I want to start off by saying that no one was killed in this incident, so I think we can comfortably be amazed by the madness of this wreck. Yesterday afternoon, a twin-engine 1981 Piper PA-31 Navajo attempted to make an emergency landing on a road near Victoria, Texas, about 150 miles from Houston. The emergency landing turned into more of a crash when the plane struck three cars and split in half at a highway overpass. And, yes, this being modernity, most of it was caught on dashcams.
A dashcam owned by Tony Poynor captured the plane as it came in low over the road, preparing to land, and then again as Poynor’s truck approached the overpass of Zac Lentz Parkway, where the plane can be seen, bisected in the middle.
Here’s that video:
More footage of the wreckage can be seen closer up here in this footage from KHOU 11:
The aircraft is registered to MARC, Inc, a contract flight services company, and an FAA investigation has determined that the cause of the crash is because the plane ran out of fuel. Yikes! Don’t airplanes have some kind of warning light or buzzer on that fuel gauge that gives advance warning so this doesn’t happen? I mean, I’ll often see how far below E I can get my cars to drive, but I can just pull over if I run out of gas. This is a lot worse than pulling over.
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The video sure makes it seem like the plane will land relatively intact, until the truck shooting the video catches up to see the carnage, with one car on its side the plane split in half, and two other damaged cars by the front half of the plane. It’s a pretty gruesome-looking mess, and it’s amazing that only three people were injured, though at least one remains hospitalized in critical condition.
The idea of driving along and having to deal with watching out for threats from above is something that we, as drivers, usually don’t have to deal with. I’m really not sure what one is ideally supposed to do in such a situation, if there is any right thing to do at all?
We were talking about it in Slack and Mercedes pointed out that landing on a road is something pilots don’t really want to do:
Contrary to popular belief, a road is actually one of the last places you want to land a crippled plane. In flight training, you learn early on to always be scanning for an emergency landing zone in case the worst happens. Your plane might never break, but you always have to have an escape plan.
The best non-airport landing spot is an open, grassy field. Second to that, you could land on a farm, depending on some factors, but you want to land parallel to the crops. Land perpendicular to the crops and you risk rolling over. Water landings are also more ok than you’d think and have a surprisingly high survival rate. A road should be one of your last choices. There are too many unfriendly things on a road including power lines, poles, lights, people, overpasses, and of course, cars.
This particular area is a sucky one to have an emergency in. Lots of houses on one end and very tall brush on the other end. Since the pilot was trying to land they didn’t have a lot of altitude or speed. They had few choices and all of them were bad.
I’m glad it seems like nobody was killed, and, um, watch the skies, I suppose.
Reminds me of this:
RICK: We did! We pulled it off! I can’t believe it! Where’s the needle?
KRAMER: Oh, it broke off, baby! Woo, hoo, hoo!
RICK: Oh, Mr. Kramer, I gotta thank you. I – I learned a lot. Things are gonna be different for me now.
KRAMER: Well, that’s a weird thing to say..
RICK: I wonder how much longer we could have lasted.
KRAMER: Yeah, yeah. I wonder.. hmm.
(They both eye each other, then Kramer slams on the gas, attempting to go even longer. They both cheer and scream out)
I bet they forgot about having to tap airplane gauges before you read them so they ran out of fuel.
AVWeb did a great video a few years back on why you probably shouldn’t attempt this sort of emergency landing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99DomTe9JY4
Here’s a good analysis on this incident:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA-YbDb9HV8
Effectively there was some stupidity involved that caused this.
I knew before even clicking on that it was going to be Blancolirio lol
I wonder if there was a fuel gauge malfunction, or a fuel leak. Seems like a pretty dumb error otherwise.
Pilots are trained to track fuel by time in addition to the fuel gauges.
After five hours of flight, just about every small plane is going to be on fumes.
Don’t you just hate it when you’re flying down the highway and that slowpoke in the RAV4 ahead of you hits the brakes instead of getting to the right?
“Speed limit enforced by aircraft.”
Long COVID is a hell of a drug
Victoria is a relatively small town surrounded by a bunch of nothing in all directions. A few more minutes before running out of gas and the freeway would have been far more open and less congested. If the pilot was aiming for the Victoria airport, well that’s surrounded by empty fields for miles around it.
Not exactly sure about all this.
After seeing the video several times I wonder if he would have stood a better chance just putting it down on the highway, rather than what he did try?
At the very least his air speed seems much more close to the highway speed limit.
“After seeing the video several times I wonder if he would have stood a better chance just putting it down on the highway, rather than what he did try?”
If you look at this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA-YbDb9HV8
You’ll see that a better bet might have been to put it down in a field.
