Tragic day for all of Oregon.

I am so sad that happend , it is so unreal because I know the reimann family I hung out with julia reimann almost every day at school.And sarrah was in my class this year it is just sad.

from:Mirabell Odenthal

I am a pilot and familiar with our ever changing weather in western Oregon, especially at the coast. Unless the pilot in this case filed an IFR (Instrument flight rules)flight plan and the Cessna was equipped for same, he had no business taking off with a 300 ft. ceiling. Time and investigation will find the relevant facts, so no one knows while the jury is out.

Dave-
From one who's got a brain to another, thank you for saying it. Pilots like this individual give all us cautious ones a bad name.

As I flipped through my instrument approaches an instrument departures, I find it rather disheartening that there is not an instrument departure procedure for Seaside Airport. That would give him a least an excuse for his negligence.

It certainly doesn't sound like the airport was VFR at the time of takeoff. This man should be publicly condemned for his total lack of regard for safety. Unfortunately, his life will be summed up by his poor ability to make a good decision and the four lives that suffered because of it. Because of his enormous case of having to get their he will never make it to Klamath Falls. IFR whether at the coast is risky enough, while at a VFR only airport makes it only the dumber!

Please make it known that there are pilots out there that who make wise decisions, and consider everything before doing anything.

Thanks again for standing up for us.

Brad Eaton

We were at our home at 498 North Marion, three doors down, when this tragedy occured yesterday morning. The fire was all-consuming, hot and very scary. The fire departments and emergency personnel were wonderful, quick and very well organized, or more would have been destroyed. As neighbors, we were utterly helpless to do anything. The tragedy is unimaginable, we are all so lucky to be alive and we forget this so often in our day to day world.

I am a pilot and I have been thinking about the FAA rules for this flight. The only way that I can think of for this flight to be legal, would be for it to be done under IFR rules. In my opinion, a 300 foot ceilings is still a pretty low ceiling for a departure. I would like to see if this flight was cleared for an IFR flight and both the pilot & airplane were IFR current. We will have to wait for the FAA/NTSB report to come out before we can have all of the details.

Was this VFR into IMC?

Yes this was indeed a very sad day.. I was just wondering why he came back in over the homes ? According to news reports he was over the ocean when it started sputtering..Wouldn't it been better to go along the beach and try to land it , then to go over the populated area ? My thoughts and prayer's go out to all the families. Gloria

This a catastrophy that wont soon be forgotten. I have an IFR rating and know how predictably unpredictable the coast weather can be. I wouldnt fly here without this rating. I also feel that the faa will probably find that he developed carb ice flying in IMC and ice at full take off power can be hard to abate.

It is very sad indeed. I wonder from looking at the maps and the fact that he was a local pilot, if he wasn't trying to reach the golf course a block away for an emergency landing. I guess we will never know.

Dave,

Thanks for writing up what you could on this while remaining objective as you stated the conditions and statistics leading to this tragedy. I'm also a local pilot with a vast majority of available flight (and FAA mechanic/inspection) ratings and experience in many aircraft types and all weather including four thousand hours in a self maintained 50's era C-172 and I've been flying our Pacific coastline regularly for decades both VFR and IFR as PIC with my family and friends. Having directly witnessed several serious accidents over the years in which I've also participated in rescue, the NTSB often brings to light several elements worth waiting for... elements which can really make all of us pilots re-evaluate the situation. There is nothing right about this tragedy for anyone at this point and I know we work very hard to avoid exactly this situation as pilots... very, very hard. For all I factually know so far this pilot may have been either VFR or IFR trying to make the golf course from on top of a cloud deck with a partial power loss to save lives (beach may have been obscured) and the aircraft condition became worse on the way forcing a descent straight ahead into a base layer, etc. So many possibilities with the high variance of coastal flying weather which initially appears to be at least a contributing factor if not more than. (It could have been a legal IFR departure with a mechanical issue on climb out... or the more common statistical VFR into IMC). Our family's prayers to everyone affected by this... I know I am affected (as you all are) by this on several levels as a citizen, a pilot, a human, and a father.

