From that first video, it appears to have blowed up real good midair, then broke apart.

I can't see the videos, thanks to crappy southwest asia internet, but I heard the audio a couple of days ago.

I fly a 414 from time to time. The one I fly has the RAM conversion and much better performance than a stock 414.

The 414 has the worst single engine performance of any of the 400 series Cessnas. Even worse than the 421, which has very poor single engine performance.

The 300 and 400 series twins also have some potentially complicated fuel systems which are not intuitive; using fuel from one tank returns the bypass to another(making it possible, during an engine-out situation, to run out of fuel and still have plenty on board, that can't be accessed).

Single-pilot in instrument conditions continues to be one of the more hazardous things one can do in an airplane. Loss of control due to disorientation takes less than a minute. The 400 series Cessnas with tip tanks, when full, tend to develop a rotation or an oscillation if not careful that can aid in a loss of control and make recovery harder. The tip tanks can put a lot more bending moment on the wing, if it's overstressed, too.

The 414 is pressurized. I've had explosive depressurization in the 400 series, and early models have had windshields blow out, though no AD exists for the problem.

Add to that the potential for problems flying in ice, the use of a Janitrol heater (known as the "flying bomb") and other potential gotchas, and the vacuum instrument powered airplanes use the world's cheapest manifold checkvalve which when failed, can cause total loss of vacuum when only one has actually failed. I've had that happen.

With so few details available for the 414 loss in question, it's impossible to say what happened. I'm sure details will emerge.

After reading your post, i’d Never want to set foot in that model.

Why? Most of that applies to any of the 300 or 400 series Cessnas. A lot of it is true of Pipers, too.

Most light twins have poor single-engine performance. Two engines exist for performance, but that's when both are running. Take one away, typically lose 80% or more of performance, and some airplanes like the 414 simply drift down.

The 414 isn't a bad airplane. One needs to know the limitations, the procedures, and how to fly it, and how to get the most out of it.

Single pilot instrument flying is some of the most demanding, highest workload flying you can do. Add to that the complexity of a light twin, and the potential for things to go wrong in the event of a power failure, propeller failure, system failure, electrical loss, pneumatic failure, etc, and it can quickly exceed one's capability to cope with the situation. Put a pilot who's just keeping up when everything is functioning properly, and add an abnormal or emergency situation, it can be a quick trip to disorientation, which can also happen when everything is functioning just fine.

The 414 has worse single engine performance than a 402? Seriously?

I did my Part 135 check out in a 402 with me, the Director of Ops, and an FAA observer in a temporary seat. That's it, no cargo, a light fuel load and an airplane stripped of all interior. At blue line at 4000 msl, I could not climb. In fact it was fly blue line, or descend. If the 414 is worse than that, that is truly spectacularly bad. I mean, it was an article of faith that flying freight, if you lost an engine, you were going to to do an unplanned landing/crash.

The B58 Baron on the other hand, oh I did love that plane.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Otto Pilot,

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
Why? Most of that applies to any of the 300 or 400 series Cessnas. A lot of it is true of Pipers, too.

Most light twins have poor single-engine performance. Two engines exist for performance, but that's when both are running. Take one away, typically lose 80% or more of performance, and some airplanes like the 414 simply drift down.

The 414 isn't a bad airplane. One needs to know the limitations, the procedures, and how to fly it, and how to get the most out of it.

Single pilot instrument flying is some of the most demanding, highest workload flying you can do. Add to that the complexity of a light twin, and the potential for things to go wrong in the event of a power failure, propeller failure, system failure, electrical loss, pneumatic failure, etc, and it can quickly exceed one's capability to cope with the situation. Put a pilot who's just keeping up when everything is functioning properly, and add an abnormal or emergency situation, it can be a quick trip to disorientation, which can also happen when everything is functioning just fine.

This is exactly why I sold my 56TC Baron. When I was flying it >200 hours annually, I felt I was on top of things single pilot IFR. When it fell to ~125 hour annually, I wasn't as sharp as I needed to be to be safe in emergency procedures. I still fly light twins, but VFR or IFR with a qualified check pilot.

Emergency procedures in a single are much, much easier :-)

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:

The 414 has the worst single engine performance of any of the 400 series Cessnas.

Have you flown a 411?

quote:

Originally posted by aileron:

56TC Baron

That airplane is the very definition of a bad-ass hot rod!

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by aileron:

56TC Baron

That airplane is the very definition of a bad-ass hot rod!

