Pilot sounded confused, task saturated and may have given up. There was mention of possibly a tailwind on the runway affecting perception of speed and someone theorized she ran out of gas as there was no post-impact fire.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/audio-recording-between-pilot-and-hobby-airport-sheds-light-on-accident

Video from surveillance camera. . Man, it came down quick.

They were local to Moore, Ok..didnt know them but had friends that did..big loss

But, But they had a parachute.

Looked like a flat spin.  Nothing aerodynamic about that.  At all.

Damn. Did you notice the people walking across the parking lot in the background? With the amount of debris that went flying they are lucky not to have been injured.

The video will not play on my phone,

but she attempted to land 3 times and could not, then the airplane appears to come down in a spin.

Sounds like she likely ran out of gas, got to slow instead of trading altitude for airspeed and stalled then spun.

No fire in the crash confirmed she was out of gas.

Getting slow with no engine, stalling, and spinning is a common mistake from inexperience. As the stall develops it will roll and using controls to try to control the roll will induce adverse yaw which then produces the spin from the stall.

From the video it looks like she was in a spin.  Perhaps she ran out of gas but even so she should have been gliding down instead of falling from the sky in a spin.

This looks like yet another unfortunate crash of a Cirrus by an inexperienced pilot.   Every runway at KHOU is very long and shouldn't pose a challenge to even a novice pilot.   I get the impression that she was overloaded trying to fly in the airspace of a bigger airport than she was used to and couldn't maintain her situational awareness or understand what commands she was being given by ATC.  I know of a physician who died similarly in a Cirrus.  Very sad.

I've never flown a Cirrus but from what I understand they are very nice to fly but can be unforgiving.  The guy who gave my PPL check ride specifically told me not to go out and buy a Cirrus or Bonanza until I had several hundred hours and my IFR rating.  He told me the IFR wasn't only necessary for flying in weather but also would make me a much more competent pilot and sharpen skills with dealing with ATC.

I think the parachute lures low time, high income pilots to buy the Cirrus with the thought that it will be a safer airplane than something like a C182.

She said it would have a 5hr range and it was a 3hr flight. According to the registration (plane is registered to SAFE AVIATION LLC), it's a 2012 model. Does the SR20 have a FADEC?

Yeah, the marketing of the chute is aggravating.  Nothing about flying that worries me is solved by the chute.  Base-to-final stall/spin?  Still dead.  Convection?  Still dead.  Power loss shortly after take-off?  Still going to dead stick it with a full tank of 100LL.

Some of the folks with a Cirrus snicker at my Cessna 182E.  But with its Horton STOL kit I can do slow flight with ZERO indicated airspeed and still hold altitude.  I can also land in under a thousand feet of runway.  She's a damn fine bird.

If I felt the need to get something faster it would be a Cessna 210 (possibly one of the turbo variants).



But to get back to this crash:

It's very sad.  I empathize with a low-time pilot getting overloaded in busy airspace dealing with both ATC rapid-fire and a gnarly cross-wind/tail-wind.  Sometimes you need to tell ATC what additional workload you cannot take and put it back in their lap.  I know I've told approach control before that I wanted a vector rather than a navpoint because I was in ugly turbulence and I wasn't going to take my attention away from flying long enough to look up the navpoint and plug it in.

I recently had a go around at a towered airport.  Some Cherokee pilot rolled out too long and stayed on the runway when I wanted to be using it.  Had to shove power in and go around even though it was a hot day and my bird was heavy.  It'll grab your attention to do that.

What's really weird is that watching that video, I recognized the parking lot.  Looked on Google Maps, sure enough, that's the very same Ace Hardware that I walked into last week.  I'd flown into Millionaire HOU, and needed to send a letter during my downtime, and they had a post office inside.  So I went in to buy stamps.  Feels crazy to me that an airplane crashes into the parking lot (maybe not the very same spot, but same lot, same store!) a few days later!  

