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)

according to liveleak comments this is real...

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

>> ^aurens:

There's an old Jewish proverb that runs something like this:

"A fool can throw a stone into the water that ten wise men cannot recover."

Your stones, fortunately, aren't irrecoverable. I'll offer some counterpoints to a few of your claims, and I'll leave it up to you to fish for the truth about the others.
Kinda like a jet plane's black boxes aren't irrecoverable... no wait, they were. FBI: "None of the recording devices from the two planes that hit the World Trade Center were ever recovered." But this defies reason. Black boxes are almost always located after crashes, even if not in useable condition. Each jet had 2 recorders and none were found? Anonymous source at the NTSB: "Off the record, we had the boxes,"
Conspiracy? I think so.

>> ^aurens:

I don't know what you mean by "produced,"He means if you have evidence that implicates a suspect of a crime, then you indict that person. You then find and arrest that person, charge them, and follow the rule of law. The FBI admits they have no "hard evidence" that OBL was behind the 9/11 attacks, yet he was immediately blamed for it. The Taliban offered extradition if we provided evidence and we refused. Instead we invaded Afghanistan and started waging war against the same people we trained and armed in the 80s, the same people Reagan called freedom fighters. Now we call them terrorists for defending their own sovereignty.
Conspiracy? I think so.

>> ^aurens:

The North Tower was struck at 8:46 AM, the South Tower at 9:03 AM, and the Pentagon at 9:37 AM. By my math, the Pentagon was hit fifty-one minutes after the first plane hit the WTC and thirty-four minutes after the second plane hit. The 9/11 Commission estimated that the hijacking of Flight 11, the first plane to hit the WTC, began at 8:14 AM. It's misleading, in this context...
You're talking about the Department of Defense. The Pentagon is the most heavily guarded building in the world and somehow over an hour after 4 planes go off course/stop responding to FAA and start slamming into buildings, that somehow one is going to be able to fly into a no-fly zone unimpeded and crash into the Pentagon without help on the inside? Never mind the approach the pilot took makes no sense. If your target is the Pentagon, you can cause the most damage and most causalities by doing a nose down crash in the top. Instead the amateur pilot does a high precision 360 degree turn, descending 7,000 feet in the last 2 minutes to impact the Pentagon in the front, the only spot with reinforced steel. He spends an extra 2 and half minutes in the air exposed and ends up hitting the exact spot that has been reinforced and also where the bookkeeping and accountants were. Day before 9/11: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announces that the Pentagon has lost track of $2.3 TRILLION DOLLARS of military spending.
Conspiracy? I think so. (Bonus: WeAreChange confronts Rumsfeld)
>> ^aurens:

Three videos, not one, were released.
And at least 84 remain classified. Why?
And how did two giant titanium engines from a 757 disintegrate after hitting the Pentagon's wall? They were able to find the remains of all but one of the 64 passengers on board the flight, but only small amounts of debris from the plane?
Conspiracy? I think so.

>> ^aurens:

I don't fault you, or others like you, for wanting to "think twice" about the explanations given for certain of the events surrounding 9/11. I do fault you, though, for spending so little time on your second round of thinking, and for so carelessly tossing conspiracy theories to the wind.
First you need to acknowledge what a conspiracy is. When two or more people agree to commit a crime, fraud, or some other wrongful act, it is a conspiracy. Not in theory, but in reality. Grow up, it happens. If you spent anytime at all "thinking" or looking at the evidence, then you would recognize government lies for what they are. You don't have to know the truth to recognize a lie.

I never was satisfied with the NTSB's report on the super pancaking explanation for the speed of the towers collapse. Perhaps it is emotional, but it is less convincing than many other of their findings from plane crashes and the like. What always puzzled me is why the building was so quick to be disposed of instead of what they do on planes; reconstruct it and examine. Perhaps the scale was to great or the fall and subsequent stack of it made reconstruction impossible, but it always left a bad taste in my mouth. Perhaps all the misgivings that I have they share as well, and instead of letting that foster a share of doubt and mystery, they have gone the other direction and made positive assertions of conspiracy. My guess is people don't like doubt, at all. It drives the theist to make claims of a God, it drives some atheists to make the claim of no God. People can't say, "I don't know and I don't know that the truth is ever knowable" doesn't sit well with the bulk of humanity, even those who would consider themselves the elite of intellectuals, perhaps even them the most.

At any rate, I would watch this once. Depending on the tone of the first 20 mins would determine if I watched it the whole way through. I was forced to watch that Ben Stine movie about creationism, and I hated it, but not nearly as much as I hated the show by Bill Maher (see elite of intellectuals above) about how dumb people that don't think like him are.

Will this be our generations Gulf of Tonkin, doubtful. Will it contain some meaningful doubts on a hasty and politically mired investigation, hopefully. Will there be more crazies than you can tolerate in one sitting, time will tell.

My friend's comments on the content itself:

I have never heard anyone be so full of shit before. Look at the NTSB site for their review of crashes. None of them are actually caused by 'co-pilot to afraid to speak up'. Most (almost 100%) are caused by parts failure or training error:

- using the aileron on an A320 like you would in a B767 . http://www.airdisaster.com/news/1004/26/news.shtml

- Birds flying in to the engine (Miracle on the Hudson)

- Entertainment system burning up (the new entertainment system they installed caught fire, smoldered, light the 'inflamable' fire protection on fire which burned so hot it melted the flight controls)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111

- Maintenance crew not putting an engine on right:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_191

- Shot down by russians:
http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/view_details.cgi?date=09011983®=HL7442&airline=Korean+Air+Lines

Also, Korean Airlines hasn't had a crash since 1999. Also, throughout the whole of the 90s (where malcom says they were the most dangerous airline) had 6 crashes. Whereas Aeroflot had 13 crashes, I mean, American Airlines (the airline not all american airlines) had 6 crashes from 1990 to 2001.

