ICON A5 Lake Berryessa Crash

Crash occurred on May 8, 2017 at approximately 9AM.

NTSB preliminary report here.  Location data and weather information included in the report. Weather info was from the airport the aircraft started from (Nut Tree Airport in Vacaville), and generally agrees with data from a nearby MESOWEST station located ~10 miles NorthEast of the lake.

Google Earth View of crash location (North up)

Goggle Earth view of crash location (North up).

Elevation profile of crash location (North up).

The purpose of the flight was an introductory flight for a new employee who was the passenger. The aircraft had not made a water landing before this point in the flight. Obviously, a demo flight would include a water landing. Given the wind direction (30 degrees) and speed (less than 5 knots), the water at the end of the cove had to be as smooth as glass.

My speculation is that the pilot intended to land at the end of cove, misjudged his sink rate over the last piece of shoreline he needed to cross for the landing to the North, revved the engine to gain altitude, but it was too late. The plane hit the shoreline.

The gentle taper of the elevation profile at the end of the cove does not suggest that a rapid climb to get out of the canyon was needed. The observables are consistent with a botched landing attempt.

My guess is that people at ICON can confirm that this location was used for water landings on previous flights to this area.

more May 13, 2017 

So a colleague suggested fog formation as a possible contributing factor.

From the NTSB report using the weather at the Nut Tree Airport (origin of subject flight), the air temperature was logged as 18C, and the dew point as 11C. Much too great a difference for fog to form. However, the Nut Tree location is not representative of the conditions at the crash site.  (2.5C is actually equivalent to 4.5F.)

Location of Nut Tree below relative to Berryessa (North up).

The Nut Tree is at an elevation of 100' and very close to the San Francisco Bay/Delta. A MESOWEST weather station in Brooks (BKSC1) is slightly closer to the lake, at an elevation of 354' (lake is 500'), and is more representative of conditions at Berryessa.

Location of BKSC1 relative to Berryessa (North up)

A graph of air temperature and wet bulb temperature (dew point) taken from the BKSCI data log is shown below. The time of the accident was approximately 9AM on May 8, 2017. The temperature difference logged below is much more conducive of fog formation than the conditions logged at the Nut Tree Airport. Fog almost certainly formed in the early morning hours, the questions are how long it persisted, if it was present at 9AM, and was it pushed into the area along the West side of Little Portuguese Canyon by the wind?

It is possible that a fog layer formed as illustrated below. The light wind from 30 degrees would compress the fog against the steep bank of the lake. The pilot seeing a clear landing zone descended through what he perceived as a thin fog layer, and believed he was over water at the time since the shoreline was not visible through the fog layer. When he finally got low enough to realize that he had not quite cleared the small shoreline extension into the lake he attempted to ascend, but it was too late. A very reasonable scenario, IMO.

                                                               (North up)

Wind speed and gust data from BKSC1 (below) also shows a slightly different picture than the Nut Tree data in the NTSB preliminary report. It was very calm on the morning of the May 8. Even the wind gust speed was below 5 mph which would favor fog formation near the surface of the lake.

Unrelated to the above is a map of Berryessa presumably showing areas where amphibious aircraft can operate (green?). This map would contradict the notion that the pilot was attempting to land in Little Portuguese Canyon. It is not entirely clear what is meant by "seaplane operations". If it means flying, then the pilot was in violation of "permitted only on the main body of water" when he turned up little Portuguese Canyon.

and more May 15, 2017

Close examination of the crash site pictures shows no evidence of scaring in the bank or of a debris "trail" both of which one would expect if there was a significant component of horizontal velocity at the point of impact. This observation would suggest a structural failure or a stall.

However, the picture below suggests that a crash site investigator was examining something South of the crash site (to the left of the crash site in picture below). Possibly a tree impact which would have dramatically slowed horizontal velocity and spun the plane into the bank. Lots of questions remain.

edit May 17, 2017

This is big. From the link below.

"ICON initially suspended all flight operations of the A5 fleet immediately after the accident. Flight operations have now resumed following the NTSB preliminary report."

big

This tells me that a mechanical or structural problem has been largely ruled out by the preliminary investigation, and the data on the flight data recorder.  Details of which are not in the public domain as yet.


more May 18, 2017

The picture below has appeared on the Web in a couple of blogs.

