Transcription
Hello, this is Dr. Grande. Today I will offer an update on the case of Jenny Bllelock. First, I'll look at the background of this case, move to the timeline of the incident, then offer my analysis.
Jenny Kate Bllelock was born on July 8, 1979, and lived in Knoxville, Tennessee. She was raised by her parents, James and Gloria. In 1997, Jenny graduated from high school. Four years later, she earned a bachelor's degree in human resources. Jenny obtained a general contractor's license and started two businesses with her father, James. One company was a custom home builder. The other was a hardwood flooring company that used reclaimed wood from Barnes.
In addition to her career interests, Jenny wanted to be a private pilot. On June 15, 2021, she purchased a Piper PA28140 Cherokee, a popular choice for primary flight training. Her learning adventure was documented on social media. For instance, Jenny had a YouTube channel called TN Fly Girl. In May 2022, she passed her private pilot practical test. Right after this, she sold the Cherokee. Apparently, she had damaged the nose gear of the aircraft on a hard landing.
On July 13, 2022, Jenny purchased a 1965 Beach 35C33 Debonire. This high-performance single engine propeller aircraft with retractable landing gear was much more complex and powerful than the Cherokee that Jenny sold. As Jenny tried to manage the Deonire, she continued posting videos about the challenges she faced during her pilot training. One of her videos was titled The Mystery of My Autopilot. Is it possible to fix it?
Now, moving to the timeline of the incident. On December 7, 2023, 44-year-old Jenny Bladelock was with her 78-year-old father, James Bladelock, in her beach, Debonire. The plan was to fly from Knoxville downtown Airport in Knoxville, Tennessee to Seween County Regional Airport in Benton, Arkansas. The purpose of this 500-mile trip was to get instrument upgrades for the Debonire. Jenny took off at 9:48 a.m. Her father was in the passenger seat. The Debon Air climbed at 2500 ft and stayed there for about 12 minutes before climbing to 6,500 ft. The communication between Jenny and the air traffic controller was normal. Jenny was flying in clear skies with visibility of 10 mi. It was 53° F outside.
At 10:19 a.m., the aircraft descended to 6,000 ft along with an increase in air speed. It then climbed back to 6,500 ft while slowing down. This happened a few times. At 10:33 a.m., the altitude and speed fluctuations became more pronounced. The aircraft no longer maintained a steady altitude for any significant amount of time. Jenny appeared to be having a real problem. At 10:36 a.m., the aircraft descended to 5,300 ft, then climbed to 7,000 ft before descending again. An air traffic controller advised Jenny that her aircraft was well left of course. Jenny responded that she was correcting the course. However, the correction she made was insufficient. She remained significantly left of course.
At 10:59 a.m., the aircraft slowed to 161 mph, flying at 4,500 ft. It then climbed to above 6,000 ft where it was traveling at 97 mph. The air traffic controller tried to reach Jenny, but she did not respond. At 11:03 a.m., the Debon Air started descending at a rate of 2,000 ft per minute, and the air speed increased to 195 mph. Jenny transmitted a message that was partially unintelligible, saying something like, "This is Debonire. Emergency." She continued, losing altitude and gaining air speed. The maximum rate of descent that her aircraft achieved was 11,900 ft per minute. The maximum speed was 262 mph, well above the Debonire's certified never exceed speed. Jenny's father, James, transmitted something like, "Oh, help us." A few seconds later, the Debonire slammed into a wooded area near Palaski, Tennessee, and caught fire.
At the crash site, the bodies of Jenny and James were recovered from the wreckage. The debris field was 250 ft long. The impact crater was 5 ft deep and 8 ft wide. The investigation into the crash did not reveal any mechanical irregularities with the Debonire that would have precluded normal operation. The aircraft was in good condition right up until the moment Jenny flew it into the ground at a terrifyingly high speed. As far as the cause of the crash, investigators believe that Jenny inadvertently mistrimmed the aircraft, which resulted in oscillations that were exacerbated by her application of force on the control yolk. As the oscillations became increasingly intense, Jenny was no longer able to control the pitch, even after she disengaged the autopilot. Jenny Bladelock was not proficient with all the systems of the high-performance aircraft she purchased. She was not a competent pilot.
Now, moving to my analysis, here are my thoughts on a few areas that stood out to me in this case.
