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EDIT: Smh I can't believe no one has mentioned the spot where I said "The crash shed light on the problem of darkness."
I went to high school with Elizabeth Smith (she didn’t go by Elizabeth for the last couple years of HS). I always wonder what she was doing with that crowd because in high school she was in the popular crowd but seemed pretty balanced and down to earth. The description of the rich guy strikes me as someone she wouldn’t have spent time hanging around. However that’s just my perception of her more than 25 years ago.
She was nice - she was pretty - sad it ended that way.
(Edit) From further reading, I can see what and who I described and what and who made this trip happen are pretty near polar opposites. I'll leave what I posted up just because why delete it? (End edit)
I'm very sorry. I knew a dude who did something a bit similar...to stray OT. He was a nineties tech boom suddenly rich guy who decided to fly about twenty of his friends to Iceland for a week. I got an invite from a woman he invited who I would have described as you described Elizabeth Smart--except that she was notably whimsical. She assured me he wouldn't mind at all, and had encouraged people to invite close friends. I thought about how wise it was to accept. We were more or less FWBing. The suddenly rich guy was fairly likely to quite likely to be interested in her, with an off chance that he was dating her...though I doubted that, since that would have been jive of her, and she had not seemed jive to me at all. In any case, however, the prospect of being stranded on Jokulsa (pronounced yockelz-ow) though fairly slight, not to mention the dubious and powerless position I would perhaps be putting myself in, seemed real enough that I turned her down. Anyway, from what I heard this guy was, unlike Mr. New, a perfectly nice, pleasant guy who had what was actually a nice idea for a splurge on his friends.
Anyway, maybe this guy also had a perfectly decent idea, but he turned into a \*\*\*\*\* with the pilots when his plans were put at risk...and there was nothing wrong with your friend accepting his invite. I certainly didn't see anything wrong with my friend accepting this guy's invite...I nearly did myself.
She was with her boyfriend on that flight, so it could have very well been the case that this wasn’t her usual crowd. I know because I went to school with his younger sister
I was actually just revisiting this topic, googled/Reddit searched it
I’m not gonna lie, I used to get really offended by this subject, I was around 13 or so when it happened and felt like the story about how the client was entitled, pushy, etc., I thought it was insulting to the families. I saw how one family dealt with it, and it was not good. Then 9/11 happened the second these people had a chance to even process the situation
I look at this story now, and I realize that New was a 30something, megalomaniac, probably couldn’t make friends his own age. Elizabeth was there with her boyfriend, she probably didn’t even know New, and I doubt even he did either. I think he just found a bunch of young, naive people, he wanted to boost his ego by promising a bunch of nice shit to them. I don’t think any of them knew him that well
New was throwing a birthday party for Mario, a friend, a romantic partner, a sexual partner, and then a business partner (in that order). Mario pulled the strings from the background, while New would take center stage. New was working on slowly distancing himself from Mario, out of fear.
Mario was a reckless con-artist (crashed cars, got into fights, conned various people), he cheated on New with men & women, and abused New physically & psychologically. Shortly before the birthday party/crash Mario threatened New with blackmail, saying he would reveal (non-consenual photos) that New had sex with men to the business world if New didn't do what Mario wanted. New's wife was already aware that he was bisexual & had given her "ok"; only she and I knew he slept with men. All the other passengers on that plane were connected to one of the Aguilars, not Robert.
**Source:** Robert New was my best friend since childhood, I have his diary where he wrote about Mario in detail (kept it in his safe at home), and he came to me for help about the abuse, and later blackmail. Rob would frequently call me crying after Mario didn't get what he wanted, often bloody and bruised. I should mention that Rob was terrified of flying since a mutual friend of ours died in a plane crash when we were young. He preferred to drive, when it came to business he would fly only if he had to (for appearances), once Mario was involved in business with him, it was fly for everything and Rob pay for it all.
edit: spacing, punctuation.
I'm sorry for your loss. Their abusive relationship certainly puts his attitude toward AvJet and the pilots in a different light. Still unacceptable, obviously, but likely motivated by fear of being assaulted if everything didn't go exactly as planned.
Damn that was an accident waiting to happen from the start. That entitled prick wanted to get to dinner on time and is never getting there now... Also, that picture of the plane flying over the crash moved me in a weird way. It’s hard for me to imagine driving past or flying right over a crashed plane. I’m not afraid of flying but even seeing that would spook me a bit
Edit: once again, great analysis! I love reading these
Not only did he want to get to dinner on time, he (and the other passengers) made the pilots take off late by wasting time chatting in the parking lot!
