Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Cessna 172S Skyhawk SP, N2476Y: Fatal accident occurred October 16, 2022 at Statesboro–Bulloch County Airport (KTBR), Georgia

Federal Aviation Administration / Flight Standards District Office; Atlanta, Georgia

Aircraft landed, taxied to the ramp, pilot exited and was struck by the propeller. 

American Aviation Inc


Date: 17-OCT-22
Time: 00:19:00Z
Regis#: N2476Y
Aircraft Make: CESSNA
Aircraft Model: 172
Event Type: ACCIDENT
Highest Injury: FATAL
Total Fatal: 1
Aircraft Missing: No
Damage: UNKNOWN
Activity: PERSONAL
Flight Phase: TAXI (TXI)
Operation: 91
City: STATESBORO
State: GEORGIA

Those who may have information that might be relevant to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation may contact them by email witness@ntsb.gov, and any friends and family who want to contact investigators about the accident should email assistance@ntsb.gov. You can also call the NTSB Response Operations Center at 844-373-9922 or 202-314-6290. 

39 comments:

  1. People must fear propellers. It is important. They can and will kill you instantly. Pilots should drive this obvious fact home.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agreed. I posted a comment about including the Propeller in the SAFETY briefing, something I always brief all passengers on; however, seems it was deleted. Not sure why people will learn otherwise.

      Delete
    2. I’m curious to understand - do you think people don’t fear propellers?

      Non-pilot rated passengers exited a running aircraft. AT NIGHT. A running prop is invisible in the daytime, let alone night. There is also a lot of noise and wind. There’s seldom a good reason for deplaning (or enplaning) a running aircraft, save for special operations and situations. It sure seems like a failure of the flight crew to stop the engine (quick turn around to drop off their friends?), not that PAX don’t respect propellers…

      Delete
  2. "Nobody is really at fault or anything". Really! The PIC is at fault.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Maybe he felt the date didn’t go well

    ReplyDelete
  4. Why did PIC allow passengers to get out before engine shut down? Insurance company may not pay claims if policy forbids PIC from allowing passengers to get out with engine running . Lawyers need to check policy language carefully. Deep pockets attract lawyers .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Esp.at night with non pilots...

      Delete
    2. The school with that brand new SP with glass cockpit will get sued of course... and the CFI who trained the PIC will also be named. And ironies of ironies if the PIC is a student and therefore violated federal law transporting PAX the liability of the school will be 100% since they trained someone negligently, even more so if the guy is a PPL and allowed to transport PAX.

      Delete
    3. They’ll probably name the shop too just for fun

      Delete
  5. Always shut down the engine(s) when deplaning.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Another example from this past August
    http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2022/08/diamond-da40-diamond-star-n723ag-fatal.html
    Senseless...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Prop stops - then and only then, door opens. Easy as that, right? Don't understand this practice of deplaning with the engine running. It's always tragic. . . and preventable.

    ReplyDelete
  8. How terrible it would be if a security camera caught the incident...

    ReplyDelete
  9. We don't normally see cases of pilots getting struck by a prop. It's always passengers.

    It's fine to plane and deplane with the prop spinning if the passengers are experienced. If they're not, the PIC should shut down. Even if you brief a novice flyer, there is a chance they don't fully understand or simply forget when they're hopping out. Spinning propellers are invisible and far too dangerous to make assumptions that they understand or remember the instructions.

    Super tragic and completely avoidable. This absolutely is the PIC's responsibility.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The obligatory PAX briefing is that PAX deplane and go to the back of the aircraft for all checklists. This after the engine is shut down. Nevermind allowing them to go forward. Under no circumstance can anyone deplane but to the back of an aircraft, even with the engines out.

      Delete
  10. You can't fix stupid. I am talking about the PIC. How dumb you really have to be to leave a prop running when PAX are exiting an aircraft? Even for Part 121 scheduled airlines the Airbus or Boeing SHUTS DOWN the engines. And then the 100+ PAX can only deplane even if to a specific ramp. This is getting ridiculous and once again all pilots will berate "stupid" new regs that will be created. But sadly those stupid regs exists because there's always someone who did something "stupider". And by that I mean the LAW soon will be to shut down the engines and a federal law violation if the PIC doesn't do it.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Passenger killed was from Nigerian. Student pilot in Newport News VA was from Africa and female instructor was from Sweden on free full scholarship. USA Colleges seem to be educating lots of foreigners. Was student from Nigeria killed walking into prop on free scholarship?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Will probably win a $9 million lawsuit

      Delete
    2. ^^Wrong accident report you are responding too there, chief. Please pay attention before posting. Sheesh.

      Delete
    3. He is talking about the victim in this accident, and two of the occupants in the Newport News 172 crash back on Oct. 6th. The woman CFI and the student flying.

      Delete
    4. We educate a lot of foreigners in the US because our own kids are proving to be uneducatable.

