“Aviation in itself…” You know the quote. I’ve posted it in two threads already.
Plane clips van in emergency freeway landing
The pilot claimed his engine quit and he tried to land on the 5 near Santa Clarita. (Incidentally, I travelled quite a bit between L.A. and Lancaster. While the crash site is on the 5 and not the 14, I’m familiar with the area.) I couldn’t tell what kind of aircraft it was, but it might have been a Beechcraft Skipper. (I’m just going by the shape of the main gear.) The Arizona pilot was en route to Sacramento.
I don’t know if the pilot took off from Eloy, nor the fuel capacity and rate of burn of his aircraft (which I don’t know the make/model of anyway), nor whether he refueled any time before crashing. Running out of fuel will definitely make the Pilot Cooling Fan stop (the propeller is there to keep the pilot cool; if it stops, he starts to sweat!), and that’s why running out of fuel is a violation of the FARs. A pilot who has been drinking may very well not pay attention to his fuel quantity.
Drinking and flying is an incredibly stupid thing to do. The FARs mandate “eight hours between bottle and throttle”, and also have a maximum BAC. My dad, who was a non-drinker, advocated “24 hours between bottle and throttle”. It’s pilots like Mr. South who give General Aviation a bad name. People are already afraid of “little airplanes” because they believe they are dangerous. Some people think they should be outlawed because they (erroneously) believe they can be used as WMDs. Others build houses next to GA airports, or move into houses already there, and then complain that there’s an airport next door. They lobby to have the airports closed down.
Now it’s possible that the reason Marc South failed the field sobriety test is because he bashed his head in the crash. The article doesn’t say what kind of test he was given. But if he “blew into the balloon”, then that test would be damning.
GA was nearly destroyed in the early-1980s due to lawsuits. From a high of 15,000 new aircraft produced every year in the late-1970s, construction fell to about 2,400 annually in the mid-1980s. Cessna stopped producing single-engine piston aircraft. Piper went into bankruptcy (how many times?). Unlike carmakers, aircraft companies were liable for every aircraft they’d ever built. They could be sued if one of their aircraft crashed due, say, to corrosion, and the corrosion-prevention technologies didn’t even exist when the aircraft was built. It was said that half the cost of a new aircraft was the cost the maker had to pay to insure it.
I don’t have the numbers, but let’s assume that a Cessna 172 cost $15,000 in the early ‘70s and that people made an average of $7,500/year. If those numbers are somewhat close (and I don’t claim they are), then an economical four-place airplane cost about two years’ salary. Today a new Cessna 172 costs close to $200,000. At my last job, that was nearly five years’ salary. Now it’s about ten. ANew airplanes are getting more and more expensive. Used airplanes are more expensive because there are fewer new ones being made. Flying has never been cheap, but at least it used to be within reach of most people who wanted to persue it. New designs are (finally!) coming out, many of which are based on homebuilts. Even with new technology and lower production costs, these airplanes tend to cost somewhere around $150,000.
Aviation is regaining some of its poularity. There are commercials on television telling people how to get started. But it’s still nowhere near where it was 30 years ago. With prices the way they are, it’s unlikely GA will ever reach that popularity again. (Incidentally, flying yourself in a GA airplane can be quicker and can involve fewer hassles than flying commercially on trips of about 400 miles or less. Flying from L.A. to Las Vegas and back in a Cessna 172 with four people on board will cost about $75 per person in a rental – $75/hr times four hours, divided by four passengers – and can be cheaper still if you own your own.)
And then we have yahoos who fly while intoxicated.
This gives GA a black eye. It decreases the number of aircraft that may become available on the used aircraft market. It increases the cost of insurance. It fuels the fears of non-pilots.
If Mr. South is found to have been flying under the influence, then I say to him: “Mr. South, you are an ass.”