V-Twin Down Janesville

Sadly still no clue what happened.

Witness (yeah, I know) stated they heard a "loud roar" when the plane went overhead. So it would seem at least one engine was still turning.

It would appear not to be misfueling. But I suppose that the receipt could be wrong. Does anyone know what kind of engine behavior you would see if you got Jet-A mixed with 100LL?
 
donjohnston said:
Sadly still no clue what happened.
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Yeah. When I looked at the track on FlightAware it looked like they may have just lost power and not had enough energy to circle all the way back around. Clearly there was some sort of engine issue, and they knew about it... But 80 degrees nose down?!? There's certainly no drop like that in the FlightAware track, so if that's the case it must have been at the last minute when they were no longer within reach of a receiver. And with a plane like the V-Twin that's supposed to be pretty much impossible to stall or Vmc roll, a loss of control on a beautiful clear day after engine issues makes no sense.

Unfortunately, I kinda have this feeling that the NTSB/FAA are going to kind of blow this one off because it was an experimental.
 
Not impossible to stall at all. But only the canard stalls unless you got beyond aft CG. And that’s almost impossible with just two people in the plane.

Maybe they got focused on the engine problem and stopped flying the plane. It happened to an Eastern Airlines flight over the Everglades one night. And they had three people in the cockpit.

IIRC, this plane had a Garmin EFIS so there’s probably flight and engine data to review.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Yeah. When I looked at the track on FlightAware it looked like they may have just lost power and not had enough energy to circle all the way back around. Clearly there was some sort of engine issue, and they knew about it... But 80 degrees nose down?!? There's certainly no drop like that in the FlightAware track, so if that's the case it must have been at the last minute when they were no longer within reach of a receiver. And with a plane like the V-Twin that's supposed to be pretty much impossible to stall or Vmc roll, a loss of control on a beautiful clear day after engine issues makes no sense.

Unfortunately, I kinda have this feeling that the NTSB/FAA are going to kind of blow this one off because it was an experimental.
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"80 degrees" is from a witness and is almost certainly inaccurate. That's 10 degrees shy of straight down and the indication is that trees tore part or all of the wings off before it ended upside down in the water. I don't see that deck angle resulting in that sort of crash. (I'm not an NTSB investigator, though. :p)

According to the prelim, the call to the tower about engine trouble was 1:16 after takeoff clearance was given.. correlated to the ADSB track, they were just west of the field at that time. I can't armchair because I wasn't there but an immediate turn to the field should have been able to get them to Runway 4, with significantly less altitude loss than circling to the south and trying to land on 32. Then again, perhaps the problem was not so bad and suddenly worsened. It's easy to throw out "what ifs" I guess:(
 
fiveoboy01 said:
"80 degrees" is from a witness and is almost certainly inaccurate. That's 10 degrees shy of straight down and the indication is that trees tore part or all of the wings off before it ended upside down in the water. I don't see that deck angle resulting in that sort of crash. (I'm not an NTSB investigator, though. :p)
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Yeah, that witness was... Well, an average eyewitness I guess!

The track log from FlightAware looks like they peaked in altitude and speed below 3000 and both got slower and lower fairly steadily until they went in. That's part of what makes no sense to me - There's tons of open land around JVL, how did they end up in trees? :(

Then again, perhaps the problem was not so bad and suddenly worsened.
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Yeah, that's a tough sort of thing to make the right call. If you treat every little hiccup like a fire, you're going to make a lot of unnecessary
emergency landings. But that one that really is bad and you don't know it right away... Ugh. :(
 
flyingcheesehead said:
There's tons of open land around JVL, how did they end up in trees? :(
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I think it could be a good lesson that it can be a lot harder than you'd think to put it down just anywhere, especially when you can see that runway complex right there.

New airplane, not yours, don't want to bend it up..

Gear was to remain down. Don't know if it was "stuck" down but it's harder to put an airplane in a field knowing the gear is down and the possible consequences of that. The slight jog in the flight track towards the end makes me wonder if they were thinking about a field or even HWY51. They went down well short of the runway, they had to have known they weren't going to make the threshold. Maybe there was intermittent power, but the ADSB data doesn't show that.

