transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:02] Welcome to NTSB News Talk, where we talk about recent accidents from the past few weeks, newly released NTSB preliminary and final reports, and other safety-related news. The views expressed on this show are really just the opinions of the hosts and not the aviation news talk network. This podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board. This podcast is for entertainment and education, and is not a replacement for flight instruction. Now here are your hosts, CFI and award-winning aviation journalist, Rob Mark and Max Trescott, CFI and author, who's trained as an accident investigator.

Speaker 2:
[00:44] Welcome to NTSB News Talk. I'm Rob Mark.

Speaker 3:
[00:47] And I'm Max Trescott. Rob, how you doing?

Speaker 2:
[00:50] Not too bad. How about you, my friend?

Speaker 3:
[00:53] Not too bad. I've been traveling like crazy. I was down in Long Beach yesterday and headed to Vancouver, Canada tomorrow. So all I can say is, it's all fun.

Speaker 2:
[01:02] But it's all in the jet, so it goes faster.

Speaker 3:
[01:05] That's true. Sometimes it's in the back of Southwest. I've had a few of those flights as well, too.

Speaker 2:
[01:10] Ah. And before we get going on this episode, I think you have a word from our sponsor, Max.

Speaker 3:
[01:16] I do. No agents, no brokers, just aviation underwriters who understand pilots. That's a VIMCO insurance company. Call 888-628-4636 or visit vimco.com/ntsbnewstalk and save 5% as an NTSB News Talk listener. Premium credits are subject to underwriting guidelines, including VIMCO recognized training and memberships. So Rob, what do you have in the news today?

Speaker 2:
[01:42] Well, first this note from the NTSB board that member Mike Graham, who we've had on the show, has been elevated to the position of vice chairman of the board. And according to the NTSB, Graham has served as member on scene for many high-profile transportation related accidents over the last several years, including the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio and the 2022 wings over Dallas midair collision. Graham's an airline transport pilot with more than 10,000 flying hours. And prior to joining the NTSB, he served as director of flight operation safety, security and standardization at Textron Aviation. He also served as chairman of the Air Charter Safety Foundation and contributed to safety working groups within the NBAA, which is the National Business Aviation Association.

Speaker 3:
[02:37] Well, congratulations, Michael. And here's something really interesting that I ran across. April the 13th, and no, it was not a Friday, it was a Monday, turned out to have been a really bad day at the Hollywood North Perry Airport. One of them was a KHWO in Pembroke Pines, Florida. Fortunately, I don't think anyone was injured, but get this, they had three incidents within a period of about three hours. So, the first one occurred at about 1230 local time, in which a Skylane 182RG suffered a nose gear collapse on takeoff and suffered a propeller strike. Now, that seems to me unusual. I can't remember a nose gear collapse on takeoff. We were 080 at 14, gusting to 22. About an hour later, 172, quote, veered off the taxiway while taxing to the runway. And then three hours later, 172, quote, experienced a rudder issue while taxing to the ramp and went into the grass. And the winds at that time were 050 at 16, gusting to 24. So rather unusual day there, kind of windy.

Speaker 2:
[03:46] I guess so. And it just goes to show you that just getting to the runway sometimes can be just as interesting as flying once you're airborne.

Speaker 3:
[03:56] Yep. You're certainly not done flying until the aircraft is tied down afterwards. So anyway, hopefully there were no injuries. It doesn't sound like they were, but just kind of an unusual day. So I think if things come in threes, all I can say is if there are ever two incidents at your airport, don't take off. Don't don't become the third one.

Speaker 2:
[04:17] Accidents and incidents do tend to happen in threes, don't they?

Speaker 3:
[04:21] Perhaps. Well, let's get to our recent accidents. So we've got a lot of these. This one involves November 2063 Golf, a Beech 58 Baron occurred in New Market, Tennessee on April the 13th. Unfortunately, both people on board were killed. I've looked at the ADSB track and this looks very much like a VMC demo that turned into a stall spin accident. So apparently it was a training flight, at least based on what I could see. They had done some other maneuvers prior to the accident. For example, before this last maneuver, it looks like they may have done a power on stall. As we can see, the aircraft is climbing. And for that final maneuver, the aircraft maintained a relatively constant altitude while it got progressively slower before it suddenly began dropping at more than 6,000 feet per minute, which sounds like a stall spin. Now, the VMC demo is particularly dangerous and we see probably two to three of these fatal accidents every year. And unfortunately, the VMC demo is required training when transitioning into a twin and it's also on the multi-engine checkride. So all I can say is, if you're doing this, do it extremely well and extremely carefully because at times it may not be recoverable.

