Made by Volvo.

the old Kansas City airport coming into town from the north

"Watch out for low flying airplanes".

Hmm...not so funny, I guess!

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... my new duty station changed as MiddleFingerMomDad was very ill and we didn't know if
he was going to last very much longer (I was eventually successful, though very, very lost
for a day or two... AND he lived another 25 years).
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Approaching the runway at D.C., we got lower and lower and lower over the Potomac -- so
low that I thought they were going to put it in the drink without warning us(?!?!?!?).
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JUST as it looked like we were going to start getting slapped by the little choppy waves, the
ground flashed by and we touched down on the runway.
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I've flown a LOT... and that was one of the few things that frightened me in the air (and I
was in a helicopter crash AND in a C-130 that came in too fast and BOUNCED and had to
go back around). Not even close to the D.C. scare.
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on Washington Monument and National was in the distance beyond it. I could see planes
coming in and making the turn for final. The first one I watched
I thought was headed straight for the monument--thought I was
going to see a crash--it was coming in so low.

Of course it didn't. Nor did the next one or next one...

That is the one that has the approach so close to the Potomac. No precision approach means no vertical guidance. A precision approach gives you a 3 degree approach path. Without this guidance, some pilots will come in a bit low. The poles that hold up the approach lights are made of frangible material because it's fairly common that they are knocked off by airplane wheels.

The property owned by the airport ends almost right at each end of the runway, so on the north end there is just barely room to have a road, which is the only way to get to the east side of the airport.

The plane actually shouldn't have been that low. On the north end the runway has been shortened a bit for landings. People are not supposed to use the full extent of the runway on the north end to land, but people do it anyway. The actual landing threshold is offset a couple of hundred feet to the south in order to keep planes higher over the road. The pilot of the plane in the video was actually doing his first solo, which is why his wife was filming it.

Frankly, I don't see this as pilot error. How is someone supposed to know that they're not supposed to use the full runway? That's just crazy.

An experienced pilot would have known or should have known, however I see even experienced pilots land prior to the displaced threshold all the time. It works OK until it doesn't. I suspect his instructor didn't properly brief him on relevant runway markings.

I enjoy your sharing your knowledge and experience.

A first time solo student just does three trips around the pattern for three landings. The pattern is a rectangular box. How long he would have been on final approach depends on how far out he made is base to final turn. Most instructors teach students to make really big patterns, which is also a bit unfortunate. I suspect he was probably at least a mile out from the runway on final, and the approach speed of a Cessna 172 in the landing configuration is about 70 mph. So maybe about 30 seconds. An experienced pilot would be scanning the runway looking for any potential incursions. An inexperienced pilot on his first solo would probably be fixated on his proposed landing point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airfield_traffic_pattern

This looks like a really skilled pilot doing his thing on a short runway . . . and the SUV appears.

That's why his wife was filming it.

The post frack up paper work eventually outweigh both the plane and the SUV.

mikey_the_rat

If ever there was time to look up for right of way...

mikey_the_rat

Many ignore it. There have been a few accidents at that airport, at least one of which was also at least partially due to the airport layout. A few years ago there was one plane that landed on top of another because there were some trees at the south end which prevented the landing pilot from seeing the plane pulling out onto the runway. Believe it or not, this small airport is as busy as the major airports in many small to medium sized cities and it has no control tower. I stopped flying in there because it's just too dangerous for my tastes and there are many pilots who try to turn the airport into their own private airshow on the weekends and ignore federal aviation regs. I suspect that after this accident, the insurer is going to demand improvements to this airport. After the last one they changed some of the rules, but it didn't really help much.

maybe his attitude was too casual leading up to the accident just because he'd been there so many times...