Speculation has been made that what appear to be wires in the the 10 o'clock and 1 o'clock positions are a power line that the aircraft ran into and were the cause of the crash.

My own opinion is that these are simply lines used by first responders to secure the wreckage to the shore. Detailed examination of satellite imagery shows no evidence of power lines in this area. BTW, the newest version of Google Earth compatible with the Chrome browser is fabulous.

update May 20, 2017

Well, the Berryessa incident is following a familiar pattern relative to both journalism and the NTSB. Google shows nothing in the last 24 hours, and the ICON corporate website has been turned off. Check back once a month? Icon taking their website down is a big negative for me. I was prepared to regard them in a positive light until then. They are being sleazy now.

edit June 5, 2017


Interesting picture below taken from a location on the opposite shore of the canyon from the crash site. View is to the West. Flight path was from left to right in the photo. Arrow marks the approximate  crash site.

more July 17, 2017

No more info from the NTSB (not surprising at this date) or from the manufacturer. The following two screen shots are from the Jeff Wise blog "Aviation Section". Jeff is mainly dedicated to the search for MH370, but did introduce an Icon blog section after the Berryessa incident. The posters below fall into the "take it for what it is worth category", but they sound like they know what they are talking about.




more August 9, 2017

NTSB report news.

Conclusion - pilot error.

NTSB report - final report.

NTSB Report

more September 8, 2017

Lake Berryessa News

Hood Whining

Screen shot from Hood's comments in The Australian, May 8, 2017.

That is so inappropriate - "undermines the good work of many dedicated professionals". Good work and dedication are no substitute for competence. These professionals did not find the aircraft because they were looking in the wrong place. Malaysia's and the ATSB's refusal to release data requested over and over again by well qualified independent analysts is the issue Higgins is addressing, and rightfully so.

The new area suggested recently by the ATSB came from the same group who defined the initial search area. Valid questions have been raised relative to the determination of the new area. The reality is that the ATSB has much more and better data now than it did when the a decision was made to start the original search. What has changed? The obvious answer is that people making funding decisions have lost confidence in the ability of the "dedicated professionals".

For Freddie

Recently Freddie made a summary post on the JW blog referencing the Geomar drift study (which used reverse analytics), an ocean disturbance report by a Russian author (Mikhail P.), and a Christmas Island path generated early on by me. Here we have three completely unrelated works done at different times by different people all working independently which give precisely the same MH370 terminal location. I am not evangelizing the Christmas Island path, but I find the coincidences quite remarkable. This post is made to support Freddie.


Geomar Drift Analysis (August 2015)

Russian Ocean Disturbance Geometry (Mikhail P. - June 2014)

Dennis Xmas Island Path (first proposed in ??? 2014)

The Party

I mean the political party. Most of my friends (not friends and neighbors where I live, but friends acquired in a previous life in the Bay Area Shithole, BAS) are liberal and democratic. They are largely anti-vaxxers, anti-gun, anti-profiling, and anti-anything else they don't think is politically correct. Me, I am not anti-anything with the exception of taxes which, in California, are truly the highest in the nation and growing.

When Trump won the presidential election the whining I heard from my BAS friends was loud and clear. Similar to the whining in the largely democratic media and almost totally democratic educational domain. When Obama won twice there was no whining. Conservatives don't whine. They except the results of a lawful process, and carry on with their lives.

The Crowdpac survey pretty much tells the story.

We all know how much entertainers, academics, online services (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter,...) and journalists actually contribute to society. These groups are much more liberal than the people who actually do something (farmers, miners, construction workers, and energy producers) are conservative (6-7L versus 3-4C)

So it goes. I will not comment further on the tax issue. It just upsets me to even think about it. Instead let's consider gun control. The table below lists the mass shooting events that have taken place in California in the last three+ decades. A mass shooting being defined as four or more people killed or injured.

If the locations of these mass shootings are plotted on map the result is the following:

A map depicting the political (democrat/republican) leanings of Californians is shown below. This map has not changed much over the three decades in which the shootings are logged. Needless to say the ease of getting a carry permit is much greater in the red counties, and is virtually impossible in the blue counties. Draw your own conclusions, but I feel a lot safer North of the Golden Gate where the percentage of gun ownership is much higher.

