Pilot Ignores Warnings...Gets Wife Killed!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]says tango one more thing and then I'll transmit again. There are other airports nearby with better weather conditions.

[00:00:08]>> All right, we'll try this down at minimum and I'm still around if need be.

[00:00:12]>> The pilot you just heard was Donald and the controller tried to warn him, but it was too late and he crashed a few minutes later, killing himself and his wife. And this is one of those stories that could happen to anyone. That's why I'm going to explain the deadly mistakes that were made and what you really need to know. I'm Hoover and welcome to your pilot debrief.

[00:00:31]Our story begins on March 8th, 2022 in Midland, Michigan when a private pilot and his wife hopped in their plane to fly down to Panama City, Florida for what was supposed to be a fun trip to start looking for a house to buy that they could call their winter home. Diane was 62 years old and she was sitting in the right seat for the flight. And at the time of the crash, she was the president and CEO of My Michigan Health.

[00:00:53]And her husband would often fly her around for her job, but she had no idea that the flight she was about to take would be her last. Donald was her husband, and he was 65 years old, and he was the pilot flying the plane.

[00:01:05]According to his log book, he started learning to fly in 1980 and recorded his first solo flight in May of that year with only about 10 hours of instruction.

[00:01:13]He would eventually go on to pass his private pilot check ride in August of that year with just under 50 hours of total flight time. However, he was only about 23 years old at the time and even though he flew a few times a month, he wasn't pursuing a career in aviation.

[00:01:25]So, he essentially stopped flying in the fall of 1981 and he only logged about a dozen flights over the next 30 years.

[00:01:32]There was a large gap between 1995 and late winter in 2012, and that's when he started actively flying again, most likely because he had retired from work that year. From that point on, Don was pretty consistent about flying and he ended up logging just over 680 hours of total flight time by the time of the crash. And I just want to point out that this was still his original log book from 42 years ago with every single flight he ever did. And you can even see the year prefix beginning with 19 at the top left. That's how long Don's aviation journey had been. That being said, there are a few things that you need to know about Dawn when it comes to his history.

[00:02:09]First of all, he didn't try to get an instrument rating until June of 2019.

[00:02:13]But when he did, it took him three tries. During the first try, when he was handling emergency operations, he got distracted and lost situational awareness. And then a few weeks later, he failed again. But this time, it was for instrument approach procedures during an ILS approach, but he eventually passed on the third try. Now, before we go any further, I want to be very clear that the reason why I'm bringing this up isn't to try and shame Don or to say that he was a bad pilot.

[00:02:38]In fact, it's the exact opposite. You see, the thing is, a lot of pilots have failed a check ride once or twice before, and it's not a big deal, but it's something that you should be factoring into your personal minimums.

[00:02:49]And what I mean by that is you have to know what your limits are because most accidents happen because pilots exceed their own capabilities. That's why I made a personal minimums guide to help pilots define their limits before they're tested. And you can get it for free on my website, and I'll put a link in the comments below if you want to learn more. Unfortunately, I don't think Don knew what his limits were, as you're about to find out. But first, we need to talk about the aircraft that he and his wife were flying in.

[00:03:17]The aircraft that Don and Diane were flying in was a 1979 Cessna 182 that Don owned, and he had almost 570 hours of flight time in it. So, he was very comfortable with the aircraft. But there was one issue that you need to know about. You see, the aircraft had an autopilot that Don could use whenever he flew to help him out, which would definitely come in handy for the long cross country flight that he and his wife were about to take. The only problem was that whenever he selected the altitude hold option on the autopilot, the aircraft would begin oscillating up and down eventually to at least 1500 ft per minute, climbing and then descending over and over again until you disengaged it. Now, I'm not sure why you'd let it get that far, unless you're testing it, because if you hit altitude hold and the plane starts climbing or descending, the first thing you need to do is turn it off.

[00:04:05]Regardless, this was a problem that had been going on for about a year and a half, and Dawn had been trying to get it repaired. In fact, according to the investigation, every component of it was sent back to the manufacturer for testing, and they couldn't find anything wrong with it. So, they tried replacing different components, but that didn't work. So eventually they returned it to its original configuration. This is where you need to understand two things.

