Cessna 303 forced landing for icing in SW SD

gkainz

gkainz

Final Approach
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Greg Kainz
Hmmm.. wonder what the full story is here. Looks like the plane has boots.
 
It's not often you see a Crusader, there weren't many built. I have to think now there's one fewer.
 
A cold pocket? What is that? Will be interesting to read the WX forecast for that area. Got to give the pilot some credit for recognizing the situation and saving the passengers.
 
wsuffa said:
Hmmm.. wonder what the full story is here. Looks like the plane has boots.
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Boots are not a guarantee that you will be able to stay airborne when icing is encountered. The FIKI cert requirements are specific and do not include SLD or severe icing. Some airplanes by their basic design are going to handle ice better than others. The Aztec handled it well because the thing was so unaerodynamic it was hard to make it worse. Twin Cessnas do ok, but not as well as the Pipers. A plane with more antennas will do worse because the antennas will collect more ice and slow the plane down further, causing it to collect even more ice.

The effectiveness of boots is also not fantastic nor is their reliability, and we don't know the condition of the boots. If they had holes in them then they might not have worked well, there could've been a leak in the system, some bad valve, or they could have been left untreated. You need to treat them in order for them to have maximum effectiveness. The 303 is underpowered, and they had 4 people on board so it was somewhat heavy. Not something I'd want to take into icing.

Judging from the damage, it looks to me as though they ended up stalling at some point off the ground rather than making a fully controlled landing. Fortunately that looks to have happened close to the ground, or else they would've ended up with much more than minor injuries.
 
The Crusader also has some issues with icing affecting the cruciform tail and not being able to shed it causing some oddball aerodynamic issues back there, as I recall.

I’ve always loved the look of the things, though. They look like the Commander singles which I also like the looks of. It’s the tail.

But that tail is somewhat problematic.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Boots are not a guarantee that you will be able to stay airborne when icing is encountered. The FIKI cert requirements are specific and do not include SLD or severe icing. Some airplanes by their basic design are going to handle ice better than others. The Aztec handled it well because the thing was so unaerodynamic it was hard to make it worse. Twin Cessnas do ok, but not as well as the Pipers. A plane with more antennas will do worse because the antennas will collect more ice and slow the plane down further, causing it to collect even more ice.

The effectiveness of boots is also not fantastic nor is their reliability, and we don't know the condition of the boots. If they had holes in them then they might not have worked well, there could've been a leak in the system, some bad valve, or they could have been left untreated. You need to treat them in order for them to have maximum effectiveness. The 303 is underpowered, and they had 4 people on board so it was somewhat heavy. Not something I'd want to take into icing.

Judging from the damage, it looks to me as though they ended up stalling at some point off the ground rather than making a fully controlled landing. Fortunately that looks to have happened close to the ground, or else they would've ended up with much more than minor injuries.
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Yes, I understand the shortcomings of boots and FIKI. My point is that we really still don't know what a "cold pocket" was or the rest of the situation - or even if the boots had been checked. Was it SLD? Was it clear ice? Was it raining when the cold pocket was hit? We don't know whether the boots would have been effective or not.

The fact that there even were boots is indication that they should have at least thought about the weather.
 
wsuffa said:
Yes, I understand the shortcomings of boots and FIKI. My point is that we really still don't know what a "cold pocket" was or the rest of the situation - or even if the boots had been checked. Was it SLD? Was it clear ice? Was it raining when the cold pocket was hit? We don't know whether the boots would have been effective or not.

The fact that there even were boots is indication that they should have at least thought about the weather.
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Pilots should always think about the weather and icing considerations regardless of whether or not there are boots. I see a lot of people on here who go off flying into IMC below freezing and then wonder why they get ice, in planes with no de-icing equipment other than pitot heat.

The thing is, icing forecasts, while better than they used to be, are still not that great. My guess is they got some SLD.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Pilots should always think about the weather and icing considerations regardless of whether or not there are boots. I see a lot of people on here who go off flying into IMC below freezing and then wonder why they get ice, in planes with no de-icing equipment other than pitot heat.
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I recently had my first couple experiences with ice, in a FIKI plane, and that can be some scary stuff. I cannot imagine what that must be like in a plane without any ice protection, in layers of overcast and broken clouds, with unforgiving terrain below, and tops that are either beyond you or the plane's capabilities. Stuff builds up fast. I agree, there seems to be an under appreciation for the dangers of ice.. namely how remarkably fast it can build up

