Jack Roush Crashes Plane in WI

[Don]

Quotes from the article:

" Roush's accident occurred upon landing at Wittman Regional Airport during the annual AirVenture show, which draws thousands of spectators and leads to heavy air traffic flying in and out of Oshkosh. Roush was flying his Beechcraft Premier 1A -- his "flying around airplane," he said -- when he had "a conflict in airspace with another airplane" after he had been cleared to land. "I was unable to address the conflict and keep the airplane flying," added Roush, who also filed a report with the National Transportation Safety Board on Friday. :

" Friend and former Roush driver Mark Martin, himself a pilot, could relate. "

" "I don't want to get into that much, but when there's an air show ... they've got aircraft that are landing just nose-to-tail, and they might be landing on other runways, on taxiways, all this stuff simultaneously. It's not something you deal with under normal circumstances. Under normal circumstances, they're way spread apart and all of that stuff," said Martin, familiar with the scenario from flying into the annual Sun n' Fun show in Lakeland, Fla.

"Jack got in a situation where he thought, 'How am I going to get out of this without hitting somebody?' Because of all the things that were going on, which is exactly what I thought would happen, because, you know, he's in a jet and there are some very small aircraft at different speeds and those kinds of things, and he just got in a situation where he was uncertain about how he was going to make it all work, got slow and tried to get slowed down and got a little too slow and whatever. It was one of those situations where it was a bad deal." "


http://www.nascar.com/2010/news/head...ash/index.html

[Tommy]

Originally Posted by Don

Roush: "I was unable to address the conflict and keep the airplane flying,"

In my experience, a 20% chance of hitting another airplane is usually preferable to a 100% chance is hitting the ground. Those words sound to me like an intelligent pilot trying to softsell why he made a bad decision to continue a bad approach.

[tcrist]

What I got from it was that there were way too many planes landing at once (normal at these venues). It was either hit another plane and take a chance on killing everyone on both planes or crash his and take a chance on killing only the people on his plane.

I am sure that Jack picked the lesser of the two evil's that he was up against.

Just my opinion of course.

[Tommy]

I have to disagree. Any pilot who allows himself to reach the point where his only two choices are to crash into the ground or hit another airplane made a serious error in judgement earlier in the flight. .. I'm not saying Jack Roush is a bad guy or a bad pilot, but even good pilots make mistakes. He should just own up to his rather than try to blame it on his desire to avoid hitting other aircraft.

[LewPoberezny]

Not sure about the specifics, but I read he was trying to avoid conflicting traffic.

[Excaliber]

I have to disagree. Any pilot who allows himself to reach the point where his only two choices...

I have to disagree with the above statement. At some point you have to commit your aircraft to the instructions of the air traffic controller as to when and where to land. You WILL reach a point of no return, if those instructions weren't clear or in error, it's gonna hit the fan no matter how good or what kind of pilot you are. If it hits the fan to late in the game and there is no safe place to land, your choice of what to do RIGHT NOW, this instant, are severly limited.

[Tommy]

Excaliber,
Before I take up more space arguing this point, let me ask one thing. Are you an experienced pilot?

[Excaliber]

No problem Tommy, next time your about to land, just blow off the controller and do your own thing.

If your driving, don't let those pesky red lights slow you down while your at it. You can see if the intersection is clear enough, go for it!

[Tommy]

Excaliber,
I take your answer as a no. I am an experienced pilot and you're wrong. If you want a more detailed answer, contact me via PM and I'll be happy to discuss it in as much depth as you like.

[Excaliber]

I won't bother, obviously you "know it all" all ready and have decided that Roush is an idiot, perhaps for following directions of the air traffic controller. Well, thats one man's opinion!

I don't know all the circumstances involved in this incident, therefore, I will not rush to judgement on either side. I would have to assume, from what little we know, that Roush was cleared to land, he made a commitment to do so. Once that commitment was made, circumstances developed forcing an immediate decision.

Who's at fault? Perhaps we will know more as the investigation proceeds.

[BT SNAKE]

Tommy is right Ernie. When you are the PIC it's your call.
I have flown into Osh Kosh eight times. I have been there twenty three times. Those
controllers are damn good. They keep that traffic separated by asking your aircraft type, color and speed. They always ask you to verify visual with the aircraft in front of you.
Me thinks Jack over shot his turn onto final and tried to turn back and let his speed drop below stall.
Just my opinion. We all will know for sure when the NTSB releases the final report.

Hersh

PS... Lew, are you related to Tom Poberezny or
Paul.

[Tommy]

This comment is not for Ernie so much as it is for anyone reading this thread who thinks his point of view makes sense. The next time you are flying on an airplane, imagine that the air traffic controller has cleared the pilot to land. As he approaches the wet runway in very poor weather, a combination of unpredicted winds and a slightly high approach sets him up to land much farther down the runway than desired. The pilot realizes that it would be much safer to add power, climb back up to a safe altitude and come back for a second approach than to skid off the end of the runway while trying to land. Do you really want the pilot to continue the bad landing just because an air traffic controller sitting in a nice comfy tower cleared him to land? Of course not. Air traffic controllers are responsible for managing the traffic in their airspace. Responsibility for the safety of the aircrew and passengers is entirely that of the pilot in command. ... I've taught dozens of people to fly and I would never tolerate a pilot allowing an air traffic controller to put him and his crew in a situation where his only two choices were to come dangerously close to another airplane or make a crash landing.

