Final Report - Numerous Pilot Inadequacies for the Fatal Flight of N79NX- Unbelievable Cockpit Chaos 

I fly the Pilatus professionally even though my boss owns the airplane and is a pilot himself. But he is smart enough to know that this airplane is way too complex for him to fly so, unlike this idiot, he hired me, a retired airline pilot, to fly him and his family around. And he demands that I always have a second professional pilot in the right seat. Some pilots were born to kill themselves in a plane crash and this guy fits that description perfectly.

Constantly falling further and further behind the airplane. At some point as a pilot you need to admit you’re falling into trouble, level out and fly straight. Tell ATC what’s going on and get help. Declare if you need to but for God’s sake don’t dig yourself in any deeper. You could see this coming from miles away.

Airplanes are not toys. Just because you can afford to own one, does not give you the right to stupidly endanger yourself and those operating in this same blue sky. If you like airplanes as your toys, spend the money and hire a professional pilot to fly with you around all the time. You will be surprised of the discovery, and what it takes to stay alive in this business!

The roadways are full of these people now also. Sickening.

Case of more money than ability. Not the first time and won't be the last time.

Thanks for all of the videos with this crash. I'm local to this area living less than 5 miles from Cherry Point. Thanks for taking your time on this incident.

Flying IFR now days is so easy with GPS units... It's easier than flying VFR. Why in the heck doesn't a pilot just file IFR...

Goodness! How did this dude get a pilots license??

Seems like the recent girl/woman flygrl who crashes her Bonanza with non pilot dad as copilot. She was way behind the plane & didnt knoe hiw ti properly use her autopilot etc

Thank you for creating this informative video.

Very well put together, watched all videos and it was a tad painful knowing the loss of life Found myself counting 1 thousand, 2 thousand, 3 thousand as the seconds were ticking by and eff all was being done to fly the 'plane.

I believe the 'pilot' was allowing the youngsters to sit in the pilot seat and friends taking pics to share/impress friends at home and social media, etc. Helps explain the missed controller calls, restricted area, etc. Recall pilots son was initially sitting copilot who was a beginning student pilot. A Lot of power and speed and complexity for such a newbe that pilot dad might have been expecting him to be up to the challenge. Have an idea the dad yelling navigate was to son to program unfamiliar complex avionics, And fly the airplane, whilst 4 youngsters were enjoying sitting in the pilot seat and photo ops. Too many bodies coming and going from flight deck. RIP to all.

WOW! For a piddly ass 61 miles! Just boggles the mind😢

Too much reliance on automation these days Aviate. Then worry about programming. Fly the airplane and fess up you need vectors to a hold and set things up. Seeing similar accidents in 2023.

It is so tragic that some parents trusted this man. I have never allowed my family to fly General aviation unless the pilots were highly skilled.

Sad when someone crashes a perfectly capable aircraft. There would not have been any issues had a real pilot been sitting in the left seat. Sad for the innocent, young passengers.

Very sad to hear this report. I did not know them but this accident really impacted the local community down here. They were returning from a youth day duck hunt. Sad.

H forgot to AVIATE FIRST, then Navigate & lastly Communicate. He failed option 1 Now the only thing left for a family members and lawyers to do is litigate

I put a great deal of the blame on the instructors and examiners that signed him off.

This guy should have not been allowed in a 172 never mind a PC-12. You want to go up like that knowing that you don’t know what you are doing fine. But to take others when they trust you. That’s BS.

I wish the training centers would uphold their "passing standards" on the initials and recurrents a little more. Some of the owner pilots (and pro pilots) that end up sliding through is bewildering.

would be helpful if you included the cockpit voice transmissions , but definitely a sad situation

Look at the meds he was taking. Although he most likely not on any of the ones listed at the time still long term use,especially the Oxy, can fuzz you out.

As you said, more money than brains.... Respect to all pilots, but my dad, veteran F86 Sabre pilot in Korea..... rather fly with a drunk military pilot than a sobre civvy pilot. A bit harsh, I agree, but advice I follow everytime I'm presented with a civvy flip.

I see your NX and raise you Pinnacle Flight 3701 and N452DA at Teterboro. Both commersial pilots in both seats.

I don`t even make that many mistakes on my X-Plane 11 simulator😲😲Off course one can never compare a simulator to real world but this is just tragic !! Sad loss of life, respect to those that perished..

Just an FYI, the NC destination was in Beaufort (bOfort). Beaufort (bUfort) is in SC. Just a mispronunciation, no biggie.

This is all great but where are those recordings ? I’d like to hear it

It seems that he was "confused" the moment he got in the plane. Health issue?

what makes someone with 3000 hours do something like this???

2/25/21 I flew on N273SM, the Medi-Flight out of Reno. It crashed by pilot error 2 years later. The plane seemed to be in top notch condition at the time I was in it flying to Moffet Field from Reno.

I realize its a Turboprop engine. And not saying he was overweight but just because one has 8-10 seats in a plan le doesnt mean they should be filled. Could in theory placing the heavier adults to occupy back seats influence aft CG? Invreasing stall speed or angle of attack?

How can anyone even get to this level of aircraft and have this happen?

Don't let your pride, or fear of an FAA investigation afterwards, keep you from admitting to ATC that you're in over your head and need help. Embarrassment beats this alternative.

Confused the priority navigate, navigate with aviate, aviate.