[00:04:28]First of all, you can fly an aircraft without an autopilot just fine and pilots do it all the time. More importantly though, the altitude hold function was the only thing broken on the autopilot. So Don could still use it to hold a specific heading or navigate to a GPS point. Or he could even use vertical speed if he wanted to maintain a certain rate of climb or descent. The maintenance technician had even witnessed Dawn utilize navigation mode and vertical speed together, and there wasn't any problems as long as altitude hold wasn't selected. Regardless, during instrument approaches, Dawn would typically disengage the autopilot and handfly the aircraft down to minimums.

[00:05:05]So, basically, this wasn't an issue of Dawn not knowing how to use the autopilot. Instead, there was something definitely wrong with it. And that explains why when the maintenance technician asked Dawn if he wanted the autopilot placarded and operative and have the circuit breaker pulled and collared, meaning completely disabled, Don said no and basically he would just deal with it. However, that meant Don would have to be very careful using it.

[00:05:30]And the truth is that the flight from Michigan to Florida was going to be a lot more work than he might have expected.

[00:05:37]One of the first questions that you need to ask whenever you debrief is what was the plan? Because if you don't know what the plan was, then it's not possible to figure out the root cause for what went wrong. When it comes to our story, Don and his wife showed up at the airport in Michigan to begin the journey down to Florida. And the plan was to fly about 4 hours down to Tennessee for a fuel stop and then fly another 3 hours down to Panama City. It sounds like a pretty simple plan. And my guess is that this probably felt like just another routine trip for them. However, there were a couple things that Don needed to consider before he took off. First of all, even though he had over 680 hours of flight time, he only had about 32 hours of actual instrument experience with only about 3 and 1/2 hours of that being in the 6 months leading up to the crash. The reason why this matters is because when they took off from Michigan, the weather in Panama City was scattered clouds at 2500 ft and a broken layer at 25,000 ft. But the forecast for about an hour after they were going to land was calling for overcast skies at 400 ft with conditions getting worse shortly thereafter. Now, to be honest, Dom probably assumed that they would land before the bad weather hit Panama City. But the problem is the weather is probably going to change over the course of a 7-hour flight, especially when we're talking about springtime down in Florida. And the thing is, even if Dawn was a great instrument pilot, he was going to be dealing with fatigue from flying for almost 7 hours in an airplane without a fully functional autopilot. To make matters worse though, they were planning on arriving after sunset, and Don had only logged about two and a half hours of actual instrument time at night with only a half hour of that in the last 6 months. In fact, he had only flown 1 and 1/2 hours at night over the last 6 months, and he hadn't flown at night within the last 90 days. Now, that meant that he didn't meet the FAA requirements to be legal for the flight, and he never should have taken off to begin with. I also want to point out that even though Dawn had flown into Panama City before, it had been at least 3 years since the last time he landed there. So, it's basically an unfamiliar airport. So, now if we go back to the check ride failures that he had, despite the fact that they were about 3 years prior to the crash, based on his limited instrument experience, especially his limited night instrument experience, his personal minimum should have been warning him how dangerous his plan was.

[00:07:57]This is where you need to know that even if Dawn thought that he could handle this trip, at least one person that he knew was starting to question his decisions. According to the investigation, 3 days before the crash, Dawn attended a local aviation meeting with fellow pilots to talk about flying.

[00:08:12]During that meeting, one person said Dawn was fully aware that the autopilot was inoperative, but he would still be completing the flight to Florida without it. Another person asked Dawn, "Are you comfortable without autopilot and single pilot that far?" Don's exact response was, "Yeah, I'll be fine." Think about that for a minute because when you hear that response, it sounds like someone that was being reckless, and it's very easy to cast judgment on him. But I don't think that Don was a reckless guy.

[00:08:39]He didn't wake up that morning trying to come up with a plan to get him and his wife killed. Instead, he probably just felt like he could handle the situation without fully understanding what the situation was. So that's why he and his wife hopped in the plane a few days after that meeting and they took off.

