TransPac Deer Valley Plane Crash

[derg]

DergNote: *sigh* — that tail looks altogether "too familiar". Luckily no one got hurt bad this time.


From: http://www.azfamily.com/news/Plane-crashes-at-Deer-Valley-Airport-243541231.html?

PHOENIX -- Only minor injuries were reported after a small plane crashed and caught fire at Deer Valley Airport in Phoenix late Tuesday morning.

According to Ian Gregor with the Federal Aviation Administration, a single-engine Piper PA28 crashed on the east end of the airport near Seventh Street and Deer Valley Road at approximately 11:30 a.m.

The plane became fully engulfed in flames after crashing.

Firefighters responded and doused the flames.

Gregor said it was an instructional flight and the accident occurred while the pilot was practicing touch-and-go maneuvers. A touch-and-go is a common procedure in which the pilot lands, continues rolling and takes off again.

Gregor said local authorities reported that there were three people from TransPac Aviation Academy on board the plane. They said one person suffered a minor injury and the other two were not injured.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash.

Seventh Street is closed between Deer Valley and Pinnacle Peak roads.

 

[GX]

Glad everyone got out..... That's what? The 2nd or 3rd in less than a year? Is it crazy that I thought that flying in Alaska was a safer alternative to becoming a CFI in Phoenix?

 

[skypilot6]

Glad everyone got out..... That's what? The 2nd or 3rd in less than a year? Is it crazy that I thought that flying in Alaska was a safer alternative to becoming a CFI in Phoenix?

This will be the 4th "Hull loss" since 2010 by my count, but that doesn't include the numerous other incidents at TP. At least this one wasn't fatal.

And crazy to think that flying in Alaska might have been the "safer" choice...

Oh and a Bonanza did a gear up at DVT this afternoon as well

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

Wow, they are really lucky. Their insurance rates have to be through the roof.

 

[ScorpionStinger]

They are alive.... So good landing. Wow... Uneven surfaces in that area also. Just Miraculous!

Geeze @ the gear up separate event also in DVT. I heard it's the busiest GA airport.


BE SAFE OUT THERE.

 

[GX]

Gear up... Meh... They happen, and sometimes to the best maintained airplanes with the most skilled on board. Stuff breaks.

Multiple incidents at a puppy mill with the only expectation of producing numbers and profit? To a foreign client? Bad juju all day, everyday.

 

[JordanD]

Yikes, those pictures look... Bad. Glad to hear nobody was killed.

 

[mshunter]

"Emergency landing." Sounds like an engine failure. Hopefully, it was, because if that's the case, they did a damn fine job. Not even serious injuries.

 

[Dphoenix]

Wow, they are really lucky. Their insurance rates have to be through the roof.

From what I remember when working there, they don't have insurance. If they crash, they fix em up and eat the cost. Good luck with this one.

Without of course speculating on the cause, I can say they have a very intense high pressure mentality there that the mission needs to be done at all costs... safely. But that "... safely". part is always kind of thrown in as an afterthought, and in my opinion not truly considered operationally. I can think of plenty of times I cancelled flights with no backlash, but several other occasions where I did receive a lot of pressure to go flying anyway. And the way they scheduled your day, doing it the way they wanted without cutting a single corner was damn near impossible. And they didn't like hearing that, there was always this idea that you could be fired at any time if management didn't like you. It didn't used to always be that way, but financially they've faced a lot more pressure lately which has meant several periods of CFIs having to work 6 days instead of 5. A few years back, things were different. From what I understand, they had a cap of high-300-something students, and they were able to push them through and get the students done and out back to China in sometimes 6 or 7 months, thus opening cap space for new students and thus a new large payment from the airline. Two things happened. One, the CAAC said the students need to be on property for a year from the time they first fly. That means suddenly the cap becomes a major issue, and your profitability goes down a lot, especially since Transpac provides housing to them. If you consider 7 months per student instead of a year (and because they didn't fly immediately, that means even longer than 12 months), that's a 50% cut to throughput. Secondly, the airlines renegotiated their contracts - if you don't have outside customers, you're very beholden to the demands of chinese airlines trying to negotiate with you. That meant further reductions in profitability. When the whole thing is run by an investor group trying to maximize profits, that leads to a lot of pressure, and I feel like it's hard to ignore as a latent factor leading to their increase in accidents lately. Anyway, just one man's soapbox opinion...

 

[T/O w/FSII]

Where are the wings? Glad it turned out okay.

 

[MikeD]

DVT really needs an ARFF station; none located at the field (and none required, actually). Just Phoenix FD station 36 about a mile away on the south side of Deer Valley Road. No formal ARFF capability though, unfortunately. So if Honeywell's E170 based there or one of the larger corporate aircraft that use the field has an accident, the existing structural fire units could be overwhelmed rather quickly.

Engine 36 and Brush 36 representing in the channel 3 video......

 

[Dphoenix]

MikeD: Given the ARFF capability at podunk regional airports that get three CRJ200 flights a day, versus the multitude of incidents that happen weekly at DVT and the sheer number and type of ops that go on there, I'm inclined to agree with you. Of course... somebody's got to pony up the money for that.

