John F Kennedy Jr’s style was sloppy

[PeterNSteinmetz]

And with regard to this specific accident, do you think it was a reasonable decision for JFK, Jr, given his training level, to continue this flight in these conditions? And he just got unlucky? Or should he perhaps have diverted or not taken off knowing he would be flying at night over water?

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

That was accidental when removing extraneous text on an iPad...sorry.

... But I'd didn't learn to fly at a puppy mill.

(and the exact opposite is true of my instrument training. My instructor was a short-cut taking loose cannon. Didn't really understand that at the time but came to realize it. I've taken a LOT of follow up training to try to make up for the k-mart style initial I-training.)

Thanks for explaining the error.

Good point about what really matters is the level of actual proficiency, the rating itself doesn’t mean you are proficient. Luckily for me my instructor was pretty good about actually training to a decent standard. By contrast, I am not particularly proficient now and will need some dual, having recently had a longer break.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

The point being, YOU don't know what his training level was unless you were sitting in the backseat DURING all his training. Otherwise, it's all speculation on your part.

There is really no reason to take this personally or make it a set of personal remarks. These type of remarks tend to be interpreted hostilely on public fora so I try and avoid them.

Yes, of course this is speculative. And as noted by others, hindsight is always 20/20.

We do know roughly his level of training and there is no evidence that he had specifically received a high level of training for night instrument flight, though he had done a fair amount of night flying. His CFII had stated he was reasonably proficient at unusual attitude recoveries.

I have not parsed this in as much detail as others here, but my current impression based on the available data would tend to agree with the AOPA assessment that JFK, Jr made a number of errors which could have been avoided. He appeared to have been suffering from anxiety and get there itis and made some bad decisions which cost the life of himself and his passengers.

Seems like a subject which is debated on both sides here on PoA, and there are grounds for reasonable people to have different assessments. So I am interested to hear other opinions, thanks.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

And, moonless night "IFR" is the easiest instrument flying you will ever do. It's almost always dead calm and beautiful...far removed from the conditions of flying in the clouds on a spring/summer day.

What I am confused about and trying to consider as an alternate point of view is this. Are you contending that flying moonless night VFR without a horizon visible is fairly safe based on the training in the PPL or what JFK, Jr had?

Or are you contending that more training is needed to make that reasonably safe?

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

First, AGAIN, neither of us knows what training JFK, Jr had...now do we?

We do have some reasonably reliable information about the level of training he had received. That is in the NTSB report. The amount of information is not an all or none thing, which seems to be how you are viewing it. Please read the report to understand what is and is not known.

jayyyyyzus dude. READ!

Good advice - it appears I have read the NTSB report and the AOPA article about this accident. May I ask, have you?

And if not, why go on and on making accusations about how other people can’t understand. I find it is usually best to assume, at least initially, that when there is a lack of understanding between people discussing something, that it is due to honest failures. Instead it seems here there has been from the first post a hostile interpretation. I will give credit that it has not devolved into outright name calling, though some of this is borderline.

I do agree that if one cannot have a reasonable polite discussion about a point, it is best to stop having the discussion.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I think that would eliminate most night VFR in much of the country.

Maybe there is some confusion about the meaning of “without a visible horizon”. I was just checking the PHAK and AFH for a definition applicable to this context, but couldn’t find one.

What I mean by that phrase is a situation where one cannot infer from visual cues where the horizon is. At night, cues like the stars, moonlight, city lights, highways, etc. will often provide a visual cue of the horizon’s location.

Absent those, is it possible to fly VFR actually? Or does one have to use the instruments to assist? It strikes me one would need the instruments without some clues.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Those cues can also trick you. Try flying at the coast at 45 degrees sometime and see if you don’t get the feeling you aren’t level when you are.

That's a good point. In truth, having a visible horizon is not an all or none thing either. There are lots of situations with a marginal level of cues which can be misleading.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

As we know from countless accidents caused by spatial disorientation at night over water no amount of training may be "enough". Recently Japan lost their first F-35 in exact same manner - pilot flew it at night into water.
This pilot had over 3200 hrs. Japan Air Force say that spatial disorientation is their number #1 killer.

How do you define "fairly safe" and "reasonably safe"? Those terms by themselves are too subjective to prove anything.

I definitely agree this is a question of what level of risk is acceptable and how much risk you are willing to tolerate. Thank you for the thoughtful responses.

