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• PPilot Debrief [YouTube]2026-10-11Video✓ Read

  Pilot Mistakes Made Anniversary Flight Deadly!

  Ready to be seen? Check that appointment off your to-do list with Zocdoc ✅ : https://zocdoc.com/debrief #sponsored On an August evening in 2021, two pilots and a passenger lifted off from a Utah airport to fly past the temple where a couple had married a year earlier — and climbed straight into a canyon that rose faster than their Cessna 182 could. The airplane departed Skypark Airport near Bountiful, Utah, on a Part 91 personal tour flight on August 15, 2021. Aboard the Cessna 182H were two pilots and one passenger, out to celebrate a one-year wedding anniversary with a flight past the temple where the couple had married. The normally aspirated single climbed northeast toward the Sessions Mountains at roughly 700 feet per minute. The airplane entered a canyon while still level with the top of its walls. But as the flight progressed, the terrain rose faster than the airplane could climb. An early escape would have demanded a precise, coordinated 180-degree turn flown very close to the rock — and instead the flight continued deeper, into a one-mile-wide bowl ringed by steep rising ground. Lateral separation from the canyon walls shrank to as little as 700 feet. Data showed the airplane beginning a left turn, likely a last attempt to reverse course, but by then it was slowing toward stall speed. The wreckage lay just beyond the final ADS-B target, with damage consistent with a near-vertical impact after an aerodynamic stall and spin. All three occupants were killed and the airplane was destroyed by impact and post-crash fire. The NTSB determined the probable cause was the decision of both pilots to fly into a steep canyon, leaving the airplane unable to climb above the rising terrain; contributing factors were their delayed response to the hazard and their failure to recognize the danger amid mountain obscuration from thick haze and smoke. A forest fire had cut visibility across the area, and an established mountain pass five miles north offered a survivable rou

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• PPilot Debrief [YouTube]2026-09-27Video✓ Read

  Pilot's Deadly Mistakes Get Wife & Children Killed!

  🔒 Get 20% off DeleteMe by going to https://joindeleteme.com/DEBRIEF and use code DEBRIEF to protect your privacy! 🙌 On a March night in 2024, a Piper Turbo Lance carrying a family of five approached a Nashville airport at the end of a long cross-country from Ontario, Canada. A single fuel selector out of position ended the flight two miles short of the runway. The private pilot was flying his wife and children home on a VFR cross-country from Ontario to John C. Tune Airport near Nashville, Tennessee. Night visual conditions prevailed as he descended out of 10,500 feet, worked through Class C airspace, and was cleared to land on runway 20 under Part 91. The approach didn't stabilize. One mile from the runway the airplane was still around 2,400 feet, and the pilot told the tower he wanted to overfly the field at 2,500 feet and come back around. Residential cameras captured the engine running at nearly full power during the overflight — until the sound turned abnormal, with several distinct popping noises before it went silent. South of the airport, the pilot reported his engine had "turned off" and that he'd be landing but didn't know where. The controller declared an emergency and repeatedly cleared him for runway 2, but the pilot was too far to glide there. The airplane struck terrain next to an interstate two nautical miles south of the field, followed by a significant post-impact fire. All five aboard were killed. Postaccident examination found no mechanical fault in the airframe or engine. The fuel selector, however, was resting between the OFF and LEFT MAIN positions — a setting that starves the engine of fuel. The NTSB determined the accident was caused by the pilot's failure to ensure proper placement of the fuel selector during the approach and landing, resulting in fuel starvation and a total loss of engine power. The first line of the manufacturer's approach and landing checklist read simply: "Fuel Selector — Proper Tank." The pattern here is a fami

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