Item number one, an autopsy revealed that Jenny Bladelock had several medications in her system, including alprazolam, trazadone, buspirone, propranolol, and ondansetron. Alprazolam is a generic version of the benzodiazepine Xanax. The drug is typically used to treat anxiety and panic. It has a short half-life which makes it ideal for situational anxiety. So if a person knows that a time-limited anxiety-inducing event is coming up, perhaps something like speaking in front of colleagues at a work meeting, they might take alprazolam a half hour before the event. The drug will reduce anxiety rapidly and the effect will wear off quickly. Ironically, a fear of flying can also be effectively treated with alprazolam. Some people take the drug all the time, like several times a day, but it wasn't originally thought of that way. There are other benzodiazepines that are usually better for generalized anxiety. Alprazolam is listed by the FAA as a do not fly medication because it causes sedation and reduced concentration. A pilot is not allowed to fly an aircraft with this medication in their system. Trazadone is an anti-depressant medication that is sometimes used to treat generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder. The drug impairs motor skills and slows down cognitive processes. It is considered a do not fly medication. Buspirone is a prescription medication commonly used to treat anxiety. It is a do not medication because it causes dizziness. Propranolol is used to treat high blood pressure. However, it is also used off-label to treat situational anxiety, especially a fear of public speaking. The FAA evaluates the use of this drug on a case-by-case basis. And ondansetron is the generic version of Zofran, a drug commonly used to prevent and treat nausea due to side effects including dizziness and drowsiness. It is generally considered a do not fly medication unless a pilot is specifically cleared on a case-by-case basis by an aviation medical examiner. I find it curious that Jenny was taking three drugs that were disqualifying and two drugs that needed to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. She either knew or should have known that she was not allowed to fly in this condition. It was illegal, reckless, and irresponsible.
Another remarkable element here is how four of these five drugs were used to treat anxiety. Usually, if a person decides to take medication for anxiety, they will take one or maybe two medications at a time. Jenny's drug consumption behavior is consistent with somebody who's having severe difficulty managing anxiety. She was just throwing every drug possible at the problem, hoping that something would work.
Item number two, Jenny had a few different flight instructors on her journey to disaster. At one point, she kind of went back to basics after not performing well. One of Jenny's former flight instructors told investigators that Jenny struggled with communications, which is one reason it took her so long to get her private pilot's license. Jenny did not have solid stick and rudder flying skills. She did not really understand how to fly the aircraft manually. The relationship Jenny had with technology was worrisome. She was overly dependent on it and relied on her iPad much more than the certified airplane avionics. One area where Jenny really struggled was with the trim and autopilot. The Debonire was equipped with a Century 2000 autopilot. This unit does not automatically control the elevator trim. Instead, it displays a flashing trim up or trim down on the enunciator. In response, the pilot manually moves the trim control in the direction indicated by the autopilot until the trim condition is satisfied. Jenny would regularly confuse the trim direction and manually adjust it in the wrong direction. She would then get flustered, disconnect the autopilot, and fly manually, which again was not her strong suit. Jenny had a habit of pressing the down or up button on the autopilot repeatedly. The instructor would tell her to gently press and hold the button down, but Jenny continued to push it. Jenny was described as a super nice lady with a passion for aviation, but she was not always easy to get along with. She was impatient and wanted to make her own training schedule. The instructor indicated that Jenny never exhibited unusual behaviors as far as her mental health status. It sounds like Jenny was able to conceal her anxiety behind a wall of medication.
The general manager of the flight school also had something to say about Jenny. He indicated that Jenny's training progress was not meeting the necessary proficiency levels. She rarely knew where she was in relation to her navigation and she was not familiar with the technical avionics package in the Debonire. Jenny had difficulty with risk management, aircraft control, and situational awareness. Several weeks before the collision, she performed poorly during an instrument phase check. The session had to be ended after she started descending toward mountains. The general manager was the last person to speak to Jenny before her fatal flight. He told her, "You should not be flying that airplane. You're not in control of that airplane." It looks like his assessment was accurate.
Item number three. What do I think happened in this case? This is just a theory, my opinion. Jenny Bllelock was self-centered, reckless, impulsive, irresponsible, impatient, anxious, arrogant, overconfident, attention-seeking, excitement-seeking, falsely believed she was special, and had a sense of entitlement. She wanted to be a famous social media influencer and believed she could achieve that goal by video recording and publishing her flying adventures. This is why she recorded many of her flights using a GoPro camera. Investigators do not believe she was recording on the day of the fatal crash, although her camera was found in the wreckage.
There were a few obstacles to Jenny's dream. For instance, she suffered from symptoms of anxiety and panic. People with anxiety often get advice from friends, family members, and mental health counselors. Some of this advice is helpful, some is hazardous, and some really depends on the situation, like it is good in certain situations but not good in others. A great example of this is how the person might be told to fight the anxiety head-on, to challenge it directly. They should toughen up and work through the pain, exposing themselves to as many anxiety-inducing stressors as possible. This will lead to habituation and their anxiety will be cured or at least the symptoms will be reduced. Exposure and response prevention. One of the most successful psychotherapies used to treat anxiety is based on this idea. As successful as the strategy can be, it is not applicable in every situation. For example, if piloting an aircraft induces anxiety, it is best to avoid doing this. For the most part, anxiety is not physically dangerous. However, when flying an aircraft, the consequences of being impaired by anxiety can include death. While this outcome will also treat the anxiety effectively and permanently, most counselors recommend against it. Maybe Jenny received some bad advice like this. She was encouraged to expose herself to stressors. So perhaps she told people that she wanted to be a pilot, but she was kind of anxious and they said, "You should just do it. The anxiety will go away the more you fly."
