3 Tesla workers die in E. Palo Alto plane crash

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/17/BA391C32O5.DTL

by pg • 16 years ago

125 48 16 years ago

mingdingo2• 16 years ago

What happened to the old article that was just here? It seems the points remain but the comments are all gone. Also, it's been reposted by pg...

pg• 16 years ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1132211

jrockway2• 16 years ago

The other article was tripe. People were upvoting based on worthiness of the story, not on the particular writing at the original site. Now everyone can read actual facts and come up with their own opinions.

ryanelkins• 16 years ago

Although it should be noted that much of the editorialized parts of the story seem to have been added quite a bit after it was submitted. The article is currently 2-3x as long as when I first read it. At least don't blame the OP.

jazzychad2• 16 years ago

So, I submitted the original story. When it was submitted, the article on the page was much different that what it appears to be now. I just came back from lunch to find my submission "overridden". In this case I don't mind because of the situation, and I would rather have an article with more journalistic integrity take center stage, but there were some good comment threads going on the original submission. However, it did seem odd that it happened.

Quarrelsome• 16 years ago

It was Jalopnik otherwise known as the hand that feeds the Top Gear news section. If you read TheRegister you might understand a little. Just because someone dies you shouldn't stop acting like yourself.

mrtron• 16 years ago

You sort of answered your own question there. Just looks like pg changed the article source to one with more detail.

mingdingo2• 16 years ago

Ah, I see. Guess I wasn't familiar with the HN editing procedures. Shame the comments were lost though...

jacquesm4• 16 years ago

> Just looks like pg changed the article source to one with more detail.

And one which does not read like trying to turn a tragedy in to an attack piece on Tesla Motors. That's got to be a new journalistic low.

idlewords• 16 years ago

Arbitrary killing of posts and comments by editorial fiat is a storied HN tradition.

jacquesm4• 16 years ago

But this is not one of those instances, I'm all for what happened here.

tvon2• 16 years ago

It's not arbitrary, it's just not explained.

pkaler• 16 years ago

It's not arbitrary. I flagged the story and I am pretty sure others flagged the story, too. Flagged stories get killed. It's the right thing to do.

faramarz2• 16 years ago

One of the people on video said it well "we're very vulnerable without power."

Coincidently, Elon Musk's focus has partly been addressing that.

pyre2• 16 years ago

I'm curious as to what you mean. I don't see Tesla Motors/Paypal/SpaceX as addressing that. Tesla Motors might be addressing, "we're vulnerable without gasoline or oil," but not electricity.

faramarz2• 16 years ago

I'm mostly referring to his SolarCity business/investment.

aw3c22• 16 years ago

As sorry as I am for those who are affected, I just do not see the relevance for this site. People die every day. People in startups die every day. Is this special because it is in the news, because it was a spectacular death?

Actually I find it highly questionable to draw attention to these kinds of incidents.

axod• 16 years ago

Well despite being a very sad event, it affects many people here - Power is out all over Palo Alto.

aw3c22• 16 years ago

Ah, now I get it. Palo Alto = Silicon Valley. Ok, that explains the attention.

Herring• 16 years ago

A few days ago, one of the top threads was "Crime in America keeps going down, yet the American public refuses to believe it"

It's very much a human thing, getting shocked about relatively small but vivid tragedies.

pyre2• 16 years ago

Aside from the power issues affecting Palo Alto and tragic loss of life, such a story is likely to drum up speculation about how the loss of talent will affect Tesla Motors. Seeing as talking about startups (or just popular businesses) in such a fashion happens a lot on HackerNews, I really don't see this story as out of place.

jmatt• 16 years ago

It's a car company created in the spirit and likeness of a tech startup by founders who were previously successful tech startup founders. Their upcoming IPO was already evaluated as extremely risky even for an IPO and now they have to deal with this tragedy. I think that it's a combination of all these reasons more than the proximity to silicon valley. If the company were in Germany and in the same situation, I think I'd still be interested in the story and the fallout.

slay2k• 16 years ago

Better article:

http://www.mercurynews.com/business-headlines/ci_14416855

This is depressing.

sean12345• 16 years ago

I see two possibilities: pilot loss of control due to disorientation caused by IMC conditions and subsequent powered flight into the ground or an engine failure. A loaded Cessna 310 has very poor climb performance with a single engine running. Probably an engine failure is the likely cause with the poor weather inhibiting the pilot's ability to make an off runway landing in the marsh.

n8agrin• 16 years ago

I believe it was in "Outliers" Malcolm Gladwell claimed that airplane accidents are often the cause of several critical failures, not just one. It would be interesting to find out if that theory holds true in this case, as you seem to be hypothesizing.

jacquesm4• 16 years ago

Any kind of accident, not just airline accidents are usually the result of more than one failure.

Even simple accidents are usually remarkably complex to piece together and almost always start with a very simple small thing that by itself would not be enough to cause an accident. The follow-up to that first thing is just as important, or possibly even more so.

FlorinAndrei2• 16 years ago

So, who killed the electric car again?

jrockway2• 16 years ago

Tesla has 500+ employees. 3 died today. It's likely that the company can continue to go on.

cameldrv2• 16 years ago

I agree that those are the two likely possibilities. Given that the pilot was pretty experienced, and was a multi-engine instructor, I'd say that disorientation is less likely.

On a cold day at sea level, the 310 should be able to get at least 200fpm. The book number is about 300fpm. However, they may not have been going fast enough to get book performance, and a plane that old usually can't make nearly the book numbers. They hit at about .3nm from the end of the runway, significantly left of the extended centerline, and at an altitude of about 100 feet. That would be consistent with a climb rate of about 150-200fpm.

My guess is that the left engine failed. The left engine is the critical engine, and so the plane would have very strongly wanted to turn left. It would have been slow having just taken off, and so the pilot probably had to turn to keep his speed up and maintain a positive climb rate. He probably either forgot about the power lines, or was just hoping to clear them since he couldn't see them.

Sadly, this is probably just another instance of the second engine being just enough to get you to the scene of the crash.

mynameishere• 16 years ago

Do pilots train flying 2-engined planes in emergency (ie, 1-engine) conditions?

SpacemanSpiff2• 16 years ago

Godspeed. Don't know if many readers here are also pilots, but it's always sad to see something like this happen to a fellow aviator. I've flown 310's quite a bit and they can be a handful on a single engine - although I will refrain from speculating about the crash further. Incidentally it's possible to track the investigation using the NTSB website: http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp The accident synopsis will be available online as soon as they update their database. My condolences.

sokoloff• 16 years ago

FAA's AAI site will have the "just the facts" version of the report far sooner than the NTSB. (In all likelihood, it will be on the FAA site tomorrow.)

http://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/prelimina...

SpacemanSpiff2• 16 years ago

Interesting. Thanks.

alttab• 16 years ago

Did anyone else see this and think "I wonder if it was a job?"

Maybe I have too much Reddit in me, but damn.

RIP and respect.

walkon• 16 years ago

Huh? You think they were knocked off by big oil companies?

neurotech1• 16 years ago

Not sure if its been posted, but the names of the victims have been released by Mercury News.

"The Mercury News has learned through sources close to the company that the deceased are: Doug Bourn, 56, of Santa Clara, a senior electrical engineer; Andrew Ingram, 31, of Palo Alto, an electrical engineer; and Brian M. Finn, 42, of East Palo Alto; a senior manager of interactive electronics"

http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_14425582?nclick_ch...

3 Tesla workers die in E. Palo Alto plane crash

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