Mooney down in Victoria, MN 8/7/2021

[steingar]

Shame an airframe parachute wasn’t on the mooney as last resort after wing failure. I recall a stunt plane breaking a wing and parachute saved both the pilot and plane.

At the rate the aircraft was plummeting I doubt a chute would have done it any good at all.

 

[bflynn]

On the wings folding - it looks like that happened at the last minute. Here's an image a second or two before impact.

Wings look normal here.

And the one just before impact

 

[MooneyDriver78]

Shame an airframe parachute wasn’t on the mooney as last resort after wing failure. I recall a stunt plane breaking a wing and parachute saved both the pilot and plane.

A. It needs ~800’ to fully deploy and that’s at normal flight attitudes, not in a dive.
B. Speed limit is about 135 knots, he was was probably doing close to twice that speed.
C. Then you have to be able to reach up and pull the red handle. At the speeds he was going and the G forces involved, not easy and certainly going to take precious time. I vaguely remember a Cirrus pulling the chute after is stall/spin at about 800’ and it deployed before just before impact.

 

[MooneyDriver78]

On the wings folding - it looks like that happened at the last minute. Here's an image a second or two before impact.

Wings look normal here.

And the one just before impact

[]

This is the very next frame, notice the flattening of the entire fuselage, the impact speed and forces must have been extreme.

 

[Jeff Szlauko]

On the wings folding - it looks like that happened at the last minute. Here's an image a second or two before impact.

Wings look normal here.

And the one just before impact

Yes, it does appear that the wings were fine prior to impact. Sure looks like the entire horizontal stabilizer is gone though before impact though.

 

[MauleSkinner]

A. It needs ~800’ to fully deploy and that’s at normal flight attitudes, not in a dive.
B. Speed limit is about 135 knots, he was was probably doing close to twice that speed.
C. Then you have to be able to reach up and pull the red handle. At the speeds he was going and the G forces involved, not easy and certainly going to take precious time. I vaguely remember a Cirrus pulling the chute after is stall/spin at about 800’ and it deployed before just before impact.

I also wonder what level of consciousness the average person would have after pulling hard enough to break the airplane. In this case I’d hope they were groggy enough to not see the ground rushing up.

 

[bflynn]

So, loss of pitch control came first, which appears to have put the plane into a mush? Or was there something before the stabilizer?

 

[Tantalum]

an airframe parachute

indeed.. although:

At the rate the aircraft was plummeting I doubt a chute would have done it any good at all.

it looks like that happened at the last minute

^for it to have worked in this case it would have had to have been pulled much earlier than what we see in the video. Sort of a catch-22. But loss of control in IMC is one of the things that airframe chutes have in. There are cases of Cirrus CAPS events in IMC when the pilots have instrument issues or otherwise run the risk of loss of control. They're usually critiqued for not knowing how to fly partial panel in IMC, but it has happened

Horrifying to see wings up like that - Mooneys are known to be very well built. The forces that plane must have gone through to cause that event is incredible.. and what perpetuated the whole thing!

wonder what level of consciousness the average person would have

hopefully not much! that's horrifying

 

[IK04]

Yes, it does appear that the wings were fine prior to impact. Sure looks like the entire horizontal stabilizer is gone though before impact though.

Nope. The wings are clearly folded. Compare the paint on the bottom of the wing in both frames. The darker, reddish color lines up with the fuselage and the wing trailing edge is visible as a near vertical line in the first frame.

It's pretty doubtful the wings could bend that much in the fraction of a second between frames.

The eyewitness described the wings folding during a rapid pullup attempt while directly above him.

 

[bflynn]

The wings are folded. I think they're actually folded in that first picture.

However it got in that flight configuration, it's falling pretty much straight down. The stabilizer is gone and the wings are folded. Scariness, all three images occur within a second, they all have the same time stamp.

 

[Arm3]

Nope. The wings are clearly folded. Compare the paint on the bottom of the wing in both frames. The darker, reddish color lines up with the fuselage and the wing trailing edge is visible as a near vertical line in the first frame.

It's pretty doubtful the wings could bend that much in the fraction of a second between frames.

The eyewitness described the wings folding during a rapid pullup attempt while directly above him.

I was thinking the same thing as you.

My rough estimate is the plane was going about 240 kts at impact. Looking at a random sample of doorbell cameras 30 frames per second appears to be the standard frame rate. The plane looks to have traveled roughly the length of the airframe (27 feet) in the two frames elapsed between the 3 pictures. +\- 5 feet to that distance traveled is 284 to 194 knots.

Regardless of how fast they were going I just hope those on board didn’t suffer through the terror long.

 

[Mtns2Skies]

Regardless of how fast they were going I just hope those on board didn’t suffer through the terror long.

I can all but guarantee they didn't.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I can all but guarantee they didn't.

It usually takes 3-5 seconds to even process and realize something seriously wrong is going on and what it might be.

My suspicion would be that the passengers were thinking “huh? what is going on here” and then wham into the ground.

RIP.

 

[midwestpa24]

Regardless of how fast they were going I just hope those on board didn’t suffer through the terror long.

Unless there was pre-existing structural issues, the amount of G necessary to nearly pull the wings off would have likely rendered the average unprepared GA pilot or passengers unconscious.

 

[Kristin]

The wings are folded. I think they're actually folded in that first picture.

However it got in that flight configuration, it's falling pretty much straight down. The stabilizer is gone and the wings are folded. Scariness, all three images occur within a second, they all have the same time stamp.

I think that the wings pretty much have to have already been folded as the LH horizontal stabilizer was found blocks away and the tail feathers are necessary to be able to pitch up hard enough to snap the wings.

 

[bflynn]

It's sound more and more like a graveyard spiral and he pulled the wings off trying to pull out.

 

[steingar]

Weird thing is this was in a layer that was maybe 1000 feet thick.

 

[Bender Aviation]

At first I was perplexed at how a plane with snapped off wings could descend with a nose high attitude. But I suppose it would if the horizontal stab was also missing.

 

[sourdough44]

It's sound more and more like a graveyard spiral and he pulled the wings off trying to pull out.

Sadly, that’s my thinking as well.

 

[MooneyDriver78]

Weird thing is this was in a layer that was maybe 1000 feet thick.

There are a lot of weird things, starting with the student pilot level radio work. I hope he was using a GoPro, maybe we can figure out what was going on.