My guess is 95% pilot distraction and 5% actual issue. There was a commuter plane of some kind that had the whole air-stair door open in flight. The FO went back to check on it and fell out of the airplane. The pilot thought someone would be fishing him out of the Atlantic, but when he landed the poor guy was trailing along behind the plane hanging onto the stairs. Even THAT didn’t wreck the plane.
Another NTSB report that shows you what exactly not to do.
Turbine conversion Bonanzas costs lots of money but the pilot in this crash did not invest sufficient time for much needed training that’s absolutely necessary to become safe.
Hopefully everyone recovers from the ordeal.
That was quite a test for the spouse
Why always blame the pilot? Panicked passenger grabs the yoke, stands on the pedals, now you’re both screaming as the AC plummets toward its impact crater. The pilot might have actually saved this situation and the passengers all survived.
What a refreshingly nice thing to say. Unfortunately… Ready FIRE aim is the mantra when discussing airplane crashes however, so… oh well.
Maybe more than one incident of copilot falling out of the airplane. The one that I know of landed at Soldberg NJ King Air. Copilot went back to check the door and wound up falling out. He got his arm around the door cable and somehow survived the landing. At least 40 years ago.
I know of two cases of loss of control during aerobatic training caused by trainee holding full rudder input. One was apparently a medical event and the trainee eventually released the rudder input.
Very early in my career I had a event with a passenger in right seat of Aztec who threatened to “pull the yoke all the way back” He placed his hand on the yoke but never followed up on his threat. He removed his hand and behaved for the rest of the flight.
My DE for my CFI ride told me if a student panicked, they would hold on to the yoke for dear life and the best thing to do was karate-chop them in the throat.
Cold winter night, trainee in the left seat of an Aztec. I popped the door on takeoff . Trainee leaned forward a bit an with both hands on the yoke flew around the pattern and landed. Clearing the runway he said “I though a wing came off and you were getting out”. We probably averaged once a month a right seat passenger grabbing the handle on takeoff and opening the door.
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