Sad for the family.  I hate it when novice pilots get into too much airplane for their experience level, and are waaay behind the airplane.  This could have been prevented, if she or her instructor had exercised better judgement before turning loose in a high performance single.  

ETA-



Your screen name probably isn't one that should pop into accident threads , but I agree completely.  That's been my experience ever since they came out.
Now, I like the Cirrus.  Technologically, it's a big step forward from the Cessna 182 design, for a cross-country airplane.  But, it's more demanding to fly, and it lands much like a jet does.  It requires more skill to fly proficiently than most Cessna high-wings do, IMHO.  
And the level of avionics and AP in them seem to lure owners into a false sense of security, and an atrophy of skills.  Many use all the technology as a crutch to cover up for a lack of the fundamentals.  

It is the responsibility of the instructor to task saturate the student before turning them loose.

Just because you have a pilot's license and an airplane doesn't mean you're a good pilot.

I picked my screen name way back when I was beginning medical school.  Back then my brain was always so overload that I felt like it was burnt crispy.

As far as Cirrus tech being used as a crutch:  the physician who I mentioned was killed in a Cirrus was on the final leg of a trip back from the Carribian.  Only had a PPL. .  

I just don't get why you would put yourself in a situation where flying a light single you have to deal with commercial heavies if you are not on top of your game. There are multiple airports within 20 miles that would be much better suited for a less experienced/confident pilot to get into. FFS Ellington is only 15 minutes away BY CAR - with 9, 8, and 4000ft runways available.

Complacency and task saturation have always been a killer of inexperienced pilots.

General aviation pilots especially look at their total hours and not their recency to judge themselves.
Flying is a perishable skill as is keeping situational awareness.

She tried 3 times to land.
She obviously did not arrive with sufficient fuel reserves
She obviously did not divert due to winds.
She obviously ran out of gas.
She never declared emergency fuel
Then she likely stalled the aircraft when the engine quit by not keep airspeed
The either induced the spin by using the wrong flight controls or let it spin due to inaction
and evidently didn't think of deploying the parachute that some say was installed

As almost every accident, the lengthy chain of mistakes and events is long on this one and all points to task saturation and inexperience.

This shit has been happening since Orvil and Wilbur started this whole affair.
In the late 1940's it was the Bonanza killing off the inept ones and back then they didn't have all the distractions of the high-tech bells and whistles..
The only answer is not allowing some people access to the controls.
Another good start would be actually teaching people to FLY in an airplane that develops real pilot skills instead of these modern nose-wheel follow-ups to the old Ercoupe.
Learn to fly in a Cub, master three point landings and actual spins. Learn how to land in a cross wind with the damn wheels going straight down the runway.
After learning to actually fly an airplane should all the coon-fingering of G1000 buttons and high-tech shit begin.

I asked that same question over at another forum and apparently HOU is perfectly fine for GA aircraft. I think I would have chosen somewhere else though.

Here's a video from YouTube. The ABC link seemed to only show stills when I clicked it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R0lF7emnso

My homie works at HOU. They do a lot of GA operations ( he estimates about 30 percent of their traffic , at a mid level tower it's a significant number) so they're used to working GA with their normal traffic (SWA) also they don't do heavies or at most very rarely, he said the largest he's seen are 757's

Blonde was hot

after reading the ATC transcript which is in the link below, she was not sent around for being too high, she was sent around because tower was trying to sequence that little airplane between 737s and a 747 and changed the runway on her many times to get her out of the way of big jets on final going much faster being sequenced by approach control.

It sounds like tower was jacking her around and was a factor in causing a very confusing situation.

While she may have hit wake turbulence the fact that the fire department said there was no fire and no fuel spill at the crash scene appears to confirm she ran out of gas. It could have been a guage malfunction but it also could very well have been task saturation with the way tower was jacking her around and she ran out of gas.

