I have always been in love with the Beechcraft Bonanza and notice a history of alot of crashes. Seems like when you do a internet search of GA crashes, Bonanza's pop up all the time. From Buddy Holly to Steve Wozinak to Randy Rhoads, seems to be alot of crashes. Is it because its a high performance plane that rich new pilots buy or is it something else. Curious to hear from some Bonanza Pilots about this.

I have always been in love with the Beechcraft Bonanza and notice a history of alot of crashes. Seems like when you do a internet search of GA crashes, Bonanza's pop up all the time. From Buddy Holly to Steve Wozinak to Randy Rhoads, seems to be alot of crashes. Is it because its a high performance plane that rich new pilots buy or is it something else. Curious to hear from some Bonanza Pilots about this.

It has earned the nickname, "Doctor Killer," and I'd assume it's because a lot of people upgrade to one before they're ready. I haven't looked at very many accident reports to see how many hours the pilots roughly have, but I'm pretty sure I've heard that reason before.Another reason is that the V35's tail was suspected to have some problems with the spars leading to in flight break ups. The FAA put out two AD's on the issue if I recall correctly.

I have always been in love with the Beechcraft Bonanza and notice a history of alot of crashes. Seems like when you do a internet search of GA crashes, Bonanza's pop up all the time. From Buddy Holly to Steve Wozinak to Randy Rhoads, seems to be alot of crashes. Is it because its a high performance plane that rich new pilots buy or is it something else. Curious to hear from some Bonanza Pilots about this.

When I owned one the first thing I got was the Aopa Safety Review of the 33,35 and 36. The data at that time was based from 1982-1989.There are all kinds of stats but the summation of the report is:The Be35 "has a significantly lower accident rate than comparable single engine aircraft" From my old Aviation Consumer "for the years 1972-1981 the b33's had the lowest accident rate among single-engine retractables."As far as I know that still stands.By the way-speaking of Buddy Holly-I was told there is a Discovery Channel show about the crash-and they used pictures of my old Debonair (which is also available in the fs world) to show the plane Holly perished in (though his was a b35).For a while they were called "Dr. killers" -as they were always viewed as a luxury airplane and the story went that Dr's would go out-get their ppl, and buy one when they were not ready experience/capability wise.I think that has been pretty much proven to be an old wive's tale.

When I owned one the first thing I got was the Aopa Safety Review of the 33,35 and 36. The data at that time was based from 1982-1989.There are all kinds of stats but the summation of the report is:The Be35 "has a significantly lower accident rate than comparable single engine aircraft" From my old Aviation Consumer "for the years 1972-1981 the b33's had the lowest accident rate among single-engine retractables."As far as I know that still stands.By the way-speaking of Buddy Holly-I was told there is a Discovery Channel show about the crash-and they used pictures of my old Debonair (which is also available in the fs world) to show the plane Holly perished in (though his was a b35). For a while they were called "Dr. killers" -as they were always viewed as a luxury airplane and the story went that Dr's would go out-get their ppl, and buy one when they were not ready experience/capability wise.I think that has been pretty much proven to be an old wive's tale.

"Forked tail Dr. Killer" title has been taken over by the New Cirrus SR models. Got to fly a SR-20 and it felt like it was going to flat spin at 80kts turning from base to final. No wonder they went to a single stick yoke, so you can fly with the other on the chute handle :(

The Bonanza has been around a long time, since just after WW2, which is longer than most people think it has been with us. And that is of course a long time period for crashes to occur, so you will see a fair number of such crashes for that reason alone.Then there is the aircraft class it is in, which is what you might call 'the middle', i.e. it's not a basic trainer, but neither is it a professional pilot's typical light aircraft either. Thus it flies in IMC fairly often, but quite often with a PPL at the controls who might not be vastly skilled at either flying, or indeed deciding not to fly when the weather is bad and turning around, or staying on the ground.That puts the Bonanza, and its typical pilot, both squarely in the category where the most accidents happen. Statistically, new student pilots and professional pilots are both far less likely to be involved in several categories of accident, including fatal spins and controlled flights into terrain (the two big killers). That's because new pilots, even if not with an instructor, tend to have stuff that has been drilled into them still foremost in their minds and of course rarely conduct training in IMC, or a Bonanza. Professional pilots are, well, professional, so act and indeed fly professionally for the most part, occasionally deciding not to fly at all when the weather is too bad, instead diverting, flying around weather, or not even taking off in the first place. And when they do take off, it will probably be in a Cessna Caravan or some other turboprop rather than a Bonanza.Guess what aircraft your pilot in the middle of those two categories, and the odds on favourite for an accident, was most likely to either buy or rent for years? So, ultimately, that means aircraft in the category of the Bonanza are not especially dangerous as a design, but they are aircraft more likely to get exposed to situations that can turn dangerous.It's just the same as a souped-up sports car being more likely to get involved in a fatal crash than a boring runabout that you nip to the shops in. Nothing to do with the car, just the way it is driven, and by whom it is driven.Al

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOaAZ1i2gNAThey mentioned in the video that the Bonanza Pilot was taking off downwind :( . If you look at the trees, it does look like he is going down wind and overweight.

