Skydive accident. One dead

I will be interested in the cause of this. Caravans don't fall out of the sky without provocation.
 
"Analysis" over on DropZone was that she was on the fast descent back to the airport after dropping a load.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
I will be interested in the cause of this. Caravans don't fall out of the sky without provocation.
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Falling out of the sky is a pretty good description of the flight plan of a skydiving flight after the last jumper has exited. It’s not uncommon for the drop plane to beat the jumpers to the ground.
 
Will be interested to see the ntsb’s take on this one. Slightly more than a year ago, lost another skydiving plane a few counties away, a 182, after the jumpers were discharged and the plane headed back to the airport. But for whatever reason, got very low a couple miles from the airport, then lost all or partial engine power. Struck a tree fatally injuring the pilot. Nothing obvious on preliminary. All are anxiously awaiting the final, hoping it sheds additional light on the crash. Save for some weird egress emergencies, seems like the descent and landing should be pretty benign in these planes.
 
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7,000 fpm descent rate starting just over top of the field. Seems like the usual jump plane dive bomb routine.
 
FormerHangie said:
Falling out of the sky is a pretty good description of the flight plan of a skydiving flight after the last jumper has exited. It’s not uncommon for the drop plane to beat the jumpers to the ground.
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Hey, I'm a big "chop and drop" fan, but something went wrong here. Hopefully not a control surface failure.
 
mryan75 said:
7,000 fpm descent rate starting just over top of the field. Seems like the usual jump plane dive bomb routine.
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That rate alway sounds so huge, but it's not even 80 mph vertically. Still too fast if down low.
 
The problem with these dive bomb descents is if you are a high wing, it's easy to get run over. The C208 has a huge blind spot under the nose and you seldom see clearing turns as they descend through the pattern. Normalized cowboy flying. What gets me is that jump plane then sits at idle waiting for the next group. Could have just done a normal pattern and ended up with the same rate of jumpers per hour.
 
I looked all over considerable effort to try and find any information about the cause of the accident
One of the things that showed up that this was I believe the fifth load of the morning and I also did some research on the drop zone and it appears that it doesn't have fuel
As a new poster I can't add any links, also from looking at the photos of the crash site it does show a fire but if there was fuel involved I do believe it would have been more intense as opposed to just the grass fire is what it appears visually to me.
I also don't have any background on the pilot but I question some of the comments about her trying to obtain commercial rating so there's a little conflict in that to be able to be flying that caravan with jumpers without a commercial ticket
My speculation is that it ran out of gas/jp. But I would hope not
I tried to find any information on possible fueling procedures for that airplane and the operation but could not find anything that gave me any clues. I did find a little info on the? Airport drop zone from a Zillow listing showing the property had sold in 2018 and it included 100 acres or so in the lot.
Any new info would be greatly appreciated I'm really curious about this incident.
 
I bring down turbine jump planes as quick as possible. At the end of a 15-20 load day I can save an hour and a half on the tach… and at a cool grand an hour…

That being said I do LOTS of clearing. I reckon it’s COMPLETELY on me to avoid traffic.

Used about 18 gallons a load, I put 55 to 60 gallons in every third run. Like all airplanes, I pretty much run fuel academically, basically referencing the gages pretty much only as a cross check or to find a leak. Running them empty isn’t uncommon… the dangerous days were slow days when ya ran two loads… shut down, wait… stand up, sit down, fight fight fight. Easy to interrupt the flow. Insert the mixed runs, 6 chutes… two sport hop and pop at 5k, 3 tandems at 14 then the last tandem and videographer at 18k. Messes up fuel planning too.

And being in a hurry to get down, the prop provides a lot of drag. Losing your motor and subsequent auto feather REALLY presents a different sight picture, making overrunning the field way more likely than coming up short. Rarely if EVER practiced.
 
Tools said:
I bring down turbine jump planes as quick as possible. At the end of a 15-20 load day I can save an hour and a half on the tach… and at a cool grand an hour…

That being said I do LOTS of clearing. I reckon it’s COMPLETELY on me to avoid traffic.

