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."
[email protected]

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.

 

[ultrarunner]

After having 2 or 3 of them almost crash in icing conditions they had Cessna come out and school us one weekend

that should tell you something right there.

 

[Kingairrick]

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

Not Eric. Smallest AC we have is my King Air 300.

 

[HAZ-MAT]

Do you lower the max takeoff weight in the Caravan in icing conditions?

Dusting off my Caravan knowledge I believe your max takeoff was reduced from 9,062 to 8,750 lbs (this is the APE kit) if icing conditions were present.

 

[B6Busdriver]

I flew the Caravan for one year in the great lakes area. As our director of operations said you had better treat ice on the Caravan like smoke in the cockpit.
It's a fine machine BUT it does suck in the ice. As I recall the airplane had a minimum speed of 105 kts in icing conditions. Any slower and there were no guarantees the tail won't stall. With company power setings you cruised about 160-165 kts. On one occasion I could only maintain 115-120kts with full power in level flight. I had climbed in search of a reported break between layers that was never found. When I couldn't find the break I had to descend. In the descent I tried to pick up speed before hitting the boots with about 10 degrees pitch down and cruise power. All I could get before leveling off was about 150 kts. When I leveled off I cruised at about 135kts with a max torque setting. Pretty scarey stuff.
One of the guys who had a lot of time in the airplane hit freezing rain on the approach and had full power by the time he touched down. There are way too many stories like this. The airplane was fun to fly but I sure don't miss it.

 

[Jmmccutc]

just my opinion, not trying to get flamed here...

i know that several people mentioned that they have flown the VAN in the great lakes area, and i also know that there is a 135 opperation very near my location that will allow a person with a commercial certificate to fork over some buckage and ride in the right seat...

what i'm trying to ask i gues is do ya'll believe that the experience level of the guy "paying to play" has anything to do with the the fact that they are crashing?

just wondering...

 

[bustedstuff]

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?

Yeah, it was that Fred. He had been with Salmon for about 2 months. Very sad.

 

[B6Busdriver]

Of course experience matters. The airplane was great fun but it was the absolute worst in ice that I have flown. As for paying to play, I don't know about that they paid me.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Yeah, it was that Fred. He had been with Salmon for about 2 months. Very sad.

I hate to hear it. He was really a great guy. Very friendly and very helpful when I was a new guy. He had a ton of experience in the be-99. They have a lot more power and much more solid in ice.

Any Idea why he went to Salmon?

 

[FN FAL]

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.

Yes, we do lower the weight. 600 HP caravans are now lowered to 7600 mtow, they were using 7800 lbs before. The 675 HP is lowered to 8000 mtow.

Sorry, I was confused with your post...not digging on you.

Today was weird deal with ice. I descended during vectors for an approach, and I bet within two minutes I got prop vibration (which is common in the Van). The plane was loading up quickly with some clear ice, but I was able to clear the boots pretty good. I never lost much airspeed during the approach, and I even hit a patch of freezing drizzle that was so loud, I thought my rear door had popped open. That freezing drizzle patch lasted 15 seconds. When I looked out the window as that was happening, I thought to myself, "Great, now I'm getting ICE on my ICE!"

Anyway, I kept the airspeed up during the approach and to be honest it wasn't continious, it came on during descent through icing layers. Meaning, I was IMC the whole time, but it was worst in different parts of the descent. The approach was a VOR and I broke out before I descended for the MDA. So I felt pretty confident throughout the approach, that I wasn't going to get hosed.

In sumation...that icing situation really never dropped my speed down, but I had good accretion on the boots and forward exposed surfaces. The boots cleaned up pretty good, even though I had to cycle the prop a few times to settle things down.

After the plane was deiced, I left and flew to another airport in the area after having lunch with some other Caravan pilots from the UPS contractor. I got barely any ICE during that .7 flight, as lower altitude conditions changed in that area by then. When I got my 50 lbs of freight loaded, I departed and climbed to 12,000 for the 1 hour trip home and got no ice in the climb worth reporting and was on top with sun on my face once again.

Later, I was being vectored for a localizer approach at home base, a Class charley airport. They had to put me down in IMC over Lake Michigan. The controller told me he was doing his best to minimize the lenght of time I would be over the lake.

This situation was hairy...the plane actually was slowing down in a descent. I rode the vectors out, because they were working me in...not spinning me in circles and because the bases were around 1,500...plus the temps were a positive degree "C" to three on the final and vis was good below the bases. But this stuff over the lake was bad.

There were regional pilots getting speed restrictions (not because of me...but before I got in line) and the regional guys were telling the controller they had to maintain 190 in the icing and the controller kept telling them "maintain 170, you won't be in it long!" The captain of the regional (I'm assuming it was a jet, I had my own problems so I din't memorize everybody elses problems or who they flew for!) kind of did one of those guy hisses at the controller when he replied to the speed restriction. So evidently, these guys were having problems with the over the lake approach as well.

In both cases, I had to cycle boots frequently and cycle the props. One case resulted in the airplane slowing, even during a descent and one case surprisingly didn't cause me to slow down...even though I hit a momentary patch of moderate freezing drizzle.

Other problematical issues that occured today, was the fact that the first destination was bobbing between a 1/2 and 1/4 and tops were at 11,000. The wind was a quartering headwind for the ILS, but county said the wind was blowing their sand off the runway. MU was 18, 18, 18...and every time they checked it, it got worse...so they notamed the runway as nil. That was great news...it took the decision to land way out of my hands, there wasn't going to be a landing. I asked for a turn to the next airport and the operations players were going to have to make a decision of what to do about that 1,300 lbs of freight.

Even if the runway wasn't notamed "nil", it didn't take me long to figure out that I wasn't going to play "catch the vis on the upside" and slam dunk it in...two many bad variables. Like having to go missed with a load of ice or being forced/cornered into landing on a slick runway with a quartering head wind of 25 knots gusting to 30 something, with a load of ice. So I diverted and they trucked boxes...so did the UPS contractor that was headed the same place I was going. They weren't playing that game in a Caravan either...nice guys, went to lunch with them and had a great time.

So yes, I see where YOU have the option of "not slowing down" in icing in a more powerful aircraft...we don't. In fact, we're lucky if we can indicate 140 knots in level flight. So we take weight off and adjust. It's the only variable we have...other than staying out of clouds when it's +5 C to -15 C.

 

[rumpletumbler]

Dammit FN I just bumped my head on the desk chasing the top to my Jack Daniels while trying to post and have a shot too. I've been reading your posts for a couple of years (even when you were whats his name ) and I must say that if I were going to learn to fly 208B's in icing I'd want your input. I hope that they will take your information and others like you if it can be done. You have so much that cannot be taught but must be learned but as well you can help with a shortcut. *smooch* hahahhaa