It's also possible that her dream of flying was simply stronger than her fear of having anxiety. People who suffer from anxiety have the same dreams as people who don't. If Jenny wanted to be a pilot, that desire would not dissipate simply because she was anxious. I think what happened here is that Jenny decided that she was going to be a pilot no matter what happened. She ignored the advice of flight instructors who indicated that she had poor situational awareness. She ignored the warnings that her basic flying skills were lacking. Jenny disregarded concerns about her lack of skills with communications. She did not worry about FAA regulations and consumed whatever drugs she felt like she needed to manage her anxiety. After damaging the landing gear on her first airplane, Jenny purchased an aircraft that was far too advanced, powerful, and complex for her capabilities. Ideally, Jenny should not have been flying at all, much less in an advanced aircraft. Jenny was aware that she did not understand how to properly respond to prompts from the autopilot in the Debonire. She was treating it like a slot machine, repeatedly pushing the buttons, hoping to win a jackpot of not dying. With Jenny's disregard of so many warning signs, it was just a matter of time before she made a fatal mistake. On the day of the collision that killed her and her father, Jenny was impaired by many factors: drugs, impulsivity, a lack of skill, arrogance, overconfidence, and her unwillingness to accept her limitations. In her mission to prove everyone wrong, she definitively proved them right. Jenny Bladelock wanted to make a large impression on the world of aviation. In a sense, she came close to her goal. She made a large impression in the dirt. Her legacy serves as a reminder of the dangers of arrogance and recklessness. Those are my thoughts in the case of Jenny Bllelock. Thank you so much for watching. I'll talk to you soon.
Breaking down the cause of the fatal collision with terrain in the case of Jenny Bllelock is a curious exercise because there are competing theories about what happened. In general, she was incompetent and she was on a lot of prescription medication that is not allowed for flying. But when kind of digging into it and looking at exactly what happened, what are the ways that we can think about this? Well, one possibility here is that the anxiety medication did not work effectively. So, Jenny panicked. She took the medication to prevent anxiety, to prevent panic. But when she was in the airplane, the medication didn't work, and she panicked. As she started to gain altitude and lose altitude and go back and forth, she did not know what to do. She did not follow her training. It just became worse and worse and eventually she lost control.
Another way to look at this is that the medication caused the collision because Jenny was impaired by it. So when she saw the enunciator indicating she needed to adjust the trim, she would adjust it in the wrong direction or not adjust it at all. And this contributed to her losing control of the aircraft. Again, even though she probably turned the autopilot off right before the end, it was too late. She had already lost control and was headed into the terrain. So kind of looking at those two theories, you could say the medication was insufficient; it did not adequately control her anxiety and that led to the crash, or the medication had side effects which caused the collision. So either way, I guess one could say that the contribution of the medication was negative. Either it was insufficient or it impaired her. Maybe it was a little bit of both.
Now, it's also possible that this was just Jenny's arrogance and incompetence and the medication didn't really play a part. She simply did not know what she was doing. I think when people look at this case, they are just amazed that a person would try to become a pilot when they had no business being a pilot, and they would have the audacity to document their adventures on social media. Jenny was trying to use this to become famous. That was her goal. She wanted to be known as a proficient pilot, a popular pilot that people would look up to. She wanted to be a teacher, I guess, in a sense. People could learn from what she was doing. In the end, I think people could learn from her mistakes, but that's not what she was going for exactly.
As wild as this is, I don't think it's actually that unusual. A lot of social media influencers are remarkably incompetent. They focus on the popularity or fame aspects and they're not very good at whatever their main job is supposed to be. In many jobs, it is really not a problem. Like if somebody's into cosmetology, like they put makeup on in front of the screen or whatever, like in front of the camera, that's not really a big deal if they get it wrong. People might laugh at them. They might not look too great, but no one's going to die. But when somebody starts getting involved with trying to control an aircraft, that is a completely different situation. That's really something that cannot be compared to relatively safe career choices. I think Jenny just took a very typical arrogance that we see with social media influencers and moved into a sphere that was far too hazardous. That's what this case is probably really about. Regardless of the specific mechanism of how she crashed that airplane, whether it was drug-related or just incompetence, that doesn't necessarily take away from that main point that Jenny was trying to be a social media influencer and she had no idea what she was doing as a pilot. She just had no idea. And that was kind of the message that she received probably repeatedly that she really shouldn't be doing this and that she purchased a plane that was far too complex for her capabilities.
I think one lesson from the case of Jenny Bllelock could be that when selecting a hobby or a job that's dangerous, don't add any more danger to it. It's dangerous enough the way it is. Flying a plane can lead to death if it's not done correctly. So, it's dangerous enough without adding any more risk, without adding incompetence into the mix. Jenny found out the hard way what happens when a person disrespects a task that only offers a small margin of error.