[Excaliber]

The problem with the above scenario is it ASSUMES there was time to add power, climb or manuver. Same scenario and everything looks good, your coming in nice, right up till the last second when another PIC closes the door on your landing. Maybe both were cleared, maybe the second pilot was not, two planes, one space, no way out. The question remains: Who was at fault? Another PIC? Air Traffic? Roush for not being aggressive enough with his own visual scan of a potentially developing situation? Flat out pilot error cannot be ruled out in any case or for any pilot.

I'm remined of an auto crash in an intersection, often the blame gets split, 50/50, or maybe 75/25. In some states, if it happens in an intersection it's all but gaurenteed the fault will be split in some way, no matter how right you feel you might be, or really were!!

[Jerry Clayton]

A few thoughts for Ernie

ATC controllers issue CLEARANCES---they do not CONTROL the aircraft--the pilot does that

When you are issued a clearance for an approach and landing, YOUR GO AROUND PATH is protected space for you and you alone------If at any point a safe landing is in the least bit questionable, you should go around---you do this by adding power and rotating the nose of the aircraft away from the earth----if you are close to another aircraft on a crossing/conflicting flight path you point your aircraft away from the other plane by turning so as you'll go behind him and also by the altitude you climb to or level off at.

Jack made a series of mistakes---it will be judged pilot error ---and maybe have some comments towards what the controllers did, but it is Jacks fault-----that he crashed----he is lucky it didn't shut down the whole operation

[Don]

BT Snake & others:

A different article mentioned the number of incidents during the Osh Kosh meet is far above normal, due to the intense flight activity , inbound and outbound ?

Not a pilot, would the type of aircraft, Beechcraft Premier 1A ( 2 jet engines ) , be less forgiving than other types of aircraft ?

Appears Jack went forward in the cockpit or was struck by a piece of debris , these aircraft have a 4 point belt, lap and shoulder ?

[BT SNAKE]

Don,
The best way to understand this is to read the Airventure arrival procedures. It will explain a lot.

http://www.airventure.org/atc/vfr_basics.html

Jack must have had the belts on, maybe not tight, or he would have been worse off IMHO.

Warbirds and turbo aircraft use a different procedure and runway. I sure they do not mix light aircraft with high performance aircraft. At least I never saw a jet or turbo prop in my line.

Hersh

[Excaliber]

It's obvious the pilot makes the final call, at some point he is COMMITED to the landing. From the reports we have so far, this was the case. A commitment was made to land and could not be aborted in time.

Pilot error is a very large percentage of all fatal crashes (I'm not sure of the percentage in non-fatal crashes), it's very easy to dismiss that as nothing more than "the guy screwed up, he's an idiot". It's not always that simple. At times there is SO much going on (planes landing, taking off, filling the sky, confusion reigns), so fast, pilots can be over whelmed by the input. Pilot error? Sure, thats a simple head line and usually accurate. Not always the whole truth, but usually accurate! Human limitations to react to over whelming data input is a known reality.

It's one of the primary reasons NASCAR has been working at slowing the cars down, particularly above 200 mph. Drivers report that it is simply humanly impossible to react quick enough to a developing situation at those speeds. Military pilots experience the same phenomen, over whelmed by input.

In the case of Osh Kosh I belive that is the fundamental problem here, over whelming input. It is SO easy to say, "He should have flown around and checked to see if it was clear." Uh huh, I'm sure he did! Call it pilot error? Sure, OK, but the REAL cause was more likely the intense activity and "competition" to fly to many planes, of varying size and performance, in to small an airspace. Pilot error could be well be yet another "cop out" that misses the point. That is particularly troubling, as I see it, to surviving family members in a fatal crash. "Dad screwed up and crashed." Well, it's not that simple.

...my son is a licensed pilot, currently in school seeking his commercial license.

[BT SNAKE]

Ernie,
I could care less who was flying that plane. I don't know Jack Rousch. I'm sure he is a hero to many. I will yield to the NTSB's decision on what happened.
They do good work. I gave an opinion on what I saw on video and from the tower conversation I heard.
We most likely wouldn't be having this conversation if all the amateur video wasn't taken or removed from you tube by possibly NTSB. I
found several that were removed with no explanation.

Hersh

[Excaliber]

I feel the same way Hersh, were on the same page. I'm being cautious in my asessment is all.

[Tommy]

The professional pilot view of accidents is that every accident is preventable. So, if a pilot makes a mistake because he is over tasked, the initial error was likely a lack of training to make him more capable, or a poor decision to enter a situation where the tasking was likely to overwhelm him. Accidents involving pilot error always track back to an error in judgement in the chain of events leading up to the incident.

Up until now I have resisted the urge to speculate on what happened in the Roush crash other than to say it looked like he was trying to dance around taking responsibility for the crash. But IMHO, this crash was not caused by him being "overwhelmed by inputs." I believe the most likely cause was the pilot got too slow while trying to keep spacing between his aircraft and the aircraft landing in front of him. If the spacing had gotten too tight, Roush would have been forced to go around and come back for another shot at landing. In an attempt to avoid that, I suspect he got much slower than his usual approach speed and stalled the aircraft near the ground. I don't state this as a fact, but as the opinion of a highly experienced pilot who has saved countless student pilots from stalling their jets during landing attempts.