Cessna 310R down near Las Vegas yesterday (Oct 29); two dead

Propellers “sounded like a helicopter”...massively out of sync due to an engine failure? (Just to start off the uninformed speculation.)
 
Some video of the airplane just before it crashed....

 
maybe optical illusion with the camera refresh rate, but the prop doesn't look like it successfully feathered. The pilot asserted multiple times with ATC he had shut down the engine.

Two up and a density altitude probably in the high 4000s, a C310 should be able to make it to a runway with one caged.
 
hindsight2020 said:
maybe optical illusion with the camera refresh rate, but the prop doesn't look like it successfully feathered. The pilot asserted multiple times with ATC he had shut down the engine.

Two up and a density altitude probably in the high 4000s, a C310 should be able to make it to a runway with one caged.
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I think that if I caged one, my first call would include the word "emergency", and not ask if there's any chance of a direct. I'm going direct. What killed one engine may kill two. Of course, I'm typing this in the comfort of my home.
 
My thoughts is whatever happened was sudden and unexpected. The pilot sounded calm and confident on the radio.

VMC maybe.??
 
In the quick video i saw it looked like one was feathered and one wasn’t. Both weren’t running.


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Zeldman said:
My thoughts is whatever happened was sudden and unexpected. The pilot sounded calm and confident on the radio.

VMC maybe.??
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From the video, it definitely looks like he was having a problem maintaining altitude on one engine, and that the plane ultimately lost the battle against VMC and spun into the dead engine at low altitude.

ASN's report includes a transcript of ATC communications between the aircraft and VGT tower, LAS departure and HND tower.

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/244479

If accurate (I've only listened to VGT and HND) it appears the aircraft started having problems within about three minutes after takeoff from VGT, yet the pilot opted to divert to HND instead of returning to the field. He was then shooed away by ATC from cutting across McCarren's airspace when heading toward HND.

From the comfort and safety of this armchair, it sure seems at least a couple opportunities were missed to declare an emergency and land back at VGT, or for that matter at LAS. A very sad and lamentable situation all around.

Peter Anderson said:
In the quick video i saw it looked like one was feathered and one wasn’t. Both weren’t running.
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An earlier version of the overhead video included audio that indicated one engine was still running. The left prop may appear stopped due to shutter-speed freezing.
 
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The following news report includes a brief video from a doorbell cam that shows the plane in a shallow descent, then what appears to be a VMC roll into the ground. When it’s shown in slow motion it almost looks like a puff of smoke before the roll but maybe that’s just some pixelation of the video.

 
Vero odd. It looks like a roll at the end, but they were flying nicely before hand. A VMC roll doesn’t usually happen well after the failure and after several minutes of flight... especially in level flight.
Am I interpreting the videos incorrectly?
 
Kenny Phillips said:
I think that if I caged one, my first call would include the word "emergency", and not ask if there's any chance of a direct. I'm going direct. What killed one engine may kill two. Of course, I'm typing this in the comfort of my home.
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Having just done my AMEL both the instructor and DPE drove this point home
 
Kritchlow said:
Vero odd. It looks like a roll at the end, but they were flying nicely before hand. A VMC roll doesn’t usually happen well after the failure and after several minutes of flight... especially in level flight.
Am I interpreting the videos incorrectly?
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Yeah I was perplexed too by that.. but maybe it didn't totally feather right, he got slow, saturated, and dropped the gear and flaps..??
 
TrueCourse said:
The following news report includes a brief video from a doorbell cam that shows the plane in a shallow descent, then what appears to be a VMC roll into the ground. When it’s shown in slow motion it almost looks like a puff of smoke before the roll but maybe that’s just some pixelation of the video.

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There was something just before the roll. And the roll was fast.
 
Zeldman said:
My thoughts is whatever happened was sudden and unexpected. The pilot sounded calm and confident on the radio.

VMC maybe.??
Click to expand...

He sounded a bit too calm and confident. His initial dialogue with ATC didn't even mention he had lost an engine until several minutes had passed and he had entered the LAS Bravo.

I'm surprised by the low altitude of the aircraft when it all went wrong. He was 800' AGL when he first asked for the diversion. He flew for about seven minutes, he should have been able to get to at least 1,500' AGL. The radar target showed 300' AGL when it disappeared. Was he so nonchalant about the loss of the engine he didn't feel it was necessary to gain altitude? Was the plane fully fueled and thus heavy? The spray of fuel when the plane hit was really large before it ignited. Was he trying to impress his passenger by being stone cold?

There's no need to panic after losing an engine if one is competent and adequately trained. But treating it as a non-event goes a little too far in the other direction, I think.
 
He's losing altitude, and as the ground is approaching he starts pulling back on the yoke to stop the descent. Airspeed decays beyond a recoverable situation and he VMC rolls it.