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2016/06/cirrus-sr20-n4252g-safe-aviation-llc.html?m=1

HOUSTON - For nearly 20 minutes, air traffic controllers at Hobby Airport tried to guide a single-engine plane down safely. Instead, it crashed in the parking lot of an Ace Hardware store.  All three people on board were killed.

Below is a timeline of selected radio traffic transmissions, according to the website liveatc.net:

12:50 p.m.

Air Traffic Control: “Cirrus 5-2 Golf, maintain maximum forward speed. If able, proceed directly to numbers. 737 is on a nine mile final following you with an 80 knot overtake.”

12:52 p.m.

Air Traffic Control: “Cirrus 5-2 Golf, tower.”

Pilot: “42-52 Golf.”

Air Traffic Control: “Yeah, I got traffic behind you. Just go around and fly runway heading now. Maintain VFR to put you back in a downwind for runway 3-5. The winds are zero niner zero at 1-3. Gusts 1-8. Can you accept runway 3-5?”

Pilot: “We’ll go around and line-up for runway 3-5. Downwind.”

Air Traffic Control: “Fly runway heading for four for right now.”

Pilot: “We’ll fly runway heading for four. 42-52 Golf.”

12:53 p.m.

Air Traffic Control: “A 737 on five mile final, runway four. You’re going to be in front of him.

Pilot: “42-52 Golf, turning around for runway 3-5.”

Air Traffic Control: “Okay 52 Golf, let’s just, just enter the right downwind for runway 3-5.

Pilot: “Right downwind for 3-5 42-52 Golf.”

Air Traffic Control: “52-Golf, I’ll call your right base now.”

12:54 p.m.

Air Traffic Control: “Cirrus 52-Golf. 737 at your two o’clock and three miles at niner hundred feet inbound for runway four. Advise when you have traffic in sight.”

Pilot: “I have traffic in sight. 42-52 Golf.”

Air Traffic Control: “42-52 Golf, make a right base behind that traffic for me, 3-5. Clear to land. You’re going to be following them. They’re going to be landing crossing runway prior to your arrival.”

Pilot: “We’ll make a right base following them. 42-52 Golf for 3-5.”

Air Traffic Control: “Southwest 35-64. Cirrus traffic ahead and to your right. Has you in sight. Going to make a right base behind you. Landing crossing runway behind you.”

Southwest Pilot: “Southwest 35-64.”

Air Traffic Control: “Cirrus 5-2 Golf. Make a, turn left 30 degrees.

Pilot: “Left heading 30 degrees. 42-52 Golf.”

Air Traffic Control: “November 5-2 Golf, did you want to follow the 737 runway four?

Pilot: “Yes, that would be great. 42-52 Golf.”

Air Traffic Control: “November 5-2 Golf, roger.  Follow the 737 and it’s runway four, clear to land.  

Pilot: “So am I turning a right base now 42-52 Golf?”

Air Traffic Control: “November 5-2 Golf, roger. Just maneuver back for the straight in. I don’t know which way you’re going now. Just turn back around to runway 3-5.

Pilot: “Turning to 3-5. I’m so sorry for the confusion. 42-52 Golf.”

Air Traffic Control: “That’s okay. We’ll get it.”

12:56 p.m.

Air Traffic Control: “November 5-2 Golf, I need to you, okay, there you go. Straight into runway 3-5. Clear to land.”

Pilot: “Straight into 3-5. Cleared to land. And I don’t believe I’m lined up for that. 42-52 Golf.”

Air Traffic Control: “Okay 5-2 Golf. Roger. Turn to the right. And climb, maintain 1,600. Right turn.”

Pilot: “1,600 right turn. 42-52 Golf.”

Air Traffic Control: “5-2 Gulf, yes ma’am. Heading about 0-4-0.”

Pilot: “0-4-0. 42-52 Golf.”

12:57 p.m.

Air Traffic Control: “Okay 5-2 Golf. Let’s do this. Can you do a right turn back to join the straight in to 3-5? Could you do it like that?”

