Cessna Caravan down in HNL

[traumamed]

Looks like two fatal when a 208 Caravan hit a building in Honolulu today. Fortunately no ground fatalities. Appears to have been a Part 91 training flight of some sort.

News article here

ASN link

Extensive video news coverage

Edited to update details: Aircraft tail # N689KA. The aircraft had just departed KHNL when its pilot reported being "out of control" to ATC. It was observed to be in a steep left bank and collided with a vacant building at a ~90 degree bank angle.

 

[Kenny Phillips]

Looks like two fatal when a 208 Caravan hit a building in Honolulu today. Fortunately no ground fatalities. Appears to have been a Part 91 training flight of some sort.

News article here

ASN link

Extensive video news coverage

Edited to update details: Aircraft tail # N689KA. The aircraft had just departed KHNL when its pilot reported being "out of control" to ATC. It was observed to be in a steep left bank and collided with a vacant building at a ~90 degree bank angle.

Interesting that the pilot reported that particular condition; was the plane not controllable? I'll need to see how the control locks work on that.
Edit: Cargo flight, so gross misloading could be possible (wrong weights, and/or aft CG). But it didn't get far.

 

[luvflyin]

Interesting that the pilot reported that particular condition; was the plane not controllable? I'll need to see how the control locks work on that.

That, and I wonder if this was the first flight after some maintenance was done and a 'controls free and correct wasn't done.'

 

[traumamed]

That, and I wonder if this was the first flight after some maintenance was done and a 'controls free and correct wasn't done.'

The plane had only been on the ground for 67 minutes as per ADS-B data, so maintenance seems less likely. That obviously doesn't rule out a control system issue though, or even a gust lock left in place.

What is interesting is that one of the two pilots was apparently a student. As in a primary student. That seems a little sketch to have a PPL student at the controls of a plane with a 675 hp turbine and a wing loading of nearly 29 lbs/ft^2 at max gross. (A C172 is 14 lb/ft^2, for comparison.)

I wonder if left-turning tendencies +/- speed mismanagement played a role. An accelerated stall sure seems to be a possibility.

EDIT: New information indicates both pilots had commercial licenses.

 

[donjohnston]

What is interesting is that one of the two pilots was apparently a student. As in a primary student. That seems a little sketch to have a PPL student at the controls of a plane with a 675 hp turbine and a wing loading of nearly 29 lbs/ft^2 at max gross. (A C172 is 14 lb/ft^2, for comparison.)

Is there something which says the student pilot was flying the plane? I flew up front in a twin otter when I was a student pilot. Just because I was sitting in the right seat doesn't mean I was flying the plane.

 

[traumamed]

Is there something which says the student pilot was flying the plane? I flew up front in a twin otter when I was a student pilot. Just because I was sitting in the right seat doesn't mean I was flying the plane.

With both pilots dead, it may never be possible to answer that question with certainty.

 

[Tools]

Navy had a group called AFIP, armed forces institute of pathology (or something like that), that could tell those sorts of things often by forensically examining (in crazy detail) injuries and associating them with positioning.

Obviously not end all, be all, but pretty amazing.

 

[wanttaja]

Navy had a group called AFIP, armed forces institute of pathology (or something like that), that could tell those sorts of things often by forensically examining (in crazy detail) injuries and associating them with positioning.

The NTSB has a similar process...looking at hand injuries to determine who was holding the stick, etc. As you say, not necessarily definitive, but they do look into those details.

Ron Wanttaja

 

[RyanShort1]

Is there something which says the student pilot was flying the plane? I flew up front in a twin otter when I was a student pilot. Just because I was sitting in the right seat doesn't mean I was flying the plane.

I had a discussion with an FAA guy who said that there are usually hand and especially thumb fractures on the pilot flying.

 

[Zeldman]

I had a discussion with an FAA guy who said that there are usually hand and especially thumb fractures on the pilot flying.

I learned (the hard way) to let go of the steering wheel of a race car before hitting something. I wonder if I would do the same thing in an airplane if I was a nano second away from slamming into the ground and knowing this will be a fatal.??

 

[455 Bravo Uniform]

I learned (the hard way) to let go of the steering wheel of a race car before hitting something. I wonder if I would do the same thing in an airplane if I was a nano second away from slamming into the ground and knowing this will be a fatal.??

