Angel Flight down in NY

donkep said:
My theory: hub failure on one of the engines causing a prop blade to depart; followed by catastrophic vibration and in-flight structural failure and break up.
Thoughts?
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Many possibilities....we could speculate for weeks. Might as well wit and see what the experts actually find.
 
LDJones said:
Many possibilities....we could speculate for weeks. Might as well wit and see what the experts actually find.
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:yeahthat:

But if it is a structural failure, that makes me stomach turn and heart ache. :(
 
LDJones said:
Many possibilities....we could speculate for weeks. Might as well wit and see what the experts actually find.
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I agree with your many possibilities and we can speculate for weeks, and in fact may even speculate after the experts come out with their explanation. However, I have learned much from both the speculation before the official reports and after the report has come out. So for me I do not find the speculation to be worthless but find it quite informative and educational.

My heart goes out for the victims.
 
douglas393 said:
I agree with your many possibilities and we can speculate for weeks, and in fact may even speculate after the experts come out with their explanation. However, I have learned much from both the speculation before the official reports and after the report has come out. So for me I do not find the speculation to be worthless but find it quite informative and educational.

My heart goes out for the victims.
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Agree 100% :yes:
 
ClimbnSink said:
Do they? Seems they put one in the dirt quite often.
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Maybe so, this is the first one I remember. As for MediVac (West plains, mo I believe) flights, there have been several I believe. I may be wrong though.

Sorry Air Evac, not MediVac.
 
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TriGear28 said:
Maybe so, this is the first one I remember. As for MediVac (West plains, mo I believe) flights, there have been several I believe. I may be wrong though.

Sorry Air Evac, not MediVac.
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Angel Flight crashed one here in MA just a couple of years ago.
 
ClimbnSink said:
Angel Flight crashed one here in MA just a couple of years ago.
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I remember three fatals prior to this one:
- one was the unbelted kid in the TBM that had to take off with a thunderstorm rolling in
- one was a downwind takeoff in Tampa
- one was the old Bo with a marginally current pilot in IMC in Boston.

There have been some non-fatal incidents. Someone ran off the end of a runway in a rather new G36 last year.

Given that in the same timeframe, tens of thousands of angel flights have been concluded safely, three fatals are not necessarily a high number.
 
murphey said:
IIRC, AngelFlight West has never had a fatality, nor an accident.
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FWIW, AFW is probably the most professionally organized and run outfit of them all. I used to be an AFW member and now on the east coast, I have not seen the level of organization and involvement here that I did in SoCal.
 
Maybe I am saying something that is clearly obvious to everyone, but I think it needs to be said, whatever the ultimate cause of this crash, which to me is quite obvious a inflight structural breakup, it is not the fault of Angel Flight. Angel Flight is an organization that as far as I know provides a means for patients who need nonemergent transportation for medical care with pilots who are willing to volunteer their own time, and planes for transportation. Angel flight has minimum standards for allowing the pilots to be involved, but beyond that are not responsible for training or maintenance of the planes. On another board one pilot stated that he feels reluctant to scrub flights because of the reason of the flight, and insinuated he has flown in conditions he was not truly comfortable with because of this. Whether or not this is a widespread practice, I do not know, but I can certainly see it happening. Human nature sometimes does that to us.

I think we should be proud that organizations such as Angel Flight exist, and support them as best we can.

As for the cause of the structural breakup, I am trying to remember any report of a plane that just broke up midflight and it was determined not to be pilot related. I am sure they exist, I just do not remember ever seeing one. Everytime I have seen one it has been due to exceeding the structural limits of the plane because of the pilot entering conditions they should have not entered, or entered a flight attitude/situation that caused the structural limitations to be exceeded.
 
douglas393 said:
As for the cause of the structural breakup, I am trying to remember any report of a plane that just broke up midflight and it was determined not to be pilot related. I am sure they exist, I just do not remember ever seeing one. Everytime I have seen one it has been due to exceeding the structural limits of the plane because of the pilot entering conditions they should have not entered, or entered a flight attitude/situation that caused the structural limitations to be exceeded.
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I had thought a Cessna 402 with 30k+ hours had a wing fall off without a pilot input error, but I don't know the report there.