Or even better, don’t run the plane for so long that you’re cutting really close for the amount of fuel you have.
Thank you for this. I don’t know much about this subject, even though we have lost many friends to aircraft crashes over the course of my time here.
If this pilot has a shit ton of flying experience as speculated by his age, I don’t get this a bit then. Really. Not one bit. Am a year older than this guy is.
I remember as a very young kid my old man (cop), would take me up with a Sherrif’s Office pilot to survey tornado damage in both Mn. and Wisconsin. I would sit in the lap of the pilot, (another cop) and let me work the stick at times. Stupid? Probably…
But what stuck with me was being told over and over again to always be looking for a spot to put down, and to never consider a road unless it was totally empty.
Ironically this friend was later killed doing stupid shit in his own plane a few years later.
But overall 5 hours in the air here? With what seems to be no concern about fuel consumption? Not making a lot of sense here.
But will be the first to admit my knowledge is really limited here.
Looking forward to the facts being released though.
That’s the tradeoff with planes. STOL planes land short and slow but glide like a brick. Regular planes glide like an aero brick but need a lot longer runway to land on, and usually at much higher speeds.
Also contrary to popular belief piston powered twins don’t have a redundant engine. Most of them don’t have the power to weight to fly on one engine, and conventional twins are a massive pain in the ass to fly on one engine, most of the time it’s just able to extend your glide.
Two engines just means twice the likelihood of engine failure.
That being said multi engine turboprops and jets have a high enough power to weight ratio for them to be flown fairly well on one engine, though they still have the same handling issues than piston twins do with an engine out.
There are definitely planes out there that could have made that same landing and stopped before hitting the cars. As far as twins are concerned the one that comes to mind is a Dornier Do-28 B-1, fairly rare bird though.
Edit: I do disagree about a grass field or a farmer’s field being the best place to land in an emergency. with a tricycle gear plane it’s very easy for your nosegear to dig in, best case your nosegear shears off, worst case it’s strong and you flip the plane on it’s back, probably knocking you out in the process. For conventional gear aircraft (taildraggers) it’s easy for one of your front wheels to get stuck then it’s a violent ground loop. Both options are going to seriously damage the plane, and possibly you as well. A road on the other hand provided you can avoid hitting anything can allow you to land safely and allow you to take off from it again after whatever failed is fixed.
Obviously not roads with potholes though.
Two engines just means twice the likelihood of engine failure.
This is why Lindbergh used a single engine airplane for his most famous flight
The second engine just gets you to the crash site.
When autorotating helos, we try to avoid plowed fields if at all possible, and then aim to land parallel with the furrows. Not a lot of options from less than 500 feet though.
What I’ve read about autorotations in helicopters with skids is one should only do so on hard surfaces as it allows the skids to splay out and absorb some of the impact while allowing you to slide forward. Soft surfaces have the skids dig in keeping the skids from splaying out and they can suddenly arrest your forward momentum resulting in the helicopter pitching forward possibly flipping in the process.
Ideally, yes, I’d prefer a paved road if I can get to one, especially if there’s no power lines along the road (there are always power lines along the road). Autos to grass and soft surfaces are doable all day, they simply require more skill. It’s imperative to keep the skids straight ahead while sliding (a run-on landing) to prevent any sideways movement and dynamic rollover.
There’s also zero-speed autos, which trade any forward airspeed for rotor inertia and thus lift, but that’s a bit more advanced.
I’ve linked two excellent resources from the authorities on autorotations, if you’re either bored or curious.
https://www.timtuckershelicopterworld.com/my-take-on-autorotations
https://rotarywingshow.com/tag/shawn-coyle/
Did somebody say helis doing autos?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSCiwsbkFi0
I think that’s the exact same overpass where I crashed my truck back in 94.
How many planes did you take out?
$30,000+ Harley’s don’t have gas gauges so guess I’m not shocked they aren’t mandatory in planes either.
The consequences of running out of gas on a Harley are a tad less severe.
I don’t know…while you’re coming to a stop, they won’t be able to hear you anymore…
Underrated comment. Well done.
They are required on airplanes, but they’re only required to be accurate on empty
Pretty sure you’ll have some additional clues that you’re out of gas.
Which $30,000 Harleys don’t have gas gauges? I haven’t ridden a modern Harley that doesn’t have one. My last three bikes have also included a gauge for miles until empty.
You had to pay extra for the fuel gauge delete option, Cheapskate.
