Plane crashes at Felts Field in Spokane

Crash? Looks like a simple gear failure to me.
 
The plane crashed at Felts Fields 12/02/2024 Monday afternoon, according to Spokane Fire Department.well-known plane for having completed a pole-to-pole flight.
 
Zoom in on the leading edges... interesting highlights there. hmm?
 
That's too bad. A Commander 1000 with -10 TPEs is a great aircraft.
 
brien23 said:
The plane crashed at Felts Fields 12/02/2024 Monday afternoon, according to Spokane Fire Department.well-known plane for having completed a pole-to-pole flight.
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For a second I thought you might have been confusing this mishap with the one from a few days ago, but it just barely missed two poles.
1733312651862.png
 
Local news article
"he lost power while landing, about 100 feet above Felts Field"
4 miles viz Monday afternoon, broken 300 overcast 600, 300 being right at mins for RNAV 4L. -1C on the ground, "landed" with some ice on leading edges per other pictures on local news.
About an hour flight from his personal airport on Whidbey(KOKH) thread here.
I'll be curious what the NTSB finds on this one.
 
DreadPirateWill said:
Local news article
"he lost power while landing, about 100 feet above Felts Field"
4 miles viz Monday afternoon, broken 300 overcast 600, 300 being right at mins for RNAV 4L. -1C on the ground, "landed" with some ice on leading edges per other pictures on local news.
About an hour flight from his personal airport on Whidbey(KOKH) thread here.
I'll be curious what the NTSB finds on this one.
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So, hard landing that collapsed the gear.
 
More money than brains? Did he run it out of gas?
 
WTF did they hit? Usually when you belly in a commander or an MU-2 you don't hurt the props at all.
 
Local TV report with post-crash interview with Robert DeLaurentis ...
 
Interesting…a “pop-pop” sound; he thought, “ice”, and the engines stopped producing power.
Sounds like somebody screwed up. (Assuming the reporting of what he actually said is the gist of what he actually said.)
 
MauleSkinner said:
Interesting…a “pop-pop” sound; he thought, “ice”, and the engines stopped producing power.
Sounds like somebody screwed up. (Assuming the reporting of what he actually said is the gist of what he actually said.)
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That's actually what he said. His own words. I'm a little skeptical it's actually what happened
 
Racerx said:
That's actually what he said. His own words.
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My question is was there anything else he said that was edited out that might indicate he didn’t screw up?

It might change the impression of what he screwed up, but I can’t think of anything he could’ve said that would indicate he didn’t.
 
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For the Commander-knowledgeable among us…if the gear collapsed due to a rough landing, would both mains appear to be symmetrically rotated for retraction?
 
MauleSkinner said:
For the Commander-knowledgeable among us…if the gear collapsed due to a rough landing, would both mains appear to be symmetrically rotated for retraction?
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Yes. Those legs rotate 90° as they retract so as to fit better in the aft nacelle. The mechanism that does that is elegant in its simplicity. One has to stare at it for awhile to make sense of it, though.


I can't find a diagram or video of the mechanism itself. It's in the service manual, but I can't find a free copy of it online. The oleo rotates in the trunnion, and a long fork, pivoted axially at the forward end, connects at the forked end to the top of the oleo cylinder via a bolt that runs at an angle through the fork and oleo so that as the oleo swings up, the fork rotates the oleo. One moving part to rotate the oleo, basically.
 
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