Plane crash at Sechelt airport

[CpnCrunch]

Are you all having fun tossing out the speculation?
Two adults, a teenage girl and a toddler. Maybe not full fuel. But dont let that stop anyone from pilloring a deceased pilot flying “hot and heavy”

For the life of me I will never understand what possesses people to “speculate” with every random thought that pops into their head.

Oh wait. I forgot. Its all about learning. And of course respectful. Speculating about pilot error...



Rant over...

Actually, nobody said that. Anything useful to add?

[rookiepilot]

Are you all having fun tossing out the speculation?
Two adults, a teenage girl and a toddler. Maybe not full fuel. But dont let that stop anyone from pilloring a deceased pilot flying “hot and heavy”

For the life of me I will never understand what possesses people to “speculate” with every random thought that pops into their head.

Oh wait. I forgot. Its all about learning. And of course respectful. Speculating about pilot error...



Rant over...

Actually, nobody said that. Anything useful to add?

As a thread I posted, I don't see any of that either. I see airport terrain comments and performance numbers for the aircraft type in question.

Where is the issue exactly?

[CpnCrunch]

My point is that Im not certain that plane can actually take off safely on that runway with flaps 25 at full gross.

I doubt it was an engine failure. Seems a big coincidence that they flew to ycd and back and then the engine failed right when they encountered the steeply rising ground. Possible, but not the most likely explanation.

[cncpc]

My point is that Im not certain that plane can actually take off safely on that runway with flaps 25 at full gross.

I doubt it was an engine failure. Seems a big coincidence that they flew to ycd and back and then the engine failed right when they encountered the steeply rising ground. Possible, but not the most likely explanation.

I went and had a look at that pic from the link above. There doesn't seem to be much rotational damage on the prop. Some rearward bending more likely from contacting something while still moving forward. Somebody had the theory that perhaps he closed the throttle when he knew they were going in.

Whatever the case, from a passenger point of view, in a crash like this, survivability will depend on what the pilot does in the last few seconds before impact. Three people walked away from this accident. At a minimum, it seems he didn't lose control of his aircraft in those final seconds.

[pelmet]

C-GVZP, a privately-operated Piper PA-28-140, departed runway 29 at the Sechelt Aerodrome (CAP3) on a local sight-seeing flight with the pilot and three passengers. The wind was variable and gusty, predominately from the west. The aircraft's rate of climb immediately after take-off was low. As it overflew the Chapman Creek ravine off the departure end of the runway, the aircraft stopped climbing and flew into trees on the side of the ravine. The pilot was fatally injured; the three passengers received minor injuries and the aircraft was destroyed.

[CpnCrunch]

TSB report out:

http://tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/a ... wEQ1n-4HRA

[aeroncasuperchief]

Does anyone see the possible elephant in the room ?( TSB report )

Best angle being 73 mph and the A/C descended for 15 seconds!! while decreasing airspeed after liftoff to 59 mph ?

Can you say " Back side of the power curve" ? Why didn't TSB provide this opportunity to educate?

When climbing away from an airport you CANNOT use an airspeed below best angle UNLESS you have excess power and need to clear an obstacle ( Zoom up ) which should be quite rare! This A/C was near gross on a warm day with wind and terrain against him.

My thought is that he didnt get behind the power curve on the previous flight and applied the same climb-out profile as the previous flight , not giving due consideration to changing factors and NEVER allowing oneself to get on the backside in a low powered A/C

Maybe quartering tailwinds had a part to play PDW ?

[pelmet]

I did notice that they climbed to 100 feet above the runway and then the wings rocked indicating a possible stall. The video appears to show rising terrain and it appears that he took off with a tailwind of unknown strength. The report said it was gusting but gave no estimate of strength. The aircraft had a mod with 10 extra horsepower.

An earlier arrival apparently had strong downdrafts over the valley where the accidemt aircraft departed toward. Perhaps a descent or lack of climb due to downdrafts led to the pilot pullig aft on the control column until the aircraft stalled.