Let us who fly hope and pray that the plane and pilot were both IFR Certified. Mechanical problems happen, most of the time at the worst possible place. Stupidity however is a choice. A good pilot will use his superior judgement to keep him from situations that require he superion skills.

I too am a pilot. The conditions were poor at best. The pilot had no business flying in these conditions without an instrument rating and an IFR clearance. Seaside is not approved for such operations. Astoria would have been the right choice.

From one eye-witness report, the pilot appeared to start and depart hastily. Did he even get a weather briefing?

My condolences go out to all families involved in this tragic accident.

A departure procedure is not necessary for an IFR flight from Seaside. Pilot would need a clearance from Seattle and a void time and depart and climb and establish contact with Seattle. However he would not have the option of returning as there is no instrument approach to Seaside to my knowledge. VFR flight in these conditions was not legal. I pray it was an IFR flight otherwise ugh!

I am a wife of 46 years today, mother of two and grandmother of four who deeply identified with yesterday's tragedy.
We rented the house that was burned down and remember it well. We now own a small condo and feel woven into the fabric of Gearhart.
Not having any knowledge of flying or pilot skills, I speak with a lack of knowledge but feel strongly that a small airstrip should not be allowed for pilots, such as utilized yesterday.
Our hearts and prayers are with the families surviving and out of every horrific disaster something positive must occur. I will work for safer pilot and flying regulations.
I will work on a memorial to mark this everlasting tragedy, salute the firemen and Mayor who were exemplary.
May we pray for the strength and courage for all who were involved in this most unbelieveable tragedy.

While I understand the concern of those pilots who commented about safety and the low cloud ceiling, you should know that the fog was very localized, as it often is at the coast. I live in Gearhart near the crash site and when I left for work, not long before the crash, the cloud cover was not dense in the vicinity of the airport as it was right over Gearhart near the beach. Those of us who hear Portland newscasts say that it's raining on the north coast while we're looking outside our windows and seeing sun know how localized the weather can be in this area. Also, the airport is nearby, which may answer the question that was raised about why the pilot tried to circle back rather than trying to land on the beach. Some of the neighbors here are saying that they heard the plane rev, then stall, and thought that something was wrong mechanically before they heard the crash. It will be interesting to see what the investigation brings out.

I'm a professional pilot who had cancelled a flight out of Astoria, 8 miles north, at 6:00am on the same morning. While Astoria was reporting 300 to 500 foot ceilings, I drove to Gearhart at about the time of the accident, and the ceiling and visiblity were much lower there. I was on 101 about 1/2 mile from the accident scene and couldn't see more than 1/4 mile with an indefinite ceiling. There is no weather reporting capability at Seaside Airport, so pilots there can only rely on their eyes or other pilot reports. I really hope that Jason was on an IFR flight plan and that the accident was caused by engine or instrument malfunctions, and I hope that the investigators can find the true cause. My thoughts and prayers go out to all the families involved. I've met Jason and his son a few times and he seemed like a really nice guy and a good father.

I'm not an aviator, but isn't IFR flight inherently more dangerous than VFR? What are the rules governing IFR flight around populated areas?

I previously wrote a comment about how small private planes should not be allowed to fly over people's houses. Naturally it was not published because all media is biased towards rich influencial people who fly planes. Let's see if this one makes it through.

