Pearly not pilot error. I am going with ground crew fault . I think he was practicing arrest or wire landing and the crew hung the wire too high.

Better video at this page.
https://abc13.com/winnie-plane-crash-rice-festival-caught-on-camera-video/11072526/

The N-strut on the left side clipped the light -- you can see the top wing beginning to fail before he hit the street light wire.

If that was a stock 220 Stearman, his initial attempt to climb was _way_ higher than what it is normally capable of.  He had to lower the nose to not stall.

The Stearman can be a tricky airplane to fly (and especially land), but this accident had zero to do with those reasons.

The "yellow peril" name had to do with all of the inexperienced students buzzing around in them at fields with almost entirely procedural control of operations, not the somewhat persnickety flying qualities it can have.

I thought I read that he was taking off from the highway? Did he just decide to not walk the entire length of what he was taking off from to make sure there were none of those?

He hit the streetlight then looked like he got the prop hung in the powerlines or the tensioning line. Did he live? That was a pretty nasty impact. Stupid motherfucker. If he lives I would say EIR and revokation of everything.

I worked a 137 rotary that got hung in a tensioning line last year, but that guy had it come loose from one end and wrap around the rotor which snapped the helicopter like a bandana against a little brother onto the ground. Never really thought about the fact that splattered person looks like strawberry jello, but it does. In the 137 guy's mishap, he didn't land and make sure there wasn't a tensioning line, and was in a hurry just before dusk. Getting impatient and rushing shit that need not be rushed is easily 75% of the accidents I work.

Here is a fun one I worked a couple nights ago...

Same shit, someone with more plane than sense decided to rush shit. Hit a tensioning line and ended upside down. Attached File

Yeah, but no. You need to watch it again.

I hope the pilot was the owner.

It clipped a pole with the left wing tip just prior to the intersection, so it was probably a small bit of wing and a bit of the pole.  

That pilot either miscalculated his 50ft. obstacle takeoff roll requirement, or botched his short field takeoff technique.

I’d like to see the entire takeoff to be sure, but my guess from that video is that he originally intended to stay on the ground until clear of the intersection. I think he got more speed than he expected early, decided he could clear the traffic lights, then second guessed himself and tried to drop back under them after he was already committed to the climb.

Basically, he “squirreled”. Going over the obstacle would likely have worked. Going under the obstacle would likely have worked. Trying to do one then changing his mind didn’t work.

For fucks sake

The full video from another angle is on facebook. It shows him from taxi out to run up.  He lost directional authority and ended up in the median ditch,  from there he did a rushed/panic takeoff.  He clipped the light and possibly the traffic lighting wires with his wing.  Followed by the power lines crossing the road.   The pilot is a dumbass that did a dumbass thing.  

He also almost killed a police officer that was controlling traffic.

ETA:  Watching the video again..  He ran off the road,  forced a takeoff from the ditch.  Clipped the light which pulled his nose down and to the left and into the traffic signal wires,  collapsing the wings and flipping the plane on its back.  From other sources.. It sounds like the fool walked away.

I don't do facebook,  but here is the facebook video link.  

https://www.facebook.com/KevinSteeleTV/videos

Graduate of the Harrison Ford Off Airport Ground School.

I used to work next to the factory in Wichita, I think they stopped making spare parts about 70 years ago.

Don't let the pilot have a mustang and go to cars and coffee.

LOL!

When I sold my Mustang I told the kid to avoid cars and coffee,  And never drive by crowds.    

Shed a few tears seeing it was a Stearman. Hope the occupants were ok.

Its too bad theres no way of knowing what a safe taxi speed is.

Well that was fucking stupid...

Attached File

The Reese Extreme Blizzard was too extreme.

@pilatuspilot

I hope you've upgraded from the Pilatus if you need 8,000+ ft to feel comfortable?

Nailed it.

As a rule of thumb, pilots are idiots....

I've learned here in GD, it not the what is being discussed, it's whom saying it.  Anyone talking prettier than a $10 whore is considered a SME, even with no relevant experience.  And the more emotional a subject is, the more expressive or eloquent poster is held in regard.