Many months (years?) ago there was a thread on here about what we wish we had learned more about during training. I would like to add real world icing encounters to that. We all read about it, and understand it on principle, but having actually flown in the stuff a couple times now it's much more "crap this is the real deal now" then reading about in a text book
 
Tantalum said:
there seems to be an under appreciation for the dangers of ice.. namely how remarkably fast it can build up
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I was impressed by this urgent pilot report a few years ago, from a Horizon Air Dash 8 on V4 between Seattle and Yakima:

FL120/TP DH8B/TA M20/IC SEV MX/RM A/C IN CLOUD 4 SECONDS-1/4 INCH ACCUMULATION

:eek:
 
Tantalum said:
I recently had my first couple experiences with ice, in a FIKI plane, and that can be some scary stuff. I cannot imagine what that must be like in a plane without any ice protection, in layers of overcast and broken clouds, with unforgiving terrain below, and tops that are either beyond you or the plane's capabilities. Stuff builds up fast. I agree, there seems to be an under appreciation for the dangers of ice.. namely how remarkably fast it can build up

Many months (years?) ago there was a thread on here about what we wish we had learned more about during training. I would like to add real world icing encounters to that. We all read about it, and understand it on principle, but having actually flown in the stuff a couple times now it's much more "crap this is the real deal now" then reading about in a text book
Click to expand...

One of the things about icing is that it is a very wide spectrum. I had one time that I was literally flying in icing for 4 hours in the Aztec, but it built so slowly I only had to hit the boots about once every half hour. So, it was trace icing. It was an odd front that I had flown through, interesting weather all around that day.

Then you have icing that actually causes a problem and causes it quickly. Fortunately there's enough data these days that you can generally come up with a good plan if you know what you're looking at, with appropriate outs. But sometimes planes hit stuff that's bad enough (or handled poorly) and it causes problems. Most of the time (not all the time) from what I've seen, icing crashes are really pilots mishandling an icing encounter. Doing things like leaving the autopilot on until the plane stops flying, letting airspeed decay too much, etc.

One problem I see is that a lot of people will basically jump into the pressurized world before they get good icing experience in a naturally aspirated bird. Then they fly above the ice and don't gain the education they really need. Then again, a lot of those people also don't ever hand fly and use the autopilot all the time, so they don't keep sharp on skills for actually flying the plane.

Last week at the MU-2 convention one of the speakers pointed out that Loss Of Control crashes have now surpassed CFIT as the #1 killer of Part 91 GA. Is it any wonder with pilots who don't fly much and let the autopilot get all the practice? Kick off the stupid thing and fly the airplane.

Now get off my lawn. Damn kids.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Last week at the MU-2 convention one of the speakers pointed out that Loss Of Control crashes have now surpassed CFIT as the #1 killer of Part 91 GA. Is it any wonder with pilots who don't fly much and let the autopilot get all the practice? Kick off the stupid thing and fly the airplane.
Click to expand...

And it isn’t just LOC in the air causing accidents, LOC on the ground isn’t usually fatal, but LOC ground incidents are on the rise, according to the DPEs here who listened to a presentation on it from FAA. 0-40 knots.

Ya gotta fly the dang airplane... from start to stop.
 
denverpilot said:
And it isn’t just LOC in the air causing accidents, LOC on the ground isn’t usually fatal, but LOC ground incidents are on the rise, according to the DPEs here who listened to a presentation on it from FAA. 0-40 knots.

Ya gotta fly the dang airplane... from start to stop.
Click to expand...

One friend puts at the top of his checklist: "FTFAF"

Fly The ****ing Airplane First
 
By the way, I'm not saying the pilot of this aircraft WASN'T flying the plane. I have no information to gauge that, other than it does look like he stalled into the ground rather than flew into it.

My point is more for everyone reading this.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
One friend puts at the top of his checklist: "FTFAF"

Fly The ****ing Airplane First
Click to expand...

Makes sense to me. I recently learned there’s an average of one off-runway excursion per WEEK at my home ‘drome. And it’s usually not people in training.