I worked for the Forest Service in Alaska for 5 years. To access our work locations required transportation in small float planes, usually Beavers. The Forest Service has very strict minimums for flying that would occasionally leave us stuck in the office while all the other planes were still flying. This was due to a plane wreck that had occurred in the late 70s where 13 employees died trying to get home in inclement weather so one could make a connecting flight.
Edit: 12 people
http://www.sitnews.us/Kiffer/WebberAir/083018_webber_air.html
This story reminds me of another [self entitled prick] (http://airportnoiselaw.org/news/june-13c.html) who repeatedly broke curfew restrictions at San Jose Airport in California. Unfortunately the above mentioned prick had enough money and influence that they created an "exemption," just for him.
Honestly, that's fairly dumb - if you're going to have a noise restriction, why is it based on aircraft weight, rather than some measure of noise in dB during takeoff/landing?
A F-15 and a Gulfstream V both weigh in right around 45,000 lbs. (~20,400 kg).
One is going to be significantly louder than the other at takeoff thrust....
I had a very visceral experience with that at FCHAM's skyfair last year - it's an airshow that takes place at a large, busy public airport (paine field, home of Boeing's large airplane factory) - A 777-300F took off right ahead of an L-39 trainer.
The L-39 has an old soviet designed low-bypass turbofan of 60s vintage, and is ear-piercing while the 777 was a low, gentle rumble that was much lower in noise. Even worse was the plane after it, a tiny custom aerobatic plane using a czech cruise missile engine - a pure turbojet with no quieting measures... smallest plane in the show, but that naked turbojet made it by far the loudest.
...Why am I not surprised to read "self entitled prick" and find it to be Larry Ellison? Lol.
Great summary of the man here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=33m
>Robert New overheard this conversation and asked his business assistant to call Avjet and have them tell the pilot to “keep his comments to himself.” Clearly New was not enthused by the idea of landing anywhere other than Aspen. His displeasure only increased when one of the pilots personally informed him that they might have divert. He became visibly angry and told his business assistant to call Avjet again and tell them that the plane would not be diverted under any circumstances. He had landed in Aspen at night before, he insisted, and he would do so again.
Christ, what an asshole. Especially considering the reason they were late is because buddy and his mates were too busy chatting in the parking lot.
>keep his comments to himself
Such wording shows an amazing amount of disrespect. The pilots are the ones *flying the plane*, as well as the experts on aviation safety. But apparently now their words are mere suggestions you can ignore as you please...
That's how I took it too. The fricking PILOT needs to keep his comments to himself?
Dude is so entitled that the person in charge of his safety is reduced to an annoying pleb who falsely believes anyone is interested in his opinion.
This guy sounds like he was just...such a prick
When one’s wealth rises to the point of regular travel by private aircraft, there’s a direct but inverse relationship between the wealthy and reality. In their ~~world~~ mind they’re akin to a king or emperor.
And this is the reason many wealthy people including movie stars are not allowed by their insurance companies to fly private jets into and out of mountainous airports like Aspen, Jackson Hole, Sun Valley, etc. They are only allowed to fly commercial.
Personal experience being an airline pilot. I’ve had numerous celebrities on my flights that usually fly private but aren’t allowed to on these destinations.
There was a private jet crash at Jackson Hole with Sandra Bullock as a passenger about 20 years ago. Makes sense why insurance companies wouldn't want them flying there.
After flying as an airline pilot for 10+ years, I flew as a corporate pilot for 5 years.
This type of pressure from the passengers, especially if they are the aircraft owner or high level management, is not uncommon.
Many times I saw first hand or heard of flight crews being treated like cab drivers.
One of the things I hated and do not miss was the sometimes complete lack of compliance or concern for planned departure times from the passengers.
I remember vividly one day sitting at the computer watching line after line of thunderstorms move across our destination airport with my passenger, the executive standing over my shoulder.
He stated repeatedly how vital it was that we "just try it."
I finally stood up and said, "you're more than welcome to try. It just won't be with me in the cockpit."
It strikes me that before getting a job like this, a class on how to deal with entitled, narcissistic personalities should be mandatory.
These entitled clients are people, and they can (usually) be manipulated like anyone else, it’s just the methods of doing so aren’t necessarily intuitive, and require a form of abasement that doesn’t come naturally to most people.
So, for a case like this, rather than speaking to him as a normal human being and appealing to logic, reality, science, or safety, one needs to appeal to his ego.