[00:08:57]Don and Diane showed up at the airport in Michigan on March 8th to begin their journey. But the very first thing that Dawn did was he hopped in his plane and he flew around in the pattern for about 10 minutes, most likely to make sure everything on the aircraft was working normal. After he landed, Diane got in the plane and they took off around 11:00 a.m. And the first flight to Tennessee took almost 4 hours and it was relatively uneventful. But this is where the story starts to get more interesting. That's because after they landed in Tennessee, Don was talking to one of the workers in the FBO and he said that they were trying to beat the weather into Panama City. The radar showed two lines of thunderstorms with a gap between them. And Don said they were trying to get between the storms and get into Panama City before the second line hit. Okay, I want to pause for a second because it sounds like Don was at least thinking about the weather. But here's what you need to know. According to the NTSB, Don filed a flight plan from Tennessee to Panama City. And he even listed Dothan Regional Airport in Alabama as his alternate. But that flight plan was actually filed before he even took off from Michigan four hours prior, which is when he got his weather briefing. And there's no evidence that he got any additional weather briefings when he was in Tennessee before he took off for Panama City. And the truth is that if he had gotten a briefing, he would have learned that even though the forecast he got about four hours earlier, said that the weather in Panama City was just going to be scattered clouds and it wouldn't get bad until after they landed, things had already gotten worse. In fact, when they were on the ground in Tennessee, the weather in Panama City was already reflecting a broken ceiling at 1800 ft and an airmet was warning pilots about IFR conditions in the area. To put all this in very simple terms, the forecast that Dawn had was old. The conditions were rapidly getting worse and this wasn't just a simple case of trying to beat the storms because the storms were already there and Dawn just didn't know it.

[00:10:50]Don and Diana didn't take off from Tennessee until about 400 p.m. local time. About an hour and a half after they got airborne, a new forecast was issued for Panama City reporting current conditions were overcast skies at 800 ft. 30 minutes later, the weather was reporting visibility of 4 miles due to mist, and the ceiling was broken at 400 and overcast at 800. Another 30 minutes later, it was 2 mi visibility and overcast at 300. At this point, Dawn was about to begin his approach to try and land in Panama City. And once again, this is why personal minimums are so important, because even though Dawn had an instrument rating, it doesn't mean that what he was about to try was a good idea. And I'd also argue that he should have picked a few points along his route to re-evaluate the weather and the criteria that he was going to use to divert because you don't want to wait until it's too late. And this technique makes the decision to divert a lot easier. And if Dawn had actually done that, then he might have remembered that Dothan Regional was his alternate airport and when he flew past it, he might have diverted there because the weather in Dothan was clear skies with 10 mi visibility. Instead, Don kept pressing towards Panama City, and eventually he checked in with the tower controller and listened to what happened next.

[00:12:06]Panama tower, skyane 182 xray tango.

[00:12:13]>> Scing 182 x-ray tango. Panama tower tango at autos.

[00:12:21]>> Okay. Scing 2 x-ray tango. Current weather 1506, visibility 2, mist.

[00:12:30]Uh, current ceiling 200 overcast.

[00:12:34]Altimeter 2 niner niner 2.

[00:12:39]>> 200 overcast. Give it a try and see if I can get her down.

[00:12:46]>> Sky 2 X3 tango. Roger. Runway 16.

[00:12:48]Cleared to land.

[00:12:50]>> Cleared to land.

[00:12:54]Okay, first of all, I want to explain that the rapid up and down movements that you see of his aircraft in the video aren't due to his autopilot. It's just how the flight data was processed.

[00:13:04]So, don't focus on that. Instead, I want you to pay attention to his altitude on the right side of the screen. The second thing I want to point out is that it shouldn't have been a surprise when the tower controller told him that the weather was overcast at 200 ft because Dawn should have been checking the weather long before he got handed off to the tower controller. But it sounded like this caught him off guard. And I'd argue also that you never want to hear a pilot say, "We'll give it a try and see if we can get her down." And the thing is, Dawn was flying the ILS to runway 16, which is a pretty simple approach that provides lateral and vertical guidance down to the runway. And if you look at the numbers for it, it shows that he could go as low as 269 ft, which is basically 200 f feet above the ground. So there might have been a chance to get below the clouds, but it wasn't going to be easy because remember, Dawn is most likely handflying the approach without the autopilot at night at an unfamiliar airport with very little recent instrument experience and he hadn't even flown at night within the last 90 days.

[00:14:04]>> Let's call Tango. One more thing, uh, the approach lights are set on the correct setting reference to visibility, but I can go up one extra step to make them a little bit brighter with your, uh, concurrence.

