Accident Case Study: Single Point Failure 

They usually fail at 900 hours. The Rapco ones with the wear indicator, anyways.

On my car, the gas meter was bad, ran out of gas twice, can't imagine dealing with partial info on a plane!!

@@Bartonovich52 let me tell you, these pieces of shit like to fail before 500...

@@rolandocrisostomo2003 the solution to that is to just top it off routinely. In a car all you have to do is set a trip and refuel ever 150-200 miles. If you don't have a trip just keep track of odometer.

You prob saved his life.

Yeah, and he didn't even ask any Hartford weather the first two calls. Don't know why he didn't do what you said, but I guess you're not thinking straight in those situations.

Sorry, but that statement means almost nothing to a controller, you need to indicate exactly what instruments are working. Controllers receive training giving no gyro turns.

@@180mph9 What part do you think a controller wouldn't understand?

@@180mph9 Sorry, I disagree. The preferable communication in this case is to be concise and obvious. “I’ve lost critical flight instruments and I need to stay VFR” will get you what you need much quicker than saying “I’ve lost my vacuum system/gyros” and assuming that the controller understands that you need to remain VFR. Most controllers have a basic understanding of flight instruments, but it requires a high level of learning to make the connection that losing that specific instrument means you must remain VFR. This pilot was VFR, he didn’t need any no-gyro turns. Going into an unnecessary amount of detail and assuming the controller knows what you know will lead to a breakdown in effective communication, which will increase the risk for an unwanted outcome. An in-flight emergency is no time to make assumptions about what the controller does/doesn’t know, nor is it a time to get into the weeds explaining things to a controller. Imply a sense of urgency, and tell them what you need.

Pilots really need to practice ways to say things to ATC. You are after all PIC and you make the decistions.

After all, the environment is brutally honest. If we fall short we fall... short.

... until Boeing got to the Max, when safety, along with a century of aviation wisdom seems to have been trashed in the name of profit.

I love that!

As my airplane mechanic told me, when I asked him why we were checking everything three times, "This is aviation, this isn't the space shuttle, we don't cross our fingers and hope for the best."

@@shocktide6428 It's not really true though. Many times a day a private pilot violates a safety rule with no consequence. Then one day their luck runs out. Many safety-related accidents are the result of a practiced disregard for safety rather than one momentary lapse of judgment.

Have you had any other similar experiences in this past 3 years?

For the most part airline pilots are much more conservative when it comes to ga flying. Best pilots don’t get complacent when it comes to safety.

MrDagassman yes. I ride bicycles long distance. Like across China USA Australia. I have quit many rides because of safety.

Airline pilots are usually too conservative. They don’t have all of the fancy toys like they do on their airliners so don’t know what light aircraft are capable of.

@@Bartonovich52 Better safe than sorry...

@@richardernsberger5692 Thank you!

Honestly? Most people are idiots. They hear that flying is safe - but what they are hearing about is flying on AIRLINES. General aviation is still quite dangerous even for the most experienced and careful pilots. Passengers need to understand that light aircraft do not have the redundancy and safety equipment that passenger airline aircraft have. GA pilots are not required to maintain the same training and proficiency as airline pilots, and aren't able to fly in the same controlled airspaces that airlines do, particularly when it comes to VFR flights. Every GA pilot who carries passengers should not only understand this implicitly, but owes it to any passengers he/she carries to educate them as to the reality of the accentuated danger of flying in light personal aircraft.

chuckschilling What do you think the risk comparison is between GA and commercial?

@@suspicionofdeceit Check out this video ( ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lpGl2_fVr2Y.html ) by avweb, does an excellent job of breaking down the risk of different types of flying, from part 121 (airlines) to part 135 (private charter) to part 91 (general aviation, like the one in this video)

@@suspicionofdeceit HOLY GOD. It's not even close. If you are not a pilot and someone you don't know well is (and offers you a flight), take care. The world is littered with GA pilots who don't take this seriously. Commercial is way way safer because of the regs they have to follow. And the fact they are incentivized to do so with a paycheck.

@@chuckschillingvideos Friend of my family he passed on now but he actually started flying before the FAA even issued a license. He was one of the first to receive a license he flew Cessna's mostly from the early 1900's though 1987 he finely gave up his license because his wife thought his eye sight was not good enough although he still passed the AME exam. I asked him once way back when I was a teenager 1980's if he ever had a scary experience flying he said never not once. I asked him why he thinks never had any bad experience flying he told me he never flies in bad weather. He never got his IFR rating he always flew in daytime VFR he flew all over the country like that. Lot of business trips when weather wasn't good just took an airline flight.