What I was trying to probe with my queries was where @timwinters ' threshold lies along this sort of continuum. He has insisted that "both instrument work and night work are required parts of the PPL curriculum...and it doesn't take much more that the required minimum to become relatively proficient at it." when referring to the level of proficiency which should JFK Jr should have had. That seems to imply that he thinks the risk levels after just a bit more training beyond the PPL are negligible. He seems fairly insistent on this perspective, which strikes me as different from that of the AOPA article, Jason of MZeroA, and other posters here, which is why I was hoping to pin that down. Alas, I fear there will not be an answer in those terms which we might be able to integrate with other viewpoints.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Again, I suspect that he was an average pilot with fairly low time experience but not particularly reckless in his risk management. But the first step in risk management is to identify the hazard, and I think that was his failure. Had he correctly identified the risk he had a number of management alternatives - take the CFI along, cancel the flight, put his fate in the autopilot (not recommended) or simply fly at altitude and descend over the field. His ultimate destination was Hyannis, and he could even have landed there and sent his passenger to MVY on a commercial flight or ferry boat.

I appreciate this perspective. But can I clarify your overall view. Do I understand your perspective correctly to be that JFK, Jr did not make any serious mistakes in ADM? He was an average pilot of average hazard identification skills and risk management and just got unlucky?

Or is it your belief that he should have done something differently to help identify the potential hazards on this flight? Maybe a full briefing, or more careful thought when it turned into a night flight, instead of a day flight, or ?

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I'm wondering how anyone could be so warped as to write something tasteless and ridiculous as that, and/or so stupid as to think its true in whole are part. That probably fits legal libel measures.

I think there were a lot more crazy theories at the time as well.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

He probably didn't make the same decisions that you would have made, based on your posts. Could he have been more conservative? Sure, but it's a decision that other pilots have made and survived. In that respect he was "unlucky".

Agreed it is a continuum and people who know me will tell you that I definitely support the right of people to make their own decisions about it, as long as they don't hurt others.

I think I will continue to teach that night flight is riskier than flight during the day, it is particularly risky when you have no good visual cues for the horizon, and also risky over the water. Best to be proficient in the use of instruments and think carefully before doing it.

But my theory is that his fashion-conscious wife started ragging on him for his sloppy dress while they were enroute, and he got distracted...

LOL.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I take the term "visible horizon" literally. Making up one's own definitions of terms tends to lead to misunderstandings.

OK, sorry if I don't understand, but can you explain a bit more by what you mean by a literal meaning of "visible horizon"? I tried to find a definition of this in aviation sources like the PHAK or AFH, but it wasn't defined there.

Do you mean one has to be able to see the actual horizon? And if so, how much of it? I have been in situations where I could infer where the horizon was from perhaps 20% of it being directly in view, but maybe that isn't what you mean by a literal meaning?

I am happy to try and understand people's posts in terms of any reasonable definition they like to use. I think this question arose because I wrote "I guess I don’t know the exact regulatory language, but doesn’t VFR flight require having a visual horizon, at least to do so safely?"

I see know now that VFR flight per se, that is, per regulation, does not actually require a view of the horizon, so long as visibility and cloud clearance requirements are met, as you have noted.

I think it is also true that one could not safely fly "visually" without instruments unless one has some reference to the horizon, whether that reference be a direct view of it or indirect cues (which can be misleading).

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I kinda wish the thread title could be changed. What started off about a article solely about his dressing habits and no reference to flying (that I am aware of) has quickly turned into pretty much inferring his flying style was "sloppy" and he therefore killed himself and the two ladies (which he most likely did).

Thanks. I'm glad to see this returned in some sense to the original usage of the term "sloppy" and whether JFK Jr's flying, decision making, hazard identification was somehow "sloppy". A definition of "sloppy" is " adjective careless and unsystematic; excessively casual."

Personally, I have learned a lot in this thread and the associated reports, links, articles, etc. which would make me think that there are a number of ways that what he did on that flight was careless and unsystematic. I won't repeat them all again here. I guess I wouldn't say that his behaviors were outright insanity either, just not the sort of care I would hope to see in students or myself when flying family members.

I also agree that the information is limited (though that is different from no information) and it is necessary to speculate about exact causation, relative causal factors, etc. Thus people have different opinions about it because we don't have a lot of certainty about what happened in the final few minutes, as noted.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

@Glen R Thanks, very interesting personal report of the conditions encountered that day.