A series of bad choices were made.
1) He was closer to his departure airport when the failure took place, yet he decided to go to an airport further away.
2) Never declared an emergency
3) losing altitude approaching destination airport. Altitude is your friend, maintain an altitude till over the airport, then descend, not approaching (on one engine)
 
In an airplane ya gotta have the mindset (always) that I do - that if things go wrong I will FLY the %^$*&! airplane to survive - NOT to make some spithead on the radio happy.
Who cares what they think, when I may die because I lost critical altitude arguing with them?
Aviate
Navigate
And when you finally have time to spare some of your attention away from just-plain-survival, then Communicate
And if he has to scramble AIrforce One out of your way (shrug) because you had to turn back to pancake it cross-ways on the runway at least you will be alive to argue with them.
 
Dr. O said:
In an airplane ya gotta have the mindset (always) that I do - that if things go wrong I will FLY the %^$*&! airplane to survive - NOT to make some spithead on the radio happy.
Who cares what they think, when I may die because I lost critical altitude arguing with them?
Aviate
Navigate
And when you finally have time to spare some of your attention away from just-plain-survival, then Communicate
And if he has to scramble AIrforce One out of your way (shrug) because you had to turn back to pancake it cross-ways on the runway at least you will be alive to argue with them.
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well said

from personal experience it’s easy to say these things ...
 
So how many AMEL people practice actual engine shutdowns in flight and single engine approach and landing??

Or is that just something people do during training and then hopefully never again?

Very easy to preach the stuff but if you haven't done it in 20 years you're basically back at square ine
 
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Tantalum said:
So how many AMEL people practice actual engine shutdowns in flight and single engine approach and landing??
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Every 6 months during the checkride when I was flying for a living.

Not actually shutting down the engine, just zero thrust. And that dawggoned autopilot would get shut off at the sametime.....

I was actually surprised when I did have to shut down an engine and feathered the prop that the plane flew just as good as with the engine at zero thrust.
 
hindsight2020 said:
maybe optical illusion with the camera refresh rate, but the prop doesn't look like it successfully feathered. The pilot asserted multiple times with ATC he had shut down the engine.

Two up and a density altitude probably in the high 4000s, a C310 should be able to make it to a runway with one caged.
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I watched this video multiple times, especially pay attention to the speed and altitude of 101G. Then
I google articles of how C310 SE handling in SE (as I am not a C310 driver).
And I found the article Treat Vmc with Respect by Bob Cox that describes in detail of how C310R would behave in real emergency.

I think 101G should've just landed at KLAS next to him when one engine failed instead of pressing on to KHND. His speed decayed just like what described in the article, from 100 down to 90 to 80 (Vmc) and altitude too. He just ran out of options even everything he did by the book.

Several years ago at my home airport (KEMT), a C310 landed into the Rio Hondo Wash that parallel to runway after lost an engine right after take off. No one hurts in that incident and I guess that pilot made a right decision.

How about when the airplane lowered to less than 200 feet agl, he could have just cut the power and landed on a street or an empty lot and he could have just survived?
 
jpskies said:
He just ran out of options even everything he did by the book.
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If his speed decayed, he didn’t do everything by the book.
jpskies said:
How about when the airplane lowered to less than 200 feet agl, he could have just cut the power and landed on a street or an empty lot and he could have just survived?
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That’s often the answer, but when the answer is basically “crash the airplane and hope it doesn’t hurt too much,” it’s pretty tough to do.
 
MauleSkinner said:
If his speed decayed, he didn’t do everything by the book.

That’s often the answer, but when the answer is basically “crash the airplane and hope it doesn’t hurt too much,” it’s pretty tough to do.
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That IS the tough part indeed. The formal twin engine training I've been put through is geared to what I call "saving the plane". You know "identify, verify, feather prop, 5 degree bank", and so forth.

The idea that one can reduce or remove the power on the good engine (to reduce or eliminate Vmc) is rarely brought up.

Better to put the plane down wings level and under control, even off airport, than to stuff it nose first after stalling the vertical stab/rudder.
 
GRG55 said:
That IS the tough part indeed. The formal twin engine training I've been put through is geared to what I call "saving the plane". You know "identify, verify, feather prop, 5 degree bank", and so forth.

The idea that one can reduce or remove the power on the good engine (to reduce or eliminate Vmc) is rarely brought up.

Better to put the plane down wings level and under control, even off airport, than to stuff it nose first after stalling the vertical stab/rudder.
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Noted, but isn't NA 310 SE service ceiling is like 6.5-7k DA at MGW? Probably higher given the payload count of this flight. The "standard drill" should have been enough to bring that spam can back around. Now, if statistically that's too much to ask of the average piston twin participant (to include not boning up single-engine approach speed control), well.... [insert BRS marketing video here].
 
hindsight2020 said:
Noted, but isn't NA 310 SE service ceiling is like 6.5-7k DA at MGW? Probably higher given the payload count of this flight. The "standard drill" should have been enough to bring that spam can back around. Now, if statistically that's too much to ask of the average piston twin participant (to include not boning up single-engine approach speed control), well.... [insert BRS marketing video here].
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Unfortunately the “average piston twin participant” probably doesn’t exist.

there are, IMO, far too many pilots who think being able to manage an engine failure is something that they merely have to be trained on in order to pass the checkride. 6 months or a year later, we start basically from scratch, get them up to standard, and the give them the checkride.
 
