Originally Posted by Air&Road

Bingo!

I don't for a minute believe he knowingly committed suicide.

Tom,

Furthering what Tim pointed out, unfortunately John did not get a weather briefing. Unfortunately John very apparently THOUGHT that he could fly on instruments. Although it is possible that he did not fly into IMC, he did, as Tim pointed out, flew over water at night with obviously inadequate instrument competency. With no visible horizon, he might as well have been flying in the most dense cloud ever formed above the planet.

A couple of years ago, I attended a pilot safety seminar at Air Salvage of Dallas. This is an aircraft wrecking yard if you will. The guy who runs it, goes out and recovers the vast majority of GA accident wreckage in a large section of the US. In fact on the wall of their main hangar is the tail from Ricky Nelsons DC3 that he recovered many years ago.

This guy is an aviation accident guru that even the FAA and NTSB listens to closely. I know that they listen to him closely because my sister in law spent a number of years working for NTSB and told me all about him and how many cases on which he served as an expert witness.

During this seminar, he took us out to the crumpled wreckage of a Careflight Helicopter. He went over several wreckages explaining the circumstances. It was very sobering and there was no one there without wide open ears.

He began the description of the accident and the aircraft had flown from Galveston out over the gulf in an effort to recover someone from a boating accident offshore far enough that there was no visible horizon. The sun went down and it was pitch dark.

The pilot had a large number of hours in both fixed and rotary wing and had been instrument rated for virtually all of those years. He had kept up his instrument rating and was current, but had not flown in actual IMC in a couple of years. This was a high time, professional, instrument rated pilot with an excellent record. He lost it in the no horizon, visual conditions that Tim described.

Something tells me that John John didn't have QUITE the experience, either in total hours or instrument competency either one as did this helicopter pilot. He was flying WAY over his head, pure and simple. He obviously thought that he was instrument competent or would not have headed across there after dark.

I remember when this accident happened some 20 years ago when I was a student pilot, but hanging around lots of experienced and savvy pilots who were very well aware of the circumstances and never heard ANY of them say anything other than the fact that the guy was flying way over his head.

I have seen this accident and the accident report hashed out at LEAST a dozen times on pilot discussion forums, and I have NEVER read ANYONE that disagreed on this point.

His narcism killed him and two innocent passengers. He thought he was some hot shot instrument pilot and without re-reading the accident report, I don't think he had hardly any more time under the hood than what had been necessary for his Private.

There is a wonderful book entitled "The Killing Zone." It tells all about the common things that kill beginning pilots. Statistically the most dangerous time for a pilot is between the 50 hour and the 350 hour mark. Before 50 they are under the supervision of an instructor. After 350, they have built enough experience, again statistically, to learn to avoid the most common mistakes.

High on this list of common mistakes is flying in Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) without adequate instrument competency.

I don't remember the exact number of hours he had, but John was very near the end of "the killing zone."

i am sincerely sorry that this AVOIDABLE tragedy occurred, but it did and with a different attitude it would not have, PERIOD.

BTW, the cause was not him being a liberal, it was being an elitist. Just so you know, elitests come in all political persuasions.