Yep, I once flew it to FL320; it had a single engine service ceiling above FL180 at full gross weight. Duke engines (380 HP per side) hung on the baby Baron airframe. Great fun, except at the gas pump and engine overhauls.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Collins:
Any thoughts that this may have been a suicide?

I see reports now that he had 4 pax with him, so I doubt it.

The plot thickens. Maybe.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...m_term=.ecfcc830b16d

Police: Pilot in fatal California crash had fake records

By John Antczak | AP February 5 at 9:06 PM
LOS ANGELES — The man piloting a small plane that broke apart over a Southern California neighborhood had false credentials identifying him as a retired Chicago police officer, authorities said Tuesday.

Antonio Pastini was killed when the twin-engine plane broke up shortly after takeoff and fell in pieces in Yorba Linda, igniting a fire in a home where four people died on Sunday. The cause of the crash has not been determined.

Pastini, 75, was initially identified as a retired officer but Chicago police said there were no records of him working for the department.

The credentials found at the crash site included false retirement papers and a police badge bearing the same number as a badge reported lost in 1978, Chicago police Officer Michelle Tannehill told the Orange County Register .

Orange County sheriff’s spokeswoman Carrie Braun said the credentials were not legitimate but the pilot was indeed Pastini. The victims inside the home have yet to be publicly identified.

Pastini’s daughter, Julia Ackley, said her father’s birth name was Jordan Isaacson, but she didn’t say why he changed it. She wouldn’t address the police credentials.

“I’d prefer not to comment, and let the investigators do their job,” Ackley told KABC-TV. “My father is exactly who he said he was.”

She said he was a restaurant owner and an experienced pilot who flew regularly from his home in Nevada to visit family in California.

Aviation safety experts cautioned against drawing early conclusions about the cause of the crash.

“At this stage you don’t make assumptions. You let the evidence lead you where it leads you,” said John Cox, a former commercial pilot and a veteran crash investigator who is head of the consulting firm Safety Operating Systems.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators have been collecting parts of the aircraft, the plane’s records and information about Pastini, who was described as a commercial pilot with an instrument flight rating.

Preliminary information showed the plane took off around 1:35 p.m. Sunday from Fullerton Municipal Airport, made a left turn and climbed to an altitude of 7,800 feet (2,377 meters) before starting to descend over Yorba Linda.

Weather was intermittently rainy across Southern California during the weekend, but specific conditions encountered by the flight were not immediately known.

Observers said the plane initially appeared intact when it fell through a cloud ceiling at an altitude of about 2,000 to 3,000 feet (600 to 900 meters), investigator Maja Smith said.

“Witnesses say that they saw the airplane coming out of a cloud at a very high speed before parts of the airplane such as tail and subsequently wings starting to break off,” she said.

The Cessna 414A has a good reputation, said Cox, who said he has flown similar Cessnas since the 1970s. In-flight breakups are uncommon, and causes can range from metal fatigue to instrument failure and forces induced by the pilot, he said.

He said the breakup may have begun earlier than was apparent to the witnesses.

“Small pieces may have come off that are leading up to the cataclysmic breakup that people see. You need to make sure that the airplane was fully intact when they first see it,” he said. “As an investigator you have to be careful about that.”

Losing control of an airplane can also lead to a breakup, Cox said.

One of the first things that might fail in that situation, he said, is a horizontal stabilizer — the structures that look like small wings on the tail.

“Once one of them comes off the loads then on the airplane will exceed what it can then withstand and other pieces will fail due to structural overload,” Cox said.

Photos of the wreck showing the outer portions of the wings apparently snapped off are consistent with the type of forces wings are subjected to with the loss of one or more horizontal stabilizers and when the airplane loses aerodynamic balance, he said.

Video showing puffs of smoke erupting in the sky as the plane fell were consistent with an in-flight breakup rather than an in-flight fire aboard the plane, Cox said

Witnesses described the plane as sounding like a missile or a racing motorcycle. Cox said that could be the result of the engines no longer being under control.

___

Associated Press journalists Christopher Weber, Amanda Lee Myers and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.

Yes, now I wonder how much of his piloting was made up? Was he Instrument qualified & current? How much maintenance on the plane was ‘pencil-whipped’?

If he was playing games to bad he didn’t go without the fatalities on the ground.

quote:

Originally posted by Otto Pilot:
The 414 has worse single engine performance than a 402? Seriously?

Yes, it does. Run the numbers.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Have you flown a 411?

Yes. It was from the 411 that the 401 and 402 were developed, and the pressurized version of the 411 is the 421. The 421, being heavier, has worse single engine performance.

