Wake turbulence takes a DA-62 down in Dubai

Yep. Something that demands respect.

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It seems like an airplane being flown in the airport environment solely for the purpose of checking airport ops would be piloted by someone with knowledge of wake turbulence, especially if they were warned. Sad, avoidable, and unnecessary. Be safe out there!
 
^also a good lesson that even a modern, advanced, and "big" GA plane like a DA62 (over 5K max gross lb) is no match to what a large commercial jet will throw in terms of wake.

QUESTION: is ATC also not partially also responsible for spacing? Not blaming ATC **AT ALL** here - but in my experience when in busy Class C and B in a piston plane they give you specific airspeed instructions.. I've been asked to maintain 180, and also to slow to 90
 
Tantalum said:
^also a good lesson that even a modern, advanced, and "big" GA plane like a DA62 (over 5K max gross lb) is no match to what a large commercial jet will throw in terms of wake.

QUESTION: is ATC also not partially also responsible for spacing? Not blaming ATC **AT ALL** here - but in my experience when in busy Class C and B in a piston plane they give you specific airspeed instructions.. I've been asked to maintain 180, and also to slow to 90
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It sounds like the Diamond was flying instrument overshoots on the parallel runway, which was out of service, since calibrations (of the ILS?) were underway. So there likely wouldn't have been any speed requirements for preceding or following traffic spacing.

And let's recognize light GA airplanes aren't common in one of the worlds most heavily militarized regions, and the controllers would have little experience with them at DBX specifically. DBX is the home base of Emirates, which has 111 A-380s, an airplane with its own unique "super heavy" ICAO wake turbulence category, flying in and out of there.

He got caught in the wake turbulence from the adjacent runway is what it sounds like. And it could be he got passed by the faster commercial jet on approach. The threshold for 30R, the runway in service at the time, is displaced some distance from the threshold of 30L, the runway the Diamond was flying.

This sounds eerily like the Bonanza accident at Reno that @DesertNomad posted about almost two years ago.
https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/had-a-friend-die-today.97834/
 
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Tantalum said:
^also a good lesson that even a modern, advanced, and "big" GA plane like a DA62 (over 5K max gross lb) is no match to what a large commercial jet will throw in terms of wake.

QUESTION: is ATC also not partially also responsible for spacing? Not blaming ATC **AT ALL** here - but in my experience when in busy Class C and B in a piston plane they give you specific airspeed instructions.. I've been asked to maintain 180, and also to slow to 90
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ATC could be completely responsible if they didn’t maintain the required wake turb separation. The article even stated that they didn’t have the required sep.

It appears Dubai parallels are less than 2,500 ft apart. That’s treated as a single runway here for IFR radar separation purposes. Not sure if Dubai uses the same recat wake turb that came out a few years ago but a small (DA-62) behind a heavy (A350) is going to be at least 5 miles, possibly 6. That’s without using visual sep. Of course they could’ve been VFR doing practice approaches so no telling what sep they use for that. Really all depends on ICAO sep standards and local LOAs.
 
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Lachlan said:
It seems like an airplane being flown in the airport environment solely for the purpose of checking airport ops would be piloted by someone with knowledge of wake turbulence, especially if they were warned. Sad, avoidable, and unnecessary. Be safe out there!
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It was being flown by an extremely experienced, and very well regarded and liked British pilot, who was also very active on the UK version of this board. I suspect he was a hell of a lot more experienced than you'll ever be. Best not to cast aspersions on the dead if you don't know what you're talking about.
 
Katamarino said:
It was being flown by an extremely experienced, and very well regarded and liked British pilot, who was also very active on the UK version of this board. I suspect he was a hell of a lot more experienced than you'll ever be. Best not to cast aspersions on the dead if you don't know what you're talking about.
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As I said, it seems like the pilot should be quite familiar with wake turbulence, and your statement proves that he was indeed. There very likely were other factors that lead to the crash, but flying that close to another aircraft in the airport environment is avoidable, whether responsibility for separation falls on ATC or the PIC. As far as the insult you lobbed, I’m not offended. I’m many, many things that I’m very certain you’ll never know about. ;) Cheers, and fly safe.
 
It seems the nature of the work being done by the DA62 crew would have made separation and caution around airliners second nature.

But if the runway they were working was out of service and the turbulence drifted over from an aircraft on a parallel runway, it might have been the fault of controllers, as was mentioned above.

Regardless of the circumstances, it's a tragedy for the crew's loved ones, friends, and coworkers. RIP.
 
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