Speaker 2:
[05:36] Absolutely true and I think what students need to always be sure they understand what the point of a VMC demonstration is. And it's not just to see when the airplane will roll over on one wing. It's to understand the dynamics of how an airplane flies with the critical engine shut down and the airplane perhaps getting slow for some reason. And it can get away from people really quick as we just saw again, I guess.

Speaker 3:
[06:05] Yeah, I heard something some time in the last year or so from someone who teaches in multi-engine that I hadn't heard before. And they said that when you're doing the VMC demo and you're doing a number of other maneuvers, do the VMC demo first. Don't do it after you've done a number of stalls because the recovery is the opposite. And if you've just done a couple of stalls where you're adding full powers part of your recovery, you might be inclined to do the wrong thing when you do the VMC demo, which is to pull the power off when you start to lose control of the aircraft. So the order in which you do the maneuvers can make a difference.

Speaker 2:
[06:42] Interesting point. And it looks like you have another one that happened out your way in California.

Speaker 3:
[06:48] Yeah, this is just, I really shake my head over this one. This involves November 166 Tango Whiskey. A sling lights board aircraft occurred on Catalina Island on April the 9th. And again, it killed both people on board. Just as background, the Catalina Airport is at 1600 feet. And the ADSB track data shows that this aircraft took off from Torrance, California, flew across the water. When it arrived at Catalina Island, it crossed the island north of the airport level at roughly 800 feet at a speed of about 95 knots. It appeared like it was going to follow a road through the mountains there. But then suddenly, it made a left turn toward a ridge that was higher than the aircraft. And I looked at this on flystow.net so I could see what the cockpit view looked like. The aircraft then climbed abruptly, getting as low as about 100 to 150 feet AGL as it crossed the ridge. As it reached the top of the ridge, it then turned to the right and descended rapidly into the valley, gaining speed. Now, it looked to me like this was buzzing, essentially, and that this was kind of an adrenaline rush kind of maneuver. The aircraft then continued flying for at least 10 to perhaps 20 minutes. We don't have any data after that point. The crash occurred at some distance from where this aircraft first did its low pass over the ridge. The aircraft was carrying two people. The victims on board were two males, aged 51 and 54. One of the men had a commercial certificate for both single engine land and for helicopters. I don't know anything about the other person, whether they were a pilot or whether they were a passenger. All I can say is that this is really tragic because it really looks very much like they were purposely doing low level terrain following. And of course, that can be very deadly.

Speaker 2:
[08:45] Well, the next one we have coming up is a Piper Saratoga. A N4190E that was destroyed on April 8th, about 1710 local time. When it overran runway 3, while it was trying to land at Marano Regional Airport in Arizona, about 75 miles to the southeast of Phoenix. The pilot and the passenger both died in this accident. And the weather at the time was clear skies, light winds and visibility of more than 10. The airport's main runway, which is 6900 feet long, was notimg closed at the time of the accident, which meant the aircraft would need to use the shorter 3900 foot runway 3. Now all of the information I have here is based on the ADS-B data that we picked up from ADS-B exchange. Now a typical landing speed for Saratoga is in the neighborhood of 75-85 knots on final, slowing to about 72 across the end, of course depending on the weight. Now at one mile on final, N90E's ground speed was 123 knots. The aircraft did begin to slow when it was about a quarter mile on final, but it still crossed the end of the runway at 107 knots, so almost 30 knots fast. At a point roughly a third of the way down the runway, the Saratoga had slowed to 97 knots, but was still well above the normal touchdown speed. The aircraft did not appear to decelerate at a normal rate, and it was still showing 62 knots as it near the end of the runway, and it finally left the hard surface at 53 knots and quickly burst into flames. Now I came away from this review kind of wondering if there was something unique happening in the cockpit of the Saratoga on this approach. If he'd been landing on the longer runway, he would have probably gotten away with this one. But of course you can't play fast and loose with profile numbers on any runway, long or short. As I mentioned, the aircraft was still rolling along at more than 50 knots when it left the runway. So I used the Google Map feature with the satellite view and took a look at what was off the end of the runway, and it looked like a small line of trees and a road. Making this problem much worse, however, is the amount of energy the aircraft's brakes are able to dissipate. Now when the aircraft is certified, test pilots flew the aircraft using normal landing profile numbers, and I'm sure they also tried some at a higher speed. They then observed how long it took to stop the aircraft with moderate braking. In this accident, the pilot used speeds that were 20 to 25 knots faster than normal, and that translated into the need to dissipate more than twice the normal amount of energy in order to bring the aircraft to a stop. And on a short runway, it just didn't work. Now I doubt the POH even displayed numbers for a landing distance when the aircraft was traveling at that speed. So please, fly the airplane the way the manufacturer intended it. If you're having trouble doing that, please find a local flight instructor who can help you learn how to do it the right way before you end up like this.