The 414 has worse single engine performance than the 421.

I'm thinking that the 75 year old guy had a heart attack or other serious medical condition and leaned forward on the controls.

The "more to the story" will be interesting if it comes out. Sounds like maybe the daughter knows but is not talking publicly.

Not sure how it plays with the plane crash. But the lying about being a cop is interesting. Getting a pension from CPD?

Maybe CPD-Sig has some info? Surely there is scuttlebutt in "the city"?

Maybe a "retired CI" of "the unit" still on the payroll? Would explain being able to afford a private plane

Looking at the video now; it's distant and not clear, but there appears to be rotation. The high rate of descent is remarkable for an aircraft of that type. The altitude at which the visible separation occurs, first with smoke then a series of explosions and burns, is far too low to effect any recovery; the aircraft was going to impact the ground at that point regardless of what else may have occurred. The failure appears to occur at some point around 1,000' above the ground.

A stall-spin scenario, which would be typical of one of two profiles for departure from controlled flight, would involve a much lower rate of descent. The other type of departure, which could be the result of disorientation or a mechanical failure, is sometimes referred to as a "graveyard spiral."

A graveyard spiral is a steep turning descent which builds up speed to and beyond the maximum design speed limits for the aircraft, and can incur very high loads on the airframe. The tendency of a pilot in this situation is to attempt arresting the descent by pulling back on the controls. Pulling back on the stick or control column normally raises the nose. In a steep, spiraling bank, however, it has the effect of loading the wings, and can easily break them.

Wings contain fuel tanks, as do the engine nacelles and tip tanks on the 414. If these are ruptured, the result would be much like what one sees in the picture. There are a number of other possibilities, too. There's little point speculating on which or what they might be, until an investigation is done.

Occams Razor suggests that the most simple answer is often the most correct; a departure from controlled flight in instrument conditions nearly always points very strongly to pilot disorientation.

For a long time, the experimental study referred to as "178 seconds to live" has been cited and quoted when referring to loss of control following entering instrument conditions. It refers to an experiment done many years ago by the University of Illinois by placing pilots of all experience levels in a simulations and timing the period before they lost control. The average was reported as 178 seconds.

It's been redone as a video and various articles for years. In fairness and disclosure, the experiment was in 1954, and was done in a Bonanza that lacked an attitude indicator. 20 students were sampled, from very low time through a bit over 1,500 hours. None had instrument ratings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...nue=17&v=b7t4IR-3mSo

Looking more like suicide.

“The pilot who died in the cockpit of a small plane that crashed into a California home and killed a family of four had fake police credentials on him.
…
The development comes as DailyMail.com discovered a series of cryptic Facebook posts shared on Pastini's profile in the weeks leading up to the tragic crash.

Four days before the crash on January 31, in what would be Pastini's final post, he eerily told his 'friends' that this would be the last time he ever opened Facebook again…”

https://mol.im/a/6673667

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
Looking more like suicide.

“The pilot who died in the cockpit of a small plane that crashed into a California home and killed a family of four had fake police credentials on him.
…
The development comes as DailyMail.com discovered a series of cryptic Facebook posts shared on Pastini's profile in the weeks leading up to the tragic crash.

Four days before the crash on January 31, in what would be Pastini's final post, he eerily told his 'friends' that this would be the last time he ever opened Facebook again…”

https://mol.im
/a/6673667

I went to the link and read the posts. Maybe my definition of "cryptic" is different than others but I don't see anything that strange.

This is the whole post that they took a snippet of: He wrote: 'No need for any response. FB takes your time away. Posts and comments are usually BS! I am signing off and deleting my account as of this post. My friends can messenger me, text me, or call me. If that is too difficult, you were never my friend to start with. This is the last post and last time I will open FB.'

They took the last sentence by itself and took it out of context. Seems to me he was just frustrated with the fake people on social media, how many people on this site have done the same thing?

One other post says "how far is far, far away?" You know, like the opening scrolling from Star Wars? There are certainly a lot of questions that have come from this but to jump to the conclusion that it was suicide seems quite a leap to me at this point.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:

quote:

Originally posted by Otto Pilot:
The 414 has worse single engine performance than a 402? Seriously?

Yes, it does. Run the numbers.

I can't. That's why I asked you the question in the first place. LOL. If I could run the numbers I would have. It's been 20 years since I flew the 402.

The only numbers I worry about these days are for the 767 and all the variants of that beast that we fly.

I'm not flying the 402 at the moment, either.