Swearingen down, 1 killed, Manchester NH 12-10-21

"You can fly the airplane single pilot, but unless your captain is at the top of his or her game and has a ton of experience in it, that’s probably a bad idea."

An article about the Merlin's I read recently. Interesting some of the comments on Kathryn's. Makes me sick.
 
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Racerx said:
"You can fly the airplane single pilot, but unless your captain is at the top of his or her game and has a ton of experience in it, that’s probably a bad idea."

An article about the Merlin's I read recently. Interesting one of the comments on Kathryn's. Makes me sick.
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Yeah that guy BillF is kinda a dick.
 
Merlin/Metro's are challenging airplanes to fly, especially backside of the clock, single pilot, low experience level, and in crappy weather.

I'm not sure if he aimed for the river, or just got lucky, but both sides are very densely populated. This could have been a lot worse.

RIP
 
I flew almost the same route that night at the same time (landed at OWD at the time of this crash) .... it was kind of a funky night to fly, nothing in particular, just had a peculiar vibe both legs .... I was happy to be down and done for the day. Be safe everyone!
 
Engine failure due to ice.??

As in turbine inlet heat not turned on.??

METAR (For reference):
KMHT 110453Z 36004KT 10SM BKN017 OVC075 M01/M04 A3015
KMHT 110421Z 00000KT 10SM BKN017 OVC075 M02/M05 A3016

Many years ago a friend was killed in a Metro II because apparently he did not turn on the turbine inlet anti-ice during an IMC approach.

All speculation.
 
23? That's horrible. No idea if weather was a factor, but from my look on weather.gov, the temps on Friday in Manchester were between 25 and 36F.
 
Night time, ice, weather to minimums, no autopilot, no thank you.
 
FORANE said:
Night time, ice, weather to minimums, no autopilot, no thank you.
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Yeah, no matter how nicely planes trim out, no matter how many check pilots hand flew beat up Barons and 210s through thunderstorms in the 70s and 80s, that's just a non-negotiable thing for me.
 
Zeldman said:
Engine failure due to ice.??

As in turbine inlet heat not turned on.??

METAR (For reference):
KMHT 110453Z 36004KT 10SM BKN017 OVC075 M01/M04 A3015
KMHT 110421Z 00000KT 10SM BKN017 OVC075 M02/M05 A3016

Many years ago a friend was killed in a Metro II because apparently he did not turn on the turbine inlet anti-ice during an IMC approach.

All speculation.
Click to expand...

Same thing killed Alan Kulwicki in the early 90's.
 
Zeldman said:
Yep. I remember.

Even though both accidents were pilot error, these accidents made me make the decision to stay away from the Merlins.
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Have you seen what can happen to a CRJ-200 engine if it stalls? Now, you aren't going to see passenger flights conducted the way the Pinnacle crash was, but the inability to restart on those should give you as much pause as this, if you're so inclined.

I think the main reason I'd stay away from Merlins is that so many are flown without autopilots on board. Task saturation is a thing.
 
I was surprised in this day an age something that big doesn’t have working autopilot. Considering a lot of training is focused on the use and monitoring of automation. The guys flying checks in 310’s back in the day had more capable airplanes then this!
 
benyflyguy said:
I was surprised in this day an age something that big doesn’t have working autopilot. Considering a lot of training is focused on the use and monitoring of automation. The guys flying checks in 310’s back in the day had more capable airplanes then this!
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Or at least a second pilot.
 
I’m not superstitious, but a quick look back to 1980 yields 29 accidents for this airframe. I flew several times on Lone Star Airlines, DFW to Alpine Tx. I remember thinking that the pilots had their hands full…just sayin’.
 
Sam-Sack said:
Or at least a second pilot.
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I get why single pilot makes sense for the types of operation these aircraft operate, but there's a reason single pilot jets require autopilot as part of their certification as such, and I'd argue that a Metro/Merlin is a much more complex machine to operate than a Phenom.

Davecat said:
I’m not superstitious, but a quick look back to 1980 yields 29 accidents for this airframe. I flew several times on Lone Star Airlines, DFW to Alpine Tx. I remember thinking that the pilots had their hands full…just sayin’.
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Well, at least one was a 737 landing on one at LAX, so that's a little misleading. Dual pilot makes having no AP a much less demanding task, as the PF can focus on flying the airplane and the PM can do everything else, including ice and other checklists.
 
benyflyguy said:
I was surprised in this day an age something that big doesn’t have working autopilot. The guys flying checks in 310’s back in the day had more capable airplanes then this!
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Sam-Sack said:
Or at least a second pilot.
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Nope and nope.

I flew canceled checks in 310s “back in the day”, early ‘90s for 2+ years and 2400 hours. All night, all weather, no copilot, no autopilot. Our Baron/Aerostar fleet were decently equipped, but for us 310 guys, it was a bare bones fleet. I recall two ships in particular that had Cessna radio packages straight out of a C-152; dual nav/coms, ADF, transponder. That was it. Not even a heading bug on the DG… but by god it was certified for known ice with boots and windshield hot plate!

We went out and did that 4-5 nights a week and didn’t really complain about it, it’s just what you had to do back then to build experience to climb the aviation career ladder.
 
benyflyguy said:
The guys flying checks in 310’s back in the day had more capable airplanes then this!
Click to expand...

I flew checks back in 2000. We flew C-210s that were barely VFR legal. We were advised by management that the clock did not need to work for IFR flights as long as we had a watch. We were also told we could file and fly IFR using a hand held GPS.

We did that to build hours. Good thing that 210 is a really stable IFR platform.
 
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