Four killed in Hattisburg crash, 5/4/2021

That sucks. Looking on adsb exchange is was chugging along at 23k then next return was 2300’.
 
The flight radar shows a descent from long before that. I’m not sure why, but I’ve gotten different results from the playback. Sometimes the loop continues past where you’ve shown it. It looks like they do a procedure turn or hold, then continue inbound. They were about 130 kts, 1600 ft when the loop ended very close to the airport.
 
jpskies said:
On FlightRadar24, although the information is blocked, you can see it started losing altitude from 03:38 UTC because the color trail turning green. It's possibly losing an engine or some sort. Very sad...
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bflynn said:
The flight radar shows a descent from long before that. I’m not sure why, but I’ve gotten different results from the playback. Sometimes the loop continues past where you’ve shown it. It looks like they do a procedure turn or hold, then continue inbound. They were about 130 kts, 1600 ft when the loop ended very close to the airport.
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This flight appears to have been inbound to land at Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
RIP

"USM officials said a student at their university was related to the three who died, and they were coming to Hattiesburg to attend Wednesday’s commencement ceremony."​
 
11:20 at night, 900’ OVC, possibly pressures to keep a schedule for the graduation? Besides the details of the last 5 minutes I like to back up to the decisions made hours prior, that’s where much of the ‘big money’ is made.

Yes, very tragic for family & friends. It’s early & I don’t know most of the details.
 
I looked at the FlightRadar24 track. It doesn't seem to show altitude, but from what I can tell, it looks like they were setting up for and flying the RNAV 13 into KHBG. Assuming the radar track is correct, it looks like they made a turn around, which didn't look like it was part of the procedure but hard to say.

Assuming the registration is right, this guy has owned the MU-2 for some time. The MU-2 is very stable, but a few things come to mind:

1) The MU-2 doesn't slow down much and then it slows down very quickly when at flight idle. Trying to slow down. It's easy to get too slow very quickly if you aren't watching. Recent pushes within some of the MU-2 community have advocated for flying approaches slower, as the manual allows for Vref (roughly 100 KIAS, plus or minus depending on weight) through Vref+30. I tended to fly them faster, especially at a long runway. But obviously then you have to slow down.

2) The MU-2 has fine stall characteristics and a stick shaker, but it also has low roll authority owing to the spoilers at low speeds. Stall recovery really isn't a big deal on them, but you do need to make sure not to get too out of whack. Also, note that the spoilers kill lift on the wings, so if you do a hard left/right with the yoke you'll actually stall that wing.

3) The TPE-331s respond quickly, but also have a lot of torque roll at low speed., especially -10s with 4-bladed props, which this one would've been being a Marquise (I think I saw it as a MU-2B-60). This was also part of what killed Pascal. When he got down to <100 KIAS, he put the power levers up too quickly and the torque roll is significant, which put the plane sideways.

The lawn dart (no debris field) would indicate a stall/spin or otherwise plane flipping over and nose diving, but we'll see what the report from this becomes.

As most of you know, I have about 500 hours in the MU-2 (F model). It's a very good and stable plane, especially for IFR approaches. Their reputation has been earned but in the hands of a capable pilot who understands how to fly the plane, they really are not a problem and more capable than equivalent King Airs in my opinion and experience.
 
Ted said:
Their reputation has been earned but in the hands of a capable pilot who understands how to fly the plane
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I think the problem is that most pilots that fly these planes think they are capable. How does one know when they aren't capable? I think the MU2 has proven itself to bite more than many others, and even with a type rating equivalent requirement, is still ending up in the news. I know of 2 former MU2 pilots that were active on the aviation boards that said the same things. The plane was maligned, docile, with training there are no problems, so on, and they are dead.
 
Rockymountain said:
I think the problem is that most pilots that fly these planes think they are capable. How does one know when they aren't capable? I think the MU2 has proven itself to bite more than many others, and even with a type rating equivalent requirement, is still ending up in the news. I know of 2 former MU2 pilots that were active on the aviation boards that said the same things. The plane was maligned, docile, with training there are no problems, so on, and they are dead.
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As I said, the reputation of the plane is earned. Yes, I agree that it has a tendency to bite more than others (and I have discouraged a number of pilots from pursuing the MU-2 for this reason, as there are some who I just don't think are good fits for it). I disagree with your statement about "How does one know when they aren't capable?" I don't think there's a single aircraft type in the history of aviation that hasn't at some point been brought down because a pilot overestimated its capabilities. More than anything, this comes down to training and judgement. If you look at the restrictions that have been added to the aircraft over the years, most of them come down to operating further away from the edges of the envelope. Things like discouraged use of Flaps 40 landings (and revised Flaps 40 Vref speeds to 1.5 Vso instead of 1.3), no flight in icing below 180 KIAS, etc.

