Almost Saw and Accident-Who has seen one

[navigator72]

%&$$#^

I saw a WWII plane taxi into a parked military car at an airshow. I was also at an accident scene a couple of minutes after a C172 lost an engine on takeoff and stall/spinned it into the remaining runway (3 dead). In my 3 years of driving jumpers, I have only seen a sprained ankle (thank god). I don't think I could fly jumpers again if I saw one of them die.

 

[Frank Bama]

I was at Oshkosh back in '98 when a Corsair tried to take off behind a Bearcat that hadn't started it's roll yet. The Corsair slammed into the Bearcat's wing ripping it off and forced the Corsair to cart-wheel down the runway. It immediately caught fire and had burst into flames. The heat that I felt almost 200 yards away was extremely intense. Everyone did survive, but the Corsair pilot was paralyzed. It surely was a terrible sight to see.
Fly Safe!

 

[8sm]

Here's a few for the thread,
We had just returned from the Grand Canyon and were heading home. The Capt. and I were sitting at a intersection waiting for the light to change. The weather was typical moonson July Phoenix weather, the wind was howling and kicking up dust. Just over our heads, a Skylane trying to land made the decision to go around. We both saw this and pulled to the side of the road at the end of the runway. The dust was so thick you could hardly see 100ft. Directly in front of us on the centerline climbing comes this Skylane on what seemed like another go around. Then about 650ft and 1/2 mile on the extended centerline, he started going down in a residental neighborhood. We drove towards the area not knowing what to find. The pilot landed belly up on a greenbelt between several homes both were as expected shook up.
The other I witnessed, at the same airport, while sitting in the airport managers office jaw jacking. The office is setup with this giant picture window to the managers back while sitting at his desk. Were talking about the grand opening of our new business, when I notice this medium size 4 engine prop aircraft on final. Then I see it take a very extreme nose down desend into the desert then a big cloud of dust from the impact, just as his handheld radio goes off with the tower telling him of the crash. We are one of the first out to the crash site. Crawling out of the aircraft is the pilot, with his shoulder length hair, shorts, sandels, hawaiian shirt and a flightbag with all kinds of colorful stickers and patches on it a Jimmy Buffet fan for sure. The guy was not hurt and very calm. We took a peek inside the aircraft which was not badly wreck and found some very dry fuel cells. He said " I was running on fumes Man, I almost made it. " He did manage to retrack the gear before impact which did save the aircraft. An FBO on field did manage fix everything and about 8mons later it left the airport. Apparently, this aircraft was on a ferry trip to Hawaii. About a year later I saw the same aircraft on the tramac at HNL International.

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

I was in HS, at my very first airshow, with a 6 year-old girl on my shoulders. It was a local airshow at our little town with 1 stunt pilot. He was very experienced, but the weather wasn't great.

He was doing snap rolls while diving at the ground. He was getting low, and I said, if he does one more, he won't have room to pull out. He did one more.

He managed to rotate the aircraft to a flat attitude prior to impact which saved his life. The sound from the aircraft hitting the runway was very load. He had numerous back operations, and was in the hospital for 8 months or so. After his crash, they closed up and didn't serve breakfast anymore. The 6 year-old I was holding was very upset.

I also saw the Challenger explode live while watching the Disney Channel. My roomate (at Ft. Rucker, Army/AF helo flight school)kept asking me what happened, and I kept telling him it blew up.

During the Gulf War, we heard some other pilots over the frequency describe a Marine F-18 being shot down over Kuwait. We never did find out if that guy ejected and/or lived.

Cliff

 

[troy]

On our way back from a WESTPAC deployment, we had a small airshow for our family that embarked in Hawaii. There was an F-14 doing a strafeing run at some smokes in the water and his gun mount/forward bearing siezed up. The result was that the gun kept fireing, but twisted inboard and upward, shooting out the radar. No one hurt, but got to see "battle damage" on the nose and radar.

 

[DC4boy]

I was 30 seconds ahead of the S2 midair in Cal. last year, 4 mins behind a 182 that spun in on a departure last spring, heard one on the radio, but have been fortunate enough never to have seen one.

 

[Jump Pilot]

Third year of flying jumpers. Everyone has made it. We kind of have a ritual before I call door. They wish wish me a safe ride down and I tell'em I'll see them on the ground.

Why jump out of a perfectly good airplane? You hven't seen our plane.

 

[EagleRJ]

I was number 5 or 6 in line for takeoff at John F. Kennedy, and watched a Swissair MD11 go by on the takeoff roll. It wasn't until I got into the hotel that night that I found out he had gone down off the coast of Nova Scotia (Flight 111).