"No sir, we should be fine" would indicate to me at least, that the situation at that moment was not severe. I absolutely believe that between the two of them, they wouldn't have hesitated to declare an emergency if the situation was real bad from the start.

I'll stop now. I think about these things a lot harder knowing one of my friends was onboard.
 
fiveoboy01 said:
I think it could be a good lesson that it can be a lot harder than you'd think to put it down just anywhere, especially when you can see that runway complex right there.
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Absolutely.

New airplane, not yours, don't want to bend it up..

Gear was to remain down.
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I wonder if it was possible for it to come up, and what the difference in "glide" ratio would have been.

Don't know if it was "stuck" down but it's harder to put an airplane in a field knowing the gear is down and the possible consequences of that.
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What size tires are on the V-Twin? I think there's a lot of OWTs about "the gear will flip you over". With good landing technique (ie, a very low angle of arrival), you won't flip, at least until you're going much slower. Obviously, bigger tires are better than smaller, but you'd have to really dig in deep into a soft yet dense material to flip an airplane with wheels that are rolling.

Looking closer at the area, though, there was certainly a spot there where they had no options - Once they passed that field to the southwest, really the only possible landable area left was 51.

Maybe there was intermittent power, but the ADSB data doesn't show that.
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I feel like that had to be the situation... With her previous history of handling an emergency, I don't think a lengthy period of disbelief would have hampered her decisionmaking.

I'll stop now. I think about these things a lot harder knowing one of my friends was onboard.
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Yeah, me too. Been thinking about this one every day since it happened. Gonna be processing it for a while.
 
Hope the NTSB and or the FAA investigate. It would be a good thing to know what happened. Very sad accident, I feel bad for the family/friends.
 
Strikes me as similar to Tracer's accident. Fixation on getting back to a runway has killed more experienced pilots. Nobody is immune from that siren song. I certainly take that lesson into my recreational flying, though I recognize that sentiment (disinclination to look for runways as primaries during a power loss in a single engine go-kart in the case of my recreational flying) might be in the minority.

It also strikes me as though the non-owner nature of this ferry could have influenced a timidity to give it to the insurance company early and commit to earlier more viable landing spots.

Commentary only meant to brainstorm a scenario based decision matrix with the benefit of time standing still. I certainly do not intend any smear/scrutiny of the character of the deceased with my comments. RIP.
 
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donjohnston said:
...It would appear not to be misfueling. But I suppose that the receipt could be wrong. Does anyone know what kind of engine behavior you would see if you got Jet-A mixed with 100LL?
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Over time there have been enough examples of this (Piper piston Malibu's being misfueled with jet as though they were Meridians, and a few airplanes with prominent "Turbocharged" placards that were mistaken for "turbine"). In every instance the airplane returned to earth in very short order without a functioning engine(s).
 
GRG55 said:
Over time there have been enough examples of this (Piper piston Malibu's being misfueled with jet as though they were Meridians, and a few airplanes with prominent "Turbocharged" placards that were mistaken for "turbine"). In every instance the airplane returned to earth in very short order without a functioning engine(s).
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So that would pretty much rule out misfueling since the witness reported (least one) engine was running.
 
donjohnston said:
So that would pretty much rule out misfueling since the witness reported (least one) engine was running.
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The jet fuelling nozzle is supposed to be too large to fit in the opening for an avgas tank.

The most recent example I can recall is a piston Malibu that was refuelled incorrectly at Spokane Felts about 6 years ago. That one ended with a fatal after the plane lost power on climbout, came down near a railway bridge and slid down an embankment inverted iirc. The fuel truck jet fuel nozzle was the wrong size and type, and the fueler filled the tanks even though the openings had the original Piper "Avgas Only" placards.

If this airplane was misfueled (odds are low, but not zero) it won't take long to find that out.
 
GRG55 said:
The jet fuelling nozzle is supposed to be too large to fit in the opening for an avgas tank.
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Operative word being "supposed to". When I worked the line one of our trucks had the smaller nozzle to fuel helicopters and legacy jets.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
Operative word being "supposed to". When I worked the line one of our trucks had the smaller nozzle to fuel helicopters and legacy jets.
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That was the reason given by the FBO for the small nozzle in the Malibu Mirage accident I cited...to fuel helicopters.
 