There is a lot in common between the maps above and the map below. Again, draw your own conclusions. Mass shootings only seem to occur where it is next to impossible to get a permit to carry a firearm. Makes the gun control advocates look sort of stupid (which they are).

Rollingstone Magazine luckily scored an interview with Obama the day after the general election. Among one of the more interesting comments Obama made was:

"If you look at the data from the election, if it were just young people who were voting, Hillary would have gotten 500 electoral votes. So we have helped, I think, shape a generation to think about being inclusive, being fair, caring about the environment. And they will have growing influence year by year, which means that America will continue to get better."

What a slap in the face to older Americans. Like we don't know jack shit, are not fair, and don't care about the environment. Of course if you look at who actually votes you get a different picture.  BTW, there are as many eligible millennial voters as boomers.

Young people simply do not care enough to even show up.  They don't care about our country, about their communities, or the companies they work for. What they care about is themselves. Not sure where Obama is getting the warm and optimistic feeling about young people. The data simply does not support his perceptions.

Data on advanced degrees in the US is even more disappointing. Without foreign students the number of PhD's earned in a scientific discipline would go down by more the 50%.

degree statistics

So, I am old, and really don't really care that much anymore. I will filter my friends, and they will certainly filter me.  It is one thing to see shit is happening, it is another to listen to why the shit is good from a bunch of poorly informed and biased BAS dwellers.

Edit 2 May 2017

A related issue is the recent voting on California proposition 56 - a proposal to raise the tax on cigarettes by $2 / pack.  Clearly a discriminatory tax. Of course, the proposition passed by a large margin. Once again dominated by votes South of the Golden Gate where most of the whackos live.

Continuing Education

So today I spent all day at an EMS conference to acquire 7 hours of continuing education credit for my EMT license. I am acting as an EMT on a volunteer basis, so there is no remuneration involved at all. To maintain national EMT certification requires 48 hours of CE, Continuing Education, every two years.

So why does a PhD in math or physics or any other of the major scientific disciplines not have an imposed CE requirement? Ami (my significant other) has a PhD in EE with no CE requirements, but her license to practice law in California with her JD requires 25 hours every two years (soon to be  raised to 35 hours).

I raise this question in good faith based on the nonsense I see virtually every day on the MH370 blogs.

BTW, I am not complaining. I learned a lot of very useful and highly appropriate stuff today.

GPS Shock Mount

GPS receiver mounted on a motorcycle handlebar. A Garmin shock mount is shown. The purpose of the shock mount is to mitigate severe vibration when riding off road. Without the shock mount the GPS receiver has a difficult time tracking satellites and determining user Doppler.

Under Constrained

What do the search for MH370, the 'big bang", AGW, and contemporary evolutionary theory have in common?  They all represent an analytical and scientific trend that has become common over the last 50 years or so. I would characterize this trend as an over reliance on under constrained "solutions".

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with an under constrained system. What is wrong is to teach it as dogma in schools, and spend public money following a course of action based on such ideas.

It is very likely that the "big bang" theory is wrong. New data gathered by the Planck satellite has shaken the foundations of the "big bang". Actually the "big bang" has been hobbled by problems for over 50 years - the amount of time spent looking for and not finding any dark matter or dark energy needed for the theory to explain the observables. That has not stopped our educators from presenting the "big bang" as a proven scientific fact.

So it goes with AGW. Is the world's climate changing? A lot of observables suggest that it is. What is not known is the underlying causality. Is it related to human activity or is it the result of other physical processes? No one knows with any degree of certainty. Spending money to reduce the impact of humans on the earth is probably a good thing to do. Teaching AGW in our schools as a provably correct theory is total nonsense. The reality is we do not know if human activity is causing global warming.

Evolution happens. We can see it occurring in our world. Can it explain the diversity of plants and animals on our planet today? No. There are serious problems related to the observed rate of genetic mutation and the age of the earth. It is not a small disconnect. It is an order of magnitude disconnect. This problem gets no mention as evolution is spoon fed to our children as the correct explanation for every plant and animal on our planet.

The search for MH370 highlights over a short time period the 50 year trend mentioned in the first paragraph above. The SSWG and many analysts outside the SSWG busied themselves sticking pins in a map based on speculation. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with that process except the manner in which it was presented and preserved. Like the "big bang", AGW, and evolution you had to be part of the club of believers or you were invited to leave the discussion. Is this the new trend in scientific enquiry? Apparently so.  Steinhardt and Loeb conclude their paper highlighting the problems with the "big bang" with an interesting discussion in this regard. Their paper is a very worthwhile read.