Speaker 3:
[12:04] Yeah, it's interesting. This next accident has a similar theme to it. This involves November 124 Sierra Papa, Cirrus SR22 in St. Paul, Minnesota. It occurred on April the 13th. Fortunately, both people were uninjured. And this story comes from bringmethenews.com, the headline, Minnesota State Patrol Aircraft Makes Hard Landing at St. Paul Downtown Airport. And the story says, Emergency crews responded early Monday morning to the St. Paul Downtown Airport after a Minnesota State Patrol aircraft carrying two flight crew members made a hard landing and crashed. An airport spokesperson said the Cirrus experienced a hard landing on one of the airport's runways around 2 a.m. Monday. No injuries were reported. The airfield was closed until about 6:30 a.m. Paramedics from the St. Paul Fire Department responded and both pilots and co-pilot declined to be transported. A state patrol spokesperson said a preliminary investigation indicates the aircraft was landing following a traffic patrol when the crash happened. I've looked at the ADSB data on adsbexchange.com and I can tell you that the aircraft was flying faster than the Cirrus recommended airspeeds for its landing. On downwind, a beam of the numbers, Cirrus recommends a flap setting of 50% and a speed of 100 knots. The winds at the time of this accident were calm so the ground speed numbers I'm about to give you should be relatively close to the indicated airspeed numbers in the aircraft. Instead of being at 100 knots, this aircraft was at 125 knots for most of the time after it passed the numbers on the downwind until it turned base. Now Cirrus recommends a base leg of 90 knots with 100% flaps. Aircraft got back to 95 knots as it was on base starting to turn final so it was closer to the target speed on base. And on final, Cirrus recommends an approach speed of 80 knots. And here's where things get a little strange. As the aircraft rolled out on final, it was at 80 knots and descending at 900 feet per minute. The pilot apparently increased power at this point as the descent rate decreased to 500 feet per minute. However, the airspeed started to gradually and continually increase until it was at 94 knots when it was just 150 feet AGL. Now, to me, this is indicative of two problems that I see that are common when I fly with Cirrus pilots. One is that they fly their landings too fast. On Aviation News Talk, I had Chuck Kelly on the show and he talked about how a study showed that with data for more than a thousand landings, that most pilots were flying too fast and landing too flat. Now, the other problem I see consistently is that when pilots need to add power on final, usually because their descent rate is too high, or it appears that they might come up short of the runway, as they add power, they also let the airspeed increase, but it doesn't have to increase. This pilot was at the right speed when he added power, and whenever you're at the right speed and you need to add power, remember to do this. As you add power, pitch up a little so that your airspeed doesn't increase as the power increases. Maintaining airspeed on final is really very simple. Here's what I do. If I'm a knot too fast, I pitch up a tiny amount and wait to see if that got me back to my target airspeed. If I'm too slow, I reduce the pitch a little bit, and again, wait to see if that gets me back on my target airspeed. Then if I'm coming up short of the runway, I'll add power. If I'm at the right speed as I add power, I just pitch up a little bit as I add power. If you get in the habit of doing this, you can control your approach speed within a couple of knots of your target speed. Now, as this aircraft crossed the threshold, it was still doing 90 knots. They were landing on runway 32, which is 6490 feet long. About 3200 feet beyond the threshold, or about halfway down the runway, the aircraft had only slowed to 66 knots. Eleven seconds later when the next data point appeared, about 1100 feet further down the runway, the airplane was again at 66 knots, and then it appeared to skip toward the right side of the runway. And the final data point was captured a second later, showed the aircraft 50 feet in the air at 56 knots. Now if you look at the time it took the aircraft to travel that last 1100 feet, the average speed would have been about 62 knots, but since it was at 66 knots at the beginning and the end, that tells us the aircraft probably decelerated, and then they may have rejected the landing and done a go-around at an increased power. And with that last data point 50 feet in the air, that really does sound like they attempted to reject the landing and go-around, though there are times when I see that that last data point or two may be inaccurate. So I can't tell you for sure that they were actually off the ground. They might have actually been on the ground and that data might have been a bit of a anomaly. Anyway, I just want to mention one thing that Mark Waddell of COPPA said to me. He said that when they looked at all of the accident data for all the accidents, they have never ever seen the landing accident that followed a stable approach. So stable approach means you're on the center line, you're on the visual glide slope, you're not descending at more than 1000 feet per minute, and this is the big one, you're at your target airspeed. So these troopers in Minnesota appeared to have met all of those criteria except the target airspeed for landing. So anytime we land fast, boy, there's potential for getting into trouble.

