[expatpat]

Losing the AI (also known as the artificial horizon) when in bad IFR conditions is just about the worst thing to happen, made worse because the gyro compass goes too if the vacuum pump fails.

You have to use altimeter changes to keep the plane level, and the whiskey compass (which bobbles around a lot) and/or an electric turn/bank to keep the wings level. Its tough enough to keep it straight and level, let alone to try a fly an approach down to the airport in soup. It's part of the IFR training though.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Losing the AI (also known as the artificial horizon) when in bad IFR conditions is just about the worst thing to happen, made worse because the gyro compass goes too if the vacuum pump fails.

1. He had a backup AI on the right side of the panel. He might have gotten a coriolis illusion going back and forth. But he had a backup AI, and...
2. The vacuum pumps didn't fail. If you're familiar with crash investigation the details in NTSB would be interesting. They both showed the sort of damage you see in a pump that's running at impact time.

And like you say, it's part of training. When the guy lost it, he was supposed to be straight and level, not on an approach. His airspeed gage indicated 300+, that should have been a clue.

No sympathy for this schmuck... I feel sorry for the pax that trusted him, and the companies that have their reputation smeared to give him an undeserved, posthumous social promotion and give the widow a warm fuzzy.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[middie]

Having been fortunate enough to survive slightly over 10,700 hours of pilot-in-command time--of which at least 0ne-third was in IMC (instrument meteorological conditions--ie: really bad weather), the failure of a vacuum pump at a critical point in the instrument approach is expected to result in an early intersection with the ground. Moving at a low speed, just above stall speed, in a turn that increases the risk of disorientation and low-wing stall, and a loss of physical spatial relationship with the rest of the world, all make for imminent tragedy.

The crash was found to be not pilot error and the fault of a failed product that, had it functioned properly, would have made the approach and landing an uneventual happening.

Our tort/negligence system is based on fault, not who one is or one's status. Fault and the forseeability of the consequence of one's failure to act reasonably. In this case, the foreseeable result from a profit oriented manufacturer placing a defective product into the stream of commerce and it being used for the purpose for which it was intended and sold and nonetheless causing an injury by its unreasonable failure.

The jury did the right thing and so did the widow. That's the way the system is meaqnt to operate.