I don't think they mistook a road for the runway, rather I think they couldn't see it where they expected to see it and were hoping that they couldn't see it because the light's weren't on.   I think they couldn't see it for the reasons posted a few posts above this one...they likely were in a steep enough bank it was difficult to see through the windows, and perhaps the weather and altitude made it difficult to see as well.

On the recording I listened to he did not receive a clearance to fly the ILS circle to land a different runway

He cancelled IFR and attempted a visual approach to a different runway that he was lined up with.

I never do that. At night it is a precision approach, even if clear weather, if I have any choice in the matter.

If I have to do a circle at night, I keep the IFR clearance and fly it with automation, maintain altitude and roll out at the maximum permitted distance from the landing runway at the calculated glide slope altitude for the approach and landing.  Nothing says you have to circle to land at the minimum published circling mins. You can circle to land MUCH higher, and that is what I do as long as I can remain clear of the weather. Once the final and runway are in sight with some type of glide slope reference even if it is just the VASI or PAPI and definitely the internal calculated descent path, then and only then  do I come out of the circle altitude.

The risk of spacial D or miss-orientation is very high at night and my objective is to use every single tool available to minimize fucking it up.

and I never ever, ever change runways by choice short notice at night or in the weather. Not even during clear daytime unless previously briefed and planned on. When given a short notice runway change I have gone around by choice and requested the new approach. There is no reward for pulling shit out of your ass no notice unless you absolutely have to. Flying is all about always giving yourself a way out and compressing your time, short notice runway change with unexpected tasks is a surefire way to eventually fuck it up big time.

There was a Delta jet a few years ago, delayed coming back from Europe, landing late, edge of the duty day on the back side of the clock and accepted a change for the outside runway sidestep to the inside runway once inside the final approach fix. They landed on the fucking taxiway because the vertical path was different, the runway lights were different, and it was unbriefed and unexpected at the end of a long day. They could have just said negative and landed as briefed. Instead, they landed on the taxiway.

ETA: I have done an ILS circle to land at night in the weather at LGA because the ILS runway was closed and there was no operating approach to the landing runway. I did it at almost divert fuel.

it was briefed and expected, and I did it because there was no choice in the matter.

I’ve read through a few comments, im no pilot but do fly flight sims. So my knowledge is limited
Was it a stall as a result of operator error? Sounds like his air speed was too slow for the turn he took and possibly mistook a street for the run way? What’s the stalling speed for a plane like this ? RIP to those on board

There's no such thing as "stall speed" -- there is only the critical angle of attack (AOA) for the wing at which it stalls.  That stall AOA can be achieved at essentially any flying airspeed, and depends on a lot of load factors.

Stall speed is an attempt to take an all-attitude, 3-dimensional vehicle and make it into a "only in reference to the horizon" vehicle.  The "stall speeds" you see published and referred to are a sort of dumbed-down avatar of the critical AOA, since most aircraft do not have AOA indicators and most pilots do not learn to fly with reference to AOA. It is often a decent enough avatar for a lot of flying operations, but because there are other factors that go into the wing's angle of attack, the further away you get from straight-and-level unaccelerated flight (like a steep bank angle while trying to maintain level flight, or increased G in any attitude), the less correlation there is between "stall speed" and critical AOA.

The scenario that is being discussed is the pilots demanding too much lift from the wing when they attempted to tighten the turn to final. That increased demand caused the wing to exceed critical AOA and stall.  That mistake could have happened at just about any realistic airspeed in the terminal area. It has very little to do with the airspeed and everything to do with inappropriate manipulation of the controls by the pilots.

I think the slow death of spin training will make this error more common. A demonstration at altitude of a cross control/overshoot final turn spin and its non-survivable nature is a valuable use of flight time.

This turned out to be a rather explosive thread, in a head down kinda way.

100% agree.

Of course, I'm also one who thinks that basic acro should be part of the commercial certificate ACS. The first time a professional pilot is upside-down in an aircraft should not be a surprise.

Indeed, but the number of acro qual CFIs in the US and Canada are shrinking daily.

This
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I didn't read the update.

Absolutely.  

A few green ag pilots auger in every year due to the same lack of training.

These things aren’t that complicated. They just need to be explained and pilots need to know when to perform a non-constant altitude turn. I think maintain altitude is hammered in without enough caveats.

Yep, pilot error.  Tight turn with a lot of bank, and what the data suggests is a possible nose-high condition.  He yanked and banked it right out of the sky.     Most folks are confident he didn't mistake the road for a runway, his request to turn up the runway lights was to help maintain or get a better visual on the runway he was trying to circle for.

This is a little demo of it.  With a more forgiving plane and some altitude it can be recovered, but close to the ground the plane can just drop out of the sky like a rock.




Not sure what flight sims you do, but try to find a really high performance aircraft, and then go slow near the ground and try to fly a left turn that gets tighter, and keep pulling back the stick.  That left turn basically turns into a barrel roll right into the ground like this.

Its a temp

Good. Is that a temporary correction or permanent?

2022 is looking better already.