Speaker 2:
[17:35] Yeah, and you can't get most of the landing parameters right. You've got to get them all. That's your job.

Speaker 3:
[17:43] Yep. And here's one accident that I'm going to mention very quickly. This occurred in Fullerton, again on the same day, April 13th, November 28, 5 Alpha Hotel. It was a Cirrus SR22. Fortunately, only one person on board was not injured. And on takeoff, the pilot's seat slid back on takeoff, and the aircraft apparently then departed the runway. So all I can say is pilots, no matter what kind of aircraft you're flying, make sure that that seat is solidly locked in position. My habit is when I get to the hold line, I wiggle my seat forward and backward just to make sure that that pin has dropped down into the hole, and my seat isn't gonna go sliding on takeoff. And now let's get to our final reports. This one comes from St. Augustine, Florida and involved November 4387W, a Mooney M20K. It occurred on March 25th, 2024 and unfortunately it was fatal for both people on board. The NTSB report says, shortly after takeoff, the pilot reported to ATC that he had a door that had popped open, and the controller cleared the flight to return for landing. A review of ADSB data reveals that the aircraft was on the base lag for the approach to the departure airport. It entered a steep nose-down descent while rolling to the right, consistent with an aerodynamic stall spin. Post-accident examination of the airplane revealed that both of the airplane's doors, the rear baggage door and the main cabin door, remained attached to the airframe. Examination of the door lock and the latching mechanisms suggests the door was likely not closed properly before takeoff. According to the POH, if the main cabin door is not properly closed, it may become unlatched in flight, but will not affect the airplane's flight characteristics. POH prescribes either returning to the field and landing normally or climbing the airplane to a safe altitude to perform the procedures for shutting and latching the door. Probable cause, the pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed of the airplane while in the traffic pattern, which resulted in a narrow dynamic stall spin, contributing with the pilot's distraction due to the in-flight opening of the main cabin door, which resulted from the incorrect closure of the door before takeoff.

Speaker 2:
[19:55] What do you think is a good way that we could practice door openings? We see so many accidents and incidents when pilots have experienced a door pop unexpectedly. I mean, we need to train people to understand that a door popping open is not a fatal situation. It's them often losing control of the aircraft while they cope with something unexpected. So what do you think is a good way to train people a little better?

Speaker 3:
[20:24] That's a good question. I know we've talked about a lot of these accidents in the past, and I've certainly had a number of door pops. I will tell you, when the pop occurs for that moment, it scares the living daylights out of me, usually because the noise is really loud. If it's a door like on a Cessna that's right next to my ear, it's even louder. So yeah, distraction is real, and I think panic can sometimes set in. About the only thing I can suggest is that flight instructors periodically simulate the door opening, and I would probably do it by telling a pilot ahead of time, hey, at some point on the takeoff roll or shortly after the takeoff roll, I'm going to pop the door, you're going to hear a loud noise, and I want you to ignore it and just continue to fly the airplane. I don't think flight instructors do that often enough. As I think about my work with pilots, I know I don't do it often enough. So that's about the only thing I can think of. What do you think?