Pilot: “Yes, right turn back to 3-5. 42-52 Golf.”

Air Traffic Control: “November 5-2 Golf, okay so you’re just going to make a right turn all the way around to runway 3-5. And now you’re clear to land.”

Pilot: “3-5 clear to land. 42-52 Golf.”

1:05 p.m.

Air Traffic Control: “5-2 Golf, there’s a 747 on short final. Runway four touching down right in front of you. Just caution wake turbulence right at that intersection. “

Pilot: “Okay. I’ve got that in sight. Thank you. 42-52 Golf.”

1:07 p.m.

Pilot: “Runway 3-5 in sight. 42-52 Golf.”

Air Traffic Control: “5-2 Golf, winds zero niner zero at 13. Gusts at 1-8. Runway 3-5, again cleared to land.”

Pilot: “3-5, cleared to land. Trying to get down again (laughs). 42-45 Golf.”

Air Traffic Control: “No problem.”

1:08 p.m.

Air Traffic Control: “Cirrus 42-52 Golf just go ahead and make the left turn now to enter the downwind, midfield downwind for only four, if you can just give me a nice tight pattern, I’m going to have traffic four miles behind you so I need you to just kind of keep it in tight if you could. And actually I might end up sequencing behind that traffic it’s going four miles a minute, it is going to be a little bit tight with the one behind it, so when you get on that downwind, stay on the downwind and advise me when you have that 737 in site, will either do four or we might swing you around to 3-5.  Uh ma’am, ma’am straighten up straighten up.”

The plane then appeared to flat spin to the ground, landing on a car parked outside the store. Relatives confirm that Tony Gray, his wife Dana and brother Jerry were on the plane.

Too much airplane, coupled with too much airport, then?  Bad deal.  

I go in there all the time in Citations, and I consider it an easy airport, comparable to DAL or AUS.  It's never a nightmare of vectors and max forward speed like IAH or TEB can be.

My thought as well, I listened to the ATC audio and they were really working her.
I learned to fly in the 80's and my old school instructor beat it into my though process to never let ATC do the flying.
Ive run into a few pilots over the years that were shrinking-violets with regard to ATC, several were well seasoned.
In the end she was PIC but it still seemed like the proverbial 'perfect storm'.

Damn. I'm at HOU nearly weekly and it's a cake airports for 91 as far as Bravo airports go. 99 Percent of the time they're landing ILS 12R and they love us GA guys who ask to circle 17. Straight off at H for Million Air. Should have hired a pro. Sad.


RC

Will this still most likely go down as pilot error?

yup

if our speculation is correct and there wasn't some major flight control problem or something out of her control.

Unfortunately the NTSB will take 6 months to 2 years to make a determination.

Will anything come back on the ATC or was what he had her do considered normal and she just couldn't handle it?

Hard to say but even though the transcript made it sound like the controller didn't have a good plan and jacked her around, he probably didn't violate any rules or policies unless some wake turbulence rules were broken.

At some point the family will likely initiate a lawsuit that will involve the FAA and ATC. They will likely get stuck with some of it when it is all said and done.

The controller might get some remedial training but that is probably all that will happen to them.

From what I've heard HOU has every sort of QA/QC type, regional manager and gigantic title no one will ever get right type from the service center crawling all over the place.

I don't doubt it with that many fatalities and it  making the news.

They will go over ever bit of data and every transmission with a fine tooth comb.

Every controller that handled the flight or communicated with the pilot will probably have to make a statement.

There will be multiple telcons and meetings.

Tons of paper work.

Lots of briefings and refresher training classes.

Hopefully it will help prevent future incidents.

I saw the tragic video of the plane hitting the ground. That was such a mess that if there was no fuel around the crash then she didn't have any on board.

She was in the air for an extra half hour trying to land?

