Almost Saw and Accident-Who has seen one

[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

 

[cessna_driver2]

When I was in flight school in Ok '97, There was an airshow where one plane landed on top of another while taxing. I think both were steerman. A friend got pictures but it something I'll always remember.

 

[newmei]

DiamondJim,

Yes his name was Charles Cadell I was lucky a few times to fly with such a great man. He was a incredibly nice and went out of his way to accomadate me to finish up my private in two weeks. 6 months later he crashed, and when I swung in to visit, we heard the news. No matter how many times I read the NTSB report, its hard to understand why it happened. The answer is that they were simply to heavy and a too far AFT CG. When they reliezed they were'nt going to be able to stop the left seater said "at least I can do this" and raised the gear and added full power on the good engine. All Charlie could do is yell "NO!" and reach for the controls and throttle, it was too late and they were to low the airplane had already rolled 90 degrees. This account is all from the sole survivor in the back. However I was'nt there did'nt see it. Where you on scene to get them out? The airplane did'nt actually crash on the airport did it?


I don't care what anyone says first off if your landing with a engine out (Twin FAR 23) you make real sure you can land the first time. Run off the end if you have to, who cares about the airplane? If you were developing a climb rate on one engine you make the decision to go around way before 400 ft. And if you did'nt have a climb rate, don't even think about it.

 

[Ameriagle]

I had the unfortunate experience of watching my father wreck an airplane in the mid-90's....seeding rice in a Thrush! I was flagging for him that day and was set up for his first pass on a field adjacent to the runway he was flying from. Climbing thru about 50 feet he began a slow turn to set up for his first pass across the field when the airplane passed thru an eddie. It immediately rolled the airplane thru approximately 90 degrees! The aircraft contacted the ground in a wing low attitude hitting a a ditch bank with the right wing tip, then the right main gear and tailwheel. Amazing enough the airplane kept flying. Unfortunately it was shedding parts as it continued......the right main gear and tailwheel. The impact damaged the hopper gate and he immediately started to lose the load. Circling back around the belly landing was pretty much uneventful. Nobody hurt and in my mind a masterful job of flying. Upon further examination the wing impacting the ditch bank had actually broken the wing spar. The fact that the wing did not fail is something amazing.

Saw another incident take place a few years later at the Fresno Air Terminal. Doing some touch and goes with a student of mine we were on about a mile final for 29L when an F/A-18 touched down on 29R with his right brake locked. The airplane went sliding off the right side of the runway in a shower of sparks and fire. I was amazed...before the aircraft had even come to a stop the canopy was open.....the pilot was out and running clear of the aircraft. Nobody was hurt and the airplane was towed off the runway.

 

[DiamondJim]

newmei

Your account of the accident is right on.... It was just as they crossed over the flag pole that the gear started coming up and the power on. Unfortunately in the commander the hydraulic gear raised the long leg of the gear on the operating engine first leaving all that drag under the dead engine. The really hard part of it all was that they crossed the threshold of a perfectly good runway as they came in on the VOR-A approach.... I know this is easy to say after the fact and I'm sure they didn't feel they were in a position to land safely with the tailwind. As they were approaching the FBO building and still losing alt. their were some high power lines looming in the glareshield that I'm sure contributed to the pilots decision. The crash was just beyond the airport boundry some two hundred yards from where I was standing. My partner ran to the scene while I called 911, and I arived soon after and helped the survivor out. An ambulance arrived about ten minutes later and about five minutes after that the news helicopters came in a flury.

 

[Fr8DoggyStyle]

I watched the last Blue Angels performance with A-4's. Niagara falls, NY. The 2 solo aircraft collided in an inverted high speed pass. One pilot was decapitated in the collision, the other pilot ejected and survived. Both aircraft created fireballs upon impacting the ground that we could feel from where we were.

I also watched "Miss Ashley II" (a very modified mustang race plane with lear 20 series wings, a griffon engine, and an f-86 tail) come apart in flight at Reno. My father and I were about the first people on the scene. The pieces of the aircraft went down in a residential neighborhood which looked like a war zone afterwards. It still amazes me how much damage to the ground a P-51 can do. The largest piece of the airplane i saw was about 1/4 of one of the cylinder heads laying in someones yard. There were bigger pieces in peoples houses/ barns but we never saw any of them. It really hit home when i saw one of the main gear hyd. actuators laying in the middle of the street all by itself still fully intact. I never saw any of the wing or any other parts of the landing gear, but here was this actuator which was probably still serviceable. Debris from the airplane damaged at least 4 houses probably more. Amazingly no-one on the ground was killed.

One of my first flight instructors died in a formula V racer after carbon monoxide poisoning got him while flying cross country to a race. If you are in aviation long enough you WILL attend funerals for friends. So be safe cuz any day could be the day.

 

[capt_zman]

A bunch of years ago, coming back from Nantucket on a Saturday with my whole family in the airplane, we hear a plane in distress with Cape Approach. The distressed plane, a Piper Arrow, decides to land on a major highway probably 10 miles from the airport that it had just taken off from. Approach asks me to monitor the situation and report the outcome.
As we hear the final comments from the frantic pilot, we see a huge plume of black smoke rise over the trees. Not good.
The plane had tried to land on the Northbound lane of the highway going with traffic, clipped a tree with its left wing, gone across the median and hit a station wagon going the opposite way killing 2 of the 3 family members inside. The plane then burns to a crisp in the middle of the highway killing the pilot and passenger. Pretty tramautizing event to hear and see.
Then to make matters worse, I go into work on Monday and start telling the story, turns out the pilot was married to one of my co-workers. Great, now I have to recount the story of how I heard and saw him kill himself and 3 other people. What a day.
Everytime I drive on that highway, I see the charred pavement where the plane hit the car and am reminded of how fragile life is.

 

[avbug]

"I also watched "Miss Ashley II" (a very modified mustang race plane with lear 20 series wings, ..."

I'm living in the hangar of the person who owned and flew that airplane, and was killed in it. Still lots of P-51 parts around.

The Twin Commander doesn't vary it's gear sequence because of an engine failure. In other words, the main gear on the failed side doesn't stay down longer or hesitate as a result of the failure.

 

[DiamondJim]

AVBUG

I didn't mean to imply that the gear came up asymetricle because of the engine failure, it's just the nature of the beast in that particular airplane. This certainly didn't help the situation any.