Angel,

Manslaughter means accidental generally, but still a crime. Also referred to as Murder in the 3rd degree.

Lawyer types can be more precise.

He can still go to jail. It is still murder by negligence, just not pre-meditated murder, or murder of passion (spur of the moment.....catch your wife in bed with a man).

Interesting that I see a perfectly clean windshield also. No oil.

The airplane seems submerged on this picture http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,589402,00.html

Maybe it was washed out by the sea water? Or in reality there is no oil...

Weather is foreseeable.

Mechanical failure is not.

Your argument would sway me if the pilot did his own maintenance, said sh** ba**s, this prop is about to come off, and flew anyways.

If that was the case then he would be flying with reckless disregard and I would agree with you and Rob.[/quote]

Mechanical failure is 100% foreseeable. We train for it. It's assumed you will have a mechanical failure every time you fly.

If the airplane exploded mid air and wreckage landed on the jogger I'd agree with you.

The pilot flew the airplane into the jogger.[/quote]

I can't speak for others buy i don't fly thinking i will have some kind of mechanical failure every time i fly. I think if that was the case most people would hang this flying thing up. That's not to say that we shouldn't be prepared if something does fail. I want to know what kind of equipment i can get that tells me when something is going to fail or foreseeable.
Too many lawyers..............on this thread..

I see oil on the tail, perhaps the windscreen is/was opaque?

Robert and Jason,

Please do not post again. You two are obviously Monday morning quarterbacks.

Jason as an inexpirenced pilot you will come to understand that you are not GOD's gift to aviation, or women for that matter.

Robert, I dont know your level of expirence, I know your an MEI but it's just a licence to learn.

Neither of you are worthy of posting on this, nor are any of us, so unless your prop falls off, dont judge, thats GOD's job.

Stetson Oates

I don't know why so many of you are so bent out of shape.

This is a great topic for a discussion. I have made points. Many of you don't agree.

I have NOT called anyone names. I have not been disrespectful. I have not treated anyone any differently than if you were sitting in front of me.

Why are so many of you so hostile? I guarantee you wouldn't talk the way you do if I was sitting in front of you.

I agree. It sucks but I agree.

Too many earlier posts to quote on each one but...

While there are millions of square miles of open ocean (at 53 deg F or so), there are thousands of empty miles of beach on the Atlantic this time of year. Trying to get down on a hard surface, likely deserted, makes sense.

Landing on a beach on a July weekend is one thing, but this is mid March. A Tues for that matter. I know the one pic showed a ton of people, but were they're spectors drawn to the plane?

Does anyone's opinion change if this was the only guy on 10 miles of beach? How about if he's wearing a white tshirt on a white beach? And he's blonde or prematurely gray? My son's Army PT gear includes gray sweat shirt and pants. What if he litterally just ran out on to the beach?

The folks at Pilotworkshops discuss landing options in an emergency. Water is one of your worst choices. One of the earlier threads stated that 90% of water landings are survivable. I'm not sure where that came from. Assume you don't flip or cart wheel the plane (check the 96 Eithiopian Airline video). That you keep your presence of mind and open or jettison the doors before hitting. That you don't bump your head on something. That you remember to release your seat belt. That the water pressure doesn't hold your door closed. How long do you think you're going to be around in 53 deg water (current SC water temp)? What are your chances if there are 4 ft waves? Things are a little better if you're in a retacted gear plane, but fixed gear is bound to flip when the gear hits.

As for the lack of oil evident in the picture, I suspect we have only 40% of the real facts at this point. I haven't flown much, but I've dealt with a bunch of mishaps. The info in the first 48 to 72 hrs is full of errors.

When we read these things, we automatically fill in a large amount of the picture without really having the facts. At first I thought he was hit from behind. What if he wasn't?

One thing does pigue my interest...gear up. Sure, I bet he wasn't worried about a prop strike, but if he was trying to save his plane and land on the hard beach, wouldn't he put the gear down? Maybe the guy did try to put it down on the edge of the water, or bring it in sideways (perpendicular to the beach).

So, do I have an obligation to die if my plane breaks?

And remember, two engines doubles your chances of losing an engine. The prop coming off a twin has interesing implications.

Governor Mickelson of South Dakota died that way (in a Mu2).

So I put my Baby Doll down in a cornfield. I spend unlimited amounts of money to make it the finest example of the V-tail flying. I pick it up from Don Copeland on Arizona Aeropainting and fly it back to LA, happy as a clam. About 15,000', I notice a fine mist of oil on the windshield, but it doesn't get worse and I think it might just be the residual of changing the prop. I clean it up and fly down to Cruiseair in Ramona to finish the restoration and take care of some other maintenance items.

On the way down, it gets worse, and now the fine mist of oil is making small rivulets that are crawling up the windshield. Not good. it is only a 45 minute flight, so by the time I am letting down, I have rivulets streaming up the middle, not enough to get freaky about, but definitely an item to point out to the mechanic. It is early Friday afternoon, and they diagnose an improperly installed gasket on the prop. We change it and complete the rest of my maintenance. About 4:00 PM, I launch and immediately have the same stream of oil crawling up the windshield... not too bad, but definitely noticeable. I return to Ramona. We change the gasket again. It is 6:00 now, and I decide that if I have the same problem, I will return to Van Nuys and have Beechcraft West check it out. I launch and sure enough, same story.