Supposedly a 5 hour range on that airplane, but that goes way down at pattern altitudes. For reference, my IO360 powered Mooney that owners will forever tell you will burn 9-10 gallons/hr in cruise burns 16-18 on initial climbout. When factoring reserves, especially IFR reserves, that's the number I need to use as you're often jerked around at low altitudes and below 4000 ft I go near or full rich so as not to forget under task saturation.

I wonder if she had the AP on. If she lost power due to fuel exhaustion then the AP could have stalled the airplane attempting to maintain altitude or climb.

The onsite NTSB investigator stated during a press conference that he had confirmed the tanks were topped of by the FBO in Norman, OK. Their flight time was just a hair under 3hrs.

After looking at the impact video again (and ignoring the body being ejected into the building) I noticed that fuel does seem to slosh out of the broken wing directly into the broken windshield area of the car. Depending on conditions/settings they could have been down to somewhere around 6-7 gallons per side, which isn't much more than what appears to slosh out.

I know that my worst landings have usually been after flying a long leg of a x-country. I've heard this from others, too.

If the mishap pilot had just made a better transition from cruise to approach/landing in regard to airspeed, altitude and descent rate, she would have not had the problem trying to land on runway 4 in the first place. This pilot with the two year old Private Pilot ticket would have avoided all the complex ATC instructions and low level manuevers at the edge of the SR-20 flight envelope that occured while trying to stick another landing.

I'm an old guy. What does the term "stick" another landing mean to young pilots? Does it mean using the control stick to land or force the airplane to stay on the runway when it is landed improperly too fast and wants to bounce?

Landings should not be stuck. Landings should be like a carefully crafted work of art. Like a paint brush lightly touching the velvet of an Elvis Presley portrait destined to be displayed under a black light.
Landings should be a delicate maneuver like foreplay on a beautiful woman. Landings should be smooth as a mashed potato sandwich or the scum on a swamp.

There should be no rapid jacking motions on the elevator/yoke i.e "yoking-off" or unnecessary pedaling of the rudders.

My person technique for landing, which has served me well for decades and I am willing to share with you all is as follows:

1. Ascertain the appropriate approach airspeed and configuration for the existing conditions and smoothly fly it within +/- 1 knot or MPH as appropriate for the make and model of aircraft being flown.
2. Smoothly transition from the stabilized approach phase to the landing phase carefully reducing power so as not to alarm passengers or witnesses on the ground.
3. Flare portion of the landing should commence on centerline and result in zero sink rate at an altitude placing the main wheels at .25" above the run way surface simultaneously using proper aileron and rudder inputs to    
maintain wheel alignment with the afore mentioned centerline.
4. From the the zero sink position initiate a slow constant rate of descent and maintain it until the wheels start to roll and gentle strut compression has occurred. At first indication of wheel spin up any remaining power should be gently retarded to idle.
5. If the aircraft that has a wheel under the nose it should be carefully lowered to runway using the same technique as in steps 3. & 4. while adequate pitch authority is available.
6. If the airplane has a wheel under the tail it touched the runway surface at precisely the same time as the main wheels and back pressure on the elevator should be maintained until taxi speed is attained.

How do you prevent that issue on a long x country? Hand fly it 20 minutes before final?

Take an extra pilot, one does take off and landing and the other flies x/c.

That makes no sense what so ever.
It is the job of approach as well as those in the cab to properly sequence aircraft.

You assert a 'problem' with the 1st approach....what exactly was it?
Her approach was nearly straight in and under the direction of ATC, she did as directed.
She was flying her AC and if they needed her to step it up or slow it down due to their poor sequencing it was ATC's job to ask her to do so.
Did ATC ask her change her speed?  No
They were the ones to ask her to go around due to their issue, not something she did or did not do.


She could have avoided all the instructions if they hadn't jerked her around and told her to do them.
The instructions after the #4 go-around were goofy and the result of their attempt to get her down between their sequencing.
The guy in the cab was also the one to 'request' the 2nd go-around claiming she was too high.
Well for starters, he was the one that called her base turn thus setting up her 'high' profile.
Secondly, if the approach was too high, it would have been pilots responsability to get down or go around.
Instead the guy in the cab pressured her, again to accommodate their sequencing.