Speaker 2:
[21:21] I was just trying to think back to all my training experience as a student in various certificates. I don't think an instructor ever even discussed a door popping, let alone tried something like that. I mean, at the times that, the few times that it did happen to me, it was eye-opening. And it's very normal for your eyes to want to go to the right or the left, whichever door it is that pops at just the wrong time when you should be looking down the runway. And that's what makes this thing so darn dangerous.

Speaker 3:
[21:59] Yeah, I don't think people really fully understand if they haven't experienced one, just how disoriented it can be. I mean, as you're talking about it, I was thinking, boy, it's not just my eyes looking at the door. It's almost as if my heart stops momentarily. I mean, that's how sudden the shock is and how debilitating it is, right? You just kind of like go, oh my God. And it's important to very, very quickly get beyond that within the next second or two and go, ah, it's probably just the door, just continue flying the airplane.

Speaker 2:
[22:30] Yeah. Well, we've got another loss of control accident to discuss, Max. And this one happened on March 30th of 2024, about 1320 Eastern Time. And it was a twin-engine Piper Seminole, PA-44, November 595 November Delta. It was substantially damaged in an accident at the Treasure Coast International Airport in Fort Pierce, another one in Florida. And that's located about nine miles to the south of Vero Beach. Now the light twin had experienced a partial power failure in the right engine while the student was flying the airplane. The instructor assumed control and appeared to be attempting to return to the airport. During this process, the aircraft stalled, rolled upside down, and impacted the ground. The instructor died in the accident and the pilot receiving the instruction was seriously injured. Luckily, there was no post-impact fire. The flight instructor had logged about 1,395 hours, with 180 in the seminole, and the student had logged 224 hours total time, with 2.8 in make and model. So, the NTSB listed the probable cause of this accident as the instructor's failure to maintain control of the multi-engine airplane after a partial loss of engine power on the right engine during a go-around, resulting in aerodynamic stall. Now, contributing to the accident was a mechanics failure to check the condition of the right engine's carburetor throttle linkage during its recent annual inspection, which resulted in a partial loss of power. And the Seminole had just been returned to flight the day before the accident following its annual inspection. In this accident, essentially the rain engine was running, but the throttle was useless. Now, the Part 91 flight had departed Treasure Coast about 40 minutes before the accident on a clear Florida afternoon with light winds blowing in from the ocean. Now, according to the student, he and the flight instructor climbed the airplane to 5,000 feet where they practiced single engine emergency procedures, including shutting down and feathering the right engine. The student said they subsequently returned to the airport to practice a single engine ILS on runway 10R. He said that to simulate the engine failure, thrust on the right engine was reduced and the left engine was operating normally. According to data recovered from the PFD-MFD, it showed the aircraft had descended on a long straight-in approach. The right engine's RPM continued to decrease and the left engine's speed was increased to maintain about 2,700 RPM for the remainder of the flight. So the student said that at 1,000 feet, he extended the landing gear, brought the mixture and props both full forward and at decision height initiated a missed approach. He brought both throttles full forward to the go-around, but there was no thrust on either engine. He said the instructor realized there was no engine power and took control of the airplane, declared an emergency and continued to turn to the right to try to land on runway 14 there at Treasure Coast. The controller declared it will land on any runway. And the data also showed that the right engine was operating at only 1,200 RPM while the left engine was at full power. The student said neither he nor the instructor had time to use the emergency checklist or even feather the right engine. Now what tower personnel said they saw was the aircraft making a low-level, tight right downwind back to runway 14. As the airplane approached the modified mid-right downwind for runway 14, the airplane attempted to turn toward the landing runway but continued to lose altitude and went nose down into the ramp just west of runway 14. Now there is a note that the NTSB highlighted during the report that I think is important and it was a note from the Seminoles POH. Quote, a one-engine inoperative go-around should be avoided if at all possible. Of course, like most light twins, the Seminoles not certified to climb on a single engine. In fact, in most cases, the aircraft is barely able to maintain altitude with one-shot down. The POH also added an additional warning that even to try to maintain control of the aircraft demands, quote, the propeller on the inoperative engine must be feathered, the gear must be retracted, as well as the wing flaps. The NTSB said the landing gear was still down during the go-around attempt. Post-accident, the throttle arm of the right engine was found secured. However, an interlinking throttle control lever was not secured, making the right throttle assembly essentially inoperative. From the time the engine was installed on the aircraft, it had gone through two 100-hour inspections, as well as an annual, and no maintenance log entries anywhere mentioned any specific maintenance to the carburetor or the throttle control arms. Now, during the NTSB's post-accident interviews, the Director of Maintenance was asked if he had checked the security of the throttle arm, and he said, quote, I must have. He mentioned he'd experienced an in-flight loss of engine power in an aircraft like this, due to a loose throttle connection, and was a stickler for checking for these kinds of loose connections. Now, the Director of Maintenance was also shown post-accident pictures of the right engine's throttle arm, and he was just completely unsure of how he could have used it during the inspection. He did also mention that the flight school's maintenance department was short-staffed, and that there was pressure to get FAA maintenance inspections completed in a timely manner. So in this accident, we have a pilot's experience issue tied to a maintenance issue. The Board's also going to be looking at why the instructor may have been attempting to teach single-engine go-arounds, despite the aircraft's limited capabilities. We've run into this get-back-to-the-runway issue quite a few times over the past few months, Max. And I think instructors need to reinforce the notion that an off-airport landing under control is far better than losing control, and possibly your life, in an attempt to get back to the airport. So what I did is, I mentioned in an earlier report, is I took a look at the Google Map and the terrain surrounding the Treasure Coast Airport, and honestly, there were not a lot of great options for an off-airport landing. But I think that reinforces the need for instructors and other pilots to really survey the land around their base and think about what they could do or must do long before they're faced with the need to find a place to put it down. So here's a tip I'd like to urge everybody listening to try today. When you get through listening to our show, pull up your base airport on Google Maps and choose the terrain layer. Take a look at what's surrounding the place you operate to and from and think right now about where you'd go if the engine quit right after takeoff from each and every runway. One of these days, you might be glad you're armed with that knowledge.

