NTSB recommends immediate changes to Cessna 208B usage

[FN FAL]

Article Last Updated: 12/16/2004 01:53 AMNTSB recommends immediate changes to Cessna 208B usage By Michael N. Westley
The Salt Lake Tribune

Salt Lake Tribune After reviewing more than 20 crashes of Cessna 208B aircraft - similar to the accident that killed two men, one of them from Utah - the National Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday recommended immediate changes to pilot training and flight takeoff procedures.
The recommendations are the product of an 18-month review of crashes that claimed the lives of at least 36 people and involved Cessna 208B aircraft known to have flown in conditions that caused ice to build up on the plane.
The most recent crash of a Cessna 208B, not included in the study, claimed the lives of two pilots from Idaho-based Salmon Air.
Fred Villanueva, 60, of Farmington and Ray Ingram, 32, of Idaho died Dec. 6 when their Cessna 208B went down in a field as it approached the Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey, Idaho. While the NTSB has not ruled officially on the crash, the report states icing conditions were identified by another pilot who had flown the same route about 20 minutes earlier.
In the study, the NTSB reviewed 21 from a total of 26 icing-related Caravan crashes from 1987 to 2003. The remaining five cases were not included because they took place outside U.S. borders.
The review raised concerns about the plane's design, its cold weather operations and possible deficiencies with its federal certification for flying in icing conditions. The NTSB says its evaluation of the plane's certification and design is ongoing, but in the meantime, it hopes to increase pilot awareness about the plane's vulnerability to ice on its wings.
"These planes should not be flown in icing conditions, period," said Tom Ellis, spokesman for the Nolan Law Group in Chicago. Ellis' firm is currently litigating for family members of four people who died in separate Cessna 208B icing related crashes.
An operating manual for the 208B says the plane's performance suffers greatly when ice accumulates on its wings and urges pilots to avoid flying in icing conditions.
"We're at the bottom rung of the safety ladder with these recommendations," Ellis said. "More needs to be done and I hope the NTSB continues to come out with some tough recommendations."
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Advised revisions

l Pilots should undergo annual training for ground de-icing and determining when it is safe to fly.

l The Cessna Aircraft Corp. should work with Cessna 208 operators to develop an effective program for the plane's cold weather operations.

l Pilots and operators of the Cessna 208 should visually and physically inspect the wings and control surfaces of the plane for ice prior to take off.

l A more complete tracking system of pilots' certification for flying the 208B should be put into place.

 

[LJDRVR]

Glad to see that airframe getting some increased scrutiny over it's "known icing" certification. An old guy I use to fly Caravans with told me the aiplane did not meet FAA known icing certification standards, but Cessna was able to get it certified anyway by the addition of the standby alternator and some political pressure. Heresay, but man... you did not want to accumulate ice in that airplane. Evenn a light dusting equated to an instant 10 knot loss in airspeed. An ice encounter in a Caravan was best treated like an in-flight emergency. (Climb, descend or turn around.)

Anyone who's flown the Caravan either has, or knows somebody who has landed at max torque with the stall horn blaring while carrying a boat-load of ice.

Pending a certification review, ALL Van drivers should attend the Cessna Cold Weather Operations Seminar the OEM provides. Additionally, it would be nice if all Van drivers flew the FSI ice profile sim in ICT.

 

[sqwkvfr]

Are you setting a trap, FN FAL?

 

[OrphicSeth]

This is interesting. I have an old co-worker who used to work with a cargo outfit out of the Northeast, a big Van operator. He always mentioned that when you picked up ice, you'd lose 10kts. Blow the boots, and gain 5kts. Ice up, down another 10kts. Blow the boots, gain 5kts, etc. He said that when you got down to 125kts, you diverted. Sounded like fun... if that's your thing.

