Quote:
Originally Posted by jrh  I'll play devil's advocate here for a minute.
It's ridiculous that a CFI/ATP overloaded a plane and got in to an accident, but I believe there is a lot more to the accident than a simple, "The plane was overweight and fell out of the sky."
Although I've never flown a Cessna over gross weight, I know they are extremely stable, forgiving platforms. I have no doubt a 172S could stay in the air with an extra 250 pounds in it. I'm betting the CFI/ATP at the controls knew it, too.
The extra weight certainly started the accident chain, but I can almost guarantee that distractions and maybe pressure to complete whatever mission they were on were also contributing factors.
My point is that the solution for aspiring pilots is not a clear cut "don't overload a plane and you won't get in to an accident." Even if they had been within weight limits, the accident still might have happened, given the same distractions and pressures on the pilot. I hope people see the bigger picture of problems here beyond a simple carelessness with weight and balance computations. |
True indeed, we know that accidents are almost always a chain of events. Not to oversimplify it, but had the flight been scrapped becuase of the extra weight, there would not have been 4 deaths.
It only takes one step to break the chain and that did not happen here. If they left within weight/cg an accident MAY have still occurred, but this exact incident would not have happened.