Speaker 3:
[30:09] Yeah, I think that's incredibly important. Not only can you look at Google Maps, but you can sometimes actually go out and walk the areas yourself and figure out what's available there. Years ago, I did most of my teaching at the Reed Hillview Airport, which is unfortunately surrounded by neighborhoods. What I noticed was when departing on 31R, I would pass over three different schoolyards. I actually went to two of those schoolyards, and I paid particular attention to the fences. What I did was I identified which fences an airplane would be able to knock down, and therefore, I could steer toward them and it would be okay. I also identified which fences would bring the airplane to a complete immediate dead stop, that there was no way you'd be able to go through those fence, and those I would want to avoid at all possible. I think there's a lot that pilots can do ahead of time to try and increase the odds that they will survive if they have an engine out to type emergency. That being said, I think there are times where we just have no good options, and as pilots, that's just one of the risks that we unfortunately have to take on.

Speaker 2:
[31:14] That's true, and in terms of your experience with being prepared before the departure, I think that really is important for us to emphasize to new student pilots from day one, hey, you need to make sure that you understand what the terrain is like around your base airport and if you can, around an itinerant airport if you're out on a cross country, just so you're prepared just in case.

Speaker 3:
[31:43] Yeah, in fact, let me talk about my current home airport which is Palo Alto. Most of the time we take off runway 31. And what I've observed is that as I get close to the end of the runway, if I were to lose an engine, a hard left turn might put me on the golf course. Shortly after that, turn to the right of, oh, I don't know, maybe 20, 30 degrees would put me on a little bit of a levy. I lose that levy once I'm at about 180 feet AGL. After that, I'd have to land pretty much straight ahead in the marshland. Though it's occurred to me in recent years that I want to steer to the left side of that marshland, because that's going to put me closer to where search and rescue people could access me from the streets. If I stay on the right side, I'm out next to the marshland and the water, and there's no easy access from there. And then at some point, once I'm high enough to glide over the high tension lines, there is yet another little levy off on the right that I could glide to. In fact, I learned about that because a flight instructor lost an engine and put his satabria down on that and was actually able to then tow it back to the airport from there. So yeah, I think it makes sense to just go in excruciating detail and figure out, you know, which turn would you make, at which point would you land, and all of these places I've mentioned, these are all places that I would go to when I'm below 500 feet. And you can see there are four or five different places at different points in the climb. So it makes sense to pay attention to things at that level of detail.