GRG55 said:
The idea that one can reduce or remove the power on the good engine (to reduce or eliminate Vmc) is rarely brought up.
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We did a fair amount of VMC demos in my ME training. You can really feel the plane just give up as you approach, and ultimately pass red line. The first response taught was to reduce power then drop the nose. Very easy to say that though when terra firma is at least a mile below you and you aren't under duress

The VMC demos were the most valuable part of the training for me


..no not in the Aztec yet, these were in the Duchess
 
MauleSkinner said:
If his speed decayed, he didn’t do everything by the book.

That’s often the answer, but when the answer is basically “crash the airplane and hope it doesn’t hurt too much,” it’s pretty tough to do.
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There was a lot of open space surrounding that wall that he crashed into.
 
Palmpilot said:
There was a lot of open space surrounding that wall that he crashed into.
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True. But given the fixation most pilots have for runways, it’s very likely that “open space” is still going to look like an impending crash.
 
MauleSkinner said:
True. But given the fixation most pilots have for runways, it’s very likely that “open space” is still going to look like an impending crash.
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Yeah, fixation definitely could have been involved.
 
Doc Holliday said:
The guy had a perfectly good runway he just left, and fly right past a huge airport with huge runways. :eek:
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Yes, and he never got much above 800 AGL. If that was due to performance issues, a closer landing site definitely would seem to be indicated.

N101G 29oct2020.png

N101G Flight Path.png
 
hindsight2020 said:
Noted, but isn't NA 310 SE service ceiling is like 6.5-7k DA at MGW? Probably higher given the payload count of this flight. The "standard drill" should have been enough to bring that spam can back around. Now, if statistically that's too much to ask of the average piston twin participant (to include not boning up single-engine approach speed control), well.... [insert BRS marketing video here].
Click to expand...

Weight plays into that SE performance and ceiling equation. A lot. That's why I fly my Aztec light almost all the time, and always when I am westbound out of my 4000 ASL home field heading across the Divide.

And yes, maybe according to the performance charts and tables one should be able to "bring that spam can around". But when one engine is firewalled and both altitude and airspeed are declining, as they seem to have been in this pilot's case, it's probably time to stop wondering or hoping and do what's actually needed to keep the wings level and the airplane under control...even if that means pulling the throttle on the good engine.

My attitude is that in the event of an engine failure I'm never going to be any worse off for options than if I was flying a single engine airplane in the same situation.

Doc Holliday said:
The guy had a perfectly good runway he just left, and fly right past a huge airport with huge runways. :eek:
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Seems like a series of sequentially poor decisions that eventually narrowed the options to zero.
 
jpskies said:
How about when the airplane lowered to less than 200 feet agl, he could have just cut the power and landed on a street or an empty lot and he could have just survived?
Click to expand...

This is one of my favorite teaching points in a Vmca demo: To make everything simple and get rid of all that rolling/yawing stuff, just reduce power on the good engine and accept the eventual descent and landing, airport or not, just like a single engine airplane.


MauleSkinner said:
True. But given the fixation most pilots have for runways, it’s very likely that “open space” is still going to look like an impending crash.
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If unable to maintain altitude or airspeed, the pilot should be committed to a landing, regardless of what is available on the surface. How many pilots actually get to land "off airport" any more? It seems like extremely valuable experience to me. No centerline, no distance markers, no annoying ATC.

We train pilots to keep an awareness of possible emergency landing sites as they fly, but how often is this exercised?


GRG55 said:
Seems like a series of sequentially poor decisions that eventually narrowed the options to zero.
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Yep. I call it "Delaying the inevitable," (Hat tip Bill Kershner)
 
Is it just me or if you lose an engine in a twin it is an emergency. I never heard him declare an emergency, why? This would have given him priority over all other aircraft and as said above I would have been heading towards McCarran with their nice long runways and emergency personnel.
 
I’m not a twin driver but if I were I’d declare in an instant. Single engine performance is seriously degraded, get down ASAP.
 
jd21476 said:
Is it just me or if you lose an engine in a twin it is an emergency. I never heard him declare an emergency, why? This would have given him priority over all other aircraft and as said above I would have been heading towards McCarran with their nice long runways and emergency personnel.
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It need not necessarily be an emergency. No different than it's not automatically an emergency if you lose the only engine in a single.
 
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