Cessna Citation crash in Virginia

[Astro14]

Don't modern planes have a lot of nanny features to prevent you from doing acrobatics like: "push down all the way, roll upside down, and pull up" to achieve a vertical nose dive? I tried these crazy maneuvers an a Falcon 7X simulator (real cockpit, hydraulics etc.) and got the thing to go upside down, but the computer would not let you do it unless you overpowered it multiple times and there were alarms blaring everywhere. Suicide would make sense if those features had to be overridden otherwise some type of mechanical failure / disintegration of the control surfaces?

Define “modern”.…

It is more a matter of fly by wire, which enables flight control laws and envelope limitations, than date of manufacture.

Nobody would call a Citation modern.

The pilot suicide that took place in 2016, on Germanwings 9525, happened on a “modern” airliner, the A-320, which has full flight envelope protection built into its fly by wire system.

The nanny features made no difference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525

 

[fdcg27]

There was a lot of talk about it because fighters were scrambled and created a sonic boom over DC.

https://time.com/6284762/no-survivors-jet-scramble-washington-virginia/

This really sounds like a gradual and undiscovered loss of cabin pressure event.
It's happened before, even with airliners.
Tragic for all involved in the air and their loved ones on the ground.

 

[Owen Lucas]

Define “modern”.…

It is more a matter of fly by wire, which enables flight control laws and envelope limitations, than date of manufacture.

By modern I meant fly by wire.

 

[y_p_w]

 

[E365]

The “U-Turn” over Long Island is easily explainable in my opinion. The filed route of the flight ended with “SARDI” (a fix just south of Long Island), then “CCC” (Calverton NY VOR) then KISP airport. I marked them 1, 2, 3 respectively. That route is in Blue.

If the autopilot was on and following that route in the FMS (navigation system) it just goes point-to-point, while smoothing those corners - route in green.

But when you get to the last point programmed in the FMS, assuming it was KISP, the system doesn’t know where to go next so most planes just revert to a “heading hold” or wings-level type function.

It looks to me the plane made the turn from CCC (#2) to KISP (#3), flew over KISP airport (still at cruise altitude) and then just locked into its current heading, which just happened to point close to the DC area.

 

[Fla]

FYI the local news (in central Florida) is now reporting that the mother and daughter on the flight were part of the Ruffles (sp?) family from Melbourne. They're an important family in that area according to the news.

 

[Cujet]

RIP to the family and crew. This is so sad, mostly because it is 100% preventable. Just an FYI, when ever I see a crewmember using the O2, even if it is for unexplained reasons, like a headache or whatever, I am always glad. Not to mention the O2 system operational test and the pilot's functional knowledge. I'll get it serviced if it needs filling. I'm simply glad it is in regular use and they are comfortable using it!!!!!

I have the unusual distinction of having experienced a good number of depressurization events at FL450. There may be a few people in the world who have experienced more, but I am unaware of them.

While working for WR Grace, the 5 year old GIII would fully open the outflow valve in cruise flight. Since we were flying 3 round trips/week, we experienced this on almost every round trip, we had an extraordinary number of failures.

I will say, that it was not 'explosive' but rather a 8-10 second event as that's the outflow valve transit time. The motor was drawing too much current, and would 'fry' the TO-3 drive transistors, which would simply port current to the motor, resulting in driving it open. The DOM at the time was too cheap to purchase a new outflow valve, and instead got warranty on the shorted part. This insanity continued for some time, despite some angry words.

My mask went on fast, and 100% was immediately selected, although breathing is not easy, as air is only going out of the lungs, I'd get 2 breaths in as soon as I could (that's how I was taught). I'd then select 'manual' and close the outflow valve. Once the captain did not recover well and did a visual approach to the wrong airport!

You can't hear anything and you can't see any warning lights, as the cockpit fogs up for a bit. You have NO IDEA what's happened. I saved our lives multiple times, and saved my own life a few years later. As I was by then, darn good with that mask.

Just a note to single pilot operators, consider using the O2 while at altitude. Work out, ahead of time, a way to get it serviced at your destinations. The FBO will do it for you.

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

Any flight above about 15,000 feet requires an oxygen system to be readily available to the pilots. Cabin pressurization is not considered reliable.

Why aren't autopilots set up to descend automatically if pressure is lost and the pilot doesn't do anything?

https://www.airbus.com/en/newsroom/...-feature-enables-automated-emergency-descents