 

[Tld]

TPac holds a special place in my heart and always will. Considering the sheer volume flown there, they do a fairly good job of mitigating the risk, and my experience is that their maintenance is top-notch as well. I hate to see this, but thankful that those involved made it out. Considering an engine failure off 7L, they did a great job. But yeah, damn, that plane is liquified.

 

[MikeD]

MikeD: Given the ARFF capability at podunk regional airports that get three CRJ200 flights a day, versus the multitude of incidents that happen weekly at DVT and the sheer number and type of ops that go on there, I'm inclined to agree with you. Of course... somebody's got to pony up the money for that.

I posted this during one of the last accidents there:

"On a related note, another problem with the accidents that have been occurring at KDVT is that there is no Crash/Fire/Rescue or Aircraft Rescue FireFighting vehicles at the airport. Surprising, simply due to the sheer volume of operations that go on there daily. But because it's all GA and there's no air carrier operations, no ARFF Index is required under 14 CFR 139. It surprises me as an ARFF firefighter myself for that reason, as well as the fact that Phoenix can easily afford to have at least a ramp truck available. Back in the day, there used to be a Dodge Power Wagon rescue truck, Rescue 19, based right next to the main terminal which had a limited firefighting capability. But that was gotten rid of in about 1989-1990. The nearest fire station is Station 36, located about a mile south of the airport in the industrial area on the south side of Deer Valley Road. Still, being off airport, their response time still takes a bit for anything on-field, or for anything on the north or west side of the field. That, and they're only equipped with a structural engine, a water tender, an ambulance and brush truck. Their nearest backup is Station 50 with about a 10 minute reponse time traffic allowing, bringing an extra structural engine and an extra ambulance. They also have a ladder, ladder tender and utility truck; none of which are really useful for ARFF. Even the structural engines aren't the best thing for ARFF, but are better than nothing, however the structural firefighters aren't ARFF trained formally....and that can be a bad thing. To this day, I don't know why Phoenix FD won't spend some money on an ARFF capability, instead of dropping money on new structural engines every few years. Phoenix-Goodyear (KGYR) is the same situation, with their no ARFF on field, and the nearest station being a structural station about a mile away and equipped with a structural engine, a ladder, and ladder tender which can all be used."

 

[Boris Badenov]

Four total losses in four years? Plus who knows how many other incidents? Even back when I was a CFI that would at the very least get you an extremely thorough and unpleasant visit from the FSDO...

 

[GX]

DVT really needs an ARFF station; none located at the field (and none required, actually). Just Phoenix FD station 36 about a mile away on the south side of Deer Valley Road. No formal ARFF capability though, unfortunately. So if Honeywell's E170 based there or one of the larger corporate aircraft that use the field has an accident, the existing structural fire units could be overwhelmed rather quickly.

Engine 36 and Brush 36 representing in the channel 3 video......

I know there's a station at SDL, but are they ARFF capable?

 

[GX]

Four total losses in four years? Plus who knows how many other incidents? Even back when I was a CFI that would at the very least get you an extremely thorough and unpleasant visit from the FSDO...

There's $$$$ to be made, bro. The FSDO has been, at the very least, complicit in the dealings with the 2 flight schools on the field. Two of the losses have been mid-airs, and one was a night time CFIT in the practice area (an area the CFI had been flying in since she was a Student Pilot, IIRC), to boot. Not sure if mid-airs hold any more significance, but... something to think about.

I will say this: TPac's maintenance is absolutely top notch. Their airplanes were always in good condition and worked properly, and the CFI's that I knew always said as much. At least that's how it was in 2011-2013.

 

[MikeD]

I know there's a station at SDL, but are they ARFF capable?

Yeah, the SDL station was built where it's located next to the current tower in the '80s (old tower used to be on the main side of the field near the former FSDO building), and has always had two ARFF trucks, starting out back when with an ARFF engine and a dry chemical twin agent unit. Now, they have two medium ARFF trucks. Both under Rural Metro and now under Scottsdale FD, they've always had a good firefighting capability there.

 

[GX]

My guess, based on pics, and being familiar is a power off 180 gone wrong. #completeandtotalspeculation

 

[Dphoenix]

Something that still makes me sick, from the last midair they had, where a friend of mine died, was the president standing up in front of the CFIs, and I'm paraphrasing here, but it was something to the effect of "we just may not be able to learn anything from this". And if that's your attitude to an aircraft accident, welll.. that's not good. I'll grant that it may be tougher to learn lessons from midairs than other accidents, but there are still lessons there and things to consider. Aircraft equipment to help prevent collisions, time pressure from management causing many people to cut back on the number of clearing turns they do, the practice areas where people are going to do these maneuvers, capacity of those practice areas, radio procedures and communications between flight schools (in that case, two schools were involved) - there are so many areas to look at where you can either say, "well, we did the best we realistically could" or "You know, we may have some opportunity for improvement on this." When you take the attitude of, "we can't learn anything from this accident", in my view that's a cop out.

I don't want to imply that everything is wrong there. They do a lot right, I learned quite a bit there, it's a great place with a lot of fantastic, smart people and the MX is great. Given the insanely sheer volume of flights they do, their accident rate is fairly reasonable. But culture plays a big part in that too and I think that's an area where they can really improve.