Youtuber Fatal Crash

F

FlyingAccountant

Well-Known Member
This gal from Knoxville, TN was a budding Youtube star and managed to auger her Bonanza in and kill herself as well as her father sitting in the right seat. It looks like she rolled video on just about every flight she ever made and posted it up on her channel and the lack of competence for someone who supposedly had 400 hours is breathtaking.

Being unable to operate her own radios, mistaking left for right(!), not following ATC instructions, overflying a runway because she was unable to figure out which one it was, not knowing how to operate her own A/P, being chronically behind the airplane, etc. It seems like she had a falling out with her CFI shortly prior to her death and found a new one for her instrument training, but she doesn’t really go into detail as to what transpired.

There doesn’t seem to be a clear cut cause of the crash but there seems to be speculation that it might have been caused by her inability to control her own aircraft based on the flight track, which if you watch some of the videos, certainly seems plausible.


nypost.com

YouTuber, dad killed in plane crash 1 month after ‘aircraft malfunction’ close call

The crash comes one month after Jenny Blalock posted a video of her execuuting an emergency landing due to an “aircraft malfunction” at 4,000 feet in the air.
nypost.com nypost.com

Here’s a video that took place a couple months ago. She has an alternator failure in flight and rather than work the problem, she’s too busy adjusting the camera angles of her Go-Pros.


View: https://youtu.be/KiX7dw67QpA?si=uBrt-qZ57iJx8pY6
 
So I looked her up on the tube. As one might expect plenty of vultures, including Gryder, have posted about her death.

Something about social media, YouTube, Tik tok, etc & aviation just makes the nastiest combination sometimes, maybe most times…

RIP
 
invadertim said:
So I looked her up on the tube. As one might expect plenty of vultures, including Gryder, have posted about her death.

Something about social media, YouTube, Tik tok, etc & aviation just makes the nastiest combination sometimes, maybe most times…

RIP
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I ripped into Gryder on airliners.net once and had a bunch of fan boys accost me over it, including one kid who was indignant because he met Gryder and swore he was the nicest guy in the world. Couldn't manage to convey the point to the guy that who people are on social media/the media and who they are in reality is often entirely two different personalities.

In general I've found the Youtubification of aviation to be disappointing. Some female WN Captain's channel keeps popping up on my YT feed and it has me concerned - like maybe just focus on getting my family to Dallas safely and turn off the camera.
 
It's really sad. You can't really take stock of a person solely by a few videos but this may be someone who did not have the head for flying. It happens. If that's the case, it would just make the tragedy even grater.
 
Murdoughnut said:
In general I've found the Youtubification of aviation to be disappointing. Some female WN Captain's channel keeps popping up on my YT feed and it has me concerned - like maybe just focus on getting my family to Dallas safely and turn off the camera.
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I know exactly who you are talking about, she pops up on mine all the time too. Red hair?

I don't know the young lady who died in TN, or her father for that matter. I have bit my tongue on commenting on it anywhere but I have finally watched some videos and it is pretty clear she had little business being in an airplane. She certainly had no business being in a Bonanza. I also wonder what recordings we didn't see. She seemed to be just a little off the airplane's rhythm in every video I watched.
 
Inverted said:
I know exactly who you are talking about, she pops up on mine all the time too. Red hair?

I don't know the young lady who died in TN, or her father for that matter. I have bit my tongue on commenting on it anywhere but I have finally watched some videos and it is pretty clear she had little business being in an airplane. She certainly had no business being in a Bonanza. I also wonder what recordings we didn't see. She seemed to be just a little off the airplane's rhythm in every video I watched.
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Yep, that's the one. I haven't spent much time watching her videos, and perhaps her content is good, it just gives me an unprofessional vibe. And I think it's worth noting that her gender has nothing to do with that - I get the same sense from the guys I see doing it.
 
I really tried to lean into YT and IG content creation as it would really help my side hustle business, and I like the idea of people sharing what they do. But when you are a creator first, and a pilot second, it seems like it never ends well. I really lke the people that do their thing and simply film it. Too many pilots try to curate and make these out-of-context, fake videos and it comes off with such a lack of sincerity and aren't genuine at all.

I feel bad that two people lost their lives, and if I had seen these videos before she died I would swear that this was fake drama made up for clicks but sadly I think her inability to really fly an airplane, was real...
 
MidlifeFlyer said:
It's really sad. You can't really take stock of a person solely by a few videos
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This is a major societal issue...

Ideally this is why I try (and fail like everyone else) to make my online persona more or less similar to me. I think a great deal of the anxiety we see in younger folks these days is because they are unable to see the difference.

At least the NTSB will have a narrated play-by-play to watch.
 