My sister used to be an investigator for the NTSB, what questions do you want answers to?

.
where's a treadmill when you really need one?
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Some stories tell themselves. Pilot overestimated his skills.

Actually,  There’s a reason you aren’t supposed to take off from roads that have light poles, wires and other assorted stuff.   The rules of Aviation are written in blood.    

Did he survive?   If he did, he got damned lucky.

He walked away.  Unscathed.  Stupid and lucky.

Why "used to" be?  Hopefully retired.....I've only ever heard of one Federal employee being fired, ever, and that was because they got caught turning in inspection reports for inspections conducted at locations where they never showed up, and then subsequent investigation showed that they never left their house...........

Harrison Ford?

Harrison Ford?

Going to have a come to Jesus meeting with the FAA. Will get his licensed revoked.

Looks like he miscalculated the "distance needed to clear a 50 ft obstacle."

He fucked up

Really is, I don't think he saw a wire.

Pilot error.

There are idiots of all stripes and designs.

Pilots TEND to get themselves killed or in trouble often because they're the kid with the cool toy that they get to poke holes in sky with. A substantial majority of the mishaps I work, the pilot did something stupid by rushing or fucking around showing off.

I have also seen maintenance guys do some absolutely retarded shit. There is a "Repair Station" near me that acts like they're a certificated repair station, but in actuality they have a bunch of newbs working under one guy's A&P, and once a week another guy comes in who has an IA. We caught the non A&P guys signing shit off by forging the IA's signature. The thread started getting tugged because of a mishap in which someone got pretty significantly injured.

I have seen air traffic controllers be absolute fucktards. Had one that involved two flavors of FAA when the tech ops guys were doing a runway centerline check in fog. They talked to ATC, got clearance to be there, and then ATC forgot that they were out there and cleared a Bonanza to land on the runway. The tech ops guys heard the landing clearance and started talking, but the controllers were talking to other pilots on multiple stations and they ended up getting walked on. There was just enough visibility for the pilot to see the tech ops van sitting on the runway and he slammed hard right rudder/brake, scraped the end of the wing on the runway, ended up in the grass, crossed another taxiway and the deviated threshold of another runway before coming to a stop in even more grass just before the airport fence.

I have seen other inspectors be fucktards. One guy signed off on someone ripping the engines off a baron and then putting a turboprop on the nose, and the nose of that aircraft was NEVER designed to take a load like that because it was a baggage area. Worse is that the fucktard allowed them to literally take a TC'd multi engine plane, swap out engines, and somehow through the magic of handwavium, turn that into a homebuilt. Well it's not, and no you don't get to fly passengers in it either. There were multiple levels of fucktard involved in that one.

There are fucktards throughout aviation.

He was a pilot for a local crop dusting service that my cousin owns.  The pilot survived with no injuries.

The plane was part of a parade for a festival we have every year, one issue he had was he didn’t take off from far enough back.  Second issue was one of the wheels went off the blacktop which brought the rear of plane back down for a split second.  The third issue was yea, pilot error…should not have made that takeoff to begin with.

I assume when the plane departed from intended flight path while still on the ground (rolled off into the grass), the correct action was to kill the throttle and abort the takeoff?

So the pilot doesn't own the plane that he destroyed.

What a dolt.

What a waste of a lovely vintage aircraft.

It depends on things that the two videos haven't really shown.

In a taildragger, an impending loss of directional control while still on the ground at higher speeds is usually fixed by getting airborne where the flight control and lift surfaces want to naturally keep the airplane going forward straight. The Stearman further has some squirrelly ground handling characteristics because the 46-gallon fuel tank is located in the center of the top wing structure. If there's full fuel in there, it can result in some very entertaining reverse-pendulum-effect movements to the airplane if it starts swerving.

The correct action would have been to back-taxi and start the takeoff run several hundred feet prior to where he did; it was going to be uncomfortably close to that intersection regardless of if that swerve into the grass had taken place or not.