Two Greenhill MDs Die in Plane Crash

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/victims_in_i-287_plane_crash_a…

2 kids, another adult, and a dog.

can anyone with knowledge of boutiques like greenhill say how much MDs at greenhill probably make in a yr?

This is how you clear the way to becoming an MD.

Awful. :(

Dude, people died.

Damn. Wishes to the family.

do not barrel roll in a cesna. it is not a stunt plane.

From the top of the world to dead in 30 seconds. Something to keep in mind fellas.

I don't think there were any stunts here. Aerobatics are a big no-no over heavily populated New Jersey, even for hang gliders. And it sounds to me like the plane was en-route with passengers on a business trip to Atlanta.

If I had to guess, this might be structural failure. A wing may have come off and the plane could have been doing loops on its way down.

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS preflight your aircraft. Even if you have a business partner in tow. Even if you've got to be in Atlanta ASAP.

Sorry, I didn't realize someone already made a thread.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/nyregion/at-least-3-dead-after-small-…

Regards

Also...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45737902/ns/us_news-life/#.TvDltDVSQll

Regards

That sucks, condolences to the families/coworkers.

Did anyone see the article out this morning by bloomberg slamming Greenhill for the T-Mobile debacle and being 40th in the league tables, having MDs leaving etc.

Spooky timing since I hadn't seen a GHill article on the front page in forever.

i think it's time people begin to see the danger associated with flying these single-engine small private-owned non-jet turboprop airplanes. too many people die from malfunctions related to these turboprop planes... If you fly with a legit jet-plane, such accidents won't occur

it sucks that the entire family of this MD (including a dog) was on the plane and they all died

Well, these things are incredibly convenient. You save yourself the indignity of TSA seeing your family naked. You get to use cell phones. If it starts raining, it doesn't become a battlefield of Platinum vs. Million miler status. You don't need to buy your ticket months in advance. You just drive to the airfield, park your car 300 feet from the plane, walk over to the hangar, preflight it (5 minutes for a hang glider- maybe 15 for a Cessna?), load the luggage in, and off you go.

Mile for mile, flying a single-engine propeller aircraft is about as safe as driving. But a commercial aircraft is actually 7-10x safer.

this plane was headed to Atlanta, Georgia from NYC. And, this plane's wing fell off and from a witness, other parts were 'falling off' even before this plane crashed...

i mean, this plane was so fucked up that it traveled for like 10 minutes from its original destination and crashed around NYC metro area. how the fuck this MD was planning on flying this garbage piece of shit plane all the way to Atlanta is beyond me. this just speaks to the necessity of rigorously checking up on planes before flying, or better yet avoiding to fly these shitty turboprop planes once and for all

Before you guys make more off color remarks, remember that these are real people. A family.

And one of the MDs (Rak) was a good friend and classmate of mine (as was his wife) - we worked as analysts together and went to Wharton, living a few doors down from one another in the same building. I'm sure if some of you have friends or family pass away, you'd want others to be respectful as well, even if the news goes public.

No, you fly your own airplanes but you preflight the frigging thing. And after that, you get everyone getting into the plane with you (ideally someone else with aviation experience, too) to preflight it, too, since their lives are at stake. When you get on any major commercial flight, the pilot and copilot do the same thing (OK, unless it's ValuJet). That's why you sometimes see them standing on the tarmac looking at stuff on the plane. There's actually a term for the whole set of responsibilities that go with operating an aircraft called "Pilot-in-command".

When you get on a motorcycle, you do the same thing. Check the clutch cable, check the chain, check the oil, check the tire pressure. These are very basic commonsense things that take 60 seconds but can save your life. But if you do them, you take significant amounts of risk out of flying.

When you cross the street, you do the same thing. You look both ways and make sure it's safe to cross. Pedestrians who fail to do this get run over every day.

Bottom line is that if there's a mechanical or structural failure on your aircraft, it may not be your fault, but it sure as heck is your responsibility/problem since it's threatening YOU. A simple 5 minute preflight can catch 95% of what can go wrong with a hang glider and I would imagine that a 15 minute preflight can catch 90% of what can go wrong with a turboprop airplane. It sure as heck should have been able to catch a situation that could have caused wing failure.

When you preflight a hang glider, a great deal of attention is paid to the wing/sail. You do a symmetry check on the glider. You check the leading edges and make sure there's no bends- literally running your palm down the entire length on both sides. You check the sail for tears. You check the dive sticks attached to the sail. Then (ideally) you get a friend to do the same for your glider, and you check his out.

Commercial planes have the same problems as turboprop planes, but they (1) have two folks at the helm flying the plane and (2) have a few more people looking at the plane. Hence they're a bit safer, but not all that much.

As for Icon Aircraft, I've got something better.

A Czech fighter jet:

http://www.l39.com

If I had a jet that was for personal use/aerobatics, this would probably be it. These things sell for $200K in good condition, but it's the maintenance, storage, and kerosene (2 miles per gallon @ 300 mph) that gets you.

As for now, I will stick to aerobatics in $4K hang gliders that cost $200/year to store and $100/year to launch and land and require no fuel.

I think Heister has his own jet and might be able to provide more info on all of this stuff. I consider flying about as safe as driving. The parachute deployment system is just side-curtain-airbags (unless you're doing aerobatics, in which case it is more like a seatbelt.)

Being IlliniProgrammer, I will probably not buy a jet until I've made my first billion. At which point, at CPI + 6%, I'll probably be 200.