shakelmakin, You sir are either a fool or an idiot (probably both). As a highly trained professional pilot of light aircraft, your ignorance offends me. It would be physically impossible to eliminate all air traffic over houses in this country. What would be next, cities, malls, busy roads? As far as these aircraft being flown by rich, INFLUENTIAL (check your spelling) people, most of us flying light aircraft are average, middle class citizens, as was the case in this accident. The rich people are in twin turbo-props and light jets. Those of us flying these planes chose to use our resources on flying rather than boats, golf, custom cars, gambling, drugs and other assorted hobbies. I, for example, support a family of four kids and my wife of 20 years on one income. If I get to fly on my day off, I can only afford to rent a plane as Jason had, and I can rarely afford to do that. Luckily for me, I get to do what I love for work, so I don't have a great need to fly on my off time. Some lucky pilots can afford more than one hobby, but the majority are very focused on flying. We are also better trained and prepared to deal with emergencies than all of those other hobbies combined, and I doubt you could find even 1% of pilots ever performing aviation duties under the influence of a recreational chemical. In fact, Jason wasn't flying for a hobby, he was traveling to a distant town for business. He also flew part-time as a flight instructor to supplement his income, which indicates (and I know first hand) he was not wealthy. Pilots are checked for proficiency and medical condition constantly through a flying career or hobby. If you were to do a little research (homework, in case you don't understand that word) you would find that probably over 90% of the flying in our country is done in light aircraft. Where do you think most of the airline pilots learn their skills? You would have our economy shut down because of an insane fear of falling aircraft. While this was a tragic accident, in over 20 years of flying, I've seen fewer than 5 planes crash into houses, and none of those others injured people on the ground. My home is only 6 miles from where this accident occured, yet I have no more fear of this happening to my family than I did last week. Almost always, a pilot has time to fly his airplane to unoccupied earth when he has an emergency, thus preventing any ground injuries. How often does that happen in an auto accident? I suppose that when a semi-tractor truck runs over a car on the freeway, killing a family, you would call for all trucking to cease immediately. I'll bet when a child is injured or killed by a careless gun owner, you call for all guns to be taken from our society. I'm sure you are not aware that more children die drowning in buckets of water or in bicycle accidents than from guns. Do you want all buckets and bicycles removed from our country too? You need to move to a little island all by yourself and live in a deep cave where no one can find you or hurt you. The reason your postings have been banned in the past (if that's true) is because it's obvious you have nothing positive to contribute to society, let alone a blog, and nothing to say that wont offend the average middle class American. Good day to you sir, and good luck with your pipe dreams.

I have grappled with leaving any comment or saying anything on this because I knew Jason and what I knew of him did not impress me as a fellow pilot. I had the difficult task of telling Jason a few years ago he could no longer fly my plane for these very reasons. That coupled with the fact that he also perished leaves me somewhat mixed up, angry and sad for the way I feel and what I assume these circumstances were but someone needs to know.
Jason was not one to follow the rules. He impressed me as someone we refer to in civil aviation as a hotdawg. This is based on my experience of flying with him several times and the incidents I was made aware of when he was an instructor at Astoria Flight Service flying my airplane.
Jason wasn't much for pre-flights, or particular when it came to the petty details of flying. Filing flight plans checking the weather or getting an IFR clearance just seemed to get in Jason's way or he just didn't have time for it. Things most good pilots do as religiously as opening a door before trying to pass though it.
That said, I believe Jason fueled the plane the night before in Astoria and flew it to Seaside where it sat out on the ramp that night as the fog began to gather and the temp dropped. As many pilots know these are ideal conditions for condensation - knowing what I know of Jason though I'd bet money he figured that just running the plane out to the runway would take care of that minor detail.
My next assumption is that because of the hour and Seaside's location Jason probably didn't do much of a run-up if any - not wanting to have someone complain of the noise. I've seen him do that on more than one occasion, which he would explain that he was the last to fly it, so it didn't make it that necessary. These assumptions would easily explain why witnesses heard the engine sputtering shortly after take-off but no reports I've seen of anyone hearing the plane running up before take-off with all those houses so nearby the field.
And lastly the weather which bolsters my other assumptions stated here, that Jason never changed from the hotdawg he was in my opinion...
The ceiling was reported at 300ft just enough to clear the trees at the end of the field. And it doesn't matter if you're IFR or VFR pilot it was just plain careless to take-off from an uncontrolled field without the benefit of ATIS and an IFR clearance in those conditions. I'd be really surprised if he even filed a flight plan.
God I'm so very sad for what happened to those kids, Mr. Toohey (the passenger) and yes even Jason..
God be with them all..