I don't even OWN a plane. But I now know to replace the pump sooner than later! If you're gonna have to replace it anyway sooner is better. For those talking "Costs;" How much would _any of these folks_ have been willing to pay in their final minutes of being alive?!

good pre-emptive save. (Btw, it's "past" not "passed". Also "its" not "it's")

BUTT.......did you have a secondary pump installed ? Same thing happened to me. I switched to my secondary and that wasn't working, i had an attitude and vacuum failure !!! DON"T GO INTO THE CLOUDS UNLESS ITS A SCATTERED LAYER !!! I threw out my vacuum system and bought Garmin attitude and DG. 5K is cheap for my family.

@@RedShipsofSpainAgain agree. Sick of the poor spelling and grammar these days as well.

@@wazza7575 English is not always peoples first language, so grammar and spelling isnt always on point. At least they try.

I had a vacuum pump failure but luckily it was a clear day at 3000 feet 10 miles from home airport.

I’ve also had one, was an MVFR day. Fortunately was only about 60 miles from home at the time and had plenty of cloud clearance, was just low vis. Not a good experience. The worst was watching the AI slowly tumble. If you didn’t see the vacuum gauge at 0 and were in IMC, following that would have been deadly. Fly with dual G5’s now, much better!

Sounds like you did some good flying. Vac pump failure in actual IMC is an extremely serious emergency. Well done

Did that result in the loss of the attitude indicator and did you have a passive gravity backup? You know, a sphere with a smaller sphere inside that uses gravity to keep the black half on the bottom and the white half on the top?

@Grace Jackson Oh, duh. Thank you! Now let's pretend I didn't have to have that explained.

He IS the CSB narrator, Mr. Sheldon Smith

I always wondered about that! 😆

I binge watch those videos

They sound nothing alike...

@@jaysmith1408 Are you sure?! Does he change his voice? The CSB one sounds super hoarse and old.

They do, the difference is you spotted it and didn’t enter IMC conditions you couldn’t handle, sounds like you kept the aircraft safe and explained your issue to them, giving them time to react as well. Well done... clearly not all are so circumspect. Although, had the clouds gotten worse, would you have diverted far even if it was a hassle? Seems like that’s what got him.

I just love stories like your Long Beach situation. If you leave your ego at the FBO, things seem to work out more often. Strange, eh? Thanks for sharing.

Not a pilot, but I praise your unashamed attitude. From reading/watching these vids it seems like admitting only VFR clearance is very difficult for even experienced pilots’ egos. One can see why it’s difficult to reach out for help, and inconveniencing others, all while probably thinking “I’m not in the big leagues, I should have stayed out of the kitchen, etc, etc”. One can see why some pilots fail to do as you have done. Congratulations on being a good and responsible role model for other pilots.

Very rarely, I think, will an ATC harshly judge you or even think less of you. They may get annoyed if they're busy but at the end of the day, they don't want you to crash either

What is VFR?

I know, FAR restrictions stifle equipment development to the point of insanity. Three decades ago every mile long uphill on a highway would have some car pulled over venting steam, and gaskets leaked a black streak down the middle of every lane, but I haven't seen one overheat in ten years now and lanes are bone dry. (I ride a moto. so take notice of oil in my tire path) Nothing too wrong with a vacuum system but why does it need to be a dry pump? I know why some air compressors need oil-free outlet air (ie spray painting) and why a lab vacuum may need to be dry,(removing specific chemical vapors) but dry in this case just seems stupid.

That is changing (as has "FAR", which is a word that hasn't been used in over a decade, as the olde FAR system was pulled under the Code of Federal Regulations.) The FAA is making it much easier for non-essential aids to flight to be installed. They'd really be doing us a favor if the whole thing went under ASTM rules.

The system you install is likely not cost economical for many aircraft owners? A simple, 100 year old + technology could have helped that Bonanza pilot. There is a standby vacuum system that takes it's suction off the intake manifold. Simple to install. Simple to operate. Uses a push-pull cable. Recent and realistic emergency procedures training would have helped that Bo pilot, too.

I’ve never had a vacuum system failure in a Venturi-equipped airplane.....

@@GWMRed Why don't they use these more?