Yes, she is ultimately responsible for her aircraft and could have reasonably rebuked some of those instruction.
And no ATC wasn't at the controls, she was.
But ATC delt her a crappy hand...more than once.

I think it was here that I was advised to grow a set and be assertive with the controllers.

As a newly minted IFR pilot in a rental Archer bouncing along at 9000 ft heading southeast about 10 miles off the coast over the gulf, I was vectored into the smallest of three cauliflower buildups between to huge ones. "We have VFR traffic 15 miles ahead of you that made it through." Well, in Florida a lot can happen in a couple minutes with storm growth. I had repeatedly asked to be vectored over land, ATC didn't give it to me and even though my gut told me I was going into a bad situation, I let myself get vectored right into a building cumulous. I thought that I was about to become an accident statistic while I was in that thing. I came out, I was going west, my heading indicator was completely precessed and had to be reset. "Judged by 12 vs carried by 6," et cetera. The operative words are "need," "unable" and declare an emergency if you must.  

Example:

You: "I need 20 degrees to the left for weather"
ATC: "Maintain current heading. Expect 20 degrees in 10 minutes"
You: "Unable."

At this point you can suggest something that you can do, such as a heading or altitude change, you can leave it up to them to figure out if they'll give it to you or you can declare an emergency.

When you declare and emergency do you get in trouble?

No. Plenty of people don't declare when they should because they think they will.

If you're task saturated in VFR conditions from what the video shows, I'd have to wonder about the instruction AND the check ride.

No, you declare an emergency because you're in trouble.

It's part of good communication to let ATC know you need help and they will do what it takes to help you.

Data may be collected after the fact and you may have to talk to someone about what happened but if it was legit you're not getting on trouble.

You can also ask for help without declaring an emergency.

This. I didn't see anything about the controllers actions in this situation that shouldn't have been able to be handled by a competent private pilot. It seems pretty clear she didn't have a good grasp of her aircraft, she didn't feel confident in clearly communicating her situation (or worse yet, wasn't aware of it), she wasn't comfortable with tower operations in a dense traffic environment. It reads like he was trying to work with her as she made mistakes but she just kept painting herself into a corner until she was out of options and the controller never even knew the inevitable was fast approaching.

that makes sense why they wouldn't declare then.

It seems that as a pilot you would have a plan B ready to go in a case like this.  As in, you are trying to land at HOU or any other airport, then after 2 botched landings, you check fuel and divert if you have enough reserves or you declare an emergency and try a third time to give you some breathing room.

Is that when they start vectoring you and tell you if you are too high/ low etc?

It is what it needs to be to be to help get people on the ground safely.

You just gotta say what you need. Long straight in legs to get the plane configured , a different runways, vectors to a different airport , or maybe a different approach.

For example, my friend was telling me about a guy who bought a new Lancair, all he knew was to go fast. He took off on their 4kft runway but when it was time to come home he could not put it down safely and had to take off on the backhalf  of the runway to avoid going off the end.

They tried a few times to get him farther out so he'd slow down on final after doing 200kt on the downwind, turning hard tight bases then being too fast.

So they coordinated with the nearby commercial airport who made a hole for him to make his attempt on an 11kft runway.

Guy landed, called a friend who flew it home without incident.

I've had to do primary instruction with F/Os regarding ATC communications. Probably my biggest gripe is an unavoidable one; sometimes I just want ATC what THEY want me to do. I imagine they are restrained by their own internal practices from that, more often than not. I also get that there are precedents to uphold and not set. I just often wonder about the workload I'm creating with 15 fucking handoffs between 12K and FL400 because I'm trying to keep 280KIAS and trying to get out a Class B when ATC would likely be happier with a 220 KIAS that 2500 FPM the whole way up.