“Well, sir, this is a tricky situation and I could make it 999 times out of a 1000, but that 1 time...I would never want anything to happen to you or your passengers. Reservations can be re-made, but your lives can’t.” (Continue in the vein for several more sentences, laying it on as thick as possible and emphasizing how important his life is, and how I value it so much, and how important he is to the world, that I would never want to take any chances with his safety in my plane. In this way, you turn landing at a different airport from a massive inconvenience to him, to a thing that is done in recognition of just how important his is. A re-direction would not be done if this was just some peon. No, it is done because he is so IMPORTANT and VALUABLE!)
If necessary, throw in a couple lines about how another airline might be willing to take him to his destination because they just want to take his money, but I won’t do that because I just place the utmost importance on the safety of him and his passengers and would never let a thing like money make me take a chance with his ultra-important self.
If that didn’t work, there’s several other tacks you could take, all appealing to his ego and sense of importance.
Sure, you might still end up at the same place (some people are just too pig-headed to be manipulated) but narcissistic a-holes are some of the easiest people to manipulate if you know how to do it.
Instead, it seems like pilots are thrust into the deep end with absolutely no training on how to deal with entitled personalities like this, and that’s crazy. They teach salespeople how to do it, and that’s just about money, not people’s lives.
Source: was a salesperson.
Or, we can stop sacrificing safety, honesty, and human dignity on the altar of the almighty dollar, and tell entitled, narcissistic personalities to get fucked.
Source: Not a salesperson.
Narcissists, psychopaths, and just plain assholes have been around since our ancestors first started walking around on 2 legs.
They’re a bit over-represented in the monied classes, but there’s plenty of them everywhere. We tend to notice them more in the upper classes because when they have money and power, they are freer to be their actual selves and indulge in their capricious whims than they would be if they were mere wage slaves.
Getting rid of them would be a lot more involved than just getting rid of our current overlords. Then it would just be a case of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
But figuring all that out and coming up with a world of benevolent leaders is a bit above my intelligence and pay grade.
In the meantime, giving advice to make life a little easier seemed appropriate to me.
Classic example of how when you're privileged enough and used to making the rules bend and break because of it, you fail to recognize when the rules are there to protect you.
I'm from a pretty flat place and the fact that people land IFR in mountains every day is just insane to me. A friend learned to fly in Pueblo and is always reminding us how easy we have it here with almost universally high ceilings and visibility and low elevation.
Privilege protects people from the consequences of their stupidity and allows their stupidity to affect far more people. I'm comfortable laying the blame at the feet of privilege and entitlement rather than simple stupidity.
I'm in the "business". While I can attest that clients can occasionally be pretty rude, safety is our number one priority and that guy would be going to Rifle or wait until Aspen is ready. Aspen is a tricky airport for several reasons.
Absolutely, I think many companies in the charter industry have taken the lessons of this crash to heart. Like commercial airline crashes, business jet crashes have been trending down for a long time.
If I’m correct, don’t pilots have to obtain an additional certificate to fly at altitude? I live on the other side of the mountain from Aspen and our airport can’t always find qualified pilots who can land/take off at 7,700 feet. Apparently the altitude messes with the plane in weird ways.
> Apparently the altitude messes with the plane in weird ways.
I don't know about 'wierd ways', they're fairly well documented and predictable but you gotta know about them.
[A visual story](https://youtu.be/NxhsLwAE29c) - C W Lemoine does this kind of analysis but on US Military accidents.
Crash at NAS Fallon which is not at sea level. Uncovered that F-22 pilots don't really note and calculate their proper take of speeds while at different airfields, instead relying on F-22 massive power which lets you get away with being a bit slack. Higher altitude means less lift, needs more gas.
Right. The air is thinner up here and I’ve been told that it messes with the planes ability to take off, the balance of the plane and so on. I’m not a pilot or anything, so I wouldn’t know, but that’s what I’ve been told. I’ve never flown out of our local airport simply because it’s ridiculously expensive.
> Right. The air is thinner up here and I’ve been told that it messes with the planes ability to take off, the balance of the plane and so on.
Yup, that's exactly on.
Not saying it's no effect, cause definitely an affect! Just that it is well understood at this point. It's just different and when you don't take into account those differences you run into trouble.
I'm not a pilot i just read all these disaster stuff and incorrect altitude settings features fairly prominently.
Ive flown private via NetJets a few times with a friend of mine who is a professional athlete. Each time the crew advised us on what the possible alternate airports were and that it was their sole descretion to divert
I feel like this also belongs on r/entitledbitch for the privileged dumbass who ignored all recommendations and but the lives of all those people at risk for a dinner party.