Pop Goes the Universe

Speaking about theories in general...

The theory becomes more highly tuned and arcane to fit new observations until it reaches a state where its explanatory power diminishes to the point that it is no longer pursued. The explanatory power of a theory is measured by the set of possibilities it excludes. More immunization means less exclusion and less power. A theory like the multimess (big bang) does not exclude anything and, hence, has zero power. Declaring an empty theory as the unquestioned standard view requires some sort of assurance outside of science. Short of a professed oracle, the only alternative is to invoke authorities. History teaches us that this is the wrong road to take. 

The work of the SSWG, IG, DSTG, and other outside analysts falls exactly into the problem area above. It excludes nothing and has zero power. An oracle would be appreciated.

Taleb makes an interesting observation relative to people "categorization" - people that know how (surgeons, Uber drivers, machinists...) and people who know what (economists, cosmologists, climatologists,...) I am done paying any attention to people in the know what category.

edit: 4/17/2017

So the ATSB put the lid on information disclosure today. I suppose I would do the same thing if I was in their shoes.

atsb-threatens-staff-with-jail-if-mh370-details-leaked

XR650R - A Legend

The world is finally waking up to what I discovered several years ago. The finest single cylinder adventure bike is no longer made. That would be the Honda XR650R.  Getting one plated in California is a non-trivial exercise.

XR650R

I went through the pain, and have two of them. Both very well sorted out. Pic below.

The bike on the left is a Johnny Campbell pre-runner. Campbell and team won the Baja 1000 several times with this type of bike. It has the Honda factory installed power up kit, and the forks are reworked for the Honda Baja team. What this means is that the bike is basically not rideable for a normal person. It is scary fast, and beats you to death at normal rider speeds and style. The bike on the right has the standard XR650R engine, and reworked suspension for B/C riders. It is a very pleasant scooter.

Both bikes have 6.3 gallon Acerbis tanks which give a range of 250-300 miles depending on terrain and throttle usage.

Eat your heart out people.

High Dynamic Range Photography

As usual, I am late to the game. Only became aware of this capability recently. It is actually already implemented in newer phone cameras.

The basic idea is that the dynamic range of the human eye exceeds the dynamic range of photographs produced by digital cameras. By taking a sequence of photographs at different camera exposures (EV settings) and combining them with appropriate software one can produce pictures with greatly increased dynamic range. There are many examples to be found on the WEB.

I recently downloaded several software products available for this purpose. The Photomatix software produced the best results for me. A couple of examples below.

Garage picture of XR650R motorcycle which I am currently working on:

Single frame picture taken at 0EV with Nikon D200 DSLR.

Photomatix image produced by five frames (-1.4 - 0.7 0 +0.7 +1.4) EV - Nikon D200.

Picture taken from ranch deck toward the Mendocino National Forest:

Single frame 0EV - Nikon D200.

Photomatix image produced by five frames (-1.4 - 0.7 0 +0.7 +1.4) EV - Nikon D200.

In both cases the difference is very dramatic. Still have a lot to learn.

Edit: 4/3/2017

So, another comparison. This time favoring the single frame mode IMO. The single frame seems to more closely match the image seen by my eyes.  Kitchen faucet which I just replaced. Photo below HDR at the same EV spread as above.  Tonal spreading of the planter box wood above the faucet is very accurate relative to human perception, but brown (sprayed to kill) vegetation below faucet is too "orange".

0EV single frame below. Wood is not as good, but sprayed vegetation is quite accurate relative to human perception.

edit 4/5/2017

So I wanted see how a little motion (the smoke in this case) impacted the image which is accumulated over five frames. Not much at all.

HDR picture of Ami burning some trimmings:

Same scene single frame 0EV.  Nikon D200 in both cases. Smoke is better represented in single frame image IMO.

edit 4/6/2017

Cold and rainy today so I took a wood stove picture in the "surreal" mode. Again, five frames with Nikon D200. Exposure time on each frame with room ambient lighting was 0.7 seconds at ISO 200, so a rock solid tripod setup was essential.

