Martinaire Caravan crash
 

Pilot was Jeff Salles, a friend of a friend.

Plane crash in Pellston kills pilot from Louisiana - petoskeynews.com

Rest in peace, brother. Fly safe all.

2nd Caravan crash over the last several months. Tailwinds.............:( :( :(

Are these the guys that have "Iron Air" as their callsign? If so, I crossed paths with these guys all the time around POLAR in Detroit's airspace. Really sinks in when you probably crossed paths with this pilot at some point. Such a shame; RIP :(

26 years old. This just blows!!!!!!!!!!:(

single pilot, night IFR freight dogs always will have my respect. RIP

Very sad. Prayers from here. :(

No, 'Iron Air' is CSA. Martinaire is 'Martex'. The Michigan flights used to be 'Spend Air' before MA bought out Superior Aviation.

Sorry for your loss Blackwing.

RIP Captain Salles

Condolences to family and friends.

Thanks.....

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviatio.../0/0661023.jpg

RIP

Wow sad...I thought this was just a repeat post from the other Caravan accidents....I think that's what, three freight dog Van's down in the past six months, plus the loss of the Navajo out West.

I thought that, including this, there were two fatals and a non fatal in the Van recently. Correct me if I'm wrong.

This is truly sad! As a former Martex pilot and Caravan driver. My deepest regard and respect for this aviator are felt.
To tailwinds, and fair skies in the after life. R.I.P brother.

Correct.

FedEx Feeder in Wichita (fatal)
Martinaire birdstrike in Oklahoma (minor injuries)
And this one.

I have several friends at Martinaire and I know they're hurting over there.

RIP Captain.

You're correct. I meant fatal, but failed to actually put the word in my sentence.

Yeah, no worries, I wasn't trying to nit pick. Just pointing out the spurt of Van related incidents lately.

I wish I had more than words, but let me say I think freight dogs do more with less...light GA aircraft, single pilot, back side of the clock, in the WX big time, into Podunk USA with some crappy NDB or VOR circling approach...

Rip salles
 

as a former martex captian as well and having spent some time on the GUY run and all the previous posts are right on the money. I have also flown up in the area where the crash took place and its not the friendliest of country side. I am eager to know more details. I believe he was in his first month and a great pilot. I know when I left in 2012 the maintenance was top notch as well as the CP in regards to training. Tragic.

Condolences to all family and friends of CA Salles. Much respect for him and his peers in the single pilot frieght flying.

My only problem with the van is the aircraft's exposure to any sort of ice no matter how light in which you need to find your way out of it right now! You can get away with not flight planning alternatives with some aircraft, not with the van. Your best alternative might be not going at all. I have had to make those decisions many times when I flew the van.

May peace be with a fallen freight dog (brother).

CEN13FA135

I take it Martinaire flies booted Vans.

Rest in Peace.

This sounds almost just like a Van accident in Columbus Rik for AirNet a couple years back....could this have been a unrecoverable weight shift possibility? I dont remember reading what the final determination of the Rik accident was - but they both sound close.

No, the Martinaire plane had less than 100 lbs of freight onboard.

geeze i wonder what it could have been if not the weight shift, one mile is not far at all, esp for ice, possible control issue? I hope they find the cause to help others asap.

RIP fellow freight dog and OOTSK.

Caravan Crash Jan 2013-Jeff Salles
 

I am the father of Jeff Salles, the pilot fatally wounded in this crash. I am having a difficult time dealing with the loss of my son at 26 years of age. I know he was doing what he loved, but that doesn't lessen the deep pain his mother and I are feeling all of our waking hours.

I want to know if anyone knows why this plane would go down within 6 seconds of take-off at night when the weather was clear, -3 degrees centigrade, with a very small load. My son was very careful and a very good pilot. He had the company change out the horizon instrument on the leg before this one and it flew fine until he landed in Pellston from Sault St. Marie. The take-off from Pellston was when he never achieved altitude and crashed into the woods.

Also, I saw posts from "Blackwing" who said he was a friend of Jeff. I am interested in contacting him outside of this forum and ask if he would please contact me at [email protected].

Speculation is all we have for now, but from the NTSB stub it looks like icing is not likely under visual meteorological conditions during the event. Otherwise, that would be my first guess. My next guess is engine or systems failure, followed by pilot error. The latter is the cause of most aircraft accidents unfortunately, and if the pilot was distracted on takeoff by something and lost both instrument and visual reference even momentarily at such low altitude, a CFIT (controlled flight into terrain/obstacles) accident may have been the result. We will not know until the NTSB investigation come back with what they find, engine and systems checks can take a while if metallurgy and other specialties are required. Airplanes being such complex machines, it can take a while to analyze everything.

We feel for your loss.

I will not speculate on this accident as well, but with that being said the Caravan is a easy airplane to fly. It is very forgiving airplane and is one of the main reasons the aircraft is used by FedEx. I have flown Caravans with inflight failures such as a failed attitude indicator because I had a second working attitude indicator. FedEx is also replacing the old instruments with glass instruments in order to reduce the instrument failures and improve situational awareness. Hopefully this will cut down on controlled flight into terrain (CFIT). I am truly sorry for your loss and wish you a speedy healing process.