Tragic. With the ease of flight planning there is no reason a person should not create a proper navigation profile. The software allow a pilot to file an IFR flight plan and load it to the plane. Additionally, it seems this pilot spent a lot of time flying in this area. Local pilots should be very familiar with the restricted airspace and how to navigate the area whether it is active or inactive at the time. Also, most advanced aircraft have a single button that you push it and it tells the auto pilot to take over and maintain straight and level flight. Hit the button take a couple deep breaths, and ask ATC for help

Wow

This is a longer comment, but worth reading, I think. When he flew it up into a stall, in IMC, on the CVR, the kid knew enough to tell him to push it down, meaning push the nose down to regain speed and get out of a stall condition. (The boy also seemed to know which heading to take out of the restricted area to avoid the nuisance of being shot down by a missile. But I digress.) Instead, the idiot Dad, determined to prove to his young audience, that "Yes, kids, you, too, can fly in zero visibility without ever looking at your instrument indications. See, the trick is in trusting your inner ear; that never fails." Well, he was stupendously wrong. Going for a stall for the ages, he pulled it further into a climb. The son, too scared to say any more than "Dad!" probably could not believe the old man was actually going to fly them straight into the ocean like a torpedo. Talk about losing the genetic lottery. On this flight, PC Expletive Deleted, totally lost the plot. The kid would've been better off trying the whole thing without Dad at all. Mind-bogglingly bad pilotage. 7 innocent lives lost, and 1 more who caused it all. Makes me think of the Colgan 3407 crash near Buffalo, where Captain Dumpy Middle-age Guy was so distracted gabbing away about his exploits to impress First Officer Young Hot Gal, who'd never seen ice in all her flying experience, except maybe in a glass. Captain Dumpy flies it into a stall and did the same thing as Expletive Deleted did after a stall warning: Pull back on the yoke in a panic, heaven help us all! FO YHG, just now seeing how an experienced Captain reacts to a problem, panics, too. So, with speed falling fast, she raises the flaps (might as well have tossed out an anchor or flapped her arms), and we are off to the races. The stall deepens into a spin, and no one aboard has a happy ending. Not only were they late; they were forever "late" and hitherto referred to only in the past tense. And don't forget the poor souls on the ground who had their evening pretty much ruined by a Bombardier Q400 landing in the living room. Literally, the automation on modern aircraft, while great if used correctly, is often used as a substitute for stick and rudder skills. I've been involved in accident investigations a long time, made some friends and more than a few enemies for my reluctance to go along with certain probable causes, yet I'm still surprised by the idiocy of some people. Unlike the Colgan whitewash about the personal dynamics between the pilots, the NTSB appears to have been on point about the Pilatus crash.

I don't need no stinkin' training.

A 200 foot climb was too much to handle ? How did that guy even get a license ?

Well they do both start with what sounds like c.😮

Listening to the complete audio is painful, that guy never had the plane, he was behind before they even left the ground. They need to start questioning the training, CFI's, certificates, and who signed off etc. My hope is that the passengers didn't have comm's and were oblivious for at least most of the flight.

I'm only a PC flight simulator pilot. I have asked actual flight instructors what they think of students who previously were flight sim people. What they tell me is that the students that come from flight Sims are more focused on the instruments than looking out the window. To me that's kind of indicates that a flight sim pilot might actually be better at flying in IMC or IFR without becoming spatially disoriented, because they will focus on the instruments, and act accordingly.

as is often the case, too much money, too much plane, not enough pilot...simple as that...

Those poor kids who trusted their lives to that idiot.

That’s was my first thought. Why is he screaming navigate? Fly the god damn plane! Aviate always comes first. Many many many lives have been saved in emergencies when crews have aviated first then done troubleshooting (or even just taking stock of where they’re at) second.

The fatal effects of Dunning-Kreuger's disease.

Its only an airplane….. how hard could it be…?

He’s got no business flying that airplane

PIC Ernest Rawls 67 had his son fly as CoPilot who had 20 hours of flight time. Rawls appears to have either no idea what he was doing or was having cognitive issues. Either way he killed 7 others and destroyed a perfectly good aircraft.

Aviate, aviate, aviate

Only one pilot...pax in right seat.

Wow I’m floored!! Pilot was 67 yrs old. He knew better and lk he wanted was for the plane to fly itself (Autopilot) It’s obvious neither guys could pilot the acft. I’d expect this in a younger simulation-RU-vid generation but this is inexcusable!!! Great video

When you have money you feel that you’re invincible. I see this a lot with everything not just airplanes. I’ve seen rich people buy horses and think they can learn to ride on their own or with just a few lessons only to end up falling off and getting seriously injured because they won’t listen to anyone. Rich people think they know it all…..until they hit the ground hard.

These idiots should not have been piloting any aircraft. These are basic errors that morphed into an uncontrollable snowball.

This sounds like too much airplane and too little pilot. Money can buy a big fast airplane, but it can't buy aeronautical skills. That comes with practice.

Inadequacies? More like stupidities and irresponsibilities. Should not even have been in any cockpit.

What a terrible loss. I mean really, the Pilatus 12 is a great airplane. It was a shame to lose it.

Wealthy individuals who fly their own complex aircraft are the most dangerous. An inflated ego convinces them that they are awesome pilots which rarely is the case. Unfortunately in this case this incompetent pilot killed his entire family. Chances are he was either a doctor or a lawyer as these 2 groups of professionals have an inordinate number of crashes.

FFS. Just call ATC and get vectors. If you can't solve your autopilot, stop chasing it.

This idiot flew one of the finest, most capable aircraft right in the ocean! Grossly incompetent and unqualified! Accident looking for a place to happen, not IF, but WHEN! Prayers to the victims and their families. May they RIP!😪😪🙏🙏

More money than skills......................... And too cheap to hire a more skillful pilot to fly along.

Aviate, navigate, communicate. Too much bottom pushing!!!

This is called natural selection. Aviation, red in tooth and claw.

Not everyone has the genetic ability to be a pilot.

3000 hours experience isn’t much time. Stupid flying.

This is so bad I can’t watch the whole thing.