Which just causes me to raise an eyebrow and peer over my old man glasses. (At least they’re Oakley’s... hahaha.)
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Last week at the MU-2 convention one of the speakers pointed out that Loss Of Control crashes have now surpassed CFIT as the #1 killer of Part 91 GA. Is it any wonder with pilots who don't fly much and let the autopilot get all the practice? Kick off the stupid thing and fly the airplane
Click to expand...
+1

Seriously. I get if you fly for a living, but from the recreational side I really enjoy hand flying.. isn't that why we became pilots in the first place? Workload permitting I like to handfly up to cruise alt. Granted... if there's any kind of actual IMC with a departure procedure, etc., it's a great workload tool
 
Ted DuPuis said:
other than it does look like he stalled into the ground rather than flew into it
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Yeah, the fact that the gear wasn't down would suggest he had a hard time maintaining airspeed and opted for the belly flop.

denverpilot said:
Makes sense to me. I recently learned there’s an average of one off-runway excursion per WEEK at my home ‘drome. And it’s usually not people in training.
Click to expand...
yeah... that's common around SEE and MYF as well.. even if not an off runway incursion the "oops I clipped the wing by accident on the tail of the Bonanza" is too commong
 
denverpilot said:
Makes sense to me. I recently learned there’s an average of one off-runway excursion per WEEK at my home ‘drome. And it’s usually not people in training.

Which just causes me to raise an eyebrow and peer over my old man glasses. (At least they’re Oakley’s... hahaha.)
Click to expand...

Despite being 50 years or so his junior (guessing), I believe I have taken Wayne Bower's place as the resident crotchety old man on this forum.

Tantalum said:
Yeah, the fact that the gear wasn't down would suggest he had a hard time maintaining airspeed and opted for the belly flop
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that depending on the soil condition he may have planned on a belly landing anyway by that point. Around here it's been raining enough that I wouldn't want to have the potential of gear digging in and flipping over, I'd likely just belly it in.
 
Tantalum said:
I recently had my first couple experiences with ice, in a FIKI plane, and that can be some scary stuff. I cannot imagine what that must be like in a plane without any ice protection, in layers of overcast and broken clouds, with unforgiving terrain below, and tops that are either beyond you or the plane's capabilities. Stuff builds up fast. I agree, there seems to be an under appreciation for the dangers of ice.. namely how remarkably fast it can build up

Many months (years?) ago there was a thread on here about what we wish we had learned more about during training. I would like to add real world icing encounters to that. We all read about it, and understand it on principle, but having actually flown in the stuff a couple times now it's much more "crap this is the real deal now" then reading about in a text book
Click to expand...

I burned a day's vacation and went home on Monday once, because my weather briefing included an emergency PIREP for moderate icing about 5nm off the airway at 7500 going past BLF (Bluefield, WV). Seems it was from a Cirrus, he musta been trusting his chute to get him through. Never heard of an accident there, though.

This was very close to my route home. No icing the next day, but still cold with occasional light snow in IMC, which kept me hyper alert but didn't stick (itty bitty flakes).
 
I would say the pilot at least did a good job of flying the airplane after encountering the severe ice. Too many times pilots have sacrificed air speed for altitude and end up in a stall/spin/fatal crash. That was one focus I was taught when learning to fly in weather and ice, fly the airplane and accept what performance you can get. The other was to have a plan B, C, D, and be working on plan E.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
...Keep in mind that depending on the soil condition he may have planned on a belly landing anyway by that point. Around here it's been raining enough that I wouldn't want to have the potential of gear digging in and flipping over, I'd likely just belly it in.
Click to expand...

If the plane is so heavily iced up it cannot maintain altitude I doubt it's a good idea to extend the gear (or the flaps). At a minimum it's going to increase the already higher than desired vertical descent rate. Or it could make a controllable situation much, much worse.

Whether it was deliberate or just plain good luck, if the pilot stalled it in, wings level, very close to the ground that means minimum forward velocity and maximum survivability. But if one is doing try to do that deliberately, better get it right on the first try. ;)
 
I doubt the aircraft stalled. Because of the ice, the pilot couldn't arrest the rate of descent and do a normal flare.

If you look again at the photo in the linked article, the aircraft turned almost 180 degrees as it slid across the field. The vegetation is damaged in front of the nose, not behind it. The dirt on the fuselage is also an indication it turned.

The damage looks to be consistent with a hard landing, not a stall.
 
DavidWhite said:
Thats what happens when you forget to turn on any of the anti/de-ice equipment.
Click to expand...

I couldn't imagine not looking at my surfaces and having the IOAT in my scan, also doesn't the van have that icing conditions warning light?
 
James331 said:
I couldn't imagine not looking at my surfaces and having the IOAT in my scan, also doesn't the van have that icing conditions warning light?
Click to expand...

It has an idiot light/buzzer that warns when you get below minimum icing speed. It is the same sound as the stall horn and it is hooked up to the prop heat, so if that chick in buffalo had her prop heat on and was indicating 80 knots or whatever you would certainly have been able to hear it over her screeching.
 
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