Speaker 2:
[33:12] Did you ever have an instructor do that with you when you were learning to fly?

Speaker 3:
[33:16] You know, it's funny you mentioned that. Never. I've just done this on my own, just based on kind of self-preservation. I figured, hey, I like to think through things ahead of time. So no, no one's ever suggested that I do that.

Speaker 2:
[33:28] And no one ever did with me either.

Speaker 3:
[33:30] Well, hopefully it inspires some folks to go out and do that. Let's talk about a couple other accidents. This one's pretty straightforward. This involved November 781 Foxtrot Mike, Cessna 172 in Mayo, Maryland on February 22nd, 2025. There was one minor injury to the student pilot on board. During a solo cross-country flight in a 1980 Cessna 172P, the student pilot initiated a cruise power descent from about 2,300 feet and at about 2,300 RPM, which would be about 65% engine power. He reported that when the airplane was at about 1,500 feet, it felt like the engine was quote, pulled to idle. He stated that he manipulated the throttle control, but the engine did not respond. He confirmed that the mixture control was set to full rich. The fuel selector was in the both position and the primer was locked. He said he then applied carburetor heat, which had no effect. Then he removed carburetor heat and looked for a place to land the plane. He selected a road for forced landing and the airplane's right wing impacted trees about 10 feet above the surface and the airplane continued striking trees after ground contact. The airplane came to rest upright on its nose against trees on the side of a two-lane road. An odor of fuel was present at the site, but the contents of the fuel tanks could not be established due to the airplane's position. The atmospheric conditions near the accident site around the time of the accident were not conducive to the formation of Carbis at glide and cruise power settings. Given the atmospheric conditions and the lack of mechanical anomalies found during the post-accident examination, the engine likely lost power due to the accumulation of Carbis during the in-route descent. Probable cause, total loss of engine power at low altitude due to an accumulation of Carbis while in cruise power descent, which resulted in a forced landing. The pilot was an 18-year-old male. He had a total of 13 hours within the past 30 days. All I can say to him is congratulations on a successful outcome. Let me talk about Carbis briefly. I think when I learned to fly in a Cessna 150, the emphasis on the use of Carbheat was always in the traffic pattern. I suspect that that may be the case for a lot of instructors and pilots these days. However, you can accumulate Carbice as this pilot did during a descent when you are at reduced power levels. So pilots should think about pulling Carburet or Heat when they are in a low power descent. And the problem with Carbheat is you have got to apply it while the engine is at relatively high power settings because the heat comes from the exhaust manifold. Once the power is pulled back, there is very little heat available even when you pull the Carbheat control. So that Carbheat control is most effective at higher engine power. It's not very effective at all at low power settings. And we have one final accident that I wanted to include because it's rather odd. It's not the kind of thing that I think anybody would anticipate. And yet, it's something that pilots probably ought to think about when they're dealing with some of their accessories that are battery powered. But first, insurance shouldn't come with surprises, whether you're a student pilot, aircraft owner, CFI, or borrowing an airplane. Avemco offers coverage based on what you fly and how you fly, with no agents and no confusing fine print. Call 888-628-4636 or visit avemco.com/ntsbnewstalk and save 5% as an NTSB News Talk listener. Premium credits are subject to underwriting guidelines, including Avemco recognized training and memberships. Our final accident involved November 5632 Quebec, Mooney, 20E in Hornell, New York, April 26th, 2024. Fortunately, the one person involved was uninjured. The generalaviationnews.com story about it said, damaged lithium battery ignites. And from the final NTSB report, it says, the pilot intended to depart his home airport for another airport to perform an owner-assisted annual inspection. While loading the airplane with supplies, the pilot placed a portable ADS-B receiver on the top of his airplane. The ADS-B receiver utilized a commercially available portable lithium ion battery pack for power, and the battery was attached to the receiver via a hook and loop fastening. So it sounds in this case like the battery was separate and was connected by a cable to the receiver. The receiver and battery pack fell from the top of the airplane onto the ramp, which resulted in damage to the receiver and the battery pack. The pilot attempted to power up the receiver, but noted that the receiver was no longer working. He then placed the receiver and battery pack behind the front seats and underneath an airplane cover. The pilot subsequently taxied and began his run-up of the engine, during which the pilot noted smoke coming from behind the front seats. The pilot lifted the airplane cover and saw a fire had started. The pilot exited the airplane and unsuccessfully attempted to remove the airplane cover which was on fire. The fire eventually consumed most of the cockpit area, including the battery pack itself, and substantially damaged both wings. Based on available information, it's likely that the portable lithium-ion battery pack sustained damage to at least one of the battery cells when it was dropped on the ramp, resulting in thermal run-away of the battery pack and subsequent fire. Probable cause? A cabin fire as a result of a damaged lithium-ion battery pack. So this one, I thought, was really unusual. I think it's the kind of thing that nobody would ever think about. I'm sure that when it dropped from the airplane, the pilot was pretty upset that it was damaged and wasn't working, but I'm sure it never crossed his mind that a fire could result.