[00:14:18]>> Uh, affirmative, that would be good.

[00:14:20]>> Go to X-ray tango.

[00:14:23]>> Okay. I just want to give you some perspective on things because you can see on this image where Dawn was at this point on the approach and the dashed white line represents the ILS approach path that he should be on. auto is the initial approach fix and he wasn't supposed to be lower than 3,000 feet at that point and then no lower than 2,000 feet until he got to Libby which was the final approach fix. But you can see that he violated both of those altitudes and he even got as low as 1500 ft. But regardless of the altitude issue, it's obvious that he's having trouble just flying in a straight line. This would have been the perfect time to just go around and divert somewhere else. And I think the controller was just trying to be helpful by turning up the lights. But I can see how that might have reinforced Dawn's decision to continue the approach. Regardless, the controller started noticing that Dawn was struggling. And I want you to hear what they said and Dawn's response when they tried to warn him.

[00:15:16]>> I was just making sure two extra tango establish. He's like been doing S turns all the way down final. Is he good?

[00:15:22]>> Uh, can't see anything otherwise. Yeah, >> I he's heading like 230 right now and he should be heading close to 160. It looks like he's over the final pressure fix.

[00:15:31]So, >> yeah, I see him when he starts. I mean, I see him drifting a little bit to the right, but I see him lined up. You just I got a low altitude alert. Let me tell them about that.

[00:15:39]>> Okay. All right.

[00:15:41]>> Okay. Sa 2x tango, I'm receiving a low altitude alert. Check your altitude.

[00:15:49]>> Tango affirmative.

[00:15:52]Anda 2X Tango also approaches notice.

[00:15:54]You've been kind of uh deviating a little bit to the right and then back on to final. So use caution. Win 150 at 6 and the ceiling is still 200 overcast.

[00:16:07]>> Affirmative.

[00:16:10]>> All right. We can see from the flight data that Dawn was 700 ft low when he crossed the final approach fix. And the reason why the controller got a low altitude alert was because he got as low as 800 feet before recovering back up to,00 feet. And you can also see how Dawn was weaving back and forth down final just like the controllers were talking about. Now, one of the things that the NTSB didn't talk about that I think is worth mentioning is the fact that Diana sitting right next to him this entire time. And considering that she often flew with him, I'm wondering if she knew enough to tell him to go around because all Don needed to do was brief her on a few simple things that she could have helped him with, like monitoring his altitude and then he could have said, "Hey, if it feels scary to you, just tell me to go around."

[00:16:54]Because honestly, in this scenario, Diane should have been scared the entire time.

[00:17:00]>> Take one more thing and then I'll transmit again. There are other airports nearby with better weather conditions.

[00:17:08]All right, we'll try this down to minimum and go around if need be.

[00:17:12]>> SA 2x tango runway 16, you're still cleared to land. Clear to land on six tango.

[00:17:19]>> That was the controller's last attempt to save Dawn because this wasn't looking good and he wanted to make sure that Dawn knew there were other options nearby and he didn't need to continue the approach. Unfortunately, I think Dawn was so overwhelmed trying to manage the aircraft that he didn't really think twice about the controller suggestion, and he probably felt like he was so close to landing that he might as well go for it, not realizing that he only had about a minute left to live.

[00:17:45]>> Okay, SEO 2X Tango, it appears you're drifting a little to the right.

[00:17:52]Assessor 2Xray tango appears you're drifting well to the right.

[00:17:58]Assess 2 x-ray tango. How do you hear the 2x tango radio check?

[00:18:07]>> Uh yeah, he disappeared from the scope. I'm not sure if uh where he's at. I got to ring the crash phone. All right.

[00:18:21]It's not clear if Don became spatially disoriented or if he simply just lost control of the aircraft, but he crashed a few miles off the end of the runway, killing himself and his wife instantly.

[00:18:32]The point I want to make is that this didn't need to happen. And if Dawn had re-evaluated the weather in Tennessee and adjusted his plan, then he might have diverted into Dothan and perhaps he and his wife would still be alive today.

[00:18:44]Either way, I'd argue that this was another case of a pilot exceeding their own capabilities. And that's why I made a personal minimums guide that you can get for free by scanning the QR code on the screen. And I hope it helps. And thank you for your support. and I'll see you on the next debrief.