I've been reading through the NTSB reports on 310s out of interest. I'm not done yet, but so far what few structural failuures I found seemed to involve overloading of the airplane by a pilot who made bad inputs or flew into a thunderstorm. One issue with an elevator trim tab that had the linkage installed improperly. On the test flight the linkage came off and the plane nosed into the ground.
 
douglas393 said:
As for the cause of the structural breakup, I am trying to remember any report of a plane that just broke up midflight and it was determined not to be pilot related. I am sure they exist, I just do not remember ever seeing one. Everytime I have seen one it has been due to exceeding the structural limits of the plane because of the pilot entering conditions they should have not entered, or entered a flight attitude/situation that caused the structural limitations to be exceeded.
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Only non-pilot error one I can think of off the top of my head is the Chalks Albatross down in FL that lost the wing after takeoff due to pre-existing corrosion. Maintenance should have identified the problem prior to the failure, but not the kind of thing the pilots would have been able to detect.
 
murphey said:
IIRC, AngelFlight West has never had a fatality, nor an accident.
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They are due to call me today (I'm a member, one mission so far with a six year old burn patient - we flew a V-Tail Bo and I was assistant to the pilot).

When Angel Flight West calls me today, I'll ask. I have not heard of anything.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I had thought a Cessna 402 with 30k+ hours had a wing fall off without a pilot input error, but I don't know the report there.

I've been reading through the NTSB reports on 310s out of interest. I'm not done yet, but so far what few structural failuures I found seemed to involve overloading of the airplane by a pilot who made bad inputs or flew into a thunderstorm. One issue with an elevator trim tab that had the linkage installed improperly. On the test flight the linkage came off and the plane nosed into the ground.
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My recollection on the 402 that inspired the spar AD:

pilot noticed that a lot of aileron trim was required to hold wings level. Investigation showed that the spar was significantly if not completely cracked through and the skin was carrying most or all of the bending load. naturally the wing was deflecting because of this, causing the roll tendency.

I assume the pilot was very thankful that that was a smooth flight
 
tonycondon said:
My recollection on the 402 that inspired the spar AD:

pilot noticed that a lot of aileron trim was required to hold wings level. Investigation showed that the spar was significantly if not completely cracked through and the skin was carrying most or all of the bending load. naturally the wing was deflecting because of this, causing the roll tendency.
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:eek:
Yeah, that's something you don't want to ignore for very long... :no:
 
There was at least one 402 for which the wing fell off in smooth air and thepilot died - said pilot was a friend of Danos.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
There was at least one 402 for which the wing fell off in smooth air and thepilot died - said pilot was a friend of Danos.
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I think you are referring to the 402 crash that happened south of OKC a number of years back. IIRC the airplane was a freight hauler out of Denton, TX. Numerous spar and wing repairs over the years and ultimately failed in clear air on a nice day. I was actually out flying that day in the same area.
 
douglas393 said:
Maybe I am saying something that is clearly obvious to everyone, but I think it needs to be said, whatever the ultimate cause of this crash, which to me is quite obvious a inflight structural breakup, it is not the fault of Angel Flight. Angel Flight is an organization that as far as I know provides a means for patients who need nonemergent transportation for medical care with pilots who are willing to volunteer their own time, and planes for transportation. Angel flight has minimum standards for allowing the pilots to be involved, but beyond that are not responsible for training or maintenance of the planes. On another board one pilot stated that he feels reluctant to scrub flights because of the reason of the flight, and insinuated he has flown in conditions he was not truly comfortable with because of this. Whether or not this is a widespread practice, I do not know, but I can certainly see it happening. Human nature sometimes does that to us.

I think we should be proud that organizations such as Angel Flight exist, and support them as best we can.

As for the cause of the structural breakup, I am trying to remember any report of a plane that just broke up midflight and it was determined not to be pilot related. I am sure they exist, I just do not remember ever seeing one. Everytime I have seen one it has been due to exceeding the structural limits of the plane because of the pilot entering conditions they should have not entered, or entered a flight attitude/situation that caused the structural limitations to be exceeded.
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Agreed on all points. :thumbsup:
 
Just heard back from Angel Flight West. For obvious reasons, the woman who responded to me asked that I do not forward her email to anyone.

However, she did give permission for me to share in my own words since most is public knowledge:

1. No fatal accidents during missions with patients on board. One catastrophic engine failure many years ago, pilot and his wife were on their way to get a patient at another airport, and both were killed after takeoff from their home airport. Made major news since the guy was an ex game show host / celebrity. She did not share his name. She says the "engine threw a rod". Took off from Santa Monica Airport, crashed into Santa Monica Bay.