Speaker 2:
[39:28] When I think of the number of times I'm using my iPhone or my iPad that I have dropped them, and the first thing that goes through my mind is not, is the lithium ion battery okay? I think, did I crack the screen? Is it a piece of junk? It never crosses my mind about the battery. Unfortunately, we forget that when a cell does go into runaway, it doesn't happen instantaneously. You really need to remember that and keep an eye on that little devil before you take off. Imagine what would have happened if this aircraft had been in the air when this happened.

Speaker 3:
[40:09] Boy, that would be just devastating. And the photos, by the way, speaking of devastating, there was not much left of this airplane. I mean, it essentially burned this airplane down to the ground.

Speaker 2:
[40:19] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[40:20] Yeah, and I got really sensitized to battery issues when about, oh, 15 years ago, my wife said, hey, she'd like to learn to fly RC airplanes. And so we started doing that together. And one of our friends who ran the club had a fire in his garage. Now, fortunately, he would always charge his batteries out in the garage in a concrete area. Thank goodness he did, because if he was charging them in the house, it could have burned the house down, but because it was out in the garage and on a concrete floor wasn't an issue. So yeah, sometimes batteries catch on fire.

Speaker 2:
[40:54] Your wife wanted to learn to fly RC aircraft? How many of us have ever experienced that? I never have.

Speaker 3:
[41:03] Yeah, no, I was kind of surprised. I actually never had any interest in flying RC planes. And when she suggested it, I thought, well, what the heck? Let's give it a try, be a fun thing to do together. Turned out that it was a fun thing to do together. And it turned out that flying those little buggers was far harder than I ever imagined. I think I had the typical pilot attitude, which was, oh, I'm a pilot, this will be easy. It's like, no, it's a totally different skill altogether.

Speaker 2:
[41:31] Well, it is, especially, and I remember, especially when they're going away from you, it's very easy. It's just like an airplane. You want to turn right, you hit the stick to the right. But when it's coming back at you, you have to do just the opposite. And that's when I broke a friend's RC airplane, but that's for another show.

Speaker 3:
[41:49] Yeah, that's the fun thing about RC airplanes. I think flying RC planes could be more expensive than flying real airplanes, because you watch people stuff these three, four or five hundred dollar airplanes into the ground, and poof, you know, that money is just gone.

Speaker 2:
[42:04] Well, I think that's about it for this episode, don't you think, Max?

Speaker 3:
[42:09] I guess it's time for us to be gone. I'll see you next week.

Speaker 2:
[42:12] Hey, we'll see you next time, Max, and if you like the show, hey, tell a friend.

Speaker 3:
[42:17] And leave a review.

Speaker 1:
[42:18] This podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by the National Transportation Safety Board. The views expressed are the opinions of the hosts and not of the Aviation News Talk Network. The show is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It's not a substitute for flight instruction, official NTSB guidance, or, you know, common sense.