It’s tough to look past the requirement for a second “rated” pilot. If that means what I think it means which the captain certainly would have known he was flying in a scenario that would lead to certificate action if he was investigated.

This alone COULD HAVE influenced his decision to stay VFR and return to the original field thereby ensuring nobody ever looked into the flight. Declare an emergency go into Charlotte totally different story.

It’s the old adage, pilots are more afraid of the crash they survive than the one that kills them. Potentially making bad bad decisions because he doesn’t want any spotlight on his actions which appear to be a violation of his making.

Armchair quarterback. You lose all your instruments let the other guy with good instruments fly. Except he isn’t rated or qualified probably. Ok, then fly cross cockpit or worst case use known pitch and power settings to climb straight ahead while declaring an emergency and asking for vectors to a nice stable ILS where you also can fly using known pitch/power settings. But the FAA will investigate that shit and you will have certificate action on your license. Which I gotta think played a part in decision making. None of those malfunctions was going to kill anybody immediately.

Tragic and avoidable.

There are many issues here as to why little things snowballed and facilitated this accident. The captain was very experienced, but failed to perform without falling back on proper and proven procedures. Lack of checklists, unqualified person acting as SIC, failure to turn the generators on. I am just dumbfounded at the many mistakes. I have flown with captain "I got this", or " You don't understand, I've been doing this a long time" Eventually it catches up with them and this kind of event happens. A big ego will kill you given enough time.

From what I read, what killed these people was pilot error. The same as the majority of aircraft accidents.

As the old saying goes,"Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect."

The few videos I watched this morning seemed to indicate neither pilot setting in the front were qualified for this model of the Cessna Citation. If true that would go a long ways to explaining the lapses both were having.

The NTSB report linked on page one says otherwise.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
The NTSB report linked on page one says otherwise.

This is one of the videos I watched. The pilot was rated for second seat. His son was no where near qualified in this aircraft.

quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:
The few videos I watched this morning seemed to indicate neither pilot setting in the front were qualified for this model of the Cessna Citation. ,,,

The right seat guy was clearly NOT qualified. The left seat guy ("pilot" in the text below) was qualified in the Citation but also needed a qualified person in the right seat. That's how Juan Browne explained it.

From the NTSB:

The pilot had type ratings for the A-320, A-330, A-350, B-737, B-757, B-767, CE-500, and DC-10. As part of the pilot’s CE-500 type rating, he had the limitation “CE-500 Second in Command Required.” The pilot reported civil flight experience that included 17,000 total and 400 hours in the last six months as of his last first-class medical application dated April 29, 2025.

quote:

Originally posted by mojojojo:
From what I read, what killed these people was pilot error. The same as the majority of aircraft accidents.

As the old saying goes,"Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect."

That old saying is one of my favorite posters. The saying is at the bottom, captioning the picture of the Curtis JN-4 Jenny stuffed in what appears to be the only tree in a flat field.

Airplanes do occasionally have mechanical problems, but it seems like in perhaps half of those the crash is a result of the pilot either not handling the problem correctly (ie the L1011 dumped in the Everglades because the crew ran it into the ground worrying about the gear indication light that wouldn’t come on because the bulb had died and not noticing that the autopilot altitude hold had kicked off) or due to poor judgement or poor preflight taking off with an aircraft problem that is either known or should have been.

There are occasionally problems that the pilot(s) couldn’t have been expected to see coming and really couldn’t have done much, if anything to salvage the situation (Concorde’s last flight, UPS 2976), but these seem to be more the exception than the rule.

The NTSB report says the kid was not qualified to be SIC, but does not say the same about Biffle. 14 CFR 61.55(a) says SIC has to "(1) Holds at least a private pilot certificate with the appropriate category and class rating". The category would be airplane, but would the class rating really just be mutliengine-land? It seems like he met the other requirements, (2) - (4), under (a).

I don't know if he met (b) - (j), but is it possible he did? He had 3,500 hours of which 65 were in the six months prior to the crash. I can't seem to find what was he flying to get those hours.

The pilot may not have been qualified for the left seat after all. A pal who flies left seat in cargo 747s explained it to me via text, but I got confused.

I've read more online and seems many are trying to make excuses or suggesting more was wrong with the plane than it appears from this report (maybe because Biffle was popular, who knows).

I've been out of the cockpit a long time now but I've known and flown with pilots - highly professional, competent, well-trained pilots - who have killed themselves because they erred.

I'm confident that the final NTSB finding will be pilot error (most aircraft accidents are). Regardless of the reasons (such as failing to start the generators after engine start thus resulting in partial electrical failures), the bottom line is he didn't fly the aircraft to touchdown, stalled it or thereabouts on short final, and killed himself, his son, and 5 others. Tragic and I suspect completely avoidable.

I can't speak for how the other military branches or airlines train their pilots, but in Naval aviation the axiom "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" is drilled home relentlessly. There's a reason for the order of priorities. If you don't do the first one the other two are irrelevant.

As much as many would want and hope it to be some other factor beyond his control, it appears he took a minor malfunction and turned it into a fatal crash.

Just my $.02

quote:

Originally posted by mojojojo:
I can't speak for how the other military branches or airlines train their pilots, but in Naval aviation the axiom "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" is drilled home relentlessly. There's a reason for the order of priorities. If you don't do the first one the other two are irrelevant.

As much as many would want and hope it to be some other factor beyond his control, it appears he took a minor malfunction and turned it into a fatal crash.

Just my $.02

This guy's age and experience suggests to me he was very familiar with old fashioned aviating. I can't find a listing of his type ratings but he had quite a few. He certainly did a lot of flying by the numbers during his career, so he should have been able to set a decent power setting for each flap setting as they returned to the field. Loss of reliable altitude information might have been a bit of a challenge, but assuming there was an iced over pitot static system he should have had radar altimetry if the electrical problem had been resolved.

Modern training has a different flavor these days, and the newest iteration of aircraft are wholly dependent on the FMS. It instills a different mindset, and it forces significant task attention to The Box in a return to field. Idk how updated this accident aircraft was, but it was old enough where hand flying without anything but the standby attitude indicator, engine indications, and eyeballs should be quite doable.