I think there's something to be said about the "trap" that high-performance singles create. They give a pilot an artificial sense of capability, and lure the inexperienced pilot into this trap, as he quickly tires of traveling in Skyhawks and Warriors. I'm guily of it myself. Bonanzas (and Centurions, and Saratogas (just ask KFK)) can be a handful to fly, and are too expensive for regular flying, and that gives way to pilots keeping themselves current in lesser airplanes.. only to fuel up the big airplane for flights where experience matters. Those trips where "get-there-itis", and the pressure of others counting on you make you takeoff into conditions slightly past your comfort level, ARE a reality.The problem (IMHO), is that it takes little more than a quick hop with an instructor to get that high-performance endorsement.. and the currency standards are more about what an FBO (and insurance company) dictates, than it is about a pilot being truly up to the tasks and complexity that these airplanes can demand.As usual.. the problems are caused by the pilots.. not the airplanes..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOaAZ1i2gNAThey mentioned in the video that the Bonanza Pilot was taking off downwind :( . If you look at the trees, it does look like he is going down wind and overweight.

Hard to tell but it doesn't look like any flaps were used either.

I grew up in Ridgefield, CT, just south of one of the busiest GA airports in the country, KDXR (danbury). For all the traffic they handled, there were very few aircraft crashes in the area. Although there were a few I remember.This was one of them, which took place on June 11, 1983.This was beyond pilot error. In this case, the fool took 3 people with him to their doom.Here is the link to the NTSB report, so you can see for yourself.http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=2...43479&key=1The lesson I learned from this event was to NEVER, NEVER, NEVER get into someone's airplane until he answers quite a few questions I have about the aircraft and his ability to fly it! If he gets offended, then he is not someone I want to fly with anyway!!Bob

Just as a matter of curiosity,Which questions do you start asking?Generally I find the average citizen knows very very little in way of flight, and thus the FAA does not deligate any responsibility to passengers of an aircraft. (Beyond following the orders of the crew) - It's entirely the job of the PIC to ensure safe flight. While not every pilot is totally safe, I don't believe there's many ways you can tell unless either that pilot is clueless, or you've flown with him/her.

Just as a matter of curiosity,Which questions do you start asking?Generally I find the average citizen knows very very little in way of flight, and thus the FAA does not deligate any responsibility to passengers of an aircraft. (Beyond following the orders of the crew) - It's entirely the job of the PIC to ensure safe flight. While not every pilot is totally safe, I don't believe there's many ways you can tell unless either that pilot is clueless, or you've flown with him/her.

I ask questions just to see how comfortable he is in answering them. If he gets all defensive and squirmy, I'm outa there!Usually start off with his level of experience as a pilot. If that doesn't ###### him off, I'll get into his experience level in this type of aircraft. If he still hasn't hit me, I'll start a conversation about the particular aircraft he is flying. How has it treated him, is it a money pit, all kinds of problems, who does the maintenance, ect.I don't ride as a passenger in too many GA planes, so it isn't a real issue for me. Bob

Hard to tell but it doesn't look like any flaps were used either.

By most of the owners manual the flaps should not be out. I did some experimenting when I had mine and found the rec. in the poh of no flaps to be right.This video of the crash linked above was primarily from density altitude and being 100 lbs. over gross-there may have even been no wind/slight tailwind but the density altitude and overweight were the main factors.The temp was 96 degrees F at the airport. Density altitude was calculated to be 4,125 feet msl.You can read more about it here:http://www.aopa.org/asf/epilot_acc/lax07fa258.htmlAs with most accidents-poor decision making is more often the culprit than the aircraft. Running out of fuel is one of the biggest causes (the o ring leakage was not the culprit in the other example-not fueling up was ).However, I'd like to restate that the Bonanza statistically comes out the safest in single engine retracts-even with such accidents and such judgements.Also-I doubt there are many pilots you would talk to who would not consider themselves safe, so I am not sure a verbal will accomplish anything...though I stay away from the one's that seem to know everything-they are the ones that personally scare me.

