That plane was clearly carrying too much weight.

This is a bullshit viral for those stupid piece of shit cameras that I will never buy (and neither should you!)

Fuck "GoPro". Everytime I read that name in a video description or hear it uttered in some manufactured drama such as this, it's one less of their products I will ever buy. If I ever see them in the stores I'll probably break a few.

Advertising get's my dander up.

according to liveleak comments this is real...

accident report
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20120701X65804&key=1

>> ^artician:

This is a bullshit viral for those stupid piece of shit cameras that I will never buy (and neither should you!)
Fuck "GoPro". Everytime I read that name in a video description or hear it uttered in some manufactured drama such as this, it's one less of their products I will ever buy. If I ever see them in the stores I'll probably break a few.
Advertising get's my dander up.


Is this a bullshit viral-comment?

I saw nothing to indicate this was fake or faked. Nor did I see any advertising or GoPro.
This doesn't look like any sort of Viral vid or advertising.

puhlease on the fake call

No, this is definitely fake. I can tell from the pixels.

I don't fly in smaller planes but IMO the plane looked like it was having way too many problems in the beginning anyway. After the first minute I would have been like "Turn around this isn't working"

I probably wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for their little brand name call-out in the description. This company has been trying to make its product synonymous with cameras in the same way we call all tissue's Kleenex, so it stands out when someone refers to their camera by it's brand, as above.

Otherwise, specifically the camera work, the time they spent filming themselves, filming a guy bleeding (let's get a closeup!), and in general their behavior didn't seem natural. Maybe it was shock? I don't know, but I'm still inclined to say this is an ad.

>> ^artician:

I probably wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for their little brand name call-out in the description. This company has been trying to make its product synonymous with cameras in the same way we call all tissue's Kleenex, so it stands out when someone refers to their camera by it's brand, as above.
Otherwise, specifically the camera work, the time they spent filming themselves, filming a guy bleeding (let's get a closeup!), and in general their behavior didn't seem natural. Maybe it was shock? I don't know, but I'm still inclined to say this is an ad.


It seems to me it's something one would do to document a fucking plane crash.
The fact that there is a man half dying on the floor is enough for me to think this is not a viral ad.

The next thing is, what would that ad tell me?
"Have your camera with you even if you are about to die" ?
"take HD shots of your last moments" ?
"oh there's someone dying! quick, take your gopro and put it on the internet" ?

Isn't that some kind of mixed message and pretty bad as an ad?

1) plane was fully loaded

2) base altitude was 6500 feet

3) hottest part of day combined with local conditions meant this was probably like taking off from 9000+ foot altitude == thin air

This is just careless piloting, not an advertisement.

Do you think GoPro said "pick the biggest effing tree you can run into at 80 mph and DO IT!" Sheesh

This is called

HIGH
HOT
AND HEAVY

==

DANGER

GoPro cameras are ubiquitous they are sold in every local department store here.

This troll won't have to feed again for months.

*length=7:34

The duration of this video has been updated from unknown to 7:34 - length declared by WaterDweller.

4) The plane had an interference pattern for a propeller. Sheesh.

>> ^rebuilder:

4) The plane had an interference pattern for a propeller. Sheesh.


exactly

You think they wanted their obviously shitty-for-recording-propellers camera exposed like this?

>> ^artician:

This is a bullshit viral for those stupid piece of shit cameras that I will never buy (and neither should you!)
Fuck "GoPro". Everytime I read that name in a video description or hear it uttered in some manufactured drama such as this, it's one less of their products I will ever buy. If I ever see them in the stores I'll probably break a few.
Advertising get's my dander up.


Yes, because if the emotions of the people don't feel like a good drama, it's not real. Most of the time honest reactions don't feel as real as the real thing.

Regardless of whether this is real or not. I think the people filming are probably douche bags who refuse to put their camera down regardless of what's happening like in that horrible movie Clover field. I haven't experienced surviving a plan crash, but I sure do hope that if that does happen, peopele's priority would be to do something about the injured, and not filming their ugly mugs.

>> ^steroidg:

Regardless of whether this is real or not. I think the people filming are probably douche bags who refuse to put their camera down regardless of what's happening like in that horrible movie Clover field. I haven't experienced surviving a plan crash, but I sure do hope that if that does happen, peopele's priority would be to do something about the injured, and not filming their ugly mugs.


I agree completely. Everything visual looks real, but the peoples behavior is very suspicious.

You would have a hard time getting me into a plane that can't accelerate at a 30 deg angle. If thrust is much less than weight, in my humble opinion, that's a glider with delusions of grandeur.

I did a little amateur investigation, a bit of reading and some numbers but you can skip to the bottom for a summary.