So basically this guy is using the recent plane crashes to sell his damn book. What a douchebag.

>> ^Psychologic:
I wonder how they would test whether you're driving "under the influence". They can check for metabolites, but I wonder if there is a good way to test for active THC in the blood.
Either way, I hope it passes. People will use it whether it is legal or not, but it would be nice to stop clogging the prisons with, and taking the money of, non-violent weed smokers. Taxes > Fines.


In 1990, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reported that 12.8% of those involved in fatal truck accidents showed signs of cannabis use in postmortem examination. However, that statistic is an unreliable indicator of the effects of cannabis on driving performance in a majority of those cases. A much larger NTSB study published in 1988 found that those drivers using only cannabis accounted for 2.2% of fatal accidents. That report concluded, “THC plays a relatively minor role in fatal traffic accidents as compared with alcohol.” - whole article, http://www.cannabismd.net/psychomotor-skills/

A subsequent NTSB investigation revealed that the operator violated the published CG limits of the dump truck.

JFK Jr. for one thing was flying too low over open water. Ask any pilot and you are supposed to be a lot higher then he was -- with enough altitude to be able to glide back to land. He wasn't. He also wasn't ILS rated and shouldn't have been flying.

This crash was very likely pilot error and will probably take about a year before the final NTSB report. It wasn't fuel or icing so likely pilot error in non-ideal weather conditions. Not clear if there was a problem with his plane but initial reports do not look that way. Look at it this way, people would be going nuts no matter what happened to him. He could have had a stroke, heart attack, car accident, anything and people would be going nuts. Just so you know Connell wasn't testifying anywhere. He wasn't cooperative when he did testify once for two hours.

Hate to say it, but I'm not impressed by the actions of the Captain.

"i tried to get up but it was like an invisible hand was holding me down"

Then they show him trying to get up with his seat belt on. Har.

Such a shame. Cabin is filling with acrid smoke from the bathroom and the breakers for the toilet are overloaded and won't reset. First officer wants to take a look and the captain is all, oh, alright, go ahead just quit bothering me.*


*(this is not an accurate accounting of events and schmawy is not an NTSB investigator)

*promote

segway snuff by the way, there is an NTSB report on this

the most specious claim is the part about the financial auditing office being hit. that is certainly speculation. however, every bit about the ntsb flight recorder data and reagan national beacon data is based on hard facts. but of course, facts can't really be trusted. where is farhad claiming that this is ridiculous and that it would require the largest conspiracy ever in the history of the world? and that people are profiting off of other people's misery? all without actually dealing with any of the facts presented? seriously, we need a true believer to offer "unbiased", righteous indignation and keep us all in line.

So you're suggesting that the flight recorder data that the NTSB released is not accurate? How so?

ntsb report: http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?ev_id=20051130X01914&ntsbno=DFW06CA016&akey=1

The 794-hour private pilot made an uneventful emergency landing on a public highway following a loss of engine power due to fuel starvation. Several attempts were made by the pilot to have the aircraft placed on a flatbed trailer and recovered to a suitable airport; however, the width of the trailer available for recovery was too narrow to accommodate the airplane's main landing gear. After several failed attempts to recover the airplane by ground, the pilot elected to fill the fuel tanks with 15 gallons of fuel and, in coordination with local law enforcement, attempt to takeoff from the private highway. Vehicular traffic was stopped in preparation of the airplane's takeoff from the highway. During the takeoff roll from the highway, the airplane's right wing collided with a side mirror of an 18-wheel truck and then struck the rear of an emergency vehicle. The collision with the vehicles made the airplane turn sharply to the right into a ditch, subsequently impacting trees.

Croce died at 30 yrs old, in a plane crash with the gentleman playing with him, Maury Muehleisen. Their plane did not clear a stand of pecan trees at the end of the runway. http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=84416&key=0

I tried to find an NTSB accident report for this, but there probably isn't one since it happened in international waters. I did find that this helicopter is for sale if anyone is interested.

2003 ENSTROM 480B For Sale by Connection Aviation - N480KP
Type: Turboprop
Make: ENSTROM
Model: 480B
Serial #: 5053
Registration #: N480KP
Year: 2003
Status: For Sale
Asking: Make Offer
Date Listed: 2/21/2006
AFTT: 260

Avionics
* ADF: King KR-87 w/RBI
* Communication Radios: King KY-96A
* Compass: Vertical card
* Radar Altimeter: King
* Transponder: King KT-76C Mode C

Addl Cockpit Equipment
* Crew Accessories: Provisions for Bose headsets
* General: Skyforce moving map w/terrain information, fuel flow computer

Exterior
* Colors: Black w/red
* General: Exterior is in very good condition as reported 02/21/06

Interior
* Carpet: Dark gray carpeting
* General: Custom black leather interior in very good condition as reported 02/21/06
* Seating: Seating w/cloth inserts

Maintenance
* Inspection: FAA Annual to September as reported 02/21/06.

Aircraft Features
* Damage History

Click here if interested.