C-336 Skymaster down at PRC

[stearnst]

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0902planecrash.html

Small plane crashes outside Prescott, killing two
Associated Press
Sept. 2, 2006 12:34 PM PRESCOTT, Ariz. - Two people died and a third was critically injured Saturday when a small plane crashed near the airport here, authorities said.

The twin-engine aircraft hit power lines near the Prescott Municipal Airport and crashed at about 9:30 a.m., said Sgt. Chris Myhre of the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office.

Two people were confirmed fatalities, and a third was flown to a hospital, Myhre said. He did not know the type of aircraft or if it was taking off or landing at the time.

My thoughts go out to the families involved and best wishes to the surviving occupant.

This happened about 10 minutes before I was supposed to take off with a student this morning. Lakes-air aborted a takeoff as they were on the roll as the accident happened. One of the IP's at the school here saw the accident happen as he was on downwind, said the plane never climbed much at all and ended up hitting power lines about a mile out on the upwind, and never answered calls from tower if they needed assistance. Strangely enough, the power lines the aircraft ended up striking provide power to a great number of places in the area, including the airport itself. As I was leaving the school this afternoon, PRC tower had run out of backup power (apparently they have a two-hour backup battery), and were on their third handheld transceiver.

I don't know anything about the Skymaster, other pilots were speculating about an engine failure shortly after takeoff with the decision made to continue as opposed to aborting. Makes me wonder what kind of single-engine performance those aircraft have...especially at 5,000' MSL with about 80* F.

On top of that, about an hour after this accident occured, another minor accident happened. A Glas-star ended up having a nosewheel collapse on landing and forced that runway to close for a half hour while they were getting it out of the way. I had to laugh after I talked with the pilot of that plane, he said "Well, that's a he!! of an expensive cup of coffee we got at Valle (about 50nm north of here)".

Not the best start of a three-day weekend.

 

[avbug]

Makes me wonder what kind of single-engine performance those aircraft have...especially at 5,000' MSL with about 80* F.

Just like any other light twin. None.

and never answered calls from tower if they needed assistance.

One day when you have your first low level engine failure, you may find that there are much higher priorities than talking on the radio, and that asking for "assistance" when nobody can help you is not only futile, but may use up what little bit of time you have, to say nothing of the fact that your full attention may be required for the task at hand.

 

[stearnst]

Just like any other light twin. None.



One day when you have your first low level engine failure, you may find that there are much higher priorities than talking on the radio, and that asking for "assistance" when nobody can help you is not only futile, but may use up what little bit of time you have, to say nothing of the fact that your full attention may be required for the task at hand.

I imagine so, to both points.

 

[NW_Pilot]

I wonder if that was the same 336 on eBay that was going to be ferried. I know last week I had a rather urgent fellow wanting a 336 ferried but not willing to pay any money to have it done! Lets Hope not I know there are not many 336's around!!!

 

[nwa_contrails]

Here's the audio from LiveATC. Scroll to the 20 minute mark, listen for "Skymaster 1893M"

It continues for a couple minutes and then the feed is abruptly cut off, apparently because of the plane taking out the power lines. Kinda eerie if you think of it that way...

http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kp...2006-1600Z.mp3

RIP

 

[stearnst]

Here's the audio from LiveATC. Scroll to the 20 minute mark, listen for "Skymaster 1893M"

It continues for a couple minutes and then the feed is abruptly cut off, apparently because of the plane taking out the power lines. Kinda eerie if you think of it that way...

http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kp...2006-1600Z.mp3

RIP

Thanks for the post, I didn't know liveatc had archives. The full link (above got cut off somewhere in the cut 'n' paste) is:


"http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kprc/KPRC-Sep-02-2006-1600Z.mp3"

minus the quotation marks.

 

[IP076]

They just said on the news that the third person passed either at the hospital or on the way there.

RIP

If you listen, a male voice actually responds the the "Do you need assistance" call with a "negative" answer. It also sounds like the tower controller stepped on the skymaster's transmission earlier while clearing the Lakes-Air into position. Not that it matters....

Have to wait and see if it was an engine failure or something else...

That guy with the landing gear story is kind of like that Baron that caught a prop at Dalhart when we were there huh?

 

[stearnst]

They just said on the news that the third person passed either at the hospital or on the way there.

RIP

If you listen, a male voice actually responds the the "Do you need assistance" call with a "negative" answer. It also sounds like the tower controller stepped on the skymaster's transmission earlier while clearing the Lakes-Air into position. Not that it matters....

Have to wait and see if it was an engine failure or something else...

That guy with the landing gear story is kind of like that Baron that caught a prop at Dalhart when we were there huh?

Haha, yeah no doubt. The couple in the Glas-star were funny...if you listen to the archives earlier in the morning, I think it was around 1515Z, when he originally called up twr, he kept using the call sign "two zero two jay dub-ya", took twr a couple times of saying "Was that 202 golf whiskey", and the glas-star replies "negative, that's 202 JAY dub-yah". Never did hear a phonetic readback from him. We got a laugh listening to him depart.

The saddest part of that Baron at DHT was listening to him on his cell phone in the restaraunt talk to his insurance company saying "Yeah, I busted a prop...yeah, a prop, I busted it". That's the tough way to go about getting a Q-tip conversion.

 

[AerroMatt]

Just like any other light twin. None.



One day when you have your first low level engine failure, you may find that there are much higher priorities than talking on the radio, and that asking for "assistance" when nobody can help you is not only futile, but may use up what little bit of time you have, to say nothing of the fact that your full attention may be required for the task at hand.

So true on both points, Avbug. At PRC, if you have engine failure on a day like the day of the accident, all the good engine will do is take you to the scene of the accident. Apparently, this is exactly what happened.

On the second part of your response, having survived an engine failure on takeoff in a piston twin and off field wreck, I can say you are 100% correct. Tis far better to continue to fly the airplane than to attempt to communicate your plight to someone unable to comprehend it or be in a position to do anything about it!

My heart goes out to the families who lost their loved ones...

 

[unreal]

Ugh, yeah, I heard about this crash this morning from my neighbor of all people. Three IPs live here in this house, so we were all scrambling trying to find out just who went down. Not fun.

RIP