 

[POKEY]

Back in the early 80's I was at Fort Bragg, NC for some kind of military display. A C-130 was coming in to do kind of a touch and go (think its called a LAPES?) and drop a tank out the back as it touched down and was supposed to fly back out. Instead they came in high, nosed it over and as they were getting close to the ground pulled up a little late and smacked the ground real hard. the airplane then bounced a couple of times went off the end of the dirt strip and exploded in the trees. I think six or seven were killed including some on the ground. I was about two or three hundred yards away.

 

[stingray]

After working for 5yrs for an airport in sw fl. I've witnessed a few.
an R-22 lost its tail rotor while I was staring right at it. it whent into the trees
A couple of gear up landings.
various pilots screwing up on landings, nose gears getting torn off, a few planes flipping, and most of them departing the runway.
2 planes that i flown the very next guys to fly them wrecked them.
all lived.
Here is one that I won't forget though. I will try to keep it short.
When I was still flying a 414 I was on a flight I did about 4 times a week into Boca Raton. On one of them, about 30 seconds after I checked in with Palm Beach approach, a convair comes on the freq doing the mayday call saying they have a major control malfunction they don't think they can make it to any airport. either the pilot or approach said something about using the turnpike. Then in a shakey scared voice the pilot says again we are not going to make it, ( you can tell these guys thought they where going to die). Approach ask me to stay in the area so I could tell them where the convair goes down at. I'm thinking holy sh** this isn't good at all. Boca Raton got closer so they started to head directly for the field. Approach again ask me to stay on the freq so I can tell them what happens.
The convair lands safely, I let approach know, everyone is releaved. I land a minute behind the convair. My paxs go on there way. I run into the pilot of the convair as the paramedics where checking him out (His hands where raw from fighting the plane) I told him I was the other plane up there and that he did a dam good job at getting the plane down safely, he looks at me in a daze and with a shaken voice says thanks, then gets in the ambulance. The planes elevator trim tab was 70% missing, the right elevator itself was torn completly in half from the leading to trailing edge, along with other holes. It was amazing they made it.
My father who is retired from Eastern once told me a few yrs ago:
If anyone is in this Busines long enough your are bound to have friends loose their lives to it. Unfortunatly it had already came true when i was about 25, 10 yrs ago.

remember everyone Fly Safe

 

[newmei]

Hey DiamondJim,

Was that Twin Commander accident that you saw in Ennis, Texas???? If so the right seater was a friend of ours. Sad....

 

[ShawnC]

Unfornatly I saw two, both on Saturday at Sun n Fun.

 

[avbug]

I was doing a cleanup pass in an AgTruck outside Dighton, KS, when the airplane ahead went through four powerlines. You don't have any forward vision when putting out 2,4-D in calm winds, because the windscreen is painted white. It was early, no wind, no turbulence. He pulled up at the end through a quad set of lines. I had to land ahead of him because we weren't sure if he could shut down the runway.

Cut a good share of the way through the prop, removed the leading edges and wing tip, messed up the gear a bit, tore off the booms at the outboard boom hangars and removed the boom ends, cracked the canopy, and a few other things. Three hours of emergency field repairs, and we were back in the air working again. I flew it to Wichita that fall for repairs.

 

[enigma]

Once is enough

I was watching a third rate airshow in Killeen Texas sometime aroung 1984 when I was in college. Most of the performers were from a nearby, (Dallas if I remember correctly) Aerobatic club. The accident happened when a Stevens Akro attempted a snap roll and allowed the plane to rotate an extra 180 degrees which left him inverted and pointed slightly towards the crowd with about 45 degrees nose down. I was sitting on top of an old Beech 18 that our flight school had near the opposite end of the field, watching through the long lens of my old Pentax and never had the presence to click the shutter. Anyway, instead of aileron rolling back upright, the poor soul decided to split s from about 400 feet. You could see it when he realized that he didn't have enough altitude to complete his pull out, he pulled so hard that he stalled the aircraft and it pancaked in from about 75 feet. The Akro broke in half and the poor bastar-d pilot bounced about 20 feet in the air.

Watching that really stunk.

It turned out that the pilot had had a leg operation some weeks previous and that was the first time he had flown after the operation. The investigators thought that maybe he didn't have the leg strength, or feel, to adequately use the rudder. We later learned that his leg was bothering him enough that he had another pilot walk the three hundred yards to the hangers to get the Akro and taxi it to the flightline.

This is a depressing thread, but I'm adding this in hopes that we all are reminded not to fly when we are not 100%.

8N

 

[DiamondJim]

New MEI --- Ennis

NewMEI,

Yes, it was the crash in Ennis. I believe it was Charlie- Can't remember his last name from Cardinal aviation in Lancaster in the right seat. I dont mean to judge, but I can't figure for the life of me how someone with his experience got in that situation. I was standing outside the FBO building when they came screaming over just over the flagpoll and then went in.

Are you from that area? I flew out of Ennis for a while and also over at Mid/Wae in Waxahachie.

DJ