Murdoughnut said:
Yep, that's the one. I haven't spent much time watching her videos, and perhaps her content is good, it just gives me an unprofessional vibe. And I think it's worth noting that her gender has nothing to do with that - I get the same sense from the guys I see doing it.
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sounds like something akin to an up-and-coming female version of Jerry, unfortunately.
 
Inverted said:
I really tried to lean into YT and IG content creation as it would really help my side hustle business, and I like the idea of people sharing what they do. But when you are a creator first, and a pilot second, it seems like it never ends well. I really lke the people that do their thing and simply film it. Too many pilots try to curate and make these out-of-context, fake videos and it comes off with such a lack of sincerity and aren't genuine at all.

I feel bad that two people lost their lives, and if I had seen these videos before she died I would swear that this was fake drama made up for clicks but sadly I think her inability to really fly an airplane, was real...
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The British guy at your shop is one of the maybe two influencers that doesn't make me cringe, seems like he just enjoys his job.
 
Inverted said:
Steve is awesome. He is a genuinely good guy and really cares about his job. He simply films and posts his day-to-day. Nothing he does is contrived and fake.
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I agree, there’s something therapeutic about watching someone do their job or hobby who’s really good at it and just genuinely enjoying what they do. Could be flying or other stuff. The problem arises with the clickbait, fabricated drama, performative BS for “the algorithm” - and people being pre-occupied with content production and letting that stand in the way of their actual responsibilities.

Regarding the original post, I hate to be the one to share this given “Juan Cornholio’s” usual grift and reputation on this site (@MikeD please forgive me :) ), but I did find this particular video a helpful summary both of the Century autopilot and specific cases in her prior videos of getting behind the airplane and not understanding the autopilot. In one particular video she commands a climb on the AP and never adds power, and then proceeds to mentally spiral for several minutes as the airplane slowly climbs and airspeed decays before finally disconnecting the autopilot. Unfortunately after all that she never seems to “get” what actually happened. :(


View: https://youtu.be/ViO1j1iYn18?si=FShYO7SNpoFzUVCA
 
The focus on several videos seems to be her lack of autopilot understanding but IMHO it's sadly a basic lack of airmanship, airpersonship, airwomanship. Her not adding power after commanding a climb is her being behind the airplane even when her workload is low. She sadly wasn't a very good pilot...
 
Most of aviation safety is attitudinal. Almost anyone can be trained to be a good pilot—humans are mostly made of the same stuff. The big differences come in how people approach the problem—whether they can take a beginner's mind and look at things with humility, build the proper attitude towards being pilot in command, learn from the mistakes that other people made that killed them, etc.

Ultimately, beyond that, it's about being able to acquire, correlate, and act on multiple datasets. And, bluntly, being able to perceive and act on changes in angle.

That's pretty much it.

Almost everyone who doesn't seem to get it falls into the category of being unable—or unwilling—to face their preconceptions and adjust them to the reality of aviation.

Sometimes that adaptation simply takes time, and sometimes people run out.
 
I'll give her credit, she at least realized when she was deficient. Unfortunately, she failed to really do anything about it to address it with remedial instruction and it came back to bite her. She also had no business being in something with the performance of a Bonanza. You could just tell things were happening too quickly for her. This video is a great example of that:


View: https://youtu.be/uoUVXkS8Pro?si=28YtDVC8q73FRoG8


I feel like the aviation here augmented the Youtubing instead of it being the other way around like it should be. Looking at her Youtube channel, she was already selling "pilot girl" merchandise. She wanted to be a star and she did become one, for the wrong reasons.
 
Sad that she never got it through her head that she wasn’t “getting it” and took appropriate remedial training. We’ve all been at that point in an airplane where we were hanging on by the static wicks (or worse) but for the most part weren’t being turned loose in a Bonanza with a passel of GoPros.
 
MikeD said:
How much of this was potentially spurred on by dad, I wonder? Perhaps a modern day version of a Jessica DuBroff, of sorts?
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That’s hard to imagine. Jessica was 8. Are people really still living vicariously through their kids when they are 45? certainly possible.
 
mwflyer said:
That’s hard to imagine. Jessica was 8. Are people really still living vicariously through their kids when they are 45? certainly possible.
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Hard to say. Even if not so much vicariously living in terms of job or ability, but moreso using their kids social media presence, as their own “look at me” presence? An technological evolvement of the vicarious living? Just a thought.
 
Go Pro’s are amazing tools … that are being misused, for the most part.

I don’t think I’ve heard of an inexperienced pilot paying their CFI to review every solo takeoff and landing, as well as other procedures. That kinda review is a lot of bang for the buck.

They can be used as effective learning tool, however they are usually a vehicle for attention seeking behavior.
 
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