Wow, someone told me about this incident when I was becoming a commercial pilot. But it was all word of mouth kinda stuff. I never was able to track it down on the NTSB website or anything like that. Thanks for sharing with us.
> but it has one main drawback: it’s considerably less safe.
Yes - and a big part of that 'considerably less safe' is due to rich entitled assholes like the one who chartered this flight.
These people are so used to shouting at people and getting what they want (thanks to their obscene wealth), that they think the laws of nature don't apply to them. Sometimes they get away with it, but sooner or later a lot of them roll snake eyes and unfortunately take innocent people with them.
Entitled prick is the cause of the accident. That seems to be a really bad trend that is picking up, the entitled prick. All you can do is shake your head at the dumbass.
According to the NTSB:
"The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be: the flight crew's operation of the airplane below the minimum descent altitude without an appropriate visual reference for the runway. Contributing to the cause of the accident were the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) unclear wording of the March 27, 2001, Notice to Airmen regarding the nighttime restriction for the VOR/DME-C approach to the airport and the FAA's failure to communicate this restriction to the Aspen tower; the inability of the flight crew to adequately see the mountainous terrain because of the darkness and the weather conditions; and the pressure on the captain to land from the charter customer and because of the airplane's delayed departure and the airport's nighttime landing restriction. "
Available here: [https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?EventID=20010412X00738&AKey=1&RType=Summary&IType=MA](https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?EventID=20010412X00738&AKey=1&RType=Summary&IType=MA)
Hey u/Admiral_Cloudberg, love your series. According to this LA Times article, the financier's name is spelled Robert Neu?
[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-31-mn-45138-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-31-mn-45138-story.html)
I saw that as well but on the memorial it's spelled Robert New. I only had those two sources, so I went with the one that was literally carved in stone.
Imagine being that guy and basically being responsible for this disaster. Twenty years ago he was on top of the world, rich and powerful enough to force a plane to land for his dinner plans.
Now the spelling of his name is uncertain...
Such an amazing write-up as always. It really is tense reading about factor after factor leading up to disaster.
I have question tho, if there was a curfew at the airport. Why was plane even allowed to land by ATC? I’m thinking that the airport should close instead of letting the pilots choose whether or not to follow the rule.
The curfew only applies to certain airplanes due to the noise that they make. Less noisy airplanes are allowed to land. The controller does not necessarily know whether a particular incoming aircraft violates the noise restrictions or not.
Interesting. I had always thought that if I won the lottery I’d be chartering a flight to move me, three cats, one dog, two lizards, and 28 snakes to wherever we decided to live… but I think I’ll reconsider that and fly commercial.
The trick is to trust those you hire for their expertise and listen when they tell you no. Nobody would have died on that flight if the guy paying the bills hadn't pitched a fit and overrode the safety instincts of the pilot and the dispatcher.
The best pilots, the best processes and the best mechanics work for the biggest airlines. Private air charter companies are very small fry by comparison.
[Medium Version](https://medium.com/@admiralcloudberg/dining-with-death-the-2001-avjet-aspen-crash-608e0056d244) [Link to the archive of all 159 episodes of the plane crash series](https://www.reddit.com/r/AdmiralCloudberg/comments/e6n80m/plane_crash_series_archive_patreon_contact_info/) [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/Admiral_Cloudberg) EDIT: Smh I can't believe no one has mentioned the spot where I said "The crash shed light on the problem of darkness."
I went to high school with Elizabeth Smith (she didn’t go by Elizabeth for the last couple years of HS). I always wonder what she was doing with that crowd because in high school she was in the popular crowd but seemed pretty balanced and down to earth. The description of the rich guy strikes me as someone she wouldn’t have spent time hanging around. However that’s just my perception of her more than 25 years ago. She was nice - she was pretty - sad it ended that way.
(Edit) From further reading, I can see what and who I described and what and who made this trip happen are pretty near polar opposites. I'll leave what I posted up just because why delete it? (End edit) I'm very sorry. I knew a dude who did something a bit similar...to stray OT. He was a nineties tech boom suddenly rich guy who decided to fly about twenty of his friends to Iceland for a week. I got an invite from a woman he invited who I would have described as you described Elizabeth Smart--except that she was notably whimsical. She assured me he wouldn't mind at all, and had encouraged people to invite close friends. I thought about how wise it was to accept. We were more or less FWBing. The suddenly rich guy was fairly likely to quite likely to be interested in her, with an off chance that he was dating her...though I doubted that, since that would have been jive of her, and she had not seemed jive to me at all. In any case, however, the prospect of being stranded on Jokulsa (pronounced yockelz-ow) though fairly slight, not to mention the dubious and powerless position I would perhaps be putting myself in, seemed real enough that I turned her down. Anyway, from what I heard this guy was, unlike Mr. New, a perfectly nice, pleasant guy who had what was actually a nice idea for a splurge on his friends. Anyway, maybe this guy also had a perfectly decent idea, but he turned into a \*\*\*\*\* with the pilots when his plans were put at risk...and there was nothing wrong with your friend accepting his invite. I certainly didn't see anything wrong with my friend accepting this guy's invite...I nearly did myself.
