AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - May 2020 - T-15

and alerted emergency services, but by
the time first responders located the
scene most of the cockpit and much of
the rest of the fuselage and wings had
been consumed by fire. The pilot and his
only passenger (his wife) were killed,
their deaths attributed to "multiple traumatic and thermal injuries."
The wreckage was found just beyond
several broken trees less than a quarter
mile from the last radar hit. The angle of
impact was estimated at 60 degrees nosedown, and the debris field was oriented
almost exactly due north (358 degrees).
The landing gear was retracted but the
flaps were still in their landing configuration, extended 34 degrees. The pattern of
damage to the fan discs indicated that the
engine was producing power at impact, but
the severity of fire damage made it impossible to examine the avionics or determine
the position of the cockpit switches.

display. It was also equipped with standby
attitude instruments.
The airport manager told the NTSB's
investigators about an earlier conversation he'd had with the TBM's owner and
pilot. The pilot recounted that during an
ILS approach in marginal VFR the previous
autumn, the LCD displays had gone black
just a few miles from the airport, disconnecting the autopilot. The pilot had been
unable to contact ATC, and instead used
ForeFlight on his iPad to navigate back to
the northeast and fly the approach again,
this time successfully. While he'd told the
airport manager that he planned to have an
avionics shop troubleshoot the failure, the
airplane's logs held no record of any avionics work having been performed. The
possibility of a panel failure during this
approach could not be assessed because of
the severity of the crash damage.

IN THE PANEL

The NTSB officially attributed the accident
to spatial disorientation in low visibility and turbulence, noting in the body of
the report that investigators lacked the
evidence to assess the role of a possible

ON THE RECORD

The airplane had been retrofitted with a
Garmin G600 avionics package featuring
dual 6.5-inch-diagonal LCD screens for the
primary flight display and multifunction

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avionics failure. The apparent turn toward
the northeast was consistent with the airport manager's account of the earlier
instrument failure, but not necessarily
inconsistent with spatial disorientation
as a principal cause. The 71-year-old pilot
held commercial privileges for single- and
multiengine airplanes and single-engine
seaplanes and had logged 4,154 hours total
time. He had flown the accident airplane
for 90 to 100 hours. His career instrument
experience was not reported.
Regardless of his experience and currency, the decision to fly into a howling
winter storm should not have been taken
lightly. The available information doesn't
tell us whether this pilot neglected his preflight briefing responsibilities, overestimated
his skills, or simply suffered an equipment
failure at the worst possible time. It does
reinforce that the reduced margin for error
in difficult weather is reason to stamp out all
other sources of uncertainty-or reschedule
the flight if that cannot be done.
AOPA
DAVID JACK KENNY is an airline transport
pilot and freelance aviation writer living in
Frederick, Maryland.

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AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - May 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - May 2020