Plane crash nola east (Fox 8 News anchor Nancy Parker killed in the crash...RIP) (1 Viewer)

I listened to stories about the pilot last night. Franklin Augustus. Such a great guy! He was interested in planes from a very young age. He wanted to interest other kids and hopefully inspire them to dedicate their lives to flying or other positive life missions and steer away from drugs.
He was a stunt pilot. He was also a member of the lake charles group that honored the Tuskegee Airmen
 
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Please note that I am not an NTSB crash investigator, but I am a private pilot and an A&P technician who has been partially involved in such incidents in the past.
As I see it, due to one credible eye-witness account the investigators will be focusing on two main causes for this tragic light airplane crash... sudden incapacitation of the pilot, Mr. Augustus, or an inflight failure of catastrophic proportions to part of the airframe.

The eye-witness described the descent of the airplane as being "straight down" before it impacted the ground. This indicates that the airplane was not being controlled or was incapable of being controlled. I only say this because the current information being reported to the public is that the aircraft type was a "two-seat Cessna" airplane. While the most common types of crashes in close proximity to an airport involves takeoff/departure stalls (loss of aerodynamic lift due to an extreme angle of attack of the wing), it seems very unlikely that an experienced stunt pilot like Mr. Augustus would have been doing aerobatic maneuvers at low altitude soon after takeoff. (Note: I'm only assuming the incident happened on the takeoff climb due to the likelihood that the winds were coming out of the south yesterday afternoon causing the active runway at the time to be 18R.)

While we can't know what the primary intention of flight was as a news story, it seems unlikely that an aerobatics demonstration was being featured. (While there is a version of two-seat Cessna airplane that is designed for light aerobatics (150 Aerobat), this was not the type of stunt plane used by Mr. Augustus. Besides, if the news story was to include video footage, it would have had to be fitted with some sort of 'GoPro-type' mounted camera(s) as Ms. Parker would not have been shooting video footage herself during such maneuvers. So my personal speculation was a story that included the history of the pilot with some (non-aerobatic) overviews of the city portrayed during the report. Or else Ms. Parker was simply offered a chance to take a joyride to see her city from the vantage point of a small airplane... a much different experience than flying commercially.

If my assumptions are correct, a simple/sudden loss of power on takeoff would have simply required the pilot to push the yoke forward, get the nose down to maintain airspeed, and to make a 'dead-stick' landing on Jourdan Road, which is long, rather unobstructed, and almost directly below their flight path. But the fact that the airplane crashed almost vertically indicates that there was a complete loss of control for some reason. Though a 'stall/spin' scenario is certainly not out of the realm of possibility, it seems more likely to me that either the pilot became incapacitated (ie, possible heart attack, etc.) or a loss of control due to a major structural failure.

One of the items that receive special attention during annual inspections on high wing Cessna airplanes is the bolts that attach the struts to the wing spar. Fatigue, corrosion, and/or cracks in the fittings have been responsible for loss of a wing. While it may not completely separate from the fuselage, a loss of this attach point would simply cause the wing to fold upward and there would be no chance to maintain lift/flight of any kind. Though I do realize that all of this is just speculation on my part, I will certainly be engrossed with any follow up to the investigation of this crash to learn what the official conclusion is to the NTSB investigation.

Death is a very sad subject made even worse when it is unexpected and affects so many others. As we have recently seen with the sudden & devastating loss of Andrus' son-in-law, life can be fleeting and we can lose those we love in an instant of time. Show love to everyone close to you every day! One day we all will be glad that we did so.

(Edit: Reports now confirm that the aircraft involved was the Pitts S-2B high performance biplane that Mr. Augustus used in his stunt shows. Such an aircraft type would change most all of the scenarios mentioned above. The initial reports of the aircraft type that crashed were false. We'll have to stay tuned to additional facts as they become available.)
 
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RIP... How long has she been on air in NO? Seems like forever.
I've heard reports last night that she spent 5 years reporting in Baton Rouge and 20 years in New Orleans. Though not originally from Louisiana, she certainly considered New Orleans her home.
 
