We had a call for a small plane down at 6:04 AM.
Caller was the pilot, calling from a cell phone, in the downed plane, which he reported as "somewhere to the south of the runway, in a pine forest"- no better location was available. The area is heavily wooded. There was a passenger in the plane as well.

Weather conditions were very foggy.

Arriving crews searched for the plane for about an hour, it was upside-down, located somewhere south of the air strip as indicated by the pilot. Extrication was fairly quick, and due to the mode of injury, both pilot and patient were transported to hospital by air. There were a few moments of difficulty getting the helicopter to the landing zone to to isolated heavy fog in the area.

During this incident, one of responding companies got an additional call, fortunately, command has requested a cover of their station at the onset of the plane down call, so that call was handled as well.

This was a relatively easy call, everyone worked well together, preplans and communications worked as needed.

Some learning lessons for others:

- Geolocation of cell phones is not practical in rural areas. Not only was locating the cell phone not possible for us, even if it was....

- GPS does not work on foggy days in a pine forest in a valley. That's why we have printed maps in all the trucks, and when you're looking in the woods for something...

- Topo Maps are a must-have.

- Local Area Tactical Communications are always better with point-to-point radio rather than repeater radios. Analog radios are MUCH better tactical communications tools than digital radios.


All in all, a good well managed call, a good outcome (well, I mean except for the plane), and a satisfying emergency services experience.

Good job. Much more fun to have survivors. I never had that luck with aircraft mishaps...

Well done!

Here's an article (they work fast) -
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-planecrash0613-cn,0,5101519.story?coll=all-news-hed

Just curious - was the plane not equipped with an emergency beacon like a PLB or the older beacon on 121.5Mhz? If it was, does your group have an ELT for the 121.5Mhz beacon?

Our S&R group has an ELT for the 121.5MHz beacon and recently did a field test out in the wilderness area (mountainous terrain). The signal jumped all over the place and would have led us down a canyon instead of towards the correct location up the mountain.

I figure a more recent PLB (with GPS) is a much better alternative, especially since the 121.5MHz beacon won't be picked up by satellites as of Feb 2009 (I think).

Justin

Good Job

Good Information

Thanks-
Pete

I'd like to know more about GPS not working.
Fog shouldn't interfere.
Pine trees will interfere to a certain extent.

Having the GPS antenna on the top side of an upside down aircraft certainly will interfere.

.... but what GPS was it that didn't work?

The one in the truck? Or the one in the plane?

I don't know, and no, we don't have an ELT, and I don't know where we'd find one. It's Fire/Rescue first, SAR is an incidental occasional need. I'm sure that SAR specialists would have been called in, the Chief of Station 49 (it was their call, we're station 47), is good about calling for help when needed.



I've never used one, I guess all radio systems have problems of some kind.




GPS wasn't really working where we were looking. Heavy tree cover, not a good angle for sky view. I have a Garmin GPS 60C and it's pretty darn good, and it could not hold even a 2D lock. I think that the feet on the ground approach was a good call and it worked well. If there was a trauma injury, it would have been not so good, but given the people and area to search, command did it right.

Any handheld radio that can be tuned to 121.5 MHz can be useful in finding an ELT if you start withing range. In CAP we often used either a Radioshack "Jetstream" radio or a handheld scanner.

You hold the radio upright against your chest and slowly rotate your body, noting the "null" in the signal as your body blocks the signal. Move in a direction opposite the null and repeat.

Yes, the signal can bounce off all kinds of things but eventually you'll find it. It does take practice.

P.S. This is what it sounds like:
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/MAEL/ag/elt.wav

The GPS in my HAND (Garmin GPS 60C) and in my JEEP (Garmin Streetpilot 2620) and my backup GPS (Magellan Explorist 100) all would not hold a fix in the valleys.

Here's a scan of part of the area concerned:


Note the deep valleys, really more indentations in the land. You just can't see much sky, plus I've always found Pine Trees are pretty bad in terms of RF attenuation. I'd have 3D lock, then 2d lock, then I'd loose all but 2 satellites, then I'd get a lock again. It wasn't a big deal, we didn't need the GPS at all, there were so many people to just walk the area and we used cell phones and HT's to coordinate.

