This fatal accident is famous on aviation media especially in the US. The pilot was a high social media profile one: TNFlygirl. A large Youtube channel with many videos. The relevant videos have since been taken down.
Here is a recent commentary on it
and here is a commentary on another flight (non accident) a year earlier
It is difficult to understand how this pilot got this far.
I saw one video comment yesterday of one of her flights one years ago. On a short flight between 2 aerodromes distancing about 50 nm, with a direct track of 92 degrees, in the first 20 minutes she was completely lost, with her dad, a non-pilot having a say on it and advising her, completely on opposite direction, where to go.
Before the accident, she took some IFR lessons, with a flight instructor that should never allow her to conduct any more flights. Truth to be said, the CFI is largely to blame not to have stopped her to flight.
The loss of control on her accident, with altitude fluctuations for 40 min is a clear indicative of the previous shortfalls seen on previous videos. It was an accident waiting to happen. Surreal to say the least.
Well that’s America, land of freedom and youtube.
I have to admit, why a pilot could publish such a shamefull video? You can share errors, but here it’s more showing your incapacity and risky behaviour. We will never know unfortunately.
Guys – it is obvious why that channel was so popular 
Not sure whether this is just the US; I have seen plenty of videos over the years where somebody got nearly killed, plus some from crashes showing a fair bit of blood and stuff… It’s always amazing why people post them, especially if they show injured passengers, although without a doubt some were uploaded by a passenger and prob100 without the pilot’s consent. This is a part of it. All her flying videos seem to have disappeared but she shows 20k followers and feeding that many admirers probably does get a bit addictive.
But also this shows that if you own your plane and operate outside any “mentoring” system you can carry on for a long time nearly killing yourself. Ask any instructor who does revalidations and he will tell you stories about some aircraft owners.
Peter wrote:
Guys – it is obvious why that channel was so popular
Yeah. Also her relative incompetence probably made her videos more compelling, while a more proficient and methodical pilot would feel colder and more formal. There’s also arguably some damsel in distress dynamic going on (Girl makes mistake, 100 guys rush in to say “Hey you should try like this” etc.).
I could swear there was already a topic on this accident ! It’s tragic for sure, but it’s also (potentially falsely) reassuring for the pilots taking their proficiency and associated risks a little more seriously.
Peter wrote:
But also this shows that if you own your plane and operate outside any “mentoring” system you can carry on for a long time nearly killing yourself. Ask any instructor who does revalidations and he will tell you stories about some aircraft owners.
But she flew with instructors regularly, I guess not one of them had the courage and/or the inclination to speak up?
Peter wrote:
It is difficult to understand how this pilot got this far.
“..this pilot got this far”.. ??
What do mean by that? She did her PPL license and was free to roam around like everybody else! Or is it something else. One could certainly question if her performance where within the limits to pass a license skills test – but then again, maybe on the day she did.
I don´t have the patience to watch her videos, but the brief time spent on looking at the ones in front of me, shows me an absolute ignorant pilot operating an aircraft in all the wrong ways. I´m not going to put any blame – since I don´t know much about this case – but wow, what a performance!
She was not a focused pilot, and certainly didn’t appear to have root-gut-skills in flying.
Remaining in her original aircraft, dropping all the YouTube BS, she may have got better.
I believe she was never taught correctly because her attitude was too flaky.
Moving with all of that BS, to the Debonair was always a recipe for trouble.
She possibly got her PPL as a below par pilot but had been around for a long time just skimming along, so eventually got signed off.
I saw several of her videos before the actual accident and was alway ‘mouth open’ !
IMHO It wasn’t the AP that brought her down, it was a spectacular lack of fundamental flying skills and attitude/focus. Some of which may have indicated that she wasn’t suited to flying.
I genuinely believe it’s not for everyone. A certain amount of personal discipline is essential.
Good grief. Just watched the annotated video. I know no pilot should ever say “I would never do that” but this is about as close as it gets.
The video I saw, she lack basic skills like following a magnetic track and keeping altitude. At some point, she turned off the GNS430 and does not have a clue how to turn it on.
Again, 20 minutes completely lost right after take off when the only thing required was a 90 degree right turn to follow a magnetic track of 92 degree, that is a basic skill even for a flysim guy, and probably one of the first things one learns on FS2004 Rod Machado classes, and the basics of PPL Navigation.
The other additional problem is not to know the systems onboard. The lack of knowledge of the AP was notorious, to a point that she was asking dad to help help to disengage the AP on the circuit break, fortunately he didn’t found the place.
Looking into the track reports of the accident, for 40 minutes she was unable to maintain altitude under a stable in route flight parameters, with altitude and speed variations consistent with try and error operation of the AP.
The number of videos and views, I have to confess that I watch a considerable number of them right after the accident, first for curiosity and disbelieve, after to see if I could identify myself with any wrong doing (not on legal parameters but complacency). I did.
