Pilot had instruments tampered with at private airport in Anglesey.

Run_to_da_hills

"A pilot averted disaster after discovering in mid-air that his flight instruments had been sabotaged with glue"

Surely a competant pilot should have checked the pitot pipes and instruments were in order prior to take off.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050001/Shocked-pilot-manages-land-safely-finding-planes-speedometer-deliberately-damaged-glue.html

jasonb

Glad no-one was hurt, but as you said, he should have noticed before take-off. Even if he'd missed the Pitot being blocked, once he was on the runway and started accelerating, he should have seen the ASI wasn't working before rotation and all he had to do was slow down and stop.

J.

Davidth88

I was always taught , as you are going down the runway...... check your airspeed , is it going up ?

Then again , that's terrible that aircraft were tampered with.


Glad he and his son were ok

xflyer

Indeed he had several opportunities to spot the issue before he left the ground. Even if you miss it during the walk around which is quite possible even though checking for blockages is standard. The lack of airspeed indication during the take off roll should have alerted him straightaway. As it happens with a blocked pitot the ASI would have acted like an altimeter and the airspeed would appear to increase once in the air thus giving an erroneous reading.

Still it was effectively attempted murder.

Don't think it wouldn't happen here. At one private airfield, excrement was smeared all round the cockpit of at least one aircraft.

jasonb

Yep, checking the ASI while on the runway after going to full throttle should be a basic check. How did he decide when to take off, when it felt right?

As Xflyer said though, it is effectively attempted murder. It's one thing deliberately and obviously vandalising an aircraft ( like with the excrement ), but gluing up a Pitot tube is fairly subtle and clearly was meant to cause harm...

J.

scudzilla

From North Wales myself and when i heard that this was on Anglesey my immediate thought was 'Mona Airfield' and not Valley.

The security at Mona is non existant, you can actually walk onto the airfield and right up to the planes, IIRC though there's only a couple ever there

Run_to_da_hills

It looks as if it was done by someone that knew their stuff.

Stovepipe

Hi there
Two foreign military aircraft that visited Baldonnel for airshows in the 80s had biro caps pushed into their pitot tubes. When the aircraft took off, the plastic melted as the pitot heaters did their job and the melted plastic cooled and blocked the pitot tube. In both cases, the aircraft had standby/alternate pitot tubes so they were able to continue but one aircraft diverted to the UK. When the aircraft were examined in the UK, melted plastic was found in the piping.So, someone who clearly knew what the pitot system does and about the heating system, sabotaged two aircraft and put the aircrew at risk of death.
There were other cases of tampering with aircraft at Baldonnel airshows so access to the aircraft was strictly controlled.

regards
Stovepipe(ex-Donner)

xflyer

Then of course there was the case of the door on the Merlin at Salthill. Not so much sabotage of course as busy little fingers and a sloppy preflight.

Speaking of pitot tubes and military aircraft. I remember a story of some Mirage F1s on a delivery flight somewhere stopping at a Greek Air Force field. They were guarded of course. But at some point the bored guard starting doing pull ups using the robust looking pitot on the nose, with the inevitable result, one bent pitot. Thinkly quickly he bent the pitots on the remaining aircraft to match, hoping no one would notice..............

eimear10

that pull up story is shocking ! Xflyer can you explain some more what the excrement story is about and where it happened?

xflyer

It happened a few years at an airfield where certain neighbours had a grudge against the owner. Recently this has manifested itself in an ongoing and nasty campaign including vandalism and intimidation, false reports and a court case.

All very nasty.

eimear10

an irish airfield?

nosedive

How did he decide when to take off, when it felt right?

...when else??

Are people taught to fly or read instruments??

Foggy43

nosedive wrote: »

...when else??

Are people taught to fly or read instruments??

They are taught that it is OK to read Tabloid newspapers but with very open mind

xflyer

Yes Eimear.

pclancy

nosedive wrote: »

...when else??

Are people taught to fly or read instruments??

Well both really. I was taught to fly and check instruments all the time to confirm things were as they should be I would take that to be the norm from an A380 to a microlite. For a Piper crosscheck compass/runway heading, then i'm watching RPM increase with the throttle, a few glances at temps and pressures to make sure they're in the green then i'm watching the airspeed reach 50-60 kts.

Sure you "feel" that the wings have lift and that it wants to fly but you've got to be happy your airspeed is indicating properly during your takeoff roll or you should abort if there's room. In fact for a GA aircraft I think its one of the few things that will make you abort a takeoff, there's not much else to go wrong with an aircraft that little apart from obvious engine failure or you realise you've left the baggage door open and your bags are tumbling out behind you

nosedive

pclancy wrote: »

nosedive wrote: »

...when else??

Are people taught to fly or read instruments??

Well both really. I was taught to fly and check instruments all the time to confirm things were as they should be I would take that to be the norm from an A380 to a microlite. For a Piper crosscheck compass/runway heading, then i'm watching RPM increase with the throttle, a few glances at temps and pressures to make sure they're in the green then i'm watching the airspeed reach 50-60 kts.

