Core PostgreSQL Developer Dies In Airplane Crash (postgresql.org) 30
Longtime Slashdot reader kriston writes: Core PostgreSQL developer Simon Riggs dies in airplane crash in Duxford, England. Riggs was the sole occupant of a Cirrus SR22-T which crashed on March 26 after performing touch-and-go maneuvers. Riggs was responsible for much of the enterprise-level features in PostgreSQL, including point-in-time recovery, synchronous replication, and hot standby. He also was the head of the company 2ndQuadrant that provides PostgreSQL support. Riggs' last community contribution was the presentation of the keynote at PostgreSQL Conference Europe 2023 in Prague, which you can watch on YouTube.
Another article (Score:1)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne... [telegraph.co.uk]
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It's not a Boeing.
RIP (Score:5, Informative)
Really sad to hear this - and what an impressive resume to have - to be considered the primary person responsible for the enterprise features of a database that is as widely used as PostgreSQL.
RIP and my condolences to his family and friends
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I wonder if Oracle secretly cheered. PostgreSQL is probably the most Oracle-like of the OSS DB's.
Local news report (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.cambridgeindepende... [cambridgei...dent.co.uk]
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Another Cirrus (Score:5, Interesting)
An SR22-T is more plane than a lot of casual private pilots can handle, and an HP endorsement is not enough of a qualification requirement to fly one IMHO.
I am an experienced private pilot and have over 2000 hours PIC in a Complex HP aircraft, and the first time I flew an SR22-T I knew immediately it was a LOT of airplane. There is a lot of automation to keep track of (and yes, you have to keep track of and babysit it) and the glass is more complicated to use than most casual pilots are going to be able to handle. If you're not getting a few hours of PIC *daily*, you're just not going to get proficient with it or adjust to the workload.
Mr. Riggs was spinning the pattern, so it was a relatively high-workload situation where the aircraft is operated pretty close to the edges of the flight envelope. I suspect he got overworked and let the airplane get away from him. A lot of the time, it is an accelerated stall on the turn to final, as this is a fairly low-speed maneuver, and pilots who overshoot the runway reflexively try to correct by making a harder turn, which at low airspeed can cause the inside wing to stall and put the aircraft into a spin at very low altitude, which is nearly always fatal.
I have a personal rule that, if I overshoot the runway on the turn to final, I just go around. I'm not going to die to make the landing that time around.
Re:Another Cirrus (Score:4, Insightful)
As someone with a tiny bit of flight experience in a Piper Cub and a Cessna 140A, every plane certainly has far different capabilities and attention requirements. Even the same airframe with more power handles so much more differently because of the weight distribution changes and what not. I'm rather disheartened to see a troll mod here and I have none to help rectify that.
And your personal rule is what my first flight instructor said to me on my very first flight (they did takeoff and landing, I handled everything in between for the lesson.)
Re:Another Cirrus (Score:4, Interesting)
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This.
I was torn between getting an SR-22 or a Diamond DA-40 and DA-40 is much harder to stall, built better, and more affordable.
As you can tell having a parachute would not help in a touch-n-go scenario, and something like close to 30% of all accidents happen on takeoff/landing.
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I seriously considered going twin, but there are lots of disadvantages. Money is a huge one (cost, fuel, maintenance, insurance). But it's really not clear if twins (especially light twins) are actually any safer.
1) If you lose an engine on takeoff, there is a certain risk that you auger in, especially in a light twin, especially if you are not super current. Landing straight ahead in a field might actually have more survivability (depending on the surroundings for your airport).
2) The most common reason th
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If it was really an error around landing, you are not nearly high enough for a parachute to do anything but cover your mangled remains after the crash.
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I watched this crash on YouTube [youtube.com] last night without knowing who the pilot was. It did have a parachute. The parachute did deploy. It deployed shortly after impact. The plane was too low for a parachute to have done any good in any case. The fact that it deployed after impact is weird: unlikely that the pilot did that, because he'd likely not be alive, or at least conscious, at that point.
Looks like pilot inexperience. Banking too hard at low altitude and low speed. Inner wing stalls and in you go.
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Impact caused it to deploy: https://aviation-safety.net/wi... [aviation-safety.net]
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Honestly looking at the video posted below, I can't figure out what happened. It seems hard to get into that extreme of an attitude at such a low altitude. I'm a 500-hr private pilot.
Access Denied (Score:2)
I wonder how much exclusive access did he have to internal systems and how long it is going to regain control over those resources.
RIP (Score:3)
I'll never understand risks like this (Score:2)
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But what kind of tepid semi-life would it be, if I were to stop catching thrown poison-filled balloons with my mouth?
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I'm a former skydiver and a current pilot, so I'm not afraid of risk. I certainly do my best to manage it. All life is risk vs reward. You can die sitting at home. You can die in a car. When I found myself not jumping enough, I retired from skydiving. Over the years the fun went down and the risk went up (due to me doing it less often).
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These are interesting arguments. However I feel they only partly answer the original criticism -- it mentioned family. Presumably the argument is why someone would keep high-risk hobbies after getting married and/or starting a family. A husband and father should feel a duty to maximize his chances to come home alive everyday. Simon Riggs was "a much loved husband, father and friend." https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/pil... [lbc.co.uk]
You can die sitting at home, or die in a car, but there is usually no alternative that can
His legacy (Score:3)
He made some seriously awesome software used by a lot of people, all open source.
As software developers, that's what most of us wish for our lives, to make an impact on the world and to be remembered for it.
hazards of wealth (Score:2)
Light airplane crashes are the leading cause of death of non-elderly rich people. Probably a symptom of hubris.
Technical discussion over at Reddit (Score:3)
Here's a technical discussion over at Reddit.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Catas... [reddit.com]