I hope that they resolve this in a manner that keeps unnecessary accidents from happening, but doesn't effectively destroy the cargo Van operators out there, especially with winter upon us. That lawyer yelling "These planes should not be flown in icing conditions, period" seems to be the type that would happily replace "in icing conditions" with whatever other weather conditions exist depending on his client, ex: summer day VFR, in response to some fool who flies into a mountain, etc.

Edit:

Are you setting a trap, FN FAL?

aaaaah... sh!t.

 

[FN FAL]

Are you setting a trap, FN FAL?

hehehe...my reputation precedes me!

But to answer you...no, I am not.

I have a concern with the C-208 in icing. The posts here already confirm what I know already. Get a little ice...lose ten knots, blow the boots...get five knots back. It's true...I myself have had times where the tops were at six, and I never thought I'd get up there. I have also had the plane in freezing drizzle and it did a lot better than I would have imagined.

The C-208 is an awsome plane, it'll fly loaded to the gills. It's mechanically reliable and robust as they come. For those who work for operators that respect pilot decisions, the plane is an economical and SAFE way to "git'r done!"

 

[SabreFlyR]

I flew the van for large NE operator back in 1987 and 88. After having 2 or 3 of them almost crash in icing conditions they had Cessna come out and school us one weekend. What frigging joke, these clowns tried to convince us that it was ok to fly it in icing conditions by showing us pictures of it during icing certification. Problem was, they did it behind a tanker and only iced up one wing at a time.
Great plane as long as it doesn't get near ice.

 

[Kingairrick]

I've never flown a Caravan. What causes the problem? The ice accumulating on non-deiced parts of the airframe?

 

[KPTPK]

Must be the carb icing!

 

[FN FAL]

I've never flown a Caravan. What causes the problem? The ice accumulating on non-deiced parts of the airframe?

Ever see a van in cruise flight? They look like they are in a climb...wonder if that has anything to do with it?

 

[Kingairrick]

So you're saying that normal cruise is lower than min icing airspeed? Wow, that sucks. I've always wanted to fly one. I guess it's a good thing I live in Florida.

 

[wmuflyguy]

I'll pass on what was told to me in a Winter Ops seminar at the school i teach at by the people from the NASA Glen Research Center in Cleveland. They are the guys that fly the Twin Otter around and look for Ice. It is a neat airplane they brought it up during the seminar and we got to look at it.

I'll try my best to recall what was said but sorry if anything is incorrect.

As i recall, they stated that the caravans wing is like that of a Skyhawk, it produces much of its lift between 25%-40% of its chord. As opposed to some aircraft wings which create lift much more uniformly over the entire length of the chord line.

This wing allows for more stability and control during stalls and lowspeed flight, so it is used alot in trainers.

The downside is that Ice builds up in the front part of the wing(25-40% chord) rapidly causeing the airflow to become turbulent over the portion that produces the majority of lift in the Caravan.

So with a small amount of Ice aft of the boots can cause a drastic loss of lift in an aircraft with this type of wing.

That is how i understand it.

I would really like to fly on still regardless

 

[KPTPK]

Sad news in Alaska and a little known fact about the Caravan.

http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Safety_Issues/RiskManagement/Calling_it_a_night-1.html

 

[FN FAL]

So you're saying that normal cruise is lower than min icing airspeed? Wow, that sucks. I've always wanted to fly one. I guess it's a good thing I live in Florida.

?????

 

[FN FAL]

Sad news in Alaska and a little known fact about the Caravan.

Yea, bad decision making skills can kill...you can find a ton of corporate jet crashes with frost on the airframe, the Caravan isn't the only plane that sucks when taking off with frost on it.

