally top of, our put 20 gallons split between two tanks, instead of 20 each tank. This kind of thing has happened in the past, because of this exact reason. Hell, even when I knew the line guy, I still double checked.
I'm not missing the point at all. You think I not aware of mission accomplishment vs safety, and how extenuating circumstances affect the overall risk being accepted?
This was a unique situation whereby the pilot, even had he sumped the tanks, may still have had light blue fuel, unless the plane was filled over probably more than halfway with Jet fuel. I've been fueled in the same airplane back in the day with 80 octane, 100LL, and 100; to where with the mishmash of colors, I couldn't tell you which was the majority in there. Granted those were all AVGAS, but as previously stated, JET fuel, if not in sufficient quantity, may not settle quick or mix well enough to turn blue into fully clear.
I fully understand slowing down when rushed, when reasonably possible. I also understand that sometimes, rushing happens, or multiple things need to be done at the same time. I'm telling you, you can't always check everyone's work all of the time. It's just not possible. In this situation, he may have been rushed to the point that he took what were reasonable precautions for the situation at hand, for this one time. And it turned out that someone didn't do their job.
What if he did sump the tank and it was still light blue, and he still crashed after being misfueled (very possible to occur)? Would we suggest he wait about 30 minutes to let fuel settle to re-sump it? Ok, what if he keeps doing that in every fueling situation, taking a 30 minute delay each time, and was fueled correctly every time? That won't fly after awhile.
There's a point where you just can't micromanage everything around you all the time. That's real life. And real life isn't always a perfect world in some cases. As I said, the primary causal factor of this accident was the misfueling, not the fact that the PIC didn't catch the fact it was misfueled. Granted, dead is dead, sure; but barring some broken policy, the PIC didn't do anything legally wrong in this case. Just an unfortunate tragedy.
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Perfectly sound to do, I agree. I can understand though, unique circumstances where either this may not have been possible, or where when checked, the pilot saw what he expected to see even after being misfueled.
For the record Mike @mshunter , I'm not in any way discounting your situations or experiences you've described. They're fully viable and understandable, and they make good practice sense, show good judgement, and are safety oriented good professional advice. I just understand that in your particular situations where you either had the time to double check the things you wanted to or didn't take an undue delay, you were able to. I also understand that there may be times in certain situations where triple checking many things may result in undue delays or is just not feasible for some reason or another. Normally, nothing bad comes of these. Sometimes, sadly, all the holes of the swiss chesse are able to align.
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RDoug
Well-Known Member
In a really ironic twist, the guy who owns the company hired to replace the fuelers at Las Cruces post-accident was himself killed this weekend in a crash of his newly acquired RV-3. Witnesses reported that the engine started sputtering before the pilot went straight in at a reported 90° angle.
Was that at LRU airport? Weird indeed.
RDoug
Well-Known Member
robofos
Well-Known Member
At all the places I worked line service at, I remember fuel safety posters of the two airplanes the C421 and C441 Conquest. I never understood how someone could mis-fuel a plane until I saw those two sitting right next to each other. They both look the same other than the nacelles. Makes me feel for the fueler as well, that's horrible.
Or even a 404 Titan and 425Corsair/441 Conquest. Differences, while there, are subtle to many.
Jimflyfast
lurker first class
If the props are feathered, its almost always Jet-A.
JustinS
Well-Known Member
True, but the 441s with TPE331's props don't feather at shut down making it difficult to identify the difference for some people.
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Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
Yeah, but most turbines can eat some 100LL with no problems.
scooter2525
Very well Member
Thinking back, I had a fueler put Jet A in a Chieftain. It was in Vipizzle ( @Derg ) and I walked in to the FBO to drain the tank. I walk back to supervise the fueler and I see a Jet A truck parked in front of my plane.
"Did you start fueling the plane with Jet A?"
Yeah! But I had a hard time getting the nozzle to fit in the hole.
...
"Yeah dude, you can't put Jet A in a piston. That will toast the engine. How much did you put in?"
Uhhhhhhhhhhh crap.
Grounded it right then and there. Took them two drains, fill ups before mx released it to service.
Glad I've transitioned to turbines.
"Did you start fueling the plane with Jet A?"
Yeah! But I had a hard time getting the nozzle to fit in the hole.
...
"Yeah dude, you can't put Jet A in a piston. That will toast the engine. How much did you put in?"
Uhhhhhhhhhhh crap.
Grounded it right then and there. Took them two drains, fill ups before mx released it to service.
Glad I've transitioned to turbines.