Nashville

[gotyacovered]

Not sure if you guys have been following this, but when I go to Kansas to hunt, Pawnee Rock is where I go. My cousin (owns PA-28) and his dad own/operate a farm in Larnard and my grandparents live in Great Bend. Pawnee Rock is between the two. Needless to say, while I've never met the family who perished, many of my family members do and it is a shock for a small community.

Hug your loved ones extra tight, you never know when it's your time.

http://news.msn.com/us/small-plane-crashes-outside-ymca-in-nashville

[john c]

We've got business friends in Great Bend who fly here or we flew there so when we heard the news and "Great Bend" we got a little anxious.  Felt relieved on one hand and terribly sad on the other.  This man, assuming he was doing the piloting, had probably the three most important people in his life on that plane so you know he was doing everything possible to achieve to a good outcome of whatever precipitated the accident.

Have any radio transcripts been released?  Reports said he deliberately avoided the YMCA building but I would rather take a chance with some yard or trees than a building.  Don't know how anyone knows that.

[gotyacovered]

so true. just hard to imagine what happened.

this is the only other article i have read... nobody on the red board has put up any ATC recordings... have not seen NTSB report either. nobody seems to be speculating, which is odd, esp on the red board.

[gotyacovered]

update.

talked to my cousin; the family that owned the airplane that crashed was his neighbor. story around great bend is pilot error. i will leave the nitty gritty details out, but in short, he was legal by the letter of the law but had 32 hours over the span of 24-26 months.

he was (probably) not using AP, on his approaches b/c it take to long to program it in before departure. he would use the heading bug and alt hold while in cruise but he would hand fly the approaches. he also flew most of his practice in simulators. AP was a KN-something, i forgot.

said the airplane impacted terra firma inverted almost vertical; engins were 6 feet in the ground.

worst part about the whole deal is the father and husband (the pilots son in law) missed the flight b/c he working, but was planning on being there until last min. having to live without his wife and daughter and the regret/feeling that he should have been with them is proving to be a tough endeavor for him.

proficiency is the name of the game. i dont think this type of AC should be flown single pilot IFR, at night, in IMC, with a pilot who is averaging 15 hours per year.