Accident Case Study: Airframe Icing

Description: Ride along for this chilling re-creation and analysis of an accident that occurred when the pilot of a Cirrus SR22 encountered unforecast icing over the Sierra Nevada mountains. (This is a video rendering of a 2009 online course that was built in Adobe Flash.)

[engineerskalinera]

These are way better than most air accident videos on YouTube. The fact that they mostly focus on accidents of small, private planes not in public consciousness just makes them better

[danstewart]

These well-produced videos are invaluable teaching tools to pilots - learning from other's mistakes. I can only imagine how many lives they have saved.

[AviationNut]

As a pilot, icing always scares the crap out of me. Whenever I see some ice start to build up on the edge of the windows or the leading edge of the wings I instantly get that twisting feeling in the pit of my stomach and I get the hell out of there ASAP.

[griffithposgay]

I’ve never flown a plane in my life, but these are cool to watch

[LIWYMA]

I know this video is 8 yrs old but “Get-There-Itis” still kills today! I too am glad he didn’t have his wife and kids onboard. RIP

[josephdale]

Being a Captain for 30 years, I’ve personally noticed on the cloud tops, is where most of the ice accumulates.

[checkeratwork]

These Accident Case Studies are excellent and very well-made, please continue to provide them here on Youtube! This one is particularly chilling since it seems to me that the pilot made relatively few mistakes (compared to the pilots in some of the other cases) and still he ended up in this tragic accident.

[Cramblit]

There's several rookie mistakes here. (Not saying the pilot wasn't skilled, it's just a sign he's experienced, and forgot the basics).

1) Icing causes lack of lift.. You never want to climb higher if you already have ice building... even if that gets you out of the clouds, its a huge risk.. The lower you are, the more thick the air is, allowing you to get more lift, and more additional air speed.

2) Alot of ice building up on your wings is an emergency situation. Make sure the ATC gives you its full undivided attention and is aware of your problem.

3) Don't be afraid to request in-flight updates on weather, especially if you start hitting stuff that wasn't forecasted. Even if mild at the moment you never know if it's turned bad, and is building rapidly.

4) Never, ever underestimate the speed at which ice can build up on your plane. It takes only minutes to go from a plane, to a brick.

[Straswa]

RIP to that pilot and condolences to his loved ones. Great vid ASI, well produced and informative.

[nonmihiseddeo]

At about 10:00, the pilot says that he needs to build up airspeed. To me, that's the telltale for icing.

[groth]

The only thing positive one could say about this mishap is Mr SR22 didn't have his wife and two kids along for the fatal ride. He was told about possible icing conditions before he departed. But, he was too focused on getting home so as not to get "stuck" in RENO. There are worse places to be "stuck" and it beats getting "stuck" in cumulo granite.

[FlightInstruction]

This was one of the most eye opening and saddest videos I have seen yet, and worth re-watching every year as a reminder. Thank you for posting.

[helifenix]

Thanks so much for those videos. You really do our job safer. The aviation community really appreciate your support. 👍🏻

[Coolmok.-bu]

Wonderful use of lessons learned,   even though the event was very unfortunate.  The big question is What would you do?  you can not answer that question but you can remember this and use it for the future.

[jmflyer]

Great video and an excellent training tool. Icing is an everyday way of life up here northern New England. It's a factor to consider in every winger flight, and other times of the year also. When you get up north where we are, the freezing level is also always above ground level. Guaranteed icing when you get in the clouds. Clear ice is frequent, rime ice also. When flying a 172, I always carried a flashlight so I could more easily see (at night) what the ice build up was doing. In my Bonanza, although still a major concern, I wasn't as concerned as in the 172. The Bonanza V tail can carry a hefty load of ice if it needs to. (Never on purpose of course!) The thing with icing is, WHEN, and not if, you encounter it, make an altitude change pretty quickly. A lot of times increasing or decreasing your altitude even a small amount, will stop further accumulation, as ice is many times just between certain altitudes, despite the temps. Just remember when landing, you're still carrying that load of ice and your plane handles differently. You'll need to fly your plane according to whats built up. Increased speeds etc for landing.

[MasterChief-slro]

Traded altitude for airspeed. Knowing icing will stall you in a second... Not sure why he tried it. He had all the information needed to know he should get lower when it was offered to him...

[keithrickson]

I've been in situations exactly like this one which just by luck didn't end like this. I didn't speak up because I wasn't PIC. A very sad example of how compromising only slightly on by all accounts a routine flight can change everything in an instant.

[LanceCampeau]

That final bit of audio... very, very chilling (no pun intended).

[Flying_Snakes]

Please keep making these excellent videos. They make us all safer pilots.

[dx]

As soon as they said the pilot didn't like his odds of getting out the next day, I knew there was going to be trouble.