I guess it is good re-inforcement of the need to be careful in hilly terrain under marginal conditions.

[RatherBeFlying]

Best angle being 73 mph and the A/C descended for 15 seconds!! while decreasing airspeed after liftoff to 59 mph ?

The report is that groundspeed was decreasing to 59. That would indicate a decreasing tailwind.

Without an airspeed input, a GPS can only record groundspeed derived from change in position.

Turbulence can exceed aircraft performance.

[TG]

Plane crash at Sechelt airpot
I whish people would put date on their title for this kind of subject.
Useful when topics like that get resurrected.

[Blakey]

These are always the most difficult accident reports; we have some information on what MAY have happened but no clear cause. When reading an accident report, my interest is always to determine what I can learn fron the unfortunate experience of the pilot involved.

In this case, what do I learn? I understand the comment regarding the importance of maintaining best-angle speed and I can see that this may well have been a factor here. There is always the overpowering urge to pull back when you see trees looming in the windshield.

In trying to learn from this tragedy, I can see little to help me except to remember that, when I have all the pax on board and I'm ready to depart from the strip where the winds are changing constantly, that I should remember to maintain 73 when it starts to appear that I am about to impact the woods. I think there is something missing here. Perhaps there was marginal climb performance that day and there was turbulence in the ravine which made just enough difference negate any climb. Maybe there was a little sink and the pilot paniced and pulled the nose up enough to put himself on the back side of the power curve right from lift off. I don't see any calculation that would have told us what the terrain clearancce should have been if everything was done according to the book so we don't know how close to the edge they were to start with.

I guarantee you that the pilot did not want to crash and I'm not really clear on what happened to cause that to happen.

[pelmet]

In this case, what do I learn?

In trying to learn from this tragedy, I can see little to help me

Take a look at the videos posted earlier on the thread and ask yourself if you really want to do a max weight takeoff in an airport like this in the summer. It looks like the terrain is the problem, not the runway length.

The CFS says "terrain lies to [north] of [airport] & rises steeply in dep[arture] area [Runway] 29". Why is someone taking off with a significant tailwind toward this rising terrain. I learned quite a long time ago in a Cherokee that it can be the cumulative effects that result in a problem. Warm, tailwind, upslope runway, heavy weight, an aircraft type that in some versions can be a bit difficult to rotate, at least sometimes, which extends the roll(which is what happened to me in the Piper Cherokee Arrow), combined with obstacles.

People like to stuff their old Cherokees with lots of payload and try to takeoff out of marginal strips. This accident remindes me of one that happened 20 years ago. I believe I had perviously met the pilot. The circumstances are different but worth reading about......

http://www.bst-tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-r ... 8o0190.pdf

Maybe best to just bump payload. I did that once in a situation where I got myself into a strip with high trees at both ends and the runway was soft. Forced all the pax to take a taxi to another airport 40 minutes away. The above accident was on my mind at the time.

[aeroncasuperchief]

Forced all the pax to take a taxi to another airport 40 minutes away.

It is a good thing to exercise that authority and decision making early in ones career, either commercially or privately. On occasion, it is even a good thing to make that decision when the condition is marginal - to exercise your attitude ! Much about flying is being in the right attitude so that decision making is unimpeded

Why the pilot didn't choose into wind, down hill and without any obstacles going in the other direction is something we may never know. Having a successful previous flight obviously gave a positive bias to continue a less than ideal direction of take-off ?

[pelmet]

Why the pilot didn't choose into wind, down hill and without any obstacles going in the other direction is something we may never know. Having a successful previous flight obviously gave a positive bias to continue a less than ideal direction of take-off ?

I do see some close-in trees to the east on the video. Perhaps that was a consideration. Or didn't take note of the wind direction change which can happen when one is busy as possibly was the case here with the pilot helping his family on board with possible distractions right up until takeoff.

Check that windsock when at critical airports where a simple change of wind can change everything.