Fatal twin crash at Palwaukee

mikea

mikea

Touchdown! Greaser!
Gone West
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4 on board. Sounds to me like an engine failure and single engine loss of control and rollover? As I recall the weather wasn't that bad.

This was only a few miles away. Jann was driving by when she pulled over to let the Wheeling Fire Department emergency response vehicles go to the scene. One of my CFIs is a soon-to-retire officer of the Wheeling FD.

Four people were killed when a twin-engine corporate airplane crashed and burst into flames as it was preparing to land at Palwaukee Municipal Airport in the northwest suburbs Monday night.

The plane, inbound from Olathe, Kan., went down about 6:30 p.m. in a fiery flash in the storage yard of DeGraf Concrete Construction Inc. in the 300 block of Alderman in Wheeling.

Federal investigators were trying to determine why the eight- to 10-seat Cessna 421 crashed.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-plane31.html
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A twin-engine Cessna airplane went down in Wheeling as it approached Palwaukee Municipal Airport on Monday night, killing the pilot and three passengers in a fiery crash whose cause remains a mystery.

Officials said that about 6:30 p.m., a Cessna 421B coming from Olathe, Kan., tumbled from the sky a half-mile southwest of the airport. One witness, Mike Donis, 18, of Prospect Heights, said it had appeared to be heading for a safe landing when it began to spiral downward.
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0601310251jan31,1,6578601.story?coll=chi-news-hed
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This being Palwaukee, not even the people who moved across the street are making any noises calling for the airport to be closed.
 
C421B can be a handle single engine. Especially if the prop was unable to feather correctly. Very sad indeed, sorry.

Brent Bradford
ex-C421B driver
 
mikea said:
Hey, they have seven CAR crashes in this area EVERY month!
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That is not really exciting news. We know they love to report aircraft accidents in the media and then butcher the facts. Ofcourse I'm sure all those car crashes do not result in fatalities.

Well sad news none the less... :(
 
mikea said:
The TV stations and newspapers have the security camera footage of the crash.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0602010243feb01,1,2515353.story?coll=chi-news-hed
http://www.nbc5.com/news/6626672/detail.html

It looks like an engine failure and a pilot on the Tribune article is saying he encountered ice landing at Waukegan at the same time.

Two on board were pilots. One, Mark Turek, was a Lifeline Pilots volunteer.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-plane01.html
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Not sure where you go the engine failure part from. The article says
Investigators said impact marks made on one of the plane's charred propeller blades showed that one engine was working, but evidence on the status of the second engine was inconclusive.
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All that means they are still looking.
 
smigaldi said:
Not sure where you go the engine failure part from. The article says

All that means they are still looking.
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Yeah. It's obviously a loss of control and a wing over - I've been thinking due to engine failure but it could simply be a stall/spin due to overcontrol on a base to final turn or somesuch.
 
mikea said:
Yeah. It's obviously a loss of control and a wing over - I've been thinking due to engine failure but it could simply be a stall/spin due to overcontrol on a base to final turn or somesuch.
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I don't know either and we probably won't see the report for at least a year. Whether it was engine failure or not I do think he got himself into a stall/spin situation and could not get out of it.

People at work have been asking em all sorts of questions, as usual, when these things happen. It has not been helping that many of them know of my current maintenance wohs with the ECI AD. It seems that somehow since I have to replace all four of my cylinders and a plane has crashed that those two events are related and that I am damn lucky that one of the cylinders did not 'blow up' and cause me to crash. :dunno:
 
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0704020446apr03,1,4411329.story?coll=chi-news-hed

The report is out and it sounds like he got slow and was too low.

Both propellers exhibited damage consistent with impact and no indications of a pre-impact failure were found,
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Radar records showed that as it approached the airport, the plane went from about 190 m.p.h. around 6:26 p.m. to about 126 m.p.h. around 6:28 and then dropped to about 94 m.p.h. just after 6:29 p.m., the report found.

A Cessna 421 can stall around 98 m.p.h., depending on whether its landing gear is down and other factors, according to the report.

"Unfortunately, that is too slow in that airplane," Robb said of the Cessna's speed just before the crash. "His heading was good. Everything else looked good."
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Hate to see this. I'm anal about being below blue line until committed to land. I will let approach slow me if high or faster, but not low and slow. They tried to do it to me Sunday as I was coming in behind a Mooney. At about 300 feet agl and maybe a 1/2 mile they told me to do S turns to slow. I declined, told them I was too low to be slowing more. I'd watch the Mooney and if necessary, go around.

Don't know what happened here, but low and slow with a sharp turn just isn't something I'll do (especially in a twin).

Best,

Dave
 
While not directly saying so, they are inferring icing had something to do with it.
 
Dave, I take it you mean *above* blue line? its 125 mph IIRC on 421B. At least on ours, with VG's installed. PWK is a busy place, I went in there in a 182 and was myself tempted to get awfully slow to help the spacing. Very tight in the pattern, gotta get it right the first time.
 
Yes Tony. What I meant is I'm anal about letting approach or anything get me below blue line; I stay above it until pretty short final. Higher or faster, I will slow if required, but I don't want to get low and slow.

Bob Siegfried on the Beech list seems to have this pretty well pegged. He believes circle to land approaches with low ceilings are not being taught well or practiced often enough. It's one thing to do circle to land approaches at 800 to 1,000 feet AGL and quite another at 4 to 500 feet with clouds close to that altitude. Different sight picture; one needs to stay close to the airport and keep up a reasonable speed, keep all turns at a comfortable angle of bank. One shouldn't be bashful about executing the missed if anything gets out of kilter.