Regardless. You’d think after getting bested by RougeBoss, you’d realize picking fights with mental midgets is something you’re not all that good at.

I just skimmed this thread looking for updates on the crash, now I’m pretty fucking confused, thought it was the rum at first...

I'd love to hear their thoughts on the subject.

I had an FO on a departure out of LGA ( Whitestone Climb for those of you who know what it is) one night brief bring the slats up and keep 15 degrees of bank. It was an option, the other option was to leave the slats out and do 25 degrees of bank. MD-80 is weird like that, most jets it doesn't matter.

I let him brief it and do it fully expecting he might then go to 25 degrees which is why I never do slats up when there is a turn on the departure, but anyway, I let him do it. Slats came up , he kept 15 degrees for a short while then then went to 25 degrees of bank and as i felt the tickle of the wing max performing ( which it does just before the pre-stall indicators ) I took the jet, reduced back to 15 degrees and gave it back to him to fly. It was a learning experience for him to always leave yourself a way out and 15 degrees of bank in a turn right after takeoff with the slats up is not the way to leave yourself a way out even though technically not a wrong technique.  

when we talked about it later, he never felt the upper wing tickle ( vibrate ) indicating max performance and if nothing changed the imminent pre-stall indications.

I don't think he ever did that again.

Sounds like you still had a good "seat of the pants" feeling for the plane, even though it was a big plane.   I am totally ignorant, how forgiving was an MD80...if you felt the tickle, or the buffet that precedes a wing stall, was it forgiving and could be recovered quickly with opposite control inputs?   Or once you lost a wing did it require more aggressive maneuvering to regain critical airspeeds over the stalled wing?

Probably similar climb out, in the E-3 (B707), we would take off with flaps at 14 (which includes all leading edge flaps and slats).  After retracting the gear we'd leave the flaps at 14 until reaching flap retract altitude, then we'd retract the flaps and reduce the climb rate to 500 fpm and accelerate to  Vco + 55 kts (which was min maneuver speed and allowed for 30 degrees of bank).  While the aircraft's flaps were retracting and prior to reaching Vco + 55, we were limited to 15 degrees of bank.  So if we had to execute a close turn on departure, we'd just leave the flaps at 14 then retract the flaps after completing the turn.

There’s no substitute for seat of the pants feel developed over years of experience.

Most of the stall training and stall warnings are all about recovery before an impending stall, before  the stall actually happens. I don't ever remember in the sim letting it really stall and stop flying, maybe I did. I don't know.

The MD-80 has a very small wing, but like all transport category jets, they have warning systems to indicate a pending stall. audio alerts, voice alerts, stick shaker, and stick pusher, all happen before the jet actually reaches a stall condition.

i've always tried to be stabilized, stay stabilized.     i'm no fighter pilot and being wings level is best for me.    always try to avoid circling approaches.    R.I.P. to the folks on that plane.     :(

If a plane like that does stall, what is the proper way to correct it?

You have to reduce the angle of attack.  Unload the wing, lower the nose, more power if it's available.

We do "Enhanced envelope training" these days, that includes a full stall.  The simulator models may not be exactly correct, but are supposed to be close enough.

In the 737, there isn't a stall "break", the nose wont fall,  you will develop an ungodly sink rate, and the controls get mushy.  The sim also shakes hard enough, that we have broken sim's doing the training.

When we do the developed stalls at high altitudes, it can require 5,000' or more of altitude loss to get it flying again.

Have enough altitude to do so.
Need to stabilize the aircraft first and get proper airflow over the wings, nose down, rudder and aileron input, stable, nose up.
A Lear needs a good bit of distance between itself and the ground to do so.

As a passenger I really like the 717 line.

Watching that video, however, made a touch of poo come out.

fuck all that

Those guys need to hire Trevor Jacob to get cool Go Pro video.

yeah I forgot about those, I have done them.

Here ya go.  Enjoy...

That was an ugly recovery.

Here's one in an A-330 sim at 35,000'. It's a lot different stalling up there than at 5000'. Takes a lot more altitude to recover and the recovery is slower but it still beats doing one at pattern altitude. Also, the margin between Mmo and the stall is much tighter. But there's no need to rip the wings off at 450+ knots to come out of it.

When did Tillertard get banned?

Believe it was yesterday. Wasn't nearly soon enough.

He looks unbanned to me:  https://www.ar15.com/member/user.html?id=545473

He admits to being 21 but he also claims to be a pilot, the tillerman on an FD but only on weekends, claims to own an example of most guns that GD discusses.  I believe his grasp on reality is tenuous at best.

Edit:  sorry thought it was the other video with the 717.

That was pretty messed up. Was that their intentional recovery or were they screwing around?

'Tillertard'

Also claimed to have caught covid and got a brain-frying temp of 107° with hallucinations and the works. Even named the model of thermometer used to measure his temp. That thermometer can only read to 104°.

San Diego Learjet Crash – Interview with Rob Mark

Pretty good discussion.

I think this is the graphic that they discuss in that program that overlays a couple previous circles/patterns to 27 this aircraft executed.

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