Used about 18 gallons a load, I put 55 to 60 gallons in every third run. Like all airplanes, I pretty much run fuel academically, basically referencing the gages pretty much only as a cross check or to find a leak. Running them empty isn’t uncommon… the dangerous days were slow days when ya ran two loads… shut down, wait… stand up, sit down, fight fight fight. Easy to interrupt the flow. Insert the mixed runs, 6 chutes… two sport hop and pop at 5k, 3 tandems at 14 then the last tandem and videographer at 18k. Messes up fuel planning too.

And being in a hurry to get down, the prop provides a lot of drag. Losing your motor and subsequent auto feather REALLY presents a different sight picture, making overrunning the field way more likely than coming up short. Rarely if EVER practiced.
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Just out of speculation what would your guess be as to the cause of this incident?
 
Man, not enough info…

Fuel starvation causes botched landings, not random firey crashes… also the news reports speaks of a significant fire. No fuel on the field doesn’t mean much, they may have had it there for their own ops.

An exit induced event seems like it would have made the news report, but not necessarily. That would be something like an early chute deployment fouling the tail feathers. This is still a possibility. A jumper could cut away make it down safely.

Caravan is very stable, a bad jump run exit and stall seem unlikely, but again possible.

Possible simple loss of control or inflight break up associated with the hurried path back to the airport. Easy to overspeed, quick snatch…. If the pilot didn’t have a lot of experience, this leads the pack for me. I rush down, but I got A LOT of experience in that regime. Actual high level formal training. Learning to do that on my own seems risky for sure.

Figuring that out is gonna take some real (expensive) crash analysis and investigation.
 
I was looking at the FlightAware site and an unusual appearance is at the very end of the flight log and it terminates at 7100 ft which may not be other than a glitch but nothing else kind of lines up terminating early and if you look and see from the timestamp of the probable drop at 12300 to the termination timestamp which was only one minute later looking at $5,000 ft which is higher than most of the other decent profiles I was looking at.
Not sure if it means anything but that was the last notation posted where any of the other dessent or load profiles show down to 300 ft or so for the termination at the drop zone
 
Clayzz said:
I was looking at the FlightAware site and an unusual appearance is at the very end of the flight log and it terminates at 7100 ft which may not be other than a glitch but nothing else kind of lines up terminating early and if you look and see from the timestamp of the probable drop at 12300 to the termination timestamp which was only one minute later looking at $5,000 ft which is higher than most of the other decent profiles I was looking at.
Not sure if it means anything but that was the last notation posted where any of the other dessent or load profiles show down to 300 ft or so for the termination at the drop zone
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Probably not a glitch. With a 16,500fpm descent rate and increasing, and returns every 15-30 seconds, the aircraft probably hit the ground after the 7,100 ft. reading before another data point could be recorded.

Clayzz said:
My speculation is that it ran out of gas/jp. But I would hope not
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Not likely. Aside from fuel starvation/exhaustion not causing an uncontrollable dive, it would be highly improbable to occur right as the jumpers exit. I will vote for aircraft structural damage/loss of control due to an improper parachute deployment, or loss of control for another reason.
 
If things went awry right at the exit point, almost inevitably this.

In planes with a divider or bulkhead (like a caravan), the pilot doesn’t have to wear a parachute. Not necessarily smart, and to be honest I don’t, but it’s not required.

This would be horrifying.
 
dmspilot said:
Probably not a glitch. With a 16,500fpm descent rate and increasing, and returns every 15-30 seconds, the aircraft probably hit the ground after the 7,100 ft. reading before another data point could be recorded.