Single frame below at 1.33EV

edit 4/9/17

Stonyford General Store. Stonyford is where my ranch is located. Population is around 200 people. Ranch is nestled against the Snow Mountain Wilderness area. You  cannot see another structure from the ranch. Second pair of photos in the post were taken from the deck of the ranch house.

"Ansel Adams" version of Stonyford General Store

There are obviously a lot of knobs to spin on both the camera and the software when combining multiple frames. I am very pleased with the Photomatix product, and bought the license. Picture below was taken with a Nikon D100 which is limited to three frames. The frames were at (-0.7 0.0 +0.7) Processing used was in the "painterly2" mode of Photomatix. The Zen House (Point Arena, CA) experience is like stepping into a Norman Rockwell painting. The owner, Dave, is the best motorcycle mechanic I have yet to encounter.

Underwater Beacon Operation (my current understanding)

Recently there has been some discussion on the Iannello blog relative to the operation of the DK100 underwater beacons (one for the CVR 'black box" one for FDR 'black box") associated with 9M-MRO. These beacons are manufactured by the Dukane Corporation.

Despite extensive searching (by me), a schematic for the DK100 has not been found. However, a "representative" schematic for a ULB is shown below.

The schematic is quite simple, and shows two timing generation functions. The bottom dashed box (28) labeled pulse generator produces timing pulses at a given duration and rate. In the case of this implementation the duration and rate are selectable by the switch settings shown in that part of the schematic. In the case of the DK100 the duration is fixed at nominally 10ms, and the rate is fixed at nominally once per second. The other timing function is contained in dashed box (24). This oscillator produces the "carrier" frequency of the radiated energy. In the case of the DK100, this frequency would be set at 37.5 kHz.

Gates (26) and (30) provide a train of 37.5 kHz pulses at the duration (envelop) and rate (pulse repetition frequency) to an impedance matching transformer which drives a piezo-ceramic crystal. The ceramic is bonded to the case of the ULB, and couples this mechanical energy to the ULB case which then imparts acoustic energy to the water. Both the piezo ceramic and the case are "tuned" to resonate near 37.5 kHz. "Tuned" in this context refers to the mechanical properties of the ceramic and case.

The case is designed to have a high 'Q' (mechanical resonance) near the frequency of the carrier at 37.5 kHz. This design is necessary to maximize the conversion of the 37.5 kHz pulses to mechanical energy radiated into the water. The 'Q' of aluminum enclosures tuned to resonate near the 37.5 kHz carrier is typically on the order of 50 which provides a "window" at 37.5 kHz +/- ~ 375 Hz.

The acoustic output looks similar to the recorded (and demodulated) signal below. The signal below was produced by Rodney Thomson while analyzing the pulses obtained in the SIO early in the search for MH370. These pulses turned out not to be sourced by 9M-MRO. Note below is copy pasted from the Thomson link.

Rodney Thomson

(NOTE: the 'pinger' is audible at about 3.4kHz however it obviously has been demodulated down from the raw signal observed on the TPL-25 to bring into the audible range)

MH370 Debris Finds Revisited (March 2017)

Some time ago I did a Weibull prediction related to the rate of MH370 debris finds. It was quite predictable up to the 13 month period from the flaperon find. Now things have tailed off considerably. No recent confirmed finds have been made. Not sure if this is because there is no more debris left to be found or if no one is actively engaged in looking for it.

original Weibull

Updated Weibull plot below. The last red dot is imaginary, and represents how the data would look if a new piece of debris were found today (some 20 months after the flaperon find). Obviously, the dot is well off of the predicted Weibull debris recovery curve based on the rate of debris recovery for the first year or so after the flaperon find.

If the debris found on 01-28-17 in South Africa near East London is included as valid MH370 debris the CDF would appear as below.  The last red dot is now "real" but the assumed debris find a couple of months (end of January 2017) earlier than the "imaginary" find (end of March 2017) above makes little difference in the conclusion.

If the above find and the "Morkel find" in December of 2016 are both included, the CDF is as below.

MH370 BFO Error

Must Read - "Irresistible" by Adam Alter

Results below from 8000 smartphone users using the "Moment" application which records screen time. "Moment" does not record the time spent listening to music or making phone calls. The data below is actually biased low since the people who downloaded the "Moment" application were concerned about spending too much time playing with their smart phones. Most of the real addicts don't have a clue.