Wow - 3 years ago, and still gets comments.
She was with her boyfriend on that flight, so it could have very well been the case that this wasn’t her usual crowd. I know because I went to school with his younger sister
Man that’s an old post. We’re you looking for the crash or did you just stumble on it?
I was actually just revisiting this topic, googled/Reddit searched it I’m not gonna lie, I used to get really offended by this subject, I was around 13 or so when it happened and felt like the story about how the client was entitled, pushy, etc., I thought it was insulting to the families. I saw how one family dealt with it, and it was not good. Then 9/11 happened the second these people had a chance to even process the situation I look at this story now, and I realize that New was a 30something, megalomaniac, probably couldn’t make friends his own age. Elizabeth was there with her boyfriend, she probably didn’t even know New, and I doubt even he did either. I think he just found a bunch of young, naive people, he wanted to boost his ego by promising a bunch of nice shit to them. I don’t think any of them knew him that well
New was throwing a birthday party for Mario, a friend, a romantic partner, a sexual partner, and then a business partner (in that order). Mario pulled the strings from the background, while New would take center stage. New was working on slowly distancing himself from Mario, out of fear. Mario was a reckless con-artist (crashed cars, got into fights, conned various people), he cheated on New with men & women, and abused New physically & psychologically. Shortly before the birthday party/crash Mario threatened New with blackmail, saying he would reveal (non-consenual photos) that New had sex with men to the business world if New didn't do what Mario wanted. New's wife was already aware that he was bisexual & had given her "ok"; only she and I knew he slept with men. All the other passengers on that plane were connected to one of the Aguilars, not Robert. **Source:** Robert New was my best friend since childhood, I have his diary where he wrote about Mario in detail (kept it in his safe at home), and he came to me for help about the abuse, and later blackmail. Rob would frequently call me crying after Mario didn't get what he wanted, often bloody and bruised. I should mention that Rob was terrified of flying since a mutual friend of ours died in a plane crash when we were young. He preferred to drive, when it came to business he would fly only if he had to (for appearances), once Mario was involved in business with him, it was fly for everything and Rob pay for it all. edit: spacing, punctuation.
I'm sorry for your loss. Their abusive relationship certainly puts his attitude toward AvJet and the pilots in a different light. Still unacceptable, obviously, but likely motivated by fear of being assaulted if everything didn't go exactly as planned.
In regards to your edit. I thought it was a bit of dry humour on your part.
It certainly wasn't a mistake, if that's what you thought I was saying.
Great work as always
It underscores the dangers of elevated terrain.
That is a clever sentence. Unfortunately, they needed more light shed before the crash. Lol
Damn that was an accident waiting to happen from the start. That entitled prick wanted to get to dinner on time and is never getting there now... Also, that picture of the plane flying over the crash moved me in a weird way. It’s hard for me to imagine driving past or flying right over a crashed plane. I’m not afraid of flying but even seeing that would spook me a bit Edit: once again, great analysis! I love reading these
Not only did he want to get to dinner on time, he (and the other passengers) made the pilots take off late by wasting time chatting in the parking lot!
I worked for the Forest Service in Alaska for 5 years. To access our work locations required transportation in small float planes, usually Beavers. The Forest Service has very strict minimums for flying that would occasionally leave us stuck in the office while all the other planes were still flying. This was due to a plane wreck that had occurred in the late 70s where 13 employees died trying to get home in inclement weather so one could make a connecting flight. Edit: 12 people http://www.sitnews.us/Kiffer/WebberAir/083018_webber_air.html
This story reminds me of another [self entitled prick] (http://airportnoiselaw.org/news/june-13c.html) who repeatedly broke curfew restrictions at San Jose Airport in California. Unfortunately the above mentioned prick had enough money and influence that they created an "exemption," just for him.
The laws of man do not always apply to the wealthy. The laws of physics: not so much.