And as far as Fog - it most certainly DOES affect RF signals in my experience.

Both your Garmin GPS 60C and the Garmin Streetpilot 2620 has an input for an external GPS antenna using an mcx connector. You could purchase an external GPS antenna such as the Garmin GA29 to improve the RF gain (requires BNC to mcx connector from Garmin also). This should improve the signal gain so that signal lock will be improved.

Not that I think you should buy one :), but I wonder how the 60CSx would have done?

Justin

OK, I'll buy that the terrain combined with trees obscured the GPS signals. I've seen it myself. If the unit can't see enough satellites, it can't do its job.

Fog, on the other hand, by itself isn't enough to prevent use of GPS. But fog-wetted tree branches or water covered GPS antenna would be especially tough.

Glad this one turned out so well.

I have my scanners all progammed with 121.5 for the entertainment value. Most transmissions are mistakes. Most beacons are mistakes. But sometimes......

We also have MAJOR problems with our 500 MHZ radios once the leaves come back in.

Just curious... was the pilot qualified to use IFR (instrument flight rules), or did he take off in fog using just visuals?

Sue

Susan Asked:

I have no idea.
I don't know much about planes and stuff, just that it was a 1979 Piper something, and on the road I was on when responding, it was foggy, and when the crew was looking for the plane, it was foggy.

Chief Skelton explains it well in this video clip from the news:
CBS New Video

P.S.Can you see me in the pictures of the plane?
Me neither.

I just remembered (and wonder how I forgot in the first place). Back in 'bout '66 or so, I was the only one on duty one night at a little bitty Army Airfield when a U-1A (DeHavilland Otter) took off on a rare night mission. The aircraft broke ground, started to climb, then banked steeply to the left, nosed over, and crashed alongside of the runway. Aircraft burnt to a crisp, but the three on board got out, with the worst injury a broken ankle. Results of the post crash investigation? The pilot failed to remove a clip from the rudder prior to takeoff. So when the engine failed (don't think they ever figured out why), and the aircraft banked to the side, the pilot could not control it enough to set back down on the runway. Which makes me wonder if the pilot in this case missed some part of a checklist...

"Which makes me wonder if the pilot in this case missed some part of a checklist..."

One of my father's pilot friends said one of the most common (at the time, anyway) causes of engine failure was the failure of the pilot to drain a cupful of fuel out of the tank before taking off. If any moisture had accumulated in the tank, it would be in that cupful, as it was drained from the lowest point of the tank and water is heavier than fuel. The same thing will happen to a plane that happens to a car when there's water in the gas. Some pilots will panic when the engine dies, instead of gliding it to a landing. In the fog, of course, you've got visibility problems. Plus, which way is up?

Sue

"...Plus, which way is up..."

The opposite of down, which in this case is the bad way to go.

Sorry, the devil made me do it...

There was a little more info at http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-b1_2plane-3r.5898453jun14,0,6384556.story

"He was flying under visual flight rules..."

That means no instruments, in heavy fog. Dumb.

"...another neighbor who heard the engine 'cut out and said there was no sound after that.' "

Water in the gas. Betcha a nickel.

Sue

"...Betcha a nickel..."

No bet...

The engine cutting off is a good indicator that something wasn't right with the motor; water in the gas is a definite possibility if they didn't check the fuel prior.

If the engine had continued to run and pull them into the trees, I'd suspect disorientation/vertigo; it's real easy to lose your up/down sense once you start climbing through fog. That's why an instrument rating is nice to have. Was the VFR clearance because they were at an uncontrolled field or weren't IFR certified? Taking off below minimums is a bad idea even if you are rated. If he'd gotten on top of the fog he may have been fine.

The FAA/NTSB report will be interesting. Since they have two eyewitnesses to interview there won't be a lot of guessing.

They took off from a private airstrip belonging to the passenger. The people nearby said the fog was extremely heavy, so I'm assuming that he didn't take off in the only clear spot around. The article said the plane veered to the left soon after takeoff, hit the trees, broke off the left wing and rolled over.

If the engine died first, it may have startled or scared him, and he had no outside visual reference in the fog to keep it straight and level. Even if he had an artificial horizon, he may have not paid attention to it, his mental priority probably being trying to restart the single engine.

I guess its better to be dumb and lucky than smart and unlucky.