The plane is a Stinson 108-3, 16500 foot service ceiling, 2400 pound gross weight limit (1300 empty weight), 50 gallon fuel capacity. Thats about 1100 of useful weight (2400-1300), with full fuel that lowers it to 800 (6lbs per gallon*50 gallons=300lbs), I saw 3 men in there the 4th passenger I'm gonna assume male, so lets say 180lbs for each (200 for the pilot) that comes to 740lbs for passenger weight. That leaves 60lbs for cargo. Although I couldn't see the cargo, they were still close to the weight limit but still could have been within normal limits.

The airport Bruce Meadows (U63) has a field elevation of 6370 feet. I couldnt find the airport temperature for that day but I did find nearby Stanley Airport 23 Miles southeast of Bruce Meadows. Their METAR history shows a high of 27 Celsius/81 Fahrenheit for June 30, 2012. Definitely a hot day but was it too hot? The closest I could find on performance data shows a 675 Feet per Minute climb at 75 Fahrenheit at sea level. Thats pretty close to what many small planes of that nature can do, so I took those numbers and transposed them over what a Cessna 172N could do. The 172N has a slighty higher climb performance about 750 for sea level and 75 Fahrenheit, a difference of 75 feet ill subtract out. At 6000 feet at 27C/81F the 172N climbs at 420FPM. Taking out the 75 feet brings it to 345 FPM, now I know this isn't perfect but I'm going with what I have. The plane began its climb out at 1:13 and crashed at 2:55, that leaves 1 minute and 42 seconds in between or 1.7 minutes. 1.7*345 means about 590 feet possible gain. But the plane isn't climbing at its best the entire video, at 2:35 it is apparent something is giving it trouble, that brings it down to about 1.58 minutes climb time which is 545 feet. Theres still another factor to consider and thats how consistent the altitude at the ground was.

The runway at Bruce meadows faces at 05/23 (Northeast/Southwest) but most likely he took runway 23 (Southwest) as immediately to the north east theres a wildlife preserve (Gotta fly at least 2000 feet over it) and he flew straight for quite some time. Although the ground increases in the direction he flew, by how much is difficult using the sectional charts. That means that although he may have been able to climb to about 545 feet higher than his original ground altitude, the ground rose with him and his absolute altitude over the ground would be less than that maximum possible 545. The passenger in the rear reported the plane could only climb to about 60-70 feet above the trees. The trees looked to be around 75-100 but thats still difficult to tell. That would mean according to the passenger they might have only been about 170 feet off the ground. It could still be wildly off as we cant exactly see the altimeter.

Finally theres that disturbance at 2:35 described as a downdraft. It could have been windshear, or a wind effect from the mountains. I don't have too much hands on knowledge of mountain flying so I cant say. If it was windshear he might have suddenly lost a headwind and got a tailwind, screwing up his performance. It could have been a downdraft effect. The actual effect on the aircraft may not have been much (lets say 50 feet) but near obstacles it was definitely enough to have a negative impact.



Summary:

Yes he was flying pretty heavy but he may not have been over the weight limit

The temperature in the area was definitely hotter than standard and the altitude was high, but he still had climbing capabilities within service limits. However he didn't give himself much of a safety threshold.

He might have been able to climb about 545 feet higher than the runway elevation, but the terrain altitude rose in the direction he flew, so his actual altitude over the ground was probably smaller than that.

The disturbance at 2:35 might have been some form of windshear which has the capacity to reduce airplane performance, and with his margins of safety so low already, that could have been the final factor.

Basically he may very well have been flying within the service limits of the aircraft, but the margins of safety he left himself were very low and the decision to fly over obstacles like those trees in that mountain enviroment could be the reason this would be declared pilot error.

Other notes:

The takeoff looks pretty rough but he trying to get off the ground as quickly as he can and ride ground effect until he gets up to speed.

I cant find anything resembling a proper PoH for this aircraft but I did find some data that looks pretty close to it. However this aircraft was a model from the late 40s, so the standards of performance may not be the same as now, and the transcribing I did to the 172N could be thrown off more.

On that note, I do realize that a 172 would have different aerobatic effects with altutude and temperature than a Stinson 108, but its the closest data I could use.

I also couldnt not find balance information to get a rough idea of how the plane was balanced. The type of balance on a plane does have effects on performance.

http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/N773C.html (The aircraft)

http://www.aopa.org/airports/U63 (The airport)

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20120701X65804&key=1 (The NTSB link posted earlier)

http://personalpages.tdstelme.net/~westin/avtext/stn-108.txt (Closest thing I could find to performance data, the actual numbers are at the bottom)

http://vortex.plymouth.edu/cgi-bin/gen_statlog-u.cgi?ident=KSNT&pl=none2&yy=12&mm=06&dd=30 (Weather data at nearby Stanley)

http://skyvector.com (sectional chart data, type U63 into the search at the upper left, then make sure that "Salt Lake City" is selected in the upper right for the sectional chart)

I'm getting one of them GoPros!!!

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