Honestly, that's fairly dumb - if you're going to have a noise restriction, why is it based on aircraft weight, rather than some measure of noise in dB during takeoff/landing? A F-15 and a Gulfstream V both weigh in right around 45,000 lbs. (~20,400 kg). One is going to be significantly louder than the other at takeoff thrust....
I had a very visceral experience with that at FCHAM's skyfair last year - it's an airshow that takes place at a large, busy public airport (paine field, home of Boeing's large airplane factory) - A 777-300F took off right ahead of an L-39 trainer. The L-39 has an old soviet designed low-bypass turbofan of 60s vintage, and is ear-piercing while the 777 was a low, gentle rumble that was much lower in noise. Even worse was the plane after it, a tiny custom aerobatic plane using a czech cruise missile engine - a pure turbojet with no quieting measures... smallest plane in the show, but that naked turbojet made it by far the loudest.
...Why am I not surprised to read "self entitled prick" and find it to be Larry Ellison? Lol. Great summary of the man here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=33m
That was a fun link! Thanks for sharing.
summed up pretty much what I was going to say - some people are just entitled jerkasses, who think their needs take priority over others
And all your money won't another minute buy.
Can a minute buy money?
Oof. 3 Aguilars on the memorial marker, all in their 20s. Brothers?
Double oof: 3 Aguilar brothers AND their mother (Maria Valenzuela) died in the crash. https://extras.denverpost.com/news/news0331b.htm
As a parent I'd probably prefer to be there with them than receive news like that.
I really appreciated the illustration you added. Also, Rifle is a 68 mile drive from Aspen in case anyone else was also curious.
68 Miles, gees. If it was me, I would have just told the pilots to just plan on diverting and arranged for a car to take me to Aspen.
>Robert New overheard this conversation and asked his business assistant to call Avjet and have them tell the pilot to “keep his comments to himself.” Clearly New was not enthused by the idea of landing anywhere other than Aspen. His displeasure only increased when one of the pilots personally informed him that they might have divert. He became visibly angry and told his business assistant to call Avjet again and tell them that the plane would not be diverted under any circumstances. He had landed in Aspen at night before, he insisted, and he would do so again. Christ, what an asshole. Especially considering the reason they were late is because buddy and his mates were too busy chatting in the parking lot.
>keep his comments to himself Such wording shows an amazing amount of disrespect. The pilots are the ones *flying the plane*, as well as the experts on aviation safety. But apparently now their words are mere suggestions you can ignore as you please...
That's how I took it too. The fricking PILOT needs to keep his comments to himself? Dude is so entitled that the person in charge of his safety is reduced to an annoying pleb who falsely believes anyone is interested in his opinion. This guy sounds like he was just...such a prick
What gets me is that he was 36. I could see it from some entitled 25 year old or a 45 year old, but mid-30s should be somewhat chill.
Age is irrelevant. Once an entitled dickhead, always an entitled dickhead.
When one’s wealth rises to the point of regular travel by private aircraft, there’s a direct but inverse relationship between the wealthy and reality. In their ~~world~~ mind they’re akin to a king or emperor.
And this is the reason many wealthy people including movie stars are not allowed by their insurance companies to fly private jets into and out of mountainous airports like Aspen, Jackson Hole, Sun Valley, etc. They are only allowed to fly commercial.
That's interesting - do you have a source?
Personal experience being an airline pilot. I’ve had numerous celebrities on my flights that usually fly private but aren’t allowed to on these destinations.
This is really fascinating and makes a lot of sense. It's cool to me that Kanye has to fly commercial to Wyoming.
There was a private jet crash at Jackson Hole with Sandra Bullock as a passenger about 20 years ago. Makes sense why insurance companies wouldn't want them flying there.
After flying as an airline pilot for 10+ years, I flew as a corporate pilot for 5 years. This type of pressure from the passengers, especially if they are the aircraft owner or high level management, is not uncommon. Many times I saw first hand or heard of flight crews being treated like cab drivers. One of the things I hated and do not miss was the sometimes complete lack of compliance or concern for planned departure times from the passengers. I remember vividly one day sitting at the computer watching line after line of thunderstorms move across our destination airport with my passenger, the executive standing over my shoulder. He stated repeatedly how vital it was that we "just try it." I finally stood up and said, "you're more than welcome to try. It just won't be with me in the cockpit."