However, I'd also suggest looking at accident rates of the MU-2s vs. King Airs. Post-SFAR, the rate of fatalities on these planes dropped dramatically, actually below that of King Airs. This is certainly due the SFAR (now 14 CFR Part 91 Subpart N - but MU-2 pilots still call it the SFAR) training which is very good. Yes, the past few years have not been great for MU-2s - Pascal crashed his not all that long before I started flying the things, although that was a crash that very likely could/would've happened in a King Air if you read it - and there was one sometime last year as I recall, and now this one. I haven't looked at the accident rates in a while since they no longer impact me, but I suspect that if you look at them over the past 10 years, they're still probably similar to King Air rates.

Many MU-2 pilots think the reputation isn't earned. I disagree, I believe it is and have said so many times over the time I've flown it. I agree with you that the plane has proven itself to bite harder. But a Lear 35 will bite as well at the edges of the envelope (that TEB crash is a good example), and I don't think too many people would call them bad planes. I would never call it a perfect aircraft, certainly not perfect for everyone, but I sure loved flying the thing.
 
I do wonder how the post-SFAR MU-2 accident rate compares with various other sub-12,500-pound twins. We all take the same check ride and presumably don’t start the engines without believing we are capable of flying our planes, but every year we see a variety of light twins falling out of the sky. The same applies to singles. Look at Kathryn’s Report any week of the year and you’ll see pilots who had the proper training, passed the check ride, thought they were good to go, and ended up bending their precious airplanes. Is the MU-2, with required training and the apparently abundant recurrent training opportunities available to pilots, more or less probable to crash than a Navajo, Conquest, or Baron?
 
Rockymountain said:
I think the problem is that most pilots that fly these planes think they are capable. How does one know when they aren't capable? I think the MU2 has proven itself to bite more than many others, and even with a type rating equivalent requirement, is still ending up in the news. I know of 2 former MU2 pilots that were active on the aviation boards that said the same things. The plane was maligned, docile, with training there are no problems, so on, and they are dead.
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Proper training and good decision making. That’s how we maintain capabilities in aircraft. How is the MU-2 any different than any other high performance turbine airplane? Treat it like a big Aztec… you’ll probably screw up real quick. Treat it like a Lear 20 series… you’ll probably be ok. But if you’re scared of it I would recommend not buying one.
 
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I’m not sure why the MU-2 is such an outlier that requires special training. I’m not saying it shouldn’t, but what is it about the design that requires it, or better yet makes it necessary?
Is it the spoilers instead of ailerons??
I am curious.

I have a wee bit of time flying the MU-2 many years before the training rule, but none as *acting* PIC. Never been formally trained in the type.
 
Kritchlow said:
I’m not sure why the MU-2 is such an outlier that requires special training. I’m not saying it shouldn’t, but what is it about the design that requires it, or better yet makes it necessary?
Is it the spoilers instead of ailerons??
I am curious.

I have a wee bit of time flying the MU-2 many years before the training rule, but none as *acting* PIC. Never been formally trained in the type.
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Essentially there are three design aspects that cause the flight handling characteristics (and bite) of the MU-2 to be different from conventional aircraft (I'm going from memory on numbers so I may be off a bit, but you'll get the idea):

1) Spoilers instead of ailerons
2) Full span fowler flaps
3) Very high wing loading for a propeller aircraft <12,500 lbs. The F model I flew was 55 lbs/sqft, which for reference is about the same as a Lear 23)

You start off with the very high wing loading because the MU-2 has the wing area of a 172 with a plane that grosses at 10k+ lbs. The spoilers instead of ailerons make low speed handling (turns specifically) interesting. In some cases I observed proverse yaw (as opposed to adverse yaw) with the MU-2. Since you're killing lift on the wing with a spoiler, at low speeds you can inadvertently stall a wing if you use the spoiler, and so some procedures are different from a normal aircraft because of this.

The full span fowler flaps add about 50% more wing area when fully extended. This causes a massive difference in both stall speed and Vmc with them up vs. down. As I recall, stall speed clean on the F model was 101 KIAS, and dirty was 77.

Because of this, some emergency procedures are different. A flaps up landing for example has you coming down final at 140 KIAS and crossing the numbers at 110-125 KIAS depending on weight (as opposed to something like 96-104 for a standard Flaps 20 landing). An engine out procedure doesn't follow the typical "mixture props throttle flaps gear identify verify feather" mantra that we all learned in our multi engine training in a piston (obviously the mixture wouldn't be part of it anyway). The gear comes up immediately if it is down, you do advance the engines to full, but the flaps need to come up on a schedule. As I recall flaps go from 20 to 5 at 130, and 5 to 0 at 140. This was an area that killed a number of pilots.