Thank you for your service

That's not a real engineer.

I'm a network admin, which is a real IT professional field. I'm also going to school for Electrical Engineering. I've never heard of "IT Engineering"... What do you do? Design people like me? That's got to be made up.

@@tcolondovich2996 you may find that this gentleman has used the phrase 'engineer' as do many others with no engineering degree, or a completed engineering apprenticeship, a bit like the cable TV 'engineer' or the guy doing your plumbing! it happens a lot in our country! so perhaps made up indeed.

@@shermansquires3979 About Stanford A place for learning, discovery, innovation, expression and discourse COMPUTER SYSTEMS ENGINEERING (CSE) Completion of the undergraduate program in Computer Systems Engineering leads to the conferral of the Bachelor of Science in Engineering. The subplan "Computer Systems Engineering" appears on the transcript and on the diploma.

Holy crap, what enormous piles of worthlessness you guys are. Multiple attacks on a guy over something completely irrelevant to either his comment or the video. Grow up.

You donate to airspeed indicators?

@@MothaLuva You gotta keep it alive.

David Steward Steward is is is

I've learned that having a redundant system is critical to flying.

Brandon Tucker You should also see from some of the bigger, newer planes (especially Airbuses like the A380), that too much redundancy can cause complacency. Tbf, if you’re watching for your own GA readiness and training, you needn’t worry about the things a super pilot might. I’ve seen too many where things are so automated and redundant that pilots just assume everything is fine and forget to keep reading simple instruments, often not realizing the onboard systems are actively fighting them. That A380 where the pilot let his kid fly is one example, they literally thought the kid couldn’t mess it up. They also were clueless as how to fix it, which was as simple as letting go of the controls. Anyway point being, redundancy is good, as long as it doesn’t breed complacency.

@@newname4405 The irony of your description of that accident, is that Michael Crighton wrote a book 20+ years ago called "Airframe", and that was EXACTLY what happened (with one or two minor variations). A pilot let his kid fly the plane, the kid accidentally deployed the leading edge slats in cruise, and in the process of fighting with the plane to keep the pitch attitude the same, caused it to porpoise several times, quite severely. I forget how the incident was stopped, but I think it was something about the kid getting thrown out of the seat, or knocked unconscious by something, and when he stopped fighting the plane it leveled out.

It's called the God complex.

Heh heh...keep listening. You'll find some where the pilot is nervous and scared, and some where pilot and passengers are in full panic, screaming in terror.

Yeah, there’s some bad ones out there. Heartbreaking ones.

Well the first controllers would naturally be calm, sounds like they believe this is any other aircraft, nothing unusual. Especially when they tell him to turn left. Uhh, hate to break it to you Sherlock, but he doesn’t know what left is, that’s the entire problem.

Sadly, these blood written lessons are sometimes the only way to learn...

@@Watchdog_McCoy_5.7x28 Indeed. Many safety precautions in most fields are written in blood. Whether its flying, scuba diving or mountaineering

In the Navy, we always say procedure is written in blood.

@@Snakeassassin563 a lot of OSHA materials say that exactly. Pilots have surely written endless regulation manuals in blood. It's seems that it takes a cool customer to fly the plane, communicate with whoever you need to whileh quickly and accurately remembering specific training details

If you are risk averse why do you drive?

@@davidmotter5140 Not an appropriate response.

@Itried20takennames Constructive comment; I agree about the high degree of careful research and sequential situation analysis in this channel!

To be fair, both him and the controller determined the ceiling/weather was better at his destination.

I still don’t understand why this was dangerous. What made the plane break up???? Why is it so dangerous, wtf is imc

I totally agree but i also have to admit to being so transfixed on the end result i have made very stupid mistakes luckily with no bad results just embarrassment and a feeling to learn better be better

big difference between training and real life ifr. Glad to see you are alive to post this! From a dad with pilot students and long time aviation enthusiast (ie arm-chair pilot). Good report.

We all would do things diff in hindsight but in reality most would spiral in.

If that doesn't sum up every aviation-related video post I ever read..."Well I would have..." from some PPL in a 172. Dude was a 4,000hr ATP, but you're the guy who has a good bead things. The avatar says it all.

Remember the saying "no plan survives contact with the enemy". Far more important than creating a plan is maintaining it - making calm and accurate assessments of the current situation and adjusting the plan accordingly. It is the assessment process which is most vulnerable to failure, particularly when things are stressful.

