I knew Dave H on a social level. Notwithstanding today’s verdict and that singular event, he is a very competent and skilled pilot. He’s a nice guy to have a coffee with and has been on some epic flights. He was a sales pilot for Piper Germany and had lots to contribute to any conversation. Just if he is reading this thread, now or at any time in the future it would be nice to see someone say, I know that man and he’s not all the media would like you to believe. No more than Andy Hill, he made a mistake and will carry the burden of that forevermore.
I’m not taking any impression of him from the media. However from the evidence presented in court it’s quite clear that he operated illegal charter, made a business out of doing so (rather than this being a one-off event), and tried to hush it all up after the crash.
I think there’s a difference (albeit a large grey area) between ‘mistakes’ and conscious decisions to flout the law in a fairly major way. Perhaps he’d really started to normalise operating like this in his own mind, because he didn’t take the usual precautions taken by those flouting the rules – leave no written record anywhere.
That said, I’m disappointed that there has been little focus on the fact that the actual cause of the crash – CO poisoning due to an exhaust leak – had nothing to do with anyone’s paperwork or qualifications and would still have happened even if the operator had had an AOC and the pilot a CPL/IR.
Graham wrote:
That said, I’m disappointed that there has been little focus on the fact that the actual cause of the crash – CO poisoning due to an exhaust leak – had nothing to do with anyone’s paperwork or qualifications and would still have happened even if the operator had had an AOC and the pilot a CPL/IR.
That is apparently to be taken into account during the coroner’s inquest.
Graham wrote:
That said, I’m disappointed that there has been little focus on the fact that the actual cause of the crash – CO poisoning due to an exhaust leak – had nothing to do with anyone’s paperwork or qualifications and would still have happened even if the operator had had an AOC and the pilot a CPL/IR.
I do not fully agree:
- In an AOC this flight simply would not have happened with this aircraft type. An AOC would have gone with a turbine or multi engine piston plane or probably a twin jet.
- A piston PA46 is nearly immune to CO poisoning. The only realistic scenario is if you fly with an actively depressurized cabin. I know nobody with proper PA46 training who would do this and with a properly IR rated pilot flying in the flight levels the cabin alarm would have gone on or the cabin would have been pressurized and safe from CO.
I agree.
It is inexplicable that the wreckage wasn’t raised. Surely, among the 8 digit insurance numbers involved, somebody could scrape up enough small change to retrieve the wreckage and examine the exhaust? What a coroner can do with this, that isn’t totally useless speculation typical of GA crash reports, could be written on the back of a fag packet.
AOC charter work has been routinely done in totally shagged out piston twins which only just hung together, but were legal because they had 2 engines and a signature.
As with most crashes, a number of holes in the cheese had to line up:
Why this hugely valuable “payload” was not transported in bizjets is a really good question. Surely there were reasons. The customers have so much money they can buy a new Bentley every month. The ~5k-10k cost of a bizjet flight is totally negligible.
or the cabin would have been pressurized and safe from CO
You can easily still get CO either via the heat exchanger or in some types if you use alternate air due to icing. The former due to poor maintenance, the latter is just due to the design.
In any event we don’t know if the cabin was pressurised or not? Pressurisation also works at low altitudes, basically keeping the cabin altitude at sea level
RobertL18C wrote:
In any event we don’t know if the cabin was pressurised or not?
There is a big control you have to pull to make CO ingress a possibility. I bet it is still stuck in its position.
RobertL18C wrote:
You can easily still get CO either via the heat exchanger
The piston PA46 has got very poor heating because: The air comes from outside. Then it goes along the right exhaust like on every other planes. But then when the cabin is pressurized it goes into a second heat exchanger where this heated air passes along the pressurized air coming from the turbos. So to get CO in the cabin from the exhaust heat exchanger first the exhaust exchanger must be broken, then that second exchanger must be broken and if the second one is broken the air coming from the turbos comes at higher pressure so the air would pobably leak the other way away from the cabin.
The result of this is very poor heating performance but it makes it nearly impossible to get CO in the cabin.
Only if you pull a big control in the cockpit the air from the exhaust exchanger is ducted directly to the cabin like in most other piston singles and the compressed air from the turbos gets dumped. Some rare PA46 pilots recommend this to heat up the cabin in the winter at low level with the obvious added risks.
RobertL18C wrote:
in some types if you use alternate air due to icing.
On the PA46 the alternate air comes from very far forward. You never know but it is very unlikely to suck in exhaust air. The only possibility would be a major leak in the exhaust before the turbos close ot the front 2 or 4 cylinders. We had that happen once and it catches the pilots attention. Manifold pressure goes down and it makes a horrible noise.
So as a bottom line it is very likely the pilot flew with the cabin control pulled. I have several 100h in piston PA46 and I did not fly a single minute with this control pulled. So I fear there was some major misunderstanding on how this system works :-(
Sebastian_G wrote:
I do not fully agree:
- In an AOC this flight simply would not have happened with this aircraft type. An AOC would have gone with a turbine or multi engine piston plane or probably a twin jet.
- A piston PA46 is nearly immune to CO poisoning. The only realistic scenario is if you fly with an actively depressurized cabin. I know nobody with proper PA46 training who would do this and with a properly IR rated pilot flying in the flight levels the cabin alarm would have gone on or the cabin would have been pressurized and safe from CO.
Yes that’s all valid, but it’s basically saying that if all the appropriate paperwork had been in place then the flight would not have happened – at least not in the way that it did. It’s following the logic of the point @Peter often makes which is that you can always reduce risk by reducing activity.
My point is that a flight happened (for better or worse) and the immediate cause of the crash was CO poisoning. CO is poisonous to everyone, no matter how well qualified. If the CO hadn’t leaked, they’d have been fine – even without the paperwork.
Peter wrote:
Why this hugely valuable “payload” was not transported in bizjets is a really good question. Surely there were reasons. The customers have so much money they can buy a new Bentley every month. The ~5k-10k cost of a bizjet flight is totally negligible.
I believe the way the football business works is that the agent gets their cut, X%, but out of that has to, whether contractually or just to keep everyone happy, cover all the incidental costs of the deal. A bit like a ferry flight, where you get paid a fixed sum out of which you have to cover the costs of doing the job and pay yourself. So there is always an incentive to keep the costs to a minimum. 10k spent on a bizjet flight would have been 10k less in the agent’s pocket.
WilliamF wrote:
I knew Dave H on a social level. Notwithstanding today’s verdict and that singular event, he is a very competent and skilled pilot. He’s a nice guy to have a coffee with and has been on some epic flights
I’ve known a few people who I’ve liked on a social level, and are also skilled pilots. But rather morally flexible. I can’t comment on the person in this case, but for example the guy who used to own the hangar next to mine I’d never, ever do business with him despite how nice he was to chat to when we were out flying due to his let’s say “moral flexibility”. I’ve also known other characters who have been in the dodgy charter business. They were nice people too, but I’d never get in one of their planes.
Graham wrote:
My point is that a flight happened (for better or worse) and the immediate cause of the crash was CO poisoning. CO is poisonous to everyone, no matter how well qualified. If the CO hadn’t leaked, they’d have been fine – even without the paperwork.
Well, another argument is that if he had flown high (in Class A, IFR) with pressurisation ON, it would not have happened.
Just like if someone is scud running under the low cloud due to no IR and hits the ground because their engine has failed and they did not have time to react – too low.
All of this is about risk management and there is no “non-controversial” answer.