I've heard reports last night that she spent 5 years reporting in Baton Rouge and 20 years in New Orleans. Though not originally from Louisiana, she certainly considered New Orleans her home.

She must’ve been in BR in the early 90s. I was attending LSU and saw her there on the news there. I think it was WAFB. I recognized her on Nola TV when we came to visit family in the years after moving away. Sad story.
 
RIP... How long has she been on air in NO? Seems like forever.

On Fox 8's broadcast last night, I believe they said she came to Louisiana in 1996 to work as an anchor in Baton Rouge. She grew up in Alabama, which is where she met her husband, Glen Boyd, who is from New Orleans. At some point during their time in Alabama, Glen decided that he wanted to focus their efforts on finding jobs in Louisiana so that they can move back to his hometown, and that's what happened.

I actually used to go to the same barbershop with Boyd and his kids when I was in my early to mid 20's, and their appointment times were always around mine on Saturday mornings. I didn't know them personally, but we all used to talk football together in there, and he was always very a nice person that was easy to talk to, as was Nancy anytime she was the one to bring the kids to the shop.

Also, their Saints season tickets are in the same general vicinity as me and my family's, so from time to time we will see them strolling in or out of the dome on Sundays. They always looked like a fun, happy couple.

This is yet another reminder of just how delicate life is and how it can be taken from either you or your loved ones in an instant. It's heartbreaking to know that she had such a horrifying final seconds of her life. No one deserves that.
 
Apparently the plane was a Pitts.
If it was the Pitts S-2 that Augustus used to perform his stunt shows, then the reporters really got some poor information early on. A high performance biplane is a completely different animal. Low altitude engine loss is a lot more critical in such an aircraft and could have been responsible for what happened yesterday.
 
Incredibly sad news. Nancy Parker was "one of the family". We watched John Snell and her almost every evening. Tragic!!!!
 
If it was the Pitts S-2 that Augustus used to perform his stunt shows, then the reporters really got some poor information early on. A high performance biplane is a completely different animal. Low altitude engine loss is a lot more critical in such an aircraft and could have been responsible for what happened yesterday.
This just goes to show that eye witness accounts of plane crashes are notoriously unreliable.
Most eye witnesses know little about aircraft and a surprisingly large number will remember seeing fire.
 
Sad news. I wonder if the pilot was in the process of attempting a stunt maneuver when something went wrong.
 
Sad news. I wonder if the pilot was in the process of attempting a stunt maneuver when something went wrong.

While anything is possible, I would be surprised if this were the case. In any flying situation, altitude is your friend. Aerobatic pilots particularly get to a reasonable altitude before doing maneuvers in case something like this does happen.
 
Sad news. I wonder if the pilot was in the process of attempting a stunt maneuver when something went wrong.
It appears that the crash occurred almost immediately after takeoff. Probably still climbing out and hadn't yet flown to the airspace where he would have been performing the aerobatic maneuvers. Whatever went wrong seemed to happen within moments of breaking ground and ended just south of the airport property.

I know of an incident where a pilot set him fuel selector handle to chose the fuel tank noted on the preflight check list. However he only thought he had fully rotated the valve handle but was actually not drawing fuel from either tank. There was only enough fuel in the line for a takeoff and climb out to about 75 feet when his engine quit due to fuel starvation. The pilot was too low to do anything but make a controlled glide into the trees ahead. He survived with minor injuries, but his airplane was totalled.

There is absolutely no reason to believe this pilot was attempting any aerobatics at that point in his flight.
 
This just goes to show that eye witness accounts of plane crashes are notoriously unreliable.
Most eye witnesses know little about aircraft and a surprisingly large number will remember seeing fire.
To my knowledge, no eye-witness had suggested an aircraft type to the media, only the way it fell out of the sky. It seems more likely that the reporter simply referred to all light airplanes as 'Cessnas', in an effort to differentiate this crash from larger passenger airplanes. Most know very little about airplane types and simply generalize the description.
 

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