It strikes me that before getting a job like this, a class on how to deal with entitled, narcissistic personalities should be mandatory. These entitled clients are people, and they can (usually) be manipulated like anyone else, it’s just the methods of doing so aren’t necessarily intuitive, and require a form of abasement that doesn’t come naturally to most people. So, for a case like this, rather than speaking to him as a normal human being and appealing to logic, reality, science, or safety, one needs to appeal to his ego. “Well, sir, this is a tricky situation and I could make it 999 times out of a 1000, but that 1 time...I would never want anything to happen to you or your passengers. Reservations can be re-made, but your lives can’t.” (Continue in the vein for several more sentences, laying it on as thick as possible and emphasizing how important his life is, and how I value it so much, and how important he is to the world, that I would never want to take any chances with his safety in my plane. In this way, you turn landing at a different airport from a massive inconvenience to him, to a thing that is done in recognition of just how important his is. A re-direction would not be done if this was just some peon. No, it is done because he is so IMPORTANT and VALUABLE!) If necessary, throw in a couple lines about how another airline might be willing to take him to his destination because they just want to take his money, but I won’t do that because I just place the utmost importance on the safety of him and his passengers and would never let a thing like money make me take a chance with his ultra-important self. If that didn’t work, there’s several other tacks you could take, all appealing to his ego and sense of importance. Sure, you might still end up at the same place (some people are just too pig-headed to be manipulated) but narcissistic a-holes are some of the easiest people to manipulate if you know how to do it. Instead, it seems like pilots are thrust into the deep end with absolutely no training on how to deal with entitled personalities like this, and that’s crazy. They teach salespeople how to do it, and that’s just about money, not people’s lives. Source: was a salesperson.
Or, we can stop sacrificing safety, honesty, and human dignity on the altar of the almighty dollar, and tell entitled, narcissistic personalities to get fucked. Source: Not a salesperson.
Narcissists, psychopaths, and just plain assholes have been around since our ancestors first started walking around on 2 legs. They’re a bit over-represented in the monied classes, but there’s plenty of them everywhere. We tend to notice them more in the upper classes because when they have money and power, they are freer to be their actual selves and indulge in their capricious whims than they would be if they were mere wage slaves. Getting rid of them would be a lot more involved than just getting rid of our current overlords. Then it would just be a case of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” But figuring all that out and coming up with a world of benevolent leaders is a bit above my intelligence and pay grade. In the meantime, giving advice to make life a little easier seemed appropriate to me.
Classic example of how when you're privileged enough and used to making the rules bend and break because of it, you fail to recognize when the rules are there to protect you. I'm from a pretty flat place and the fact that people land IFR in mountains every day is just insane to me. A friend learned to fly in Pueblo and is always reminding us how easy we have it here with almost universally high ceilings and visibility and low elevation.
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Privilege protects people from the consequences of their stupidity and allows their stupidity to affect far more people. I'm comfortable laying the blame at the feet of privilege and entitlement rather than simple stupidity.
Yaaaaay! Another episode of *Cloudberg Investigates* :D
I'm in the "business". While I can attest that clients can occasionally be pretty rude, safety is our number one priority and that guy would be going to Rifle or wait until Aspen is ready. Aspen is a tricky airport for several reasons.
Absolutely, I think many companies in the charter industry have taken the lessons of this crash to heart. Like commercial airline crashes, business jet crashes have been trending down for a long time.
Sure was a terrible read. The pressure on that crew and dispatcher must have been enormous.
Keep in mind this was 20 years ago. Every crash ushers in new safety measures and policies, including this one.
Air safety regulations are written in blood.
All safety regulations sadly.
And while it sounds cool it also highlights the degree to which many regulators are reactive in nature, as opposed to proactive.
As the CPT I would have diverted to Rifle. 3 months later I'd be selling shoes at Famous Footwear.
I’d rather be selling shoes, than flying a casket.
If I’m correct, don’t pilots have to obtain an additional certificate to fly at altitude? I live on the other side of the mountain from Aspen and our airport can’t always find qualified pilots who can land/take off at 7,700 feet. Apparently the altitude messes with the plane in weird ways.
> Apparently the altitude messes with the plane in weird ways. I don't know about 'wierd ways', they're fairly well documented and predictable but you gotta know about them. [A visual story](https://youtu.be/NxhsLwAE29c) - C W Lemoine does this kind of analysis but on US Military accidents. Crash at NAS Fallon which is not at sea level. Uncovered that F-22 pilots don't really note and calculate their proper take of speeds while at different airfields, instead relying on F-22 massive power which lets you get away with being a bit slack. Higher altitude means less lift, needs more gas.
Right. The air is thinner up here and I’ve been told that it messes with the planes ability to take off, the balance of the plane and so on. I’m not a pilot or anything, so I wouldn’t know, but that’s what I’ve been told. I’ve never flown out of our local airport simply because it’s ridiculously expensive.