      Delete
    5. No argument there... not enough will to put forth the time and effort.

      Delete
    6. This is about as relevant as the color shirt they were wearing. You are really going to get upset on giving people scholarships to educate and better themselves who will in turn contribute to society when many thousand times more of your money is given to non-contributing corporate fat cats in the form of subsidies and tax cuts?

      Delete
    7. You said it…there was a bit of an issue in my country some 7 odd decades back where we were exporting steel to the Japanese who were promptly turning it into bullets to shoot back at us.
      But seriously, I can understand how a pax could walk into a prop, that golfer did, but a pilot? That’s hard to understand and just so tragic.

      Delete
  12. Darwin Award. Walking in front of a prop Genius . Not gonna blame PIC

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The prop is invisible when spinning. Not a Darwin Award. Ignorance.

      Delete
  13. Not everything should be fixed with laws. No reason to keep stripping us of our freedoms in lieu of proper education.

    I have been around airplanes for a long time as well as running propellers. We loaded passengers onto a running airplane dozens of times a day for skydiving operations. Also had an outboard motor in our boat, which had a spinning propeller. The solution to both was the same. As the operator of the airplane and boat, it’s the operator’s responsibility to properly brief passengers on where the propeller is and how to stay clear of it.

    While such laws may be necessary for Part 121 and maybe Part 135, they should never be a thing in Part 91. Education is the answer, not more laws.

    ReplyDelete
  14. "No reason to keep stripping us of our freedoms in lieu of proper education."

    It's not even education required. It's common sense. Something big and metal and spinning around is not going to do your body any good by walking into it. I grew up boating, and the first thing I learned from an early age when driving a boat for the first time and towing skiers is to shut the engine OFF or at minimum, make sure engine is neutral and do NOT touch the throttle if in neutral while people board from the back!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Something big and metal and spinning and INVISIBLE.

      Delete
    2. It is also common sense for a person not to walk in-front of a vehicle; however, I think I see it once or twice a day when I go for a drive.

      We live in a world where the general public expect someone else to protect them form any dangers that may exist.

      You can never assume common sense these days; however, you can attempt to educate.

      Delete
  15. During PP ground school back in the 1970's we endured watching films of people getting hacked up by props. This was before video cameras were everywhere.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I remember that … FAA video. As a PIC I always assumed that a passenger had little to no knowledge about aircraft and therefore no ‘common knowledge’ that a pilot might have around aircraft.

      Delete
  16. Just to play devil's advocate...everyone is assumming the PIC failed to warn/direct the victim about staying clear of the prop. Just because you warn someone doesn't they are going to listen. It is possible the victim completely disregarded the instructions of the PIC, who might have in fact given an passenger briefing, and was just not taken seriously. Consider this for a moment.... You are seat belted in....how much ability do you have to physically restrain someone from exiting the plane if they pop their seatbelt and open their door while you are telling them to stop? You could try to grab their arm, but you are not exactly positioned to maximize your leverage or strength.

    Do I really think that's what's happened? Probably not. As pointed out in previous posts, there are signs of poor decision making by the PIC (heavily loaded plane etc, etc.) However, it is in the realm of possibility. As an example, I've had a pasenger on a discovery flight completely disregard my instructions about not opening doors or windows in flight, and he opened the window of a Cessna to stick a phone out the window for a picture. Luckily, he listened when I ordered them to close it asap, and we returned to the field without further incident other than snarky comments from the guy. I put a note in the prospective student's file that he might have an anti-authority attitude and to treat with caution. I was happy he never returned for further flight lessons. That student got the same detailed preflight instructions and safety briefing I always give, which includes questions after the brief to make sure it was understood. Some people just don't listen, or think rules don't apply to them.

    No matter what exactly happened here, it was tragic.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is why the PIC still failed as he didn't shut down the engine. You never allow any pax to egress unless the engine is shut down. Simple enough?

      Delete
  17. Flying single engine at night is risky. Passengers probably never knew risk But to exit a plane with loud engine and air from prop blowing in passengers face indicates passenger was distracted or had earphones listening to music . Sad .

    ReplyDelete
  18. I've helped deplane people at a small airport where one of the planes was hard to restart so they left the engine running, but had an escort getting people on and off the plane. It was never a big deal in the instances I worked with the pilots.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Prelim report is out on this one. PIC claims he was "running the shutdown checklist" after he stopped and had no idea the passengers had opened the door and deplaned. Seems like a load of BS to me. In a 172, it's pretty much impossible to open the door from the back seat so no way the pilot would not notice that. Also, the shutdown checklist for a 172 has two items before cutting the mixture to kill the engine: parking brake set, and avionics switch off. How you could be preoccupied doing those two things and take so long doing them there was time for your passengers to reach forward, open the door, squeeze out, and walk into the prop???

    ReplyDelete