There’s flying it into the crash or until you’re tied down. I think it’d be hard to undo 100s or 1000s of hours of primacy. Plus in the end I would think there is a “brace yourself” tendency and you’re probably already gripping the controls tightly. We hope none of us has to find out.

 

[Fearless Tower]

What is interesting is that one of the two pilots was apparently a student. As in a primary student. That seems a little sketch to have a PPL student at the controls of a plane with a 675 hp turbine and a wing loading of nearly 29 lbs/ft^2 at max gross. (A C172 is 14 lb/ft^2, for comparison.)

You are ill-informed.

Loved ones mourn 2 killed in plane crash near Honolulu airport

Their identities have yet to be officially released, but loved ones have shared their names with Hawaii News Now.

www.hawaiinewsnow.com

Both pilots are in the airmen registry with commercial licenses.

It WAS an empty training flight, but not primary training.

 

[traumamed]

You are ill-informed.

Both pilots are in the airmen registry with commercial licenses.

Noted. Happy to be corrected. ASN was reporting otherwise as of 12 hours ago. New information must have become available, as happens with these things.

 

[SEB]

Is there something which says the student pilot was flying the plane? I flew up front in a twin otter when I was a student pilot. Just because I was sitting in the right seat doesn't mean I was flying the plane.

With both pilots dead, it may never be possible to answer that question with certainty.

According to the ASN link in the first post:

According to public FAA records, the first pilot held a commercial pilot and flight instructor certificate issued January 2024 with Single Engine, Multi Engine and Instrument ratings. His most recent first class FAA medical was issued on December 2024.

The second pilot also held a commercial pilot certificate issued December 2023 with Single Engine and Instrument ratings. His most recent first class FAA medical was issued on August 2024.

 

[DavidWhite]

The caravan is a very benign airplane and having a control lock in would be very difficult to do, as the control lock is designed to cover the battery, fuel pump, and avionics switches.




There is an external rudder lock as well, but you wouldn’t be able to taxi the airplane with the rudder locked. You can also disengage the rudder lock by pulling all the way back on the yoke.

edit: If I were to make a wild ass guess, I would say asymmetric flap retraction leading to a loss of lift and perhaps a stall of the left wing. I had a very similar situation happen once, but I immediately went back to flaps 20 and made a normal landing. Could be difficult to recognize for a new pilot who doesn’t know anything about the plane, and hard for the instructor to tell what’s actually going on since he isn’t flying the airplane. How high they were looks pretty normal for a retraction of flaps from 20 to 10 degrees, and perhaps it could have been worse than that if the student accidentally brought them all the way up and the right side was stuck at 20.

Flaps are definitely a weak link in the caravan systems and I have seen lots of issues with them. I used to have a diagram somewhere that shows how they worked, I’ll keep looking for it.

 

[Fearless Tower]

edit: If I were to make a wild ass guess, I would say asymmetric flap retraction leading to a loss of lift and perhaps a stall of the left wing. I had a very similar situation happen once, but I immediately went back to flaps 20 and made a normal landing. Could be difficult to recognize for a new pilot who doesn’t know anything about the plane, and hard for the instructor to tell what’s actually going on since he isn’t flying the airplane. How high they were looks pretty normal for a retraction of flaps from 20 to 10 degrees, and perhaps it could have been worse than that if the student accidentally brought them all the way up and the right side was stuck at 20.

Flaps are definitely a weak link in the caravan systems and I have seen lots of issues with them. I used to have a diagram somewhere that shows how they worked, I’ll keep looking for it.

Is normal takeoff with flaps 20 in the 208?

If so, your theory makes the most sense of anything I've heard so far and between various video feeds and reconstruction, NTSB should be able to figure it out.

 

[DavidWhite]

Is normal takeoff with flaps 20 in the 208?

If so, your theory makes the most sense of anything I've heard so far and between various video feeds and reconstruction, NTSB should be able to figure it out.

Yes, normal takeoff is flaps 20. You don’t feel much difference between 20 and 10 on retraction but if you go from 10 to 0 without doing it a couple degrees at a time it feels like the bottom is falling out.



FWIW, I would usually wait until 95-100 knots to go flaps 10, and 110-115 to go flaps 0. That kinda helped avoid the “sink” that you would get while retracting the flaps. I think that’s generally pretty standard, or at least it was for the people I flew them for.