Just watching this video my heart was skipping a beat imaging myself in this situation. I pray no one ever has to be in this situation and I pray even more that if they are they have learned from this tragic story so we never hear about it. These videos are always great learning tools.

Steveo: That's the thing that makes these deaths meaningful. If others learn and are helped from them. If lives are saved, their deaths are not in vain.

Baron Pilot Yep same here, as I listen to these I’m putting myself there every time and it’s pretty scary.

seeing a couple of my favorite you tubers commenting and watching these videos shows me my admiration is well placed.steveo1kinevo and Baron Pilot are watching and learning so why shouldn't I? the answer is, I will always strive to learn more with everyday I'm here. as an aspiring pilot (old man) at 43 I am sure I will commit to a flight school very soon and bring some dreams to reality! but with every video I watch I promise I will do my best to learn. a very tragic situation indeed but not to learn would be even worse. my prayers to his family.

Yes it is a shame & totally unnecessary:( We each have a personal limit but it's sometimes challenging to stay within it. It's human nature to go beyond what we feel comfortable with, sometimes we learn sometimes we don't:-(

I call bullshit on that one.

You’re talking about what to focus on for IFR training, but this guy wasn’t certified. I’m certainly no expert but I’ve seen plenty of situations where VFR pilots enter IMC and that’s all she wrote. Ofc if you have IFR training you’ll be more capable. Pretty sure the only thing for a VFR pilot to do would have been divert far away. Also everyone talking about pumps says they’ve always failed in IMC. There must be something about clouds and weather formations that increases the likelihood of a failure, there’s no way that’d be coincidence, unless people just tend to forget failures under perfect conditions.

That's my feeling as well . I'm really not clear how a pilot could rack up 4000 hrs and NOT be IFR rated I mean is that a common thing ?

@@TheRoguelement Its pretty common unless one is either actively employed as a pilot, or is highly committed to maintaining IFR competence over their entire lifetime. The pilot in the video held an ATP certificate, which is like an instrument rating but with much tighter performance standards.The certificate is good for life, but the skill set starts to degrade in as little as a couple months of non-use. If he retired from an airline career at 60, and either chose not to maintain currency, or just did the minimum legal requirements, after 6 years, he is ill equipped to deal with a partial panel situation. This is often a very difficult thing for retired pilots. They have memories of years of recurrent training and checkrides... so their is a tendency to believe one can always put those skill back to use. And there is an element of truth in this... Most retired airline pilots can become proficient and safe with only a very modest investment in recurrent training, even if a number of years have passed. However, without recurrent training, they can and do get in over their head very quickly.

@@newname4405 There is no correlation between IMC and vacuum pump failure, the pump can't tell if the pilot can see the ground or not. The pump failing on a flight in visual conditions is a non-event, however, if in IMC it can be a big problem. This is why you hear about them failing in IMC. If you find yourself operating partial panel, communicate this clearly to ATC, get to and stay VFR on top if possible. If you must shoot an approach to land, get vectored for a straight in approach in a radar environment where ATC can monitor your heading as you descend. An airport with a CAT III ILS has more lighting, which can assist with nighttime approaches. Some airports can provide no-gyro approaches where the pilot is guided as to when to turn left/right by the controller. Ask if these are available! Use the resources of ATC, they are more than willing to help, but you have to clearly ask for their help.

heh heh. and i hope that cockpit is nice and warm for that honey.

There are subtitles just click the CC button on the bottom right

Naveed Quadeer RU-vid Subtitles suck

@@homefront3162 Improve them.

@@homefront3162 There are manual subtitles that have been added for this video - we're not talking about the autogenerated subtitles

@@homefront3162 No, they don't.

I'm not a pilot, but my sons are. For ga pilots... Why not have a back-up plan to follow your instruments when hit with an imc situation. Heck my youngest focused so much on his instruments, the instructor had to teach him how to keep his head UP (he loves flying the instrument panel! He's a gamer so go figure). PPL Training does teach a bit of flying on instruments, it should become a regular training regimen imo. Like bring with you someone in the right seat, and at some random time put on the foggles to force you to fly by instruments alone. That will instil confidence and ability to get out of a bad situation. As far as your incident goes Aviation Nut - and I asked them - My son's FI's always teach to follow the turn coordinator & mag compass in partial panel ops, and to cover the bad instruments with post it notes. It does work. I could never imagine a confusing panel blaring all the bullshit they do with a bad vacuum pump system plus being in the clouds or at night. It's scares the hell out of me just thinking about it. As a dad I do the fsx bit from time to time, but can stay out of trouble by following those 2 instruments (if I fake it). (God, the mag compass in fsx sux video quality wise). My youngest keeps wanting to steal my simulator.. haha! Guess I need to buy him his own rig. Cheers man. I love musketeers... and totally go apeshit over sundowners! I love the twin doors, 180hp... full ifr capable. Maybe looking to buy one some day.

