The pilot was conducting a local sightseeing flight near Warner, N.H., in visual meteorological conditions when the American Champion 7GCBC inadvertently entered instrument meteorological conditions.
While maneuvering, he lost visual reference with the ground. The airplane entered a steep descending turn, and hit trees.
Both wings separated from the airframe and the fuselage was crushed.
Weather conditions reported at an airport that was located about 17 nautical miles from the accident site included overcast clouds at 1,100′ above ground level.
The elevation of the accident site was about 1,700′ mean sea level.
Probable cause: An encounter with instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in the pilot’s spatial disorientation and a loss of airplane control.
NTSB Identification: ERA16CA197
This May 2016 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
I’m sorry, but these kinds of crashes will never stop, It’s the decision part of the brain that makes people continue to error, and making a very bad decision causing a crash. Remember people, ” these are the same people that drive automobiles on the highway, blow stop signs, speed etc. ” so even if they know better ( allegedly) they can’t help but make these stupid decision’s. Until man can learn to make the smart decision on subject matter, we will continue to error and cause accidents. Sorry !!
There was a passenger – the referenced NTSB report above indicated “Injuries: 1 Serious, 1 Minor”. The 1,100′ overcast mentioned must have been the 2251Z (6:51pm local) Metar at Concord. Sunset was 8:17pm that day. The best Metar that day was Overcast 2100 at 10:51am. Was this another case of external pressure/poor ADM, coupled with marginal weather analysis? Regarding the recent Embry-Riddle report mentioned in several newsletters only a few days ago which assessed general aviation pilots’ understanding of Aviation Weather Products, would you believe that Metars got one of the lowest scores on the test?
Only pure speculation, and apart from the preceding, I visualize the flying part of this scenario as a surprise entry into IMC maybe due to looking downward too much, followed by a somewhat panicked steep-banked turn to exit cloud. What usually happens with the first few entries into steep-banked turns – the nose drops significantly because it is suddenly very heavy – the descent usually can’t even be felt. Those hazards really need to be ingrained. Discipline has to be maintained to execute a standard rate 180 on instruments.
Hear Hear! Exactly what I was thinking..(more and better training)
The lesson here is, GA has taken yet another black eye because someone (and it doesn’t matter if they have an ATP) got into IMC and crashed.
I was going to write about all the WX stuff that some complain about, because a CPL can FAIL the WX portion of the CPL written and still pass.
But what is it that they want us to know? A Radiosonde uses a 300mW transmitter and either helium or hydrogen gas. Really? And they expect us to be able to read any METAR. Technology has moved on from the old teletypes.
But the problem is the same old crashes keep happening. People insist on flying into IMC. You can see those clouds — you see them moving into your flight path, so rather than a 180, you fly into them.
Or is it that you shouldn’t have been there because the weather was at the bottom of MVFR and going into Lite IFR?
How do we impress this on other pilots? How do we keep these “accidents” from happening?
Now, maybe, this guy got caught because the temp/dew point spread suddenly dropped (BTDT right after canceling IFR, airport in sight). But I rather doubt that is what happened here.
The pilot in command can’t “sight-see” to the point they fail to stay aware of the visual conditions. Even a slow airplane has an IAS of 100 mph and most weather only moves at 20-35 mph.
Pilots need to look outward at cloud bases and note lowered areas.
Sightseeing at the ground or photography has to be secondary to aircraft piloting because the ground doesn’t care and most airplanes don’t have terrain avoidance radar and integrated autopilots.
The details were missing from the story. Apparently the pilot was solo and survived to be interviewed by the FAA/NTSB.
No, he had a passenger. It is in the NTSB report. I even went and looked into the details as much as I could.