Not likely. Aside from fuel starvation/exhaustion not causing an uncontrollable dive, it would be highly improbable to occur right as the jumpers exit. I will vote for aircraft structural damage/loss of control due to an improper parachute deployment, or loss of control for another reason.
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Hope I can post this link it's from a news site https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/l...-york/71-5ae34cfa-0cf9-48c1-a325-357d877d3332 and if it does post scroll down and then view the video you'll see the area fairly clearly where the crash took place , the fire was not intense which in this case to me that there was not a lot of fuel involved and that does appear apparent to me. The other thing I was trying to determine was the location of that road relative to where the drop zone is and it's fairly close so my thought is the same- that ran out of fuel and you see where she was trying to make a landing which was a pretty clear shot if she could have cleared the road and probably didn't make it at that point.that's, my guess.
That said the run out of the wreck area indicates not a lot of distance traveled which says it couldn't be moving forward too fast but by the severity of the damage it indicates substantial impact which doesn't coincide with say a stall trying to get over that road.
If there was a premature deployment at altitude or anything relative to that around the skydiving of the event chatter would be available normally.
 
Clayzz said:
the fire was not intense which in this case to me that there was not a lot of fuel involved and that does appear apparent to me. The other thing I was trying to determine was the location of that road relative to where the drop zone is and it's fairly close so my thought is the same- that ran out of fuel and you see where she was trying to make a landing which was a pretty clear shot if she could have cleared the road and probably didn't make it at
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I'm guessing you are not a pilot. A plane does not go straight down at 16,000 feet per minute when it runs out of fuel. That's just not how it works.
 
dmspilot said:
Probably not a glitch. With a 16,500fpm descent rate and increasing, and returns every 15-30 seconds, the aircraft probably hit the ground after the 7,100 ft. reading before another data point could be recorded.


Not likely. Aside from fuel starvation/exhaustion not causing an uncontrollable dive, it would be highly improbable to occur right as the jumpers exit. I will vote for aircraft structural damage/loss of control due to an improper parachute deployment, or loss of control for another reason.
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"Probably not a glitch. With a 16,500fpm descent rate and increasing, and returns every 15-30 seconds, the aircraft probably hit the ground after the 7,100 ft. reading before another data point could be recorded."
I didn't see that comment before I posted but if that is correct then things change a little bit I'm curious what would happen as you nosedown caravan say 85 90 mph at $7,000 ft a minute descent what happens if you get power outage fuel starvation at that point? Fly the plane or make my engine go?
I looked real hard at the King air crash in Texas that hit the hangar roof and that was the result of a 2 second left rudder mistake.
Trimmed out for vertical descent how long does it take to correct that in the caravan that runs out of gas with a younger pilot
 
dmspilot said:
I'm guessing you are not a pilot. A plane does not go straight down at 16,000 feet per minute when it runs out of fuel. That's just not how it works.
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I had to go back up thread a little bit and look but at nowhere that I say the plane was coming down at 16,500 ft a minute I did make reference to the last flight to where information that showed it at I think 7,100 ft or something on its last reading.
A pilot or was a pilot
I was surprised to work some numbers and see that 85 miles an hour vertical will get you 7,500 ft a minute
 
Don’t know about the Garrett powered vans, but if a pt-6, if the engine quits the prop feathers and you go FASTER. Need that prop flat to come down fast.

That being said, I’ve never lost a engine in a turboprop…

At about 2gs, idle, prop set for about 1800rpm, 160 kts, I get about 6k fpm down.

Maybe engine quit, and when the plane suddenly blasted through Vne, a sudden pitch to fix it and rip the wings off?
 
Tools said:
Don’t know about the Garrett powered vans, but if a pt-6, if the engine quits the prop feathers and you go FASTER. Need that prop flat to come down fast.

That being said, I’ve never lost a engine in a turboprop…

At about 2gs, idle, prop set for about 1800rpm, 160 kts, I get about 6k fpm down.

Maybe engine quit, and when the plane suddenly blasted through Vne, a sudden pitch to fix it and rip the wings off?
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I think we're getting pretty close
I've seen some more pictures of the fire around the crash site and it's all white smoke from the grass fire not petroleum smoke black from fuel.
I'm still going with ran out of juice on the descent and slow to catch the correction excessive airspeed and either over control or just flat ass failure of the air frame. That scenario would definitely fit the wreckage.
 
I don’t think you can close the door from the seat of a van and think your max speed is like 130kts or less.