One can argue about blue line in a twin, but I stay there or a bit higher until fairly short final. My normal approach speed if 120 knots which is slightly above my 115 knot blue line. I'm normally over the fence around 100 knots unless it's a short field (which I would not be making an instrument approach to under normal circumstances). No sense in having two engines if you can't climb with one out and below blue line I can't do that unless I'm higher (where I can drop the nose and get back to that speed). So, there's a point where I drop below blue line on short final knowing a go-around is not an option if I lose an engine. Both fans keep turning, no problem.

Ice doesn't seem to be a contributing factor. One article states that. Bob lives in that area and distinctly recalls the weather. Said icing wasn't an issue at that time; he's pretty convinced the guy got slow and made a turn that was too sharp; stalled.

Best,

Dave
 
Oh, BTW, Lance, myself and ten or twelve other Baron guys will be at SIMCOM next week in a course some folks have put together called the Advanced Baron Course (or second year for Lance and I). Several high time guys, airline pilots, military guys (like me) and others. We spend three full days on these very types of things. Self developed syllabus. Lots of places an engine is lost and approaches must be made including circle to lands. We pour over systems and each of us is required to give a 20 to 30 minute talk on some facet of operations that we all discuss. It's a requirement that we all leave our egos outside the room; it's strictly a come to learn environment. Those that know it all, don't need to attend <g>. Couple folks haven't received return invitations for that reason. We want to hear pros and cons and alternatives; then, each pilot can take away what they want from the discussion. Very challenging, takes 100% attention; great group.

Best,

Dave
 
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Dave Siciliano said:
Oh, BTW, Lance, myself and ten or twelve other Baron guys will be at SIMCOM next week in a course some folks have put together called the Advanced Baron Course (or second year for Lance and I). Several high time guys, airline pilots, military guys (like me) and others. We spend three full days on these very types of things. Self developed syllabus. Lots of places an engine is lost and approaches must be made including circle to lands. We pour over systems and each of us is required to give a 20 to 30 minute talk on some facet of operations that we all discuss. It's a requirement that we all leave our egos outside the room; it's strictly a come to learn environment. Those that know it all, don't need to attend <g>. Couple folks haven't received return invitations for that reason. We want to hear pros and cons and alternatives; then, each pilot can take away what they want from the discussion. Very challenging, takes 100% attention; great group.

Best,

Dave
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I like that format. I wish similar opportunities were available for other areas of flight. If you know any, let me know.

Ken
 
It will be interesting to see the groups opinion on the subject of slowing for spacing while on a visual approach as well as the best techniques for CTL. Personally I don't have a problem with S-turns above about 400 AGL but like you want to keep the airspeed at or above blue line until I'm committed to land. Typically I wait until about 400 AGL to drop full flaps and slow to my over the fence speed although I have begun to wonder if this really provides a safety benefit. It does seem plausible that recovery from dirty and slow isn't really a problem above 400 AGL anyway. We'll definitely have to broach this issue at Simcom and maybe we can run a few simulator experiments to validate our opinions.

-lance

Dave Siciliano said:
Oh, BTW, Lance, myself and ten or twelve other Baron guys will be at SIMCOM next week in a course some folks have put together called the Advanced Baron Course (or second year for Lance and I). Several high time guys, airline pilots, military guys (like me) and others. We spend three full days on these very types of things. Self developed syllabus. Lots of places an engine is lost and approaches must be made including circle to lands. We pour over systems and each of us is required to give a 20 to 30 minute talk on some facet of operations that we all discuss. It's a requirement that we all leave our egos outside the room; it's strictly a come to learn environment. Those that know it all, don't need to attend <g>. Couple folks haven't received return invitations for that reason. We want to hear pros and cons and alternatives; then, each pilot can take away what they want from the discussion. Very challenging, takes 100% attention; great group.

Best,

Dave
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Dave Siciliano said:
...

Bob Siegfried on the Beech list seems to have this pretty well pegged. He believes circle to land approaches with low ceilings are not being taught well or practiced often enough. It's one thing to do circle to land approaches at 800 to 1,000 feet AGL and quite another at 4 to 500 feet with clouds close to that altitude. Different sight picture; one needs to stay close to the airport and keep up a reasonable speed, keep all turns at a comfortable angle of bank. One shouldn't be bashful about executing the missed if anything gets out of kilter.

...

Best,

Dave
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Dave; Interesting you mention this; KC and some other guys are working on a sim training regimen to enhance currency, and we've been using the sim in Southlake.

The instructor, besides putting me through a vacuum failure in IMC (!!- I lived, but it was not pretty), gave me a circling approach at minimums, and between the scruffy bottom of the clouds and the limited ground visibility, it was a challenge to keep the field "in sight" and pay attention to all that "flying the airplane" stuff. Very eye-opening, and you are right, no one ever practices this under realistic conditions.

Train today, live tomorrow (that's the plan, anyway).
 
Spike:

There's actually a lot more to this than meets the eye. The way the clearance to circle is set up, one must stay within one mile of the airport; 300 feet of obstacle clearance; one must pay attention to wind drift. If one crossed the intended landing runway, they must have a method of circling back.

In a twin, there's more to consider. Is Blue Line adjusted for weight, DA and air density? There's a maneuver to final speed and approach speed---and more systems to break!!!

Most things in life are much more complicated than they first appear <g>.

It's great that you're doing things like this (big pat on the back).

Best,

Dave
 
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