The malfunction stats are misleading. Cesnas for the most part are not turbo props, they are traditional vblock props. there is little differnce between a turbo prop and a turbo jet, other then one uses a prop to propel the plane while the other uses expanding gasses. A turbo prop is essentially a jet engine with a prop on it. The reason prop planes have more problems has to do with the fact that they have more moving parts. A jet engine is a compression fan, a combustion chamber, and another fan in the back that spins the compression fan in the front. So while a gas piston engine has hundreds of moving parts a jet engine pretty much has one.

First, and absolutely foremost, could not agree with Alex more. This is a tragedy and our condolences should go out to the families impacted by it. To think of this happening just prior to Christmas just compounds the matter and adds to the disgust I feel for all those who are already second guessing the pilot and his motives.

Second, as a licensed commercial pilot with multi-engine and instrument privileges with over 1,000 hours of PIC (pilot in command) time, let’s cover a few basic facts: 1. According to the MSN article, the aircraft in question was a Socata 700 (details here: http://www.airliners.net/aircraft-data/stats.main?id=370); 2. To own and operate this aircraft, the pilot would have needed a significant level of training and flying time to just gain the ability to purchase insurance, to say nothing as to its cost; 3. With this level of training and experience, I would be beyond shocked if he did not complete a pre-flight inspection of his aircraft – unfortunately, anyone who has done more than 3 of these knows that they merely look for fairly obviously surface issues and would be completely unable to determine the integrity of the internal components that are really responsible for holdings it all together; 4. If the aircraft suffered a critical structural failure midflight (as has been speculated), there would be almost no method of successfully surviving the return to earth (parachute systems rely on the structural integrity of the airframe to support the mass of the airplane during descent, besides being too small to support an aircraft of this size anyways – parachutes are only installed, at least to my knowledge of manufacturers, by Cirrus, makers of 4 place single engine piston planes); 4. Contrary to speculation, there are Cessna’s that are certified for spins/inverted flight (i.e. barrel-rolls) – such as the C-152, which many training programs use for spin training for students seeking their CFI (Certified Flight Instructor) rating; 5. Regarding the safety of propeller aircraft, it is true that piston aircraft are inherently less reliable than turbine aircraft, but this has nothing to do with whether or not it has a propeller, it has everything to do with the internal mechanics of internal combustion engines (in fact, given the opportunity to choose between suffering an engine failure in a propeller or jet aircraft, I would choose a propeller aircraft every day and twice on Sundays – their “glide ratios” (the number of feet that the aircraft can travel horizontally over 1 foot of lost altitude is frequently in the range of 15+:1, vastly more than jet aircraft, which in the industry, pilots refer to as “lawn darts” for their flight characteristics after the loss of power.

Finally, before jumping to anymore speculation, I think it is only respectful that we give our condolences to the families involved and allow the NTSB to conduct their professional investigation and announce their findings. At such time, I’m sure we can all return with a more complete understanding of the facts and continue our discussion of the merits of private aircraft and their inherent dangers.

Heister, how much higher are a jet's operating expenses than a cessna's?

Also how much more training does it take to fly one? I've got some friends who fly single-engine prop planes and always complain about how it costs $50/hour to rent or thousands and thousands and thousands per year to own.

Magnitude of 10 at the bare minimum, that's if you are considering a twin engine Cessna vs a ultra short range jet. If your friends are complaining about 50 bucks an hour to rent a single engine prop plane they won't even consider the thought of a jet. Fuel to start a turbine jet is over 50 bucks an engine, it takes 2 to 3 times the fuel to go the same distance, unless your turbine certified a pilot will run 700 plus an hour each. Take off and landing taxes are more for turbine jets. If you are trying to stay on the cheap jets are not the way to go.

A business associate of my families business just had a similar incident a day or two ago a family of 4 with 2 kids. It's a terrible tradgey.

No thats not the same crash. The reason you hear about more crashes in smaller planes is because there are more of them, they are not maintained to the same level commercial jets are, and because most are not pressurized therefore, they have low cellings which gives the pilot less time to react if something does go wrong.

Damn RIP

Hits close to home - the wife was a kid in my brother's class' aunt. They were headed down here to spend Christmas with the family. Rough stuff.

the wife was a kid inside your brother's class' aunt? what ? lol

"Luke, I am your fathers, brothers, nephew, cousins, former-room mate."

-Spaceballs

Haha, knew it would come out like that. Don't know how else to put it. One of my brother's friends' aunt/uncle/cousins were the family in the crash.

Life is short. Live it full.

Condolences to any who may have been affected.

You're all a bunch of idiots. It's "awesome" reading a bunch of "explanations" of what happened from people who clearly have no aviation experience other than sitting on an airliner. But of course, since you're all IB analysts (or wannabe bankers), you know everything, right? I have over 20 years of aviation experience, and I feel dumber after reading 99.9% of what was written above. I think you all need to "know what you don't know" - don't read one article online and then think you're an expert on the entire subject. Seriously, you all have a lot to learn about life if you think you can opine on what happened in this crash after reading one article in reuters or on wsj.com. I feel sorry for the firms that employ you (and am grateful towards the firms that will definitely ding the wannabes that have the ridiculous egos displayed above). God help us all - I hope the idiots that commented above (pretty much everyone in this thread except me) get what's coming to them...

It seems to me like more of them are giving ideas as to what may have happened then are saying they know exactly what happened. And, no, firms usually don't ding people based on their knowledge of aircraft or their tendency to bullshit about things they don't know (unless it is something they need to know for their job).