REAL MEN DONT NEED FUEL GAUGES /s
Well, one good thing about running out of fuel is the reduced likelihood of fire…(explosive vapors notwithstanding, but that ends quickly!).My guess is the pilot was trying to be a hero and save the airframe. In my amateur opinion, gear up into one of those nearby fields would have been the much better choice.I used to fly sailplanes (“gliders” is like a slur!), we were downright obsessed with looking out for places to land. Because you only have one shot at the best of times.Edit: “Prop plane” always makes me think it’s fake, and being used in a movie. Maybe one where Alec Baldwin thinks he’s flying a fake plane, but then it takes off. Speed 4?
In my amateur opinion, gear up into one of those nearby fields would have been the much better choice.
Yeah, it seems kind of odd to me that he made this choice. Looking at the YT video it looks like he had to make a hard right to line up on the outer road, so prior to that turn he was well lined up on a clear strip on the other side of the highway. It’s kinda narrow and has a ditch on one side, but it looks pretty much like a grass airstrip. I would have thought that the better option by a long way. The dash cam video made it look like he had plenty of speed and altitude to clear the highway, especially if he didn’t scrub speed in a turn, but who knows.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/8EjYoV1WoaDbPLGj8
I see what you’re looking at there, but they would’ve had to get past not one but two sets of power lines to get to the grass on the other side of the highway, which is likely why they took the turn to the right. Then going along that straight part of the frontage road, they were fenced in between power lines on the left, and a car dealership and then housing development on the right. Coming up to the intersection where they went down, there was yet ANOTHER set of high voltage power lines running right across in front of them, so they probably had to go down hard or fly right into them at that point, hence slamming into the intersection at Mockingbird Ln. Really ended up caught in a funnel of no good options.
Lading on a busy road to save an airframe seems to be such an asshole thing to do.
I have only piloted small (and usually pretty old) Cessnas and no, they don’t have a low fuel warning like modern cars. And the fuel gauges were flaky enough that out of an abundance of caution, during the preflight check, one would step on a foldable stool and stick essentially a wooden paint stick into each tank and see how much fuel is present.
Part of planning a flight is figuring out how much fuel you need to get where you’re going and then make sure you have another 30 or 45 minutes extra (depending on whether it’s day or night time). If the pilot was flying under an instrument flight plan, the minimum reserve is 45 minutes regardless of the time of day.
Happy nobody died, but a totally preventable accident unless there was some weird failure that caused the plane to vent fuel enroute.
the rules of flight:
1- the air is thin;
2- the ground is hard; &
3- gravity never stops;
therefore an aviator needs 2 of the following 3 items:
a- altitude;
b- air speed;
c- a really really really good plan.
You forgot:
4 – sometimes clouds have rocks in them.
And in addition, the three most useless things to a pilot:
But any landing you can crawl away from is a good one, and if you can fly the airplane again, a GREAT one. Though badly injuring people on the ground in the process is not considered good form.
The best non-airport landing spot is an open, grassy field. Second to that, you could land on a farm, depending on some factors, but you want to land parallel to the crops.
This particular area is a sucky one to have an emergency in. Lots of houses on one end and very tall brush on the other end. Since the pilot was trying to land they didn’t have a lot of altitude or speed. They had few choices and all of them were bad.
Weird since a quick look at Victoria Texas on Google Maps shows a LOT of open fields, especially out by the airport.
Depending on which direction he was approaching the airport from, there may have been a lot of homes and businesses that would have been worse places to land. But it will be months (usually about 24) before the NTSB’s final report will detail what happened. Or what they think happened.
The report I read was that the crash was near the high school, which has that brush I talked about. If it was right next to the airport then yeah, he had a fine field to put it down in right there. Not entirely sure what was going on in the cockpit but I guess we’ll find out in a year or so.
My Ex was in a Cessna single engine that ran out of gas and crashed on approach. When I examined the wreck the fuel switch was turned to the empty wing tank… I never trusted the pilot (even in a car) and never flew with them despite many offers, and I love small planes.
The Ex got her face smashed by the instrument panel as she only had a lap belt.She wound up fine but now sets off metal detectors.
My shop-boss ended up in a similar situation – his friend talked him into going up, but they took a plane that guy was unfamiliar with and didn’t know how to switch tanks. Crashed in a cornfield, not too far from where Buddy Holly died. They both walked away, but that was the last time my boss ever left terra firma.
That’s usually how bisection works. 😉
This is why I never fly without my Fuel Shark.
What? Too soon?
As a refugee from this area, am neither surprised by this, nor shocked.
Really sucks for those injured though.
If only planes had lighter sockets to plug one of them into! They’d be halfway over the Atlantic by now.
Some people do install lighter plugs.
Then they can use their radar detector to know when they are close to the airport.
My Cherokee (airplane. PA-25-235, 1970ish can’t remember exactly) had a lighter socket and ash trays. We use the ashtrays for gum wrappers, but I suppose back in the 60s and 70s people would smoke in the airplane.