You always have (or should, anyway) a plan to fly on instruments if you inadvertentely enter IMC. But this isn't as easy as it seems, as evidenced by this, and many other similar accidents.

wow, Aviation Nut, I am so happy things turned out well. 5 minutes is a long time though, relatively. It's even longer than the story presented here. Do you recall how ATC helped u out in ways a non flying ATC maybe wouldn't have?

Scary story Aviation Nut!! Glad you and the friends survived it!

How do vacuum pumps know when they enter clouds? Seems uncanny, but I've lost seven pumps in my career. All of them were while flying in IMC. How in hell do they know?

"Pedagogical"? LOL!

@@innocentbystander3798 It means teacher dumbass.

VFR pilot here as well, in IR training. I wouldn't have flown that day, simple as that. Sure as heck not without a backup vacuum pump.

Total flight hours is not the end all measure of safety and competence. There is no safe flight hours zone. Complacency can become a real problem for high time pilots. Recency of training is crucial. I think pilots, particularly high time pilots should spend more time with the basics of flying. There is an attitude among pilots that as you get advanced ratings and hours, you graduate from Student pilot. I wish they would call beginning flight training something else. Core Training, Fundamental Training, etc, and do away with "Student pilot".

Its not all ways the Flight time. Its all so knowing your skill level at times a new VFR pilot can make a 100 mile or 1000 mile VFR flight as long as he is safe and on top of things like weather, fuel to me new pilots if train well and keeping safety in mine each time they fly are as safe as old pilot who dose's the same Accidents at times can come out of the blue and not at other times May all your flight end in with smooth landing

GA Flying, there is an old saying: “ a superior pilot uses his superior judgement so he doesn’t have to use his superior flying skills.” That Bo pilot made a judgement error long before he lost control.

I know what you mean. I used to drive through Dealey Plaza in a convertible, and always thought that it could have been me. Granted, I wasn't President, and did not attempt to be President.

Gliding makes the best pilots.

I don’t know what the reluctance in the USA is to using the nice, clear, unambiguous MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY. Having declared a PAN 3 times in reality even that focuses the mind and shuts everyone else up.

Even pilots should not fly when they're trying to get home and rest.

Exactly. It is extremely dangerous, tell them MAYDAY.

I agree that would have been such a smart move. But it also seems like something you'd want ATC to know, that a plane without instruments in IMC is a pretty serious issue especially after they've declared an emergency. IMO a very casual discussion on both sides considering the serverity of the situation and they both fed off the calmness of the other party.

yes, with the benefit of this g8 instructional, i would use plain english. "..declaring an Emergency, i've lost my only attitude indicator and need VFR"

If you lose vacuum from a venturi tube you have bigger trouble....

@@flagmichael good one!

Retired controller here. There have been times I've declared an emergency (that's allowed) and the pilot never knew, before or afterwords.

@Bart Solari judging his last flight, hopefully you have your pilots license so one day we can judge your last move

I wonder if he could fly partial panel.

@@Hedgeflexlfz in his sleep...

@@bluethermal lolol

Holy smokes . . . I bet you were scared to death. Who called the cops to get their cars in position? What did the Convair boys tell you?

Great post!

I've been guilty of it too, there is a reluctance to declare an emergency, which is just silly, as long as you aren't maliciously abusing your PIC authority the worst you will have to do is file a written report. When the pressure is on like that you need all the help you can get.

@Terry Melvin Well he can't fly very well with a partial panel. ATC should be a lot more helpful in this situation.

He never told ATC what his problem was. They are not pilots, not engineers, and certainly not familiar with the techical details of your model plane.

How did you survive the situation? Any insights might help others (including me!).

It was at night and in IMC conditions. Having only my magnetic compass and turn coordinator to survive with was extremely dicey. The only reason I survived was due to no turbulence upsetting either standby instrument. I detailed the incident in my blog entry here. Even though it's been 25 years ago, I still think about that night and how it may have ended differently... mikehowells.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/my-worst-flight/

wow. now that's a story!