GRG55 said:
That was the reason given by the FBO for the small nozzle in the Malibu Mirage accident I cited...to fuel helicopters.
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I understand what you are saying. My issue with improper fueling starts with the pilot. Been flying since 1995 and I can't think of a time when I let anyone fuel my aircraft without supervision. It just does not happen, then again my minimum fuel reserve for a flight is 1 hour.....:rolleyes:
 
GRG55 said:
The jet fuelling nozzle is supposed to be too large to fit in the opening for an avgas tank.
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The Velocity is experimental. There is no "standard" fuel cap. When I was building mine, I felt the supplied fuel cap was too large so I sourced a smaller one.
 
The fuel receipt showed they got 53.x gallons of 100LL fuel. I realize it’s just paper, but a ‘mis fuel’ seems a lower likelihood. I also think with the two attuned pilots around during this shorter fuel stop, any Jet fuel truck or hose would of been noticed.
 
sourdough44 said:
The fuel receipt showed they got 53.x gallons of 100LL fuel. I realize it’s just paper, but a ‘mis fuel’ seems a lower likelihood. I also think with the two attuned pilots around during this shorter fuel stop, any Jet fuel truck or hose would of been noticed.
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I believe the report stated that there was a smell of 100LL at the crash site as well. Agreed that misfueling seems improbable based on current evidence.
 
NordicDave said:
200 kts cruise at 75% impressive.

if I’m reading the specifications correctly on the companies website, VNE is the same as 75% power cruise.
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Looks like one is KTAS vs KIAS, true vs indicated. I believe several aircraft can get their KTAS up close to their Vne KIAS or beyond. The Mooney Acclaim Ultra is one such plane, with a KTAS max cruise of 242 knots (allegedly) but a Vne KIAS of something like 195 or 196.. I want to say the Cirrus will also push its max cruise KTAS up to or past the KIAS Vne
 
Tantalum said:
Looks like one is KTAS vs KIAS, true vs indicated. I believe several aircraft can get their KTAS up close to their Vne KIAS or beyond. The Mooney Acclaim Ultra is one such plane, with a KTAS max cruise of 242 knots (allegedly) but a Vne KIAS of something like 195 or 196.. I want to say the Cirrus will also push its max cruise KTAS up to or past the KIAS Vne
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I read it fast and missed the TAS verses IAS. The observation and the other contextual background is really helpful. Thanks!
 
donjohnston said:
Only if you get 180+ HP. And even then that's a best case scenario.
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You have an XL, right? Or is it another model?

I would have thought more HP would help them be a bit faster, but then I looked and the v-twin is 600 lbs heavier at max gross than a XL.



Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk
 
I too am wondering about the fueling.

While I doubt I'll ever build, the v-twin is one of the experimental planes I like.



Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk
 
wayne said:
You have an XL, right? Or is it another model?

I would have thought more HP would help them be a bit faster, but then I looked and the v-twin is 600 lbs heavier at max gross than a XL.
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Correct. XL-RG with an IO-550 (310hp). I trued out consistently at 198-199. Would like to say it's a 200kt plane but it's one knot shy.

There's a V-twin with 180hp Lycomings that have been tweaked and they occasionally get 200kts. But usually 180-190 in cruise.
 
Tantalum said:
Looks like one is KTAS vs KIAS, true vs indicated. I believe several aircraft can get their KTAS up close to their Vne KIAS or beyond. The Mooney Acclaim Ultra is one such plane, with a KTAS max cruise of 242 knots (allegedly) but a Vne KIAS of something like 195 or 196.. I want to say the Cirrus will also push its max cruise KTAS up to or past the KIAS Vne
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I believe the 68 and 69 factory turbo’ed Bonanzas could also do this.
 
If it wasn't misfueled what kills two engines on a clear day? Fuel system could have been built wrong I suppose. Wouldn't be the first time.
 
Even with the correct fuel(assumption), one needs clean, free-flowing fuel to the engine(s). There are a handful of ways to have that flow interrupted. I’m not familiar with the fuel system here.

Not saying what happened, but many come back to fuel issues of some sort, not wrong fuel, but having the flow impeded.