If the investigation rules out everything and defaults to pilot error that would upset me so much. I have such a respect for you pilots and I know these things happen, but it's such an unfortunate way to lose a life. The pilots who knew Jeff swear that even if the investigation points to pilot error, they won't believe it. He was so thorough and a natural at flying.

Thanks for the input on this accident and may you all be safe.

Many of us have extensive experience with friends who have died in aviation accidents. It can be hard to accept that pilot error is the single greatest cause of all accidents.

This makes us understand that all of us are capable of error regardless of skill level. We all regret your loss and those of our fellow aviators.




"During 2004 in the United States, pilot error was listed as the primary cause of 78.6% of fatal general aviation accidents, and as the primary cause of 75.5% of general aviation accidents overall. For scheduled air transport, pilot error typically accounts for just over half of worldwide accidents with a known cause."

Important to realize that "pilot error" does not mean the pilot was screwing off or incompetent. Human beings are prone to error and if they are placed in a challenging situation, it is just human nature that they may not react correctly or understand the situation. If someone can nail power off 180s 9 out of 10 times, great. Does that 1/10 times mean they are a bad pilot and incompetent? Not necessarily. "Pilot error" is a very broad term, it does not mean "pilot incompetent" as may be perceived. Think about car crashes, no matter who is at "fault", you could say pretty much all of them, all parties involved, were a result of human error.

Thanks for the explanation. It makes a lot of sense.

I have talked to other pilots and they said to consider throttle rollback. If that happened shortly after take off he would have to lean to the right between the seats to correct the problem at night. This could explain why the plane veered to the right slightly after take off. I showed pictures of the path of the plane at the crash site as he clipped off tree tops and continued forward into a large tree. He said it looked like Jeff had control of the plaine as he went down. This could happen with throttle roll back. They reported that his right arm was severed off of his body. Maybe because he was stretching it away from his body trying to correct the throttle rollback?

Another pilot reported experiencing throttle rollback in the caravan before take off 3 times in one plane. The problem was corrected after the FCU was changed. Are FCU's supposed to be changed out with routine maintenance?

If your lawyer is conducting an investigation for you, he may want to "discover" the maintenance logs for the crash airplane in order to get your copies. You will get pushback from company legal firm if there is no suit in place because they consider this type of request a fishing expedition. Your theory may be quite relevant though, and I hope it turns out to be a mechanical issue rather than something else.

Thanks, I will check with my aviation lawyer.

Caravan crash 1/15/2013
 

I am the father of Jeff Salles, the 26 year old pilot that died in this terrible crash. We have finally got an answer from the NTSB investigation, although it's not something I wanted to hear. Jeff had a Garmin GPS on that flight and every flight he flew. The NTSB recovered the chip and retrieved the information. It basically revealed that immediately after takeoff, he banked slightly to the right and the nose was angled 2 degrees down. The info from the crash site was combined with the Garmin and put in a Caravan flight simulator. It showed he would have felt like he was climbing when he was actually headed down 2 degrees at 145 kts. The most probable cause was spatial disorientation. It was pitch dark and he had taken off at this time of night twice before. A friend of ours, who is a military pilot, said something may have distracted him that he felt was an eminent danger for him to roll to the right (west), which took him away from the way he was supposed to head (south).

It was pitch black in a small town airport and no horizon for visual reference. He filed for IFR and was excellent and adamant about reading the instruments. He always told his students to "trust your instruments" That's why I couldn't believe he got spatial disorientation. Our pilot friend told us it happens to the best of pilots. Something like a light on the ground up ahead in the pitch black could be perceived as an approaching aircraft. If he took his sight off of his instruments for a few seconds at less than 250 ft above ground and 145 kts, he may have noticed the problem too late to correct it.

This hurts me so much. I was and still am proud of him to achieve captain as a pilot. He was so happy with his girl friend, also a pilot with the same company. There was so much life ahead and it was gone in 54 seconds. My heart is totally broken.

I just wanted to update the pilots on this forum, especially the 1 or 2 that knew him. He was a wonderful son and my wife and I miss him dearly.

If anyone wants to contact me personally, please feel free to use my business email. [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.

Thank you all and please be safe.
Gerard Salles

We feel for your terrible loss and thank you for following up on what befell your son. Spatial disorientation is a deadly phenomenon in flying, particularly for single-pilot crews. The FAA has specifically targeted the dangers in its training syllabi for new pilots. By sharing your son's tragedy, hopefully others will be able to understand the dangers a little better and take the subject to heart. You are to be commended for caring enough to find out what happened to your son, and for sharing what you learned with us.

Thanks for updating us on the investigation into your son's accident. As someone previously mentioned, and I would like to re-emphasize, a finding of pilot error does not mean that an individual was a bad pilot. Aviation history infact is filled with good pilots that made a fatal mistake, and some that were just lucky to survive. Spatial disorientation can sneak up on the best of us, causing confusion difficult to overcome, and can be unforgiving, especially that low to the ground.
You can be confident that your son was a good pilot, especially seeing how he passed a part 135, IFR, single pilot check ride. Try to focus on his accomplishments as a pilot, as he had to have quite a few to make it this far, rather than this one flight.