Sure you "feel" that the wings have lift and that it wants to fly but you've got to be happy your airspeed is indicating properly during your takeoff roll or you should abort if there's room. In fact for a GA aircraft I think its one of the few things that will make you abort a takeoff, there's not much else to go wrong with an aircraft that little apart from obvious engine failure or you realise you've left the baggage door open and your bags are tumbling out behind you

That's good to hear Clancy. I was beginning to think microlighters military pilots were the only people who could 'fly and aeroplane rather than drive one.

I remember demonstrating a machine to 172 driver interested in buying a 3 axis microlight - he made a few comments during the flight about nav, speeds, heading etc when we eventually made it to base leg for full stop I had enough when he commented that we should have been on xx compass heading - WHY?! I asked him, we're vfr, I can see the strip, we're flying a nice square circuit, I turned over the briefed turning point, my height is good etc etc. He didn't have any answer apart from, 'Well that's what I was told.'

This guy had been based at this airfield for years and had never modified his 'numbers' to account for wind etc.

I know my training was good - having been unlucky enough to be tested by complete engine failure - twice! When that happens the wind rushing past you seems very very loud indeed! It was good fun too! (For the record I made to the field next to the strip first time and into a 220m strip the second).

jasonb

I'd say that both learning 'how to fly' and learning 'instruments' is important.

For example, the pilot in the original story knew enough about how to fly that he knew when to take off without reference to the speed on the ASI. Which is fine. But, if he knew enough about instruments, he'd have checked the ASI to make sure that speed was increasing, and that he'd reached the take-off speed. And in doing so, he would have seen that the ASI wasn't working, and would have stopped the aircraft while on the ground.

I suppose what I'm saying is this. His plane was vandalised and that's not his fault, and the vandal should be brought to justice if possible. But if the pilot had done his job, the damage would have been spotted before he took-off, and he and his passenger wouldn't have been in any danger...

J.

el tel

The reporting in that Mail article is deadful :rolleyes:

And that's all I have to say on the matter

nosedive

jasonb wrote: »

I'd say that both learning 'how to fly' and learning 'instruments' is important.

For example, the pilot in the original story knew enough about how to fly that he knew when to take off without reference to the speed on the ASI. Which is fine. But, if he knew enough about instruments, he'd have checked the ASI to make sure that speed was increasing, and that he'd reached the take-off speed. And in doing so, he would have seen that the ASI wasn't working, and would have stopped the aircraft while on the ground.

I suppose what I'm saying is this. His plane was vandalised and that's not his fault, and the vandal should be brought to justice if possible. But if the pilot had done his job, the damage would have been spotted before he took-off, and he and his passenger wouldn't have been in any danger...

J.

Absolutely agree with you Jason B - the checks are an essential part of flying and a dead asi should have been spotted during the take off run.

I was suppose my earlier post, given the quote originally responded to, I was trying to smoke out the type of pilot who might try to haul an aeroplane off the ground once the asi hit a certain speed regardless of what else the machine might be trying to tell you - that's how people have taken off with tie downs still attached!

jasonb

I know what you mean nosedive, it's finding a balance between the two that's important!

Interestingly enough, the original story on the Mail website has changed quite a bit. He now says he realised only a few feet off the ground for a start ( hardly 'mid-air'! ), and the story mentions pilots needing to be extra vigilant, especially before flying!

J.

Manic Moran

My philosophy is that even though I don't need the instrument to fly, I'm not going to fly if I know how to use it and it doesn't work. You're already losing one of your failsafes.

It must also be said that I cannot recall ever tootling down a runway and not looking at the ASI in order to determine a good time to rotate. Speed is life, it's the one instrument I don't want to be without if I can help it.

globemaster1986

I know it's certainly one of the thing i was taught to check. After applying full power check RPM, engine instruments and that the airspeed is alive!

That said my instructor also had me do some takeoffs with the ASI covered also

Su Campu

"Take off power set" -
"Engine Ts & Ps in the green" -
"Airspeed Alive" -

Any one of these not right then don't take off.

Pilot error will certainly go down as a contributing factor.

McCrack

If the pitot tubes are faulty and the aircraft is in danger of stalling does the pilot not get a warning anyway that a stall is imminent and he can rectify it by dropping the nose and/or increasing power?

xflyer

Yes, McCrack but you really don't want the stall warning going off on short final while close to the ground. Lowering the nose may not be an option at that point. Also during a turn the stall speed increases. There is potential to stall and spin in from low altitude.

To that add the confusion factor, a blocked pitot will result in the ASI increasing with altitude. So on the climb out airspeed will appear to increase, the pilot's reaction will be to raise the nose. This may actually cause the apparent airspeed to increase further as the climb rate increases momentarily. Approaching the stall the aircraft may start to mush downwards. The ASI will now begin to decrease thus confirming for the now thoroughly addled pilot that pulling back is working. Add a stall warning to the mix and it all becomes a nightmare of conflicting information. Something a bit like that happened to the crew of AF447.

Occasionally Instructors will practice that by covering the ASI in the circuit and in fact it's quite straightforward, hence the happy result for the guy in Wales. But it's not situation you want to find yourself in unexpectedly.

One pilot I fly with normally flies in a multi crew environment. He invariably calls out 'airspeed alive' during the early part of the roll. It's a good practice even if you're alone.