Originally published at: Pilot Dodged Turtle Just Before Fatal Crash - AVweb
Not clear if that was a factor in the accident.
God bless and grant restful peace to this Stinson pilot for “lifting a wheel”. Automobile drivers should be so sensitive but that’s probably too much to hope for.
What he did was, of course, wrong. This is like what my cousin did when driving a car one time. He swerved to avoid a very small object on the highway and rolled his car multiple times. My cousin walked away unhurt, but the idea is the same— better to plow over the small object than swerve in a fast moving vehicle and crash. I had more than one pilot get excited about birds near the runway. Sparrow-sized birds. One guy yanked tge Cessna 172 upward, stall horn on, to avoid the little birs, the other guy, on short final, exclaimed loudly “BIRDS!” when we were on short final. In a jet. As we taxiird in, I told him to not ever do that—shout, basically, about sparrows. “Why did you do that?” I asked him. He said one time he was flying and they hit a bird and then later they saw a mark on the airplane. Augh!!
You should be willing to bury a hatchet in your head before you hit a turtle driving anything. It’s the right logic for our society today. Save the turtles, kill the humans…
Lets see what the plane does after hitting a large turtle on a grass or paved runway. These things are heavy and hard. The obviously botched go-around is what puzzles me. Why continue the approach? Why not avoid the turtle to either side? Why a go-around?
Years ago in Quebec young woman was convicted of a serious crime after a driver did not stop for her stationary car on a highway so was injured - she had stopped to shoo ducks or such out of her path.
Yesterday north of Victoria BC a driver stopped when s/he saw a dead otter on side of highway. Bang! Bang! Bang! …
If you touch down a Stinson about 1400 feet down a 2424-foot runway, you already have a problem.
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One lucky turtle… One unskilled pilot.
I think I would have asked the Unicom operator, if he was not too busy, to walk out on the runway and remove the turtle.
I agree, landing long and an attempted go around caused the accident not the turtle.
Can’t stop in 1,000. feet?
(Side note, AvWeb’s photo does not look like a Stinson 108..
Stinson 108 - Wikipedia
What a horrible outcome. Most pilots I think would try to avoid hitting the turtle, deer, coyotes, pets, birds and such. Possible loss of control must be uppermost when attempting something like this we can all agree. The key here is to be hard wired for a go-around when things don’t look right or you’re warned of an issue. Hindsight is 20-20 but this can present itself to any of us with little or no notice. A sad and sobering situation.
Agree A.J. If I read the preliminary report correctly this pilot took off downwind with a 5 knot penalty then came around to land with the same 5 knot tailwind on a 2400 ft. runway. Why?