That was an amazing blog I really enjoyed it thanks for the link

Not only were those longwinded responses extremely annoying, but that was the third time ATC asked whether he was declaring.

Turn on closed captions (CC).

Heck, big bird have even 3 gyro backup

Kind of like working with pilots at times when's there's trouble with a system those who hold the - A/P or IA ratings at times have a much better understanding and at times give a lot of help or Ideals to the ground crew as well as knowing a little more of what to do or not do in flight

Yep, at N90, what they lack in ability, they make up for in attitude.

If you have a failure it is best to indicate to ATC [ Air Traffic Control ] in plain language what the failure is and what is affected by the abnormalities.. You can go on and on all day about controllers not being technically savvy but that is not the point. No matter what you are flying the limitations and restrictions if understood will get you more help even if the controller could build an aircraft.

@@RU-vid.TOM.A Failure to communicate well enough.

ATCs aren't supposed to be pilots or airplane mechanics. It's up to the pilot to tell them how big of an emergency something is, not just tell them, "I'm having a problem with such and such." Tell ATC you have an emergency and then tell them what you need to do.

I understand helis are inherently tougher to control. Best wishes for your flying career.

Undoubtedly due to pride.

Yep, that's it, right there. I would also guess that the pilot's 4000 hrs total flight time convinced him that he could accomplish the feat.

Wouldn't a G1000 be enough

@@schweizer3301 I can not think of a way to say this that might not sound bad. My answer to you would be, how much is the life of your passengers worth? If it will always be just your life on the line the question does not have true meaning. When you are taking care of others lives, you should not betray there trust with just hoping for the best or settling for it should be good enough. Please do not take this the wrong way.

@@SuperchargedSupercharged It seems you misunderstood, i asked assuming that a G1000 offers a similar level thats at the very least better than what was used in the vid. It seems youve taking this the wrong way. This is a discussion not a rule book.

@@schweizer3301 understoood, thank you

@@SusanKay- I can't understand anything you wrote.

The weather is not the problem. It's the pilot. If you're a good pilot, this kind of things don't happen to you. If you're going to fly in IMC, you should have as many backups as possible. A few hundred bucks can save your life, that's priceless.

Yes you wouldn't catch me flying in IMC without backups

I'm guessing the erratic manoevering over-stressed the aircraft.

Usually when pilots get into spirals due to spatial disorientation, the aircraft breaks up before it even hits the ground because the red-line speed of the aircraft is exceeded. At speeds above that, not having the airplane rip apart due to the huge amount of parasite drag is not a guarantee. Pair that in with a pilot making possibly erratic maneuvers in attempt to recover from the unusual attitude which add stress to the aircraft, and you are almost sure to break the plane. Google a V-G diagram for a more data-based way of seeing this.

The wings and horizontal stabilizer on the tail are attached to the "body" of the airplane with bolts. The wing has spar(s) that give it strength. The airplane is rated for so many Gs (force of gravity). Every airplane is built to withstand so much weight in flight-they all have limits. At 1 G, flying straight and level, a 100 pound person weighs 100 pounds, easy so far. Now the airplane is in a 60 degree banked turn and is pulling 2 Gs. That same 100 pound person is putting 200 pounds of pressure on the seat. At 3 and 4 Gs, the person weighs 300 and 400 pounds. The weight of the airplane is well over a thousand pounds and that weight is being carried by the wind spar(s) and the hardware attaching the wing to the airplane. The attaching hardware and wing spar(s) all experience the same increased weight (stress) when the Gs increase. When you are in a steep dive and a steep angle of bank then pull hard back on the controls to try and climb you place a tremendous strain on the wings and attach points. The airplane I fly is rated to 2.4 Gs positive, beyond that I risk structural damage or failure. The airplane broke apart mid air because the pilot allowed the speed to reach a point combined with what he was commanding the airplane to do through his control inputs that the resulting forces did exactly what you said "strain during the spiral just too much". Hitting a big speed bump on the road at normal driving speeds is uncomfortable. However if you hit that same speed bump at 100 mph or 160 km/h over and above the posted speed limit they you are likely to do some damage or even lose control. Same with the airplane, as the speed increases the resulting forces acting on the airplane also increase, up to and including the point of failure. This pilot lost control of his airplane in the descent, and in trying to "fix" it he pulled it apart.