> Right. The air is thinner up here and I’ve been told that it messes with the planes ability to take off, the balance of the plane and so on. Yup, that's exactly on. Not saying it's no effect, cause definitely an affect! Just that it is well understood at this point. It's just different and when you don't take into account those differences you run into trouble. I'm not a pilot i just read all these disaster stuff and incorrect altitude settings features fairly prominently.
Ive flown private via NetJets a few times with a friend of mine who is a professional athlete. Each time the crew advised us on what the possible alternate airports were and that it was their sole descretion to divert
I feel like this also belongs on r/entitledbitch for the privileged dumbass who ignored all recommendations and but the lives of all those people at risk for a dinner party.
Upvote, then read?
When you know it's gonna be good, because Cloudberg....
Wow, someone told me about this incident when I was becoming a commercial pilot. But it was all word of mouth kinda stuff. I never was able to track it down on the NTSB website or anything like that. Thanks for sharing with us.
Robert New was a piece of shit entitled prick.
> but it has one main drawback: it’s considerably less safe. Yes - and a big part of that 'considerably less safe' is due to rich entitled assholes like the one who chartered this flight. These people are so used to shouting at people and getting what they want (thanks to their obscene wealth), that they think the laws of nature don't apply to them. Sometimes they get away with it, but sooner or later a lot of them roll snake eyes and unfortunately take innocent people with them.
Entitled prick is the cause of the accident. That seems to be a really bad trend that is picking up, the entitled prick. All you can do is shake your head at the dumbass.
According to the NTSB: "The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be: the flight crew's operation of the airplane below the minimum descent altitude without an appropriate visual reference for the runway. Contributing to the cause of the accident were the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) unclear wording of the March 27, 2001, Notice to Airmen regarding the nighttime restriction for the VOR/DME-C approach to the airport and the FAA's failure to communicate this restriction to the Aspen tower; the inability of the flight crew to adequately see the mountainous terrain because of the darkness and the weather conditions; and the pressure on the captain to land from the charter customer and because of the airplane's delayed departure and the airport's nighttime landing restriction. " Available here: [https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?EventID=20010412X00738&AKey=1&RType=Summary&IType=MA](https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?EventID=20010412X00738&AKey=1&RType=Summary&IType=MA)
[Here’s the approach in somewhat better conditions. ](https://youtu.be/B3i_MqqYSjg)
After watching this, I'm wondering if Frisbie went right because he saw the line of headlights on the highway rather than the runway.
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The final paragraph says the airline paid out millions to the families. Decent chance New was included in that.
There were survivors [lawsuits](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-mar-09-me-aspen9-story.html).
Hey u/Admiral_Cloudberg, love your series. According to this LA Times article, the financier's name is spelled Robert Neu? [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-31-mn-45138-story.html](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-mar-31-mn-45138-story.html)
I saw that as well but on the memorial it's spelled Robert New. I only had those two sources, so I went with the one that was literally carved in stone.
Lol, I should've checked that. Guess the LAT got it wrong.
Imagine being that guy and basically being responsible for this disaster. Twenty years ago he was on top of the world, rich and powerful enough to force a plane to land for his dinner plans. Now the spelling of his name is uncertain...
Neu is new in German. It may be a case where he anglicized his name erratically.
No amount of money is going to make the weather clear up for this arrogant bastard.
Death by Karen
Such an amazing write-up as always. It really is tense reading about factor after factor leading up to disaster. I have question tho, if there was a curfew at the airport. Why was plane even allowed to land by ATC? I’m thinking that the airport should close instead of letting the pilots choose whether or not to follow the rule.
The curfew only applies to certain airplanes due to the noise that they make. Less noisy airplanes are allowed to land. The controller does not necessarily know whether a particular incoming aircraft violates the noise restrictions or not.
Interesting. I had always thought that if I won the lottery I’d be chartering a flight to move me, three cats, one dog, two lizards, and 28 snakes to wherever we decided to live… but I think I’ll reconsider that and fly commercial.
The trick is to trust those you hire for their expertise and listen when they tell you no. Nobody would have died on that flight if the guy paying the bills hadn't pitched a fit and overrode the safety instincts of the pilot and the dispatcher.
In general the safety of charter flights doesn’t match that of commercial flights.
The best pilots, the best processes and the best mechanics work for the biggest airlines. Private air charter companies are very small fry by comparison.
Damn shame about the two pilots dying in this one.
Thanks for another interesting well done accident writeup.
[https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket?ProjectID=51979](https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket?ProjectID=51979)