I wonder if his elderly passenger will fly with him again? Personally, I wouldn't have even gotten aboard if I knew he was using VFR and taking off in fog, and hadn't done his preflights. Kind of sloppy.

Sue

I never left the ground and I don't leave the dock when it's foggy. If anything goes wrong, you have no defense, in my experience!

Back in my early days as an NFO I had the "opportunity" to fly with the squadron Operations Officer who just happened to have a "Special IFR" ticket. One day he elected to use it so that we could take off way below minimums and fly our scheduled mission. It wasn't critical, if we didn't fly it the powers that be would simply have rescheduled. But he had his own schedule and didn't want to extend so we took off in near zero visibility -- really stupid.

Tower did not give us a normal take-off clearance; it was more along the lines of "your on your own", "crash trucks are standing by". If you have any problems right after take-off where are you going to land? The field behind you is below minimums. Really bad judgment IMO. End of story, uneventful flight, field was clear and sunny when we returned later in the day. Never flew with him again.

The two gents in the crash above got off lucky, they should be dead. At least now with that 1979 Piper (Arrow?) in pieces, he won't be able to do it again. Harsh lesson.

I may take that bet of your after all, sounds like spatial disorientation , otherwise known as the death spiral, to me. If I remember what I learned about that long ago, when a pilot listens to his inner ear instead of watching the instruments (is he has them, and knows how), he usually veers to the left, and continues down until the wings fall off, or he makes a smoking hole. Happened to a guy I worked with years ago, he entered fog, lost it, ended up killing both himself and his wife...

I'd go for spacial disorientation after the engine cut out. From the linked article, it appears the engine quit first.

The engine was heard to quit before the crash. Spatial disorientation means you don't know which way is up. It doesn't mean you reach out and turn off the engine because you can't see where you're going.

The oldtime pilots were properly prepared with an artificial horizon created by the level of liquid in their always-handy whiskey bottle. If the top surface of the liquid was parallel to the bottom of the upright bottle, they were flying straight and level. They may have been flying smack into the side of a mountain, but they were going straight and level while doing it. If the bottle itself was spinning crazily on the floor, ceiling or doorframe of the cockpit, they had a serious problem that probably wouldn't last very long.

The site you indicated said "...approximately 40% of the NTSB fatal general aviation accident reports list continuation of flight into conditions for which the pilot was not qualified as either a contributing or proximate cause." [italics are mine]

That's a fancy way of calling it "Death by stupidity, pilot style".

'Tis a pity, though, that we shall never heard the results from the FFA.

Sue

I think a lot of what is being said here is speculation; conditions may have been VFR (even if marginal) when this pilot took off. Unless this gets further investigated and posted to the NTSB site, we may never know.

"Special VFR" (not a "special IFR ticket") is a clearance that a pilot with a current instrument rating may request when visibility is low (but still at least 1 mile) and some other conditions are met, including being in contact with ATC. It's often used to get out of an airport with low visibility (e.g. ground fog) but clear skies above and on the rest of the route.

As a private pilot under Part 91 regulations you can take off on an IFR clearance with visibility as low as essentially zero; it's your judgment call as a pilot.

In this case it sounds like neither of the above would have applied, since he wasn't in controlled airspace and likely not on an IFR clearance (though that's not even clear).

Anyway, sorry to hear about the accident, and glad folks like Martin are out there.

As long as we're speculating...

Pilots do stupid things from time to time, like try four times to take off from an unmowed grass strip wet with morning dew (after forgetting to switch back to both mags after runup) and finally getting off the ground enough to crash.

But my gut tells me that conditions were VFR and the fog was probably only in the low-lying areas. The engine quit on takeoff ($$ on water in the fuel) and the pilot flew the plane all the way to the ground. The fact that they survived and the fuselage was not terribly crunched indicates that the plane came down under control and not in a disoriented spiral dive.

P.S. Sue - The whiskey in the bottle would appear perfectly level in classic disorientation scenario - That's why it happens - It still feels like you are level!

This was almost 30 years ago and at a military base not in the U.S. I recall the other pilots referring to it as Special IFR and they did not like the fact that he used it. We didn't do anything under VFR clearance. Whatever, off topic to this discussion anyway.