15 minutes in, the small rivulets are growing into large rivulets. Crossing Long Beach, the windshield is now becoming difficult to see through, like opening your eyes under water. I am faking it to Socal Tracon as they call out traffic... "No contact", not telling them that I can't see anything in front of me. I press on through the VFR corridor and have Van Nuys in sight now. The oil is seriously clouding my view, but it is fresh and clear, so I am thinking that I can make this landing and take the airplane immediately to Beechcraft just off 34L (16 Right from the DVD) due to the prevailing winds.

The landing is uneventful, I taxi up and they check the airplane on Monday. They change another gasket and decide to dye check the crank. There is a crack on the crankshaft almost 2" long! Given that the oil leak progressed from nothing to a 2" crack in 1.5 hours of flight, another hour might have resulted in losing the prop over urban LA. For the grace of God, I didn't have to make the choice that this pilot did.

Keep training and expect the worst. I hope I pass the test.

Manslaughter is defined as recklessly causing the death of another person. In my opinion this pilot made a choice and his choice was reckless. Some of you disagree. I can live with that. That's what this forum is for -- a free exchange of ideas. But you're not the lifeguard here, Stetson, so why are you telling people to get out of the pool?

Gentlemen,
Im fairly new here and up to now have been impressed with the level of knowledge and experience, advice and wisdom I have seen displayed.
For some reason, all that has flown (yeah,intended) OUT the window and this has turned into a free for all with judgemental decisions being made, conjecture turned into fact and guys who could very well find themselves in the same boat as this poor bastard condemning him to prison if not worse. WTF??
Many of you sound like uneducated civilians with absolutely NO insight into aviation, airplanes, much less the situations involved here.
How many of you have read ONE book by Ernie Gann? WHO?? Anyone? Name it then?
Anybody have a CLUE what Band of Brothers is all about? NO..its not a HBO miniseries about WW2. (and dont tell me a few of you didnt think that?)
I wonder how this thread would have played out if this guy was flying a Beech product?
Think about it?
The people that have contributed to this debacle in the negative know who you are.
Im ashamed of you.
Yes, I'm new here but my life has been spent, since a toddler in, on,around, and immersed in aviation 24/7. Beechcraft is and has been my life. Not just a toy I fly.
My passion, my livelihood....and what has sustained me through indescribable tragedy.
I thank my God every day that im healthy enough to go an spend my day at the airport.
Do you know how LUCKY you are to be able to do this?
And then to turn on one of your own as many of you have through this thread simply disgusts me.
I'm done with it. Its all yours.
Notice no "emoticons" in my post. This one took the FUN out of it.
Maybe its as simple as this. The difference between true Aviators, and people that just fly an airplane. ???????? adios

Hey Jason,

Not calling any one names or being hostile, but I will tell you one thing.... until you have actually had an engine failure, you will not know how your mind and body will react to the "aw-shits" moment of an engine failure. Simulated engine failures and ones you practice on a flight simulator are way too tame for the real thing. I lost my engine and learned a lot about myself in the six minutes it took me to get the plane down on I-70. By the way, Hi-Tension wires are way more difficult to spot at 100 Kts while descending at 1000 fpm and bridges only become visible when you are aligned for the final touch down. The number of decisions you have to make, each one being crucial to your survival, are probably in the hundreds when your engine is out and are a variation on the following theme:

1. Have you actually lost your engine (probably a non-event in a twin)
2. Balls to the walls, maybe it'll sputter back to life
3. Remove headset - no noise - BAAAADDD
- You have already lost about 500-1000 ft of Altitude -
4. Aviate - Navigate - Communicate
4. What was your direction of flight
5. What is wind direction
6. Is there a cloud deck below or can you see the ground
7. How far is the nearest airport - can you do mental math to calc if you can make it. SURE !
8. Are you ready to give up what you can SEE for some option some miles away where weather could be a factor ?
- You have lost another 500 to 1000 ft of Altitude -
9. What is the glide speed - set up for best glide
10. What are landing options - county roads, fields, Interstate, Airport, granite, ocean
11. Hi Tension Wires in the area (now I routinely identify them as I fly)
12. Are you in IMC
13. When will you drop your gear
14. Flaps or no Flaps
- You have lost another 500-1000 ft of Altitude -
15. Where the heck is the check list
16. Go thru the 5-10 steps to attempt a restart - no dice
- You have lost another 500-1000 ft of Altitude -
17. Check List is not helping - go to emergency section
18. When do you crack open the door
19. How are the obstructions looking on the ground - Hi-Tension wires, bridges, moving traffic on the highway !
- You have lost another 3000 ft of Altitude -

This is just a sampling, now consider if you had not just lost the engine, but rather had a catastrophic engine failure or prop separation. There is further trauma added to your thinking. This is when you realize how badly "it" has hit the fan. Are you the kind of person that can compartmentalize issues and problems to allow you to focus on solutions rather than dwelling on the problem - you won't know until you have gone through this in real time. Therefore, to sit in front of our computers and theorize is really easy, but the decisions and actions one takes in the real emergency are way more complicated and to summarily condemn a pilot to jail time for manslaughter is unjustified and would be expected of an ignorant media "person" and not from a pilot. By the way, having passengers along further complicates the decision making process.

...be safe.

...Babar.

When will we find out if he is charged? I mean, he DID kill a guy.