Took off with rudder locked

[pelmet]

I suppose this rudder lock does not lock the rudder in neutral. Shouldn't a control check find this.

The Air Spray (1967) Ltd. Aero Commander 690B, C-FMCX, was operating as flight ASB58 from
Fort McMurray, AB (CYMM) to Red Deer, AB (CYQF). As soon as C-FMCX was airborne the
aircraft yawed to the left. The pilot had difficulty trimming the aircraft for coordinated flight and
required almost full right rudder trim to do so. During acceleration to cruise speed (accelerating
through 200 KIAS) the aircraft rolled aggressively to the right achieving more than 45 degrees of
bank before the pilot was able to recover with aileron and a reduction in power. A passenger in the
right seat, who was a pilot with the company, assisted the pilot with rudder inputs to maintain
control of the aircraft. A decision was made to return to CYMM where ARFF was on standby for the
landing. It was determined that the external rudder lock had not been removed prior to flight.
Damage was limited to the vertical stabilizer and rudder skins.

[Heliian]

Interesting. A couple years ago, I saw another company with the same type trying to do the same thing. For some reason these guys were leaving the lock in to fire it up and taxi it to a staging spot regularly. Poor practice for sure and I thought that it wouldn't take much of a distraction and boom, trying to takeoff with the lock still jammed in the tail.

[North Shore]

Ummm.....'controls: free and correct' ?

[5x5]

Careful there NorthShore - that sounds a lot like one of those "useless" FTUisms that is unnecessarily crammed into their waaayyy to long checklists. I'm sure the pilot did a quick flow check (time saving and more professional, don't you know) of fuel - electrics - gauges and was good to go. After all, he had likely flown the aircraft recently and there had been no maintenance to the controls so why waste time and wear them out with needless checklist items?

[Old fella]

Ummm.....'controls: free and correct' ?

Think you are on to something...... "controls" is what controls the aeroplane despite the fuel, electrics and all associated sundry. Just saying!

[iflyforpie]

I do a control check every time... you never know what might have come loose or jammed on your last landing.

Same with checking all of the little things like oil pressure, fuel quantity, and doors secure...

[timel]

Yup

I do a control check every time... you never know what might have come loose or jammed on your last landing.

Same with checking all of the little things like oil pressure, fuel quantity, and doors secure...

A walk around prior every take off should be the norm, it does not take long.


Even if you stop for one hour, I know one case personally where people on the ground did damage an aircraft and did not report it.

[pelmet]

Yup

I do a control check every time... you never know what might have come loose or jammed on your last landing.

Same with checking all of the little things like oil pressure, fuel quantity, and doors secure...

A walk around prior every take off should be the norm, it does not take long.


Even if you stop for one hour, I know one case personally where people on the ground did damage an aircraft and did not report it.

Good point. Being the kind of guy who forgets things once in a while(I have forgotten to put a fuel cap on) for smaller aircraft that I rent, I like to do a final check just prior to entering the cockpit to go. Fuel caps, oil cap, towbar, chocks, tiedowns, intake plugs, baggage doors and external locks. Perhaps a specific plane might have a unique item to check. And there could have been some damage to a wingtip or rudder since the walkaround was done 30 minutes previous.

Of course a controls free and correct check should resolve this problem, recently after reading about it somewhere, I decided that it would be best to do a last minute quick control movement(still forget sometimes) as well, in case a stone or something jammed a control perhaps kicked up from the runup.

Believe it or not a DC-8 crashed at JFK once as a piece of asphalt got jammed in the elevator. Everybody on board killed.

http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR71-12.pdf

[xsbank]

Walking around my airplane once, I found a large screwdriver hanging down from the inside of the rudder of the Firecat in line in front of me. It was left in the during winter maintenance. It would have jammed his rudder for sure. Also, I think there was a DC3 that took off with the rudder lock on and killed everyone.

To all you firefighters who are probably getting tired now, remember, only you can tell if you need a rest; "they are just trees" and a state funeral with the Mayor or Premier present is still a funeral. Take it easy out there!!!

[North Shore]

To all you firefighters who are probably getting tired now, remember, only you can tell if you need a rest; "they are just trees" and a state funeral with the Mayor or Premier present is still a funeral. Take it easy out there!!!

Hard for us to sometimes remember that...

Careful there NorthShore - that sounds a lot like one of those "useless" FTUisms that is unnecessarily crammed into their waaayyy to long checklists. I'm sure the pilot did a quick flow check (time saving and more professional, don't you know) of fuel - electrics - gauges and was good to go. After all, he had likely flown the aircraft recently and there had been no maintenance to the controls so why waste time and wear them out with needless checklist items?

True, that.. In defence of the people who rant on about useless FTUisms, they do also mention doing a check of the killer items prior to t/o...

[cdnpilot77]

One need not look any further than the recent Gulfstream crash at KBED or this video, to realize just how critical, and not mundane, checking your flight controls before every flight is, even for very experienced crews! They got away with one...hope they learned, might not be so lucky next time.

[ahramin]

Controls ..... Free and Correct is not about the walkaround. A walkaround is not necessarily going to be done before each flight. Even if a careful and thorough walkaround has been done checking every part of the flight controls and ensuring that all locks are removed and accounted for a control check should still be done before takeoff with everyone strapped into the aircraft and ready for departure. Every time.

[Heliian]

^ford trimotor with lock too

[oldtimer]

I seem to recall something in the old ANO's where it was supposed to be illegal to install external control locks but I used to see everyone install an external rudder lock on DC-3's.

[PilotDAR]

Controls ..... Free and Correct is not about the walkaround. A walkaround is not necessarily going to be done before each flight. Even if a careful and thorough walkaround has been done checking every part of the flight controls and ensuring that all locks are removed and accounted for a control check should still be done before takeoff with everyone strapped into the aircraft and ready for departure. Every time.

Controls free and correct is not about checklists nor walkarounds - it's airmanship!

[HiFlyChick]

A friend of mine tells the story of seeing a private aircraft taxiing past the flying club window years ago with the rudder lock (big honking hunk of wood lined with carpet and painted orange or red or something) still on. He promptly ran to the phone and called tower to tell them to warn the pilot before they went flying. Tower replied that they were in fact just returning from a flight, not just taxiing out! And oddly enough, I think he said they had been up for about an hour and didn't notice (or at least didn't figure out why the aircraft was behaving strangely)

Guess those guys were lucky enough to have one that held the controls neutral - I never even thought of locks that hold them in some unfly-able position. Wow!

[oldtimer]

Unless you are flying an airplane with a tiller nosewheel steering system, how the hell do pilots make it to the runway without at least once applying rudder?
Are there that many pilots, dead from the asshole in both diections, that steer the airplanes on the ground and on take-off using only brakes?
We should designate an area away from civilization where these yoyos can go and develope new and creative ways of crashing airplanes.

[Blakey]

http://gent-family.com/Estevan/estevandakotacrash.html

[Gear Jerker]

Personally, I do a quick walkaround before every flight, and do a control check before every takeoff.

In the event of, specifically, a jammed rudder, especially hardover, LOWER THE NOSE!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfNBmZy1Yuc

[sstaurus]

I like the Metro where the locks are tied into the throttles, can't budge them if the lock is still on... I guess that's not as common as I would've thought.