Company records indicate that the certificated commercial pilot completed his initial CE-208 flight training 2 months before the accident and had accumulated a total of 74 hours in this make and model of airplane. The airplane, with the pilot and nine passengers onboard, crashed shortly after takeoff from runway 01

I flew that morning, but we waited for the front to pass. This weather was easily aviodable and was clearly painted on www.intelicast.com and in the FAA weather briefings. It was a fast moving system and would have cleared this the area where this crash occured within several hours. This weather was so bad, it took me an extra 45 minutes to get into work, there were car accidents all along the way due to the freezing drizzle and the windows of my house were coated with at least a 1/16 inch of freezing drizzle. There's no way I would have flown a jet off the runway, much less a King Air or regional turboprop that morning...until the front passed. After that, it was not a bad saturday to be out flying.

The manufacturer of the plane that crashed last weekend into Lake Erie knew for years that model had flaws that made it dangerously susceptible to ice, says a lawsuit filed against Cessna Aircraft Co. The presence of freezing rain last Saturday about the time of takeoff of the Cessna 208B Caravan is being investigated by Canadian authorities. The crash killed 10 people.

 

[FN FAL]

I'm sorry, but the lake Erie crash had 10 people on board...this Alaska crash had 10 onboard as well.

Let's look at some figures. Icing weight in a 675 HP Caravan is 8,000 LBS. (in FedEx's 600 HP Caravans, it's 7600 LBS) 4500-4600 is an average weight for a Caravan. That means a 675 HP Caravan can carry 3400 lbs of fuel, people and gear...if it's flown at an icing weight of 8,000 lbs.

10, 200 pounders, is 2000 lbs...1400 lbs of fuel is 4 hours endurance, including taxi time (yea, the burn is 100 lbs or so in taxi, but we're talking conservative figures and we don't know how long he taxied).

The Canadian trip was to pick up hunters...hmmmm, how much did their bags weigh and how much game did they have with them? Lets figure conservatively at 50 lbs each. That would be 400 lbs additional weight...bringing fuel down to 1000 lbs. That's 2.5 hours of fuel in a Caravan, if it was flown at the highest of 1500 lbs torque, 700 ITT or 100% NG in cruise.

If your passengers only had 50 lbs of luggage each, as hunters that spent a week at a hunting lodge and their butts only weighed 200 lbs a piece and you only needed to fly about an hour, that would have been a good start. Add in the fact that they didn't get a deice or anti ice on the ground and that one of the passengers was a tag along girlfriend (dead freaking weight on an icing day in my book, I don't care how good her poontang looked)...plus the fact that it was freezing rain out...no wonder there was a crash.

 

[EagleRJ]

600 HP sounds kind of low for a Caravan! How many variants are there?

FN FAL- Have you ever seen/flown a 'van with the Soloy Dual-Pac (two PT-6s driving a common propeller)? 1300 SHP should be enough to drag it up through the ice without breaking a sweat!

 

[Kingairrick]

FN FAL,
I'm puttin' it together here. Do you lower the max takeoff weight in the Caravan in icing conditions? In the King Air, we just have to stay above the minimum icing airspeed (140KIAS) so ice doesn't form on the bottom of the wing behind the boots. That's what I thought you were implying in your previous post.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

I have never flown the van either but I knew a lot of guys in alaska who flew it. They always told me it was not the wing but the tail (horizontal stab) that was the problem. It was too small and because of the airflow around the plane when below min ice penetration speed was VERY suseptable to ice and would cause a tail stall. They said the caravans with the belly pod were more so because they only flew maybe 10 knots over ice penetration speed anyway. (The belly pod even has a deice boot on it)


The reason I am writing is the name of one of the pilots sounds familiar. Was this Fred Villanova who use to fly the 99 at Ameriflight in SLC?

 

[Checks]

You have to fly the caravan like it isnt certified for icing. At the first sign off ice start getting out of the icing conditions. As a general rule I always climb...you can always come back down and the increased speed in the descent will blow off more ice. If you jerk your chicken while picking up ice, that ice will bite you in the rear one day.

 

[Duderino]

So you're saying that normal cruise is lower than min icing airspeed? Wow, that sucks. I've always wanted to fly one. I guess it's a good thing I live in Florida.

Hey Eric, sounds like you are working at a company that has one.