There's more to it, but compared to a King Air, Cheyenne, or Conquest (even a C441) which fly more or less like piston twins that burn funny smelling fuel, the MU-2 is said to fly more like a jet, in that you need to follow the procedures closely. Of course it is still a turboprop and not a jet, but what's meant by that is that you need to follow the procedures closely and it's less forgiving if you don't.

Oh, and the landings are... well they take some practice to get smooth. :)

Happy to answer any questions on the plane that I can dig out of the memory banks.
 
Ted said:
Essentially there are three design aspects that cause the flight handling characteristics (and bite) of the MU-2 to be different from conventional aircraft (I'm going from memory on numbers so I may be off a bit, but you'll get the idea):

1) Spoilers instead of ailerons
2) Full span fowler flaps
3) Very high wing loading for a propeller aircraft <12,500 lbs. The F model I flew was 55 lbs/sqft, which for reference is about the same as a Lear 23)

You start off with the very high wing loading because the MU-2 has the wing area of a 172 with a plane that grosses at 10k+ lbs. The spoilers instead of ailerons make low speed handling (turns specifically) interesting. In some cases I observed proverse yaw (as opposed to adverse yaw) with the MU-2. Since you're killing lift on the wing with a spoiler, at low speeds you can inadvertently stall a wing if you use the spoiler, and so some procedures are different from a normal aircraft because of this.

The full span fowler flaps add about 50% more wing area when fully extended. This causes a massive difference in both stall speed and Vmc with them up vs. down. As I recall, stall speed clean on the F model was 101 KIAS, and dirty was 77.

Because of this, some emergency procedures are different. A flaps up landing for example has you coming down final at 140 KIAS and crossing the numbers at 110-125 KIAS depending on weight (as opposed to something like 96-104 for a standard Flaps 20 landing). An engine out procedure doesn't follow the typical "mixture props throttle flaps gear identify verify feather" mantra that we all learned in our multi engine training in a piston (obviously the mixture wouldn't be part of it anyway). The gear comes up immediately if it is down, you do advance the engines to full, but the flaps need to come up on a schedule. As I recall flaps go from 20 to 5 at 130, and 5 to 0 at 140. This was an area that killed a number of pilots.

There's more to it, but compared to a King Air, Cheyenne, or Conquest (even a C441) which fly more or less like piston twins that burn funny smelling fuel, the MU-2 is said to fly more like a jet, in that you need to follow the procedures closely. Of course it is still a turboprop and not a jet, but what's meant by that is that you need to follow the procedures closely and it's less forgiving if you don't.

Oh, and the landings are... well they take some practice to get smooth. :)

Happy to answer any questions on the plane that I can dig out of the memory banks.
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Thank you for taking the time to explain. I actually found it interesting.
 
Ted said:
The full span fowler flaps add about 50% more wing area when fully extended. This causes a massive difference in both stall speed and Vmc with them up vs. down. As I recall, stall speed clean on the F model was 101 KIAS, and dirty was 77.
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What is Vmc like with flaps up vs. down in the MU-2?
 
iamtheari said:
What is Vmc like with flaps up vs. down in the MU-2?
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I can't speak to that really. But the bigger issue that if you retract the flaps at too slow of a speed, you can go from being above Vmc to being below Vmc, since Vmc changes with flaps. Then suddenly you're below (potentially well below) Vmc, and that's not going to end well.
 
Any thoughts on the preliminary NTSB report?
 
The NTSB had a small typo here:

NTSB said:
An associate of the pilot reported that the pilot owned a MU-2F model before he acquired the B model.
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The way MU-2s are designated on their certificates are all MU-2B-xx. This was an MU-2B-60, which is a Marquise (the last of the long bodies). If he previously owned an F-model MU-2 (which is the one I had flown previously), that would've been an MU-2B-20. Minor typo.

Either way, he had a lot of experience, and a lot of experience in MU-2s at that. Flaps 20 would be considered the "correct" flap setting for landing. You can land at Flaps 20 or Flaps 40, but Flaps 40 landings have been discouraged for some time now as regular practice, and the book numbers require flying at 1.5 Vso for Flaps 40 landings instead of 1.3. So by all counts, it would sound like he was doing things correctly to start and certainly should've known how to fly the thing.

I'll be surprised if they're able to find much for a probable cause other than he may have just made an error for whatever reason. The one thing that comes to mind would be if he was letting his daughter fly the plane and she made an error that he couldn't correct in time. I did a search and her name as published didn't show a pilot's certificate from my search.
 
Sorry to hear. I go into Bobby Chain airport in Hattiesburg several times a year. Great folks at the FBO there, really take care of you. Always hate to see a fatality on the ground, as that does a lot of damage to local support for GA.
 
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