2. No accidents involving damages to planes or people, though there have been some incidents which required an immediate landing. However she was very proud to state that all patients willingly got into another plane to complete the mission and some were not even scared due to the professional way the pilot handled the situation.

They are a really great group of people (Angel Flight West).
 
Preliminary NTSB report is in:
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20130524X84708&key=1

The plane was in VMC. A little over a minute before the crash, it turned about 60 degrees to the right, proceeded in that direction for a minute, then entered a rapidly descending left turn for about 20 seconds before falling off the radar.

That information seems consistent with entering a spiral dive with the plane still intact at that point. But the daytime VMC precludes spatial disorientation as the cause. Maybe pilot incapacitation?

(The debris field was one mile long, not five as previously reported.)
 
acrophile said:
Preliminary NTSB report is in:
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20130524X84708&key=1

The plane was in VMC. A little over a minute before the crash, it turned about 60 degrees to the right, proceeded in that direction for a minute, then entered a rapidly descending left turn for about 20 seconds before falling off the radar.

That information seems consistent with entering a spiral dive with the plane still intact at that point. But the daytime VMC precludes spatial disorientation as the cause. Maybe pilot incapacitation?

(The debris field was one mile long, not five as previously reported.)
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I only have two hours in twins but this sounds similar to what has been described to me as what happens if you do not compensate correctly if you have one engine out. I do not know.
 
douglas393 said:
I only have two hours in twins but this sounds similar to what has been described to me as what happens if you do not compensate correctly if you have one engine out.
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Conceivably. But if there'd been any serious mechanical problem, I'd expect ATC to have been notified during the minute that the plane was level but off course (while IFR in VMC) prior to the descending left turn. But no such communication is reported.
 
acrophile said:
Conceivably. But if there'd been any serious mechanical problem, I'd expect ATC to have been notified during the minute that the plane was level but off course (while IFR in VMC) prior to the descending left turn. But no such communication is reported.
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Sounds almost like he was deviating around something (storm cell), but you'd think he would have informed ATC of that as well.

Just guessing here, but pilot incapacitation seems a definite possibility.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Sounds almost like he was deviating around something (storm cell), but you'd think he would have informed ATC of that as well.

Just guessing here, but pilot incapacitation seems a definite possibility.
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Just trying to think of what type of sudden pilot incapacitation would cause the plane to suddenly enter a "death spiral" and inflight breakup. Unless the plane was poorly trimmed I would think even if the pilot suddenly was incapacitated, sudden massive cerebral hemorrhage for example, the plane would still fly straight and level for some time allowing for some ATC communication by the passenger.
 
douglas393 said:
Just trying to think of what type of sudden pilot incapacitation would cause the plane to suddenly enter a "death spiral" and inflight breakup. Unless the plane was poorly trimmed I would think even if the pilot suddenly was incapacitated, sudden massive cerebral hemorrhage for example, the plane would still fly straight and level for some time allowing for some ATC communication by the passenger.
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Doesn't have to be sudden.

Again, just theorizing, but something medical causing the pilot to become disoriented. Kind of like a car on the highway....pilot becomes disoriented and drifts off course....hits the rumble strip and because he is not fully with it overreacts and gets himself into a worse situation that he can't recover from because he isn't fully with it.
 
douglas393 said:
Unless the plane was poorly trimmed I would think even if the pilot suddenly was incapacitated, sudden massive cerebral hemorrhage for example, the plane would still fly straight and level for some time allowing for some ATC communication by the passenger.
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Hard to say. A disabled pilot might jostle the controls. A passenger doesn't necessarily know how to broadcast over the radio, and wouldn't necessarily think to try immediately.
 
From looking into 310 structural failures, ALL of them were night, IMC, or both. Pilot got disoriented (or maybe fell asleep) and then yanked too hard trying to get out of it.

It would be my guess that is what happened.
 
Don't see where we are getting the plane was in VMC. He was IFR and the weather as reported in the prelim shows light rain and overcast around 3k feet, at a weather station 40mi from the accident site.
 
dell30rb said:
Don't see where we are getting the plane was in VMC. He was IFR and the weather as reported in the prelim shows light rain and overcast around 3k feet, at a weather station 40mi from the accident site.
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As weilke said, the VMC statement comes from the NTSB prelim. But like you, I am curious based on the reported weather how they established that.
 
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