Actually, you can tell the bad pilots quite often, but you have to be paying attention and resist the temptation to think: 'oh I'm sure he knows what he is doing' and go with the flow. I made that mistake once, and damn near paid for it...I was having a check ride in an SZD 50-3 Puchacz, this was many years ago (that's the same sailplane you can see me in on my avatar). As the instructor doing the check and I were putting parachutes on, and discussing what we would do on the flight, which was to be some spin recoveries, I noticed a flash of lightning off to the north west. We were going to launch roughly to the south west and the prevailing winds are westerly. I remarked to the instructor that I'd seen a flash of lightning, but he said he didn't see it, which is no big deal, but then I saw another one and commented again, and the guy again said he didn't see it. Then I did that a third time and I suggested we might be better not launching, but the instructor said: 'nah, we'll be alright, I didn't see it, and in any case, that will pass well clear of us'.At the time I was a fairly new pilot, so needed a check ride from that airfield because it was mandatory for anyone flying from there before solo flight was approved owing to the prevalence of wind sheer on the approaches. I was beginning to have some doubts about the guy, from him not having been alert enough to see several lightning flashes and his lack of concern over them, but I made the mistake of thinking that because he was an instructor and I was a pilot with only a little solo experience at that time, that he knew better than me. What followed was a salutary lesson in how foolish that assumption was. Part of it was stupid bravado on my part, in assuming that since he was more experienced than I, then I was probably being 'a pussy'. I daresay that kind of thinking has got a few people killed, and I'm wise enough to know that these days and speak up, but back then, I was not, so we climbed into the aircraft.We took off and turned to the south with the instructor flying after I'd done the take off, but as we got a few miles away from the airfield, the lift began failing as the storm moved in, shifting the wind direction as the front of the storm cell passed over us. Soon we were getting really very low indeed, and then the instructor surprisingly passed me control, so I took control and began desperately scraping along a ridge back and forth to try and gain enough height to make it back to the airfield. By now the storm was flashing lightning all around us and the aircraft was pretty hard to keep level, but I had little choice other than to try and keep our height with what little ridge lift there was. I remember asking the guy for advice, and getting no reply on several occasions, and in the end I realised that something was wrong. I looked around, and saw that he had completely frozen on me and was simply staring blankly ahead, which was why he had passed me control. He'd realised we had got into trouble and simply lost it altogether, and I think he thought that if we were going down, then he could at least blame me if I was in control, assuming we didn't die, that is.I couldn't get a word out of him, so now I was on my own and in a mess. I turned back around and concentrated on trying to fly us out of trouble, since there really wasn't anything else I could do. This is where I got lucky, the storm continued passing overhead and of course the wind direction swung around 180 degrees with us now being on the other side of the storm, which just gave me a very small window in which to gain some lift from a ridge. This was just as well, because a few moments earlier, I had literally been looking up at buildings on top of the ridge as I scraped along barely above the trees at the bottom of the ridge with wet wings that are considerably less efficient than dry ones, and I had been trying to pick out a couple of trees to crash in between, so as to take the wings off in order to slow us down, and wondering if we would make it.Of course, the winds in thunderstorm are pretty fierce, and so are the updraughts, so I was able to use that and get us up to what I estimated was about 900 feet above the field elevation, which I had to do since the altimeter was now not to be trusted. Then I set off in a fast shallow dive for the airfield. Obviously since the wind had shifted direction, I then came in for a circuit the opposite way to which we had taken off, and it was at this point that the guy in the back snapped out of it and asked me what I was doing coming in the wrong way. By this time I was rather angry with him and snapped: 'look at the ****** windsock!' at which he went quiet again. When I came in for a landing, two other sailplanes had not noted the wind direction and landed downwind alongside one another without giving a radio call, and I had to land in the opposite direction in between them! A guy in one of those two sailplanes was so intent to get down out of the storm that he landed wheels up, having forgot to put his gear down, but the grass was so wet that it barely even scratched the thing.When we came to a halt, we stayed in the aircraft because it was still raining hard, awaiting the tractor that would tow us back to the hangars, since it was clear that flying was over for the day. We sat there in silence, with the guy not daring to say a word and me biting my lip so as not to launch the furious verbal assault that I really felt like doing. You could have cut the atmosphere in that aircraft with a knife as the rain drummed on the canopy. I vowed never to fly with that guy ever again, but never even said a word to anyone on the airfield about the incident, which I really should have in hindsight.That episode taught me a valuable lesson (several actually), but the relevant one here is. If you think something is wrong and you are not happy about it, then you could very well be right, and just because you see someone climbing into a pilot seat, you shouldn't assume that they always know better than you. It is true what they say: It's better to be on the ground wishing you were up there, than in the air wishing you were down on the ground.Al

Chock that story up on the "Pucker factor" list. Must have been a bad feeling looking for where you want to crash.

I don't remember exactly which one, but many years ago one of the TV programs like 60 Mins. did an "expose" bit on the V Tail Bonanza. They had what they called an expert (Paid by the network) to flame it. I have never had much use for those kind of programs since that time. It seems that when one has any personal knowledge of what they are talking about, that their "expose" falls apart.One of the bottom lines was that it had more accidents than any other SE plane of its type at that time (1950's or early 1960's if I remember correctly). At the time, I am sure that was probably true as beginning with the old 35, it was just about the only bird in the nest of that type for about a decade. There wasn't really much of anything else of its type with the exception of possibly a few Navions or Bellicas.A friend had a "C" model which was a dandy IMHO. Thanks to the insurance companies jumping on the band wagon, he moved up to a single tail model.Happy flying:RTH