As a private pilot I spend a lot of time watching videos and reading about aviation. This is in addition to watching airplanes as they fly over, actually flying airplanes, and wishing I was flying an airplane at any given time. I’m much like my father in this regard; my father had stacks and stacks of aviation magazines around his designated chair that he read and re-read at any given moment.
Part of my reading and watching aviation content includes reading accident reports and/or watching videos on the subject. A video recently came across my Youtube feed of a preliminary accident analysis of a crash near Knoxville, Tennessee. The pilot was on Youtube as “TNFlyGirl”. As best as I can tell, she was a private pilot working on her instrument rating. She flew her own Beechcraft Debonair, a single engine airplane that is fast enough to require a high performance endorsement. It also has a retractable gear and requires a complex endorsements. I have both of these endorsements for flying the Cessna 182 RG.
One of the keys to being a successful pilot is what is called “being ahead of the airplane”. Know what the airplane is going to do before it does it. You should be at least 15 if not 30 seconds ahead of the airplane at all times. You must always fly the airplane, the airplane should never be flying you.
Since TN FlyGirl was such an avid Youtube content creator with her aviation adventures, I started watching her videos. I found them startling. Her Debonair had an autopilot that still required pilot input, mainly putting in or taking out power and keeping the airplane in “trim”. She didn’t seem to understand this and spent several videos fiddling around with the autopilot and not getting the results she expected. I found it very difficult to watch her videos because she seemed always behind the airplane. She seemed distracted by the cameras and seemed more concerned with the electronics and getting good shots with her cameras than she did about flying the airplane. A few weeks ago she and her father crashed in the Debonair at a high rate of speed. The airplane was destroyed and both her father and her lost their lives.
When dad would read accident reports in his stack of magazines and on the few times we talked about them, he’d always say “pilot error, 95% of the time it’s pilot error”. From what I’ve seen and read around post-crash analysis reports and the preliminary report from the NTSB, it seems TN FlyGirl’s crash was also “pilot error”.
As a pilot I am very conservative in my approach to the hobby; I won’t take someone up unless I’m completely comfortable with the airplane. My personal minimums when it comes to weather are rather low. I may try things out when I’m flying solo, but I’m not going to mess around with unfamiliar avionics when my husband is sitting the right seat. If I’m unsure of how something works or if I feel I’m not keeping up with the airplane, I’ll ask an instructor to go up with me to act as a safety pilot. I have no ego when it comes to flying an airplane. Since my father is not around to talk about these things, since he died in an airplane crash in 2011, I believe he would say I’m doing the right things. I’m not afraid to admit that his crash was due to pilot error. I learned from what he did and I learn from these accident reports and analyses.
It’s very sad when people die and it hits us all in the general aviation community when a fellow pilot perishes. May TN FlyGirl and her dad rest in peace.