Still, it’s a strut braced wing, that’s gotta be tough to rip off…

Maybe a coupla hunnert knots with the door open is super bad?
 
Clayzz said:
I'm still going with ran out of juice on the descent and slow to catch the correction excessive airspeed and either over control or just flat ass failure of the air frame.
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You can go with an ignorant theory but it would still be wrong.
 
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Clayzz said:
I had been using the same chart and looking at that on what I would approximate the first 15 seconds of descent looked somewhat normal
I'm still guessing nose trimmed down loss of power from lack of fuel, standing on your nose 4 3 to 5 seconds response correction what would your airspeed be?
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You don't point your nose at the ground when you run out of fuel. That's not how it works at all. It's like saying running a redlight will cause your car to spontaneously combust.
 
dmspilot said:
You don't point your nose at the ground when you run out of fuel. That's not how it works at all. It's like saying running a redlight will cause your car to spontaneously combust.
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Slight difference- speed shows the drop the jumpers- still have fuel nose it over to go get another load or gas up first. I don't know the tanks on it but how low and what pitch angle causes loss.
It either structural by the jumpers (possible but maybe should hear about that from the skydive social) or structural failure within what looks like no more then 10 to 15 seconds
 
Clayzz said:
Slight difference- speed shows the drop the jumpers- still have fuel nose it over to go get another load or gas up first. I don't know the tanks on it but how low and what pitch angle causes loss.
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In English?
 
dmspilot said:
You don't point your nose at the ground when you run out of fuel. That's not how it works at all. It's like saying running a redlight will cause your car to spontaneously combust.
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See if you can open this link.woudnt work check the screeshot

Expand the smoke shot obvious grass fire
Expand the road shot shows demolition dirt,not a airplane landing attempt,and the remains-faster then a speeding rock
 

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dmspilot said:
In English?
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English version
You drop your jumpers and configure for your descent and start down.You run out of juice and slight Oh Frack
Over speed-heavy hand and suffer whatever

From Tools comment upstream
"At about 2gs, idle, prop set for about 1800rpm, 160 kts, I get about 6k fpm down."
Get me a link to drop zone.com that has the conversation about the tandem master blowing his reserve and tearing the tail off the plane, I'm open to anything that helps the spaghetti stick.
 
Clayzz said:
English version
You drop your jumpers and configure for your descent and start down.You run out of juice and slight Oh Frack
Over speed-heavy hand and suffer whatever
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In a steep descent, especially in a turbine aircraft, the power is already idle. When the engine quits, nothing happens.
 
Clayzz said:
I'm open to anything that helps the spaghetti stick.
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It might help if you quit trying to throw your spaghetti at the greased stainless steel backsplash. I don't know enough about this accident to say the plane did not run out of fuel, but even if it did, that would not have caused the plane to behave as it did. It was most likely some sort of structural failure, whether pilot induced or wear induced. It is actually much, much easier and more likely for an overspeed event to happen while the engine is capable of - and currently is - producing full power. As far as the pictures go, I don't see an "obvious grass fire", as the plane looks like it was mostly burning in the cabin and inboard wing area, which would correspond with leaking wing tanks and fuel from said tanks being the main fuel of a fire, not an outside influence such as grass.. The sheriff also said that they had received multiple reports of an explosion in the area at the time the plane went down. Last time I checked, grass fires don't create explosions but planes crashing with even what may be only ten gallons of fuel left generally do create some sort of fireball.
 
Well, I think the prop will FULL feather in the event the engine quits. With the nose down ya got at that point, you’re gonna pick up speed awful quick…

BDE2F1F5-9F82-4666-9ADA-332E91E6D102.jpeg

Here’s the view out a PAC 750, really a low wing version of the caravan. Nearly 15 degrees nose down.
 
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Tools said:
Well, I think the prop will FULL feather in the event the engine quits. With the nose down ya got at that point, you’re gonna pick up speed awful quick…
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Increased drag makes you go faster? I always thought drag was used to slow down.
 
Feathered is aligned with the wind… WAY less drag.

Until that point, yes, you are totally using the drag of the prop to get down.
 
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