JVL has traffic, I’d kinda think the 100LL fuel they sell is clean & uncontaminated.
 
steingar said:
If it wasn't misfueled what kills two engines on a clear day? Fuel system could have been built wrong I suppose. Wouldn't be the first time.
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Who said both engine were not running? Last report I read had a witness saying the airplane was "roaring" overhead. Granted, witness reports from non-pilots are suspect. Especially this one where they stated the plane was traveling almost straight down. But an airplane with engines that aren't producing power generally don't make much noise.

And this airplane was built at the factory and had been flying for about 6 months. Seems unlikely the fuel systems was built wrong.
 
donjohnston said:
Who said both engine were not running? Last report I read had a witness saying the airplane was "roaring" overhead. Granted, witness reports from non-pilots are suspect. Especially this one where they stated the plane was traveling almost straight down. But an airplane with engines that aren't producing power generally don't make much noise.

And this airplane was built at the factory and had been flying for about 6 months. Seems unlikely the fuel systems was built wrong.
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Maybe. You think the thing can fly on one engine? I would like to think so, since that seems to be the big advantage to flying a twin. I know a guy who built himself the spankiest Vans until a year later something went wrong with the fuel system and it blew up. Thankfully he make it out only slightly crispy crittered. These things happen. Don't know what else brings down a twin flown by capable pilots on a clear day. Real head scratcher.
 
The V-twin can absolutely fly on one engine. It can also climb pretty good.

I was thinking early on that this had to be a misfueling incident. Or maybe water in the fuel. But that doesn't sound like what happened.

At this point I'm thinking it was some minor engine issue (high temp, low oil pressure, etc. on one of the engines) which would explain why they didn't indicate a serious problem on the radio. But then they got distracted with it like Eastern 401. They had three experienced pilots in the cockpit.

I agree though. A real head scratcher.
 
donjohnston said:
But then they got distracted with it like Eastern 401.
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I know flying single PPL I have gotten distracted over the years. When my transponder let all the smoke out and cockpit filled with smoke was one. Flying into a snow squall was another, loosing GPS on a 3 day long cross country flight, flight into rain so heavy I could not see out the windscreen.....
 
donjohnston said:
The V-twin can absolutely fly on one engine. It can also climb pretty good.

I was thinking early on that this had to be a misfueling incident. Or maybe water in the fuel. But that doesn't sound like what happened.

At this point I'm thinking it was some minor engine issue (high temp, low oil pressure, etc. on one of the engines) which would explain why they didn't indicate a serious problem on the radio. But then they got distracted with it like Eastern 401. They had three experienced pilots in the cockpit.

I agree though. A real head scratcher.
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And the likelihood that both engines fail simultaneously... pretty slim.

I'm assuming they don't share any other systems. Independent ignitions, cockpit controls.. etc.

The airplane even fully fueled had to have been significantly below gross with only two occupants, neither of which appear to weigh a lot. If it's just one engine that fails, it should make it back to the runway easily.

My only question is the gear. A dirty twin(especially a light piston twin) on one engine will definitely exhibit degraded performance, but how much....?

The airplane had Garmin EFIS screens in the panel. I wonder if there will be any flight or engine data recovered. I know some record to a memory card, not sure if all of them do though.
 
Both engines get fuel from the same, shared sump tank. So a misfueling or water will affect both engines.

With gear down (like this one), climb performance is impacted. I obviously don't know this plane, but compared to the 160 and 180hp V-twins, I would expect this 190hp version to climb at least 300-400fpm with full fuel and two people.
 
On the Velocity owners thread over on FB, there is mention these are higher power engines than standard io-360s. Getting it a little slow, one engine goes out and you are in VMC roll territory. VMC being faster with the higher power engines.
 
Not all loss of thrust issues are engine related. And unfortunately one of the drawbacks of pusher airplanes is that everything kicked up on the runway goes thru the prop. I rebuilt 32XL, a Velocity XL with an IO540 for the owner. Almost every time it flew there were new nicks and gouges in the 3 blade MT prop. The owner and I finally parted ways over what he considered "minor blade damage" being OK to fly with.

Should something kicked up thru one of the props and caused damage I could see where there would be massive confusion on board over what to do...

RIP to the pilots.

Chris
 
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