Yak 52 Crash NZ

[oneplaneboy]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6299527/Two-dead-in-small-plane-crash

[eightyknots]

This is this afternoon's news update on this unfortunate crash from stuff.co.nz:

 

Police name second air crash victim

 

 

MICHAEL FORBES AND PALOMA MIGONE

 

Last updated 13:40 24/01/2012

 

 

ROBERT KITCHIN/Fairfax NZ

 

MANGLED WRECK: Witnesses to the crash believe the pilot, Ralph Saxe, inset, was trying to steer the ailing aircraft towards Feilding's Timona Park and away from nearby houses.

 

LATEST: Police have today named the second man killed in a plane crash in a Feilding park as Civil Aviation Authority investigators assess the wreckage and interview witnesses.

 

Queensland doctor Brett Ireland,50, and Palmerston North doctor Ralph Saxe, 51, died when a Russian-built Yakovlev-52 aeroplane crashed into a sports field, near a children's playground, in Timona Park about 10.45am yesterday.

 

Ireland moved his wife Janine and three children from Palmerston North to the Gold Coast in 2002, after 18 years of working in New Zealand as a chiropractor.

 

According to the Gold Coast Chiropractic Centre website, Ireland bought the Southport-based centre and settled in Australia permanently.

 

On the website, he said he initially studied to be an industrial engineer, but ended up changing his career path after visiting a chiropractor to cure the hay-fever and allergies that had plagued him all his life.

 

"I left engineering and went to America to become a chiropractor. I couldn't understand why everyone didn't know about the far reaching benefits of Chiropractic Care."

 

Saxe lived in Palmerston North with his family.

 

According to Saxe's website the doctor - with an expertise in facial sculpting - flew his own Beechcraft Bonanza plane to clinics in Nelson and Rotorua.

 

He had appeared on national television, earning the "Flying Doctor" nickname.

 

Palmerston North air traffic controllers had named him "Dr Botox".

 

Police said the Yak airplane had taken off from Taonui Aerodrome, just outside Feilding, about 25 minutes earlier.

 

Witnesses heard the plane going down and rushed to the scene of the mangled wreck, which had dug into the ground from the impact.

 

The crash was unsurvivable, one onlooker said.

 

The site was cordoned off yesterday and tents were erected to preserve the wreckage for a CAA investigation now underway.

 

The CAA investigators had been on scene this morning, making a general assessment of the wider wreckage area, lead safety investigator Al Moselen said.

 

The main portion of the fuselage remained under police control, and was not expected to be released to CAA until tomorrow.

 

Moselen and investigator Steve Walker expected to be at the crash scene until for the next three days. They would be speaking to witnesses in coordination with police.

 

The scene examination was expected to take several days.

 

Inspector Mark Harrison noted that Timona Park was popular with the community.

 

"There were a large number of people in the park at the time and it is extremely fortunate that no-one on the ground was hurt," he said.

 

Witnesses described hearing the Yak cruising in the air above southern Feilding, with no obvious problems, before a loud bang and a "revving sound" as it fell out of the sky, avoiding rooftops by as little as 100 metres.

 

Tingey Ave resident Bob Cale, whose house backs on to Timona Park, saw the plane hurtle towards the ground at a 45-degree angle and hit with tremendous force.

 

"It was going so bloody fast, they wouldn't have had a chance to [crash] land the thing ... there was no walking away from that."

 

Sandra Elliot said she saw the plane, trailing smoke, career towards the park. It appeared to be listing to the right, suggesting the pilot was steering it towards the open, she said.

 

"I'm very thankful that he was able to steer it away from all these homes ... this could have been a much bigger tragedy."

 

Her son, Jordan, headed to the scene and saw the propeller had been flung into the nearby playground, she said.

 

Manawatu Aero Club member Clyde Rowland described Saxe, 51, as a "fine pilot" who specialised in aerobatic flying and had performed for the public at air shows up and down the country.

 

"He was one of the nicest blokes I had ever met in aviation.

 

"The flying world is a brotherhood ... some people fly and they never join in anything else.

 

"But he [saxe] was one of those guys who was part of everything and excluded no-one from the circle."

 

Saxe, a New Zealand citizen who hailed from Pretoria, South Africa, came from an aviation-oriented family, who shared his passion for the skies, Rowland said.

 

"Ralph's great passion was for older, unusual aircraft ... he had quite a collection. He was a man who had a never-ending enthusiasm for aviation – that's him in a nutshell."

 

Saxe owned at least four planes – a Yak, two DHC-1 Chipmunks and a Beechcraft Bonanza.

 

MidCentral District Health Board member Jack Drummond described his friend of 15 years as an outstanding go-getter and entrepreneur who did great things for Palmerston North medicine.

 

"He was very good forward-thinking, an extremely competent practitioner. He's been into everything that's progressive in medicine," Drummond said.

 

"But he was also a very much-liked person and I'm very, very sad to hear [about his death]."

 

Family gathered at Saxe's Palmerston North home yesterday declined to comment.

 

'RELIABLE' YAK-52 DRAWS PRAISE FROM PILOTS

 

Yakovlev 52 aircraft are described as "a pleasure to fly".

 

The plane was designed as an aerobatic trainer aircraft in the Soviet Union after World War II.

 

Since the fall of the iron curtain many Yak-52 aircraft have been exported, and they can be bought new from Romania.

 

A Yak-52 airman said the aircraft was extremely reliable, well-built and without any vices. The Russians designed them specifically for aerobatic exercises. "They're a pleasure to fly."

 

Meanwhile, a civilian aerobatic team based in New Plymouth plans to go ahead with a display involving the aircraft at Tauranga Air Show next weekend.

 

"We'll be taking a [Yak-52] team over to Tauranga next weekend and that's really about all I want to say on the subject," pilot Brett Emeny said. "They are fantastic aircraft to handle."

 

About 10 North Island Yak-52 pilots regularly put on displays at New Zealand air shows.

 

 

[oneplaneboy]

Crash 'not pilot error'

 

Last updated 12:00 03/02/2012

 

A friend of the Palmerston North man who died when the plane he was in crashed in Feilding has said the crash was caused by a mechanical issue, rather than pilot error.

 

The Palms managing director Ralph Saxe, 51, and chiropractor Brett Ireland, 50, died in a Yak-52 aircraft crash at Timona Park in Feilding on January 23. It was still unclear who was flying the plane.

 

During Dr Saxe's funeral at Taonui Aerodrome in Feilding yesterday, friend and flying partner Neil Jepsen told the more than 500 mourners the crash was not the result of pilot error. He said it appeared the crash was caused by unrecoverable mechanical failure.

 

The Civil Aviation Authority confirmed yesterday that investigators had found a "stubby type screwdriver" among the wreckage, which may have caused the crash.

 

Spokeswoman Emma Peel said they were not certain of the cause.

 

But the discovery mirrored a case in Britain in 2003, when two people died after a similar tool became lodged in the tail of the aircraft, and affected its controls.

 

She said the screwdriver "may have rendered the aircraft unflyable".

 

"Foreign object damage (FOD) is a known risk to aerobatic aircraft. Any loose material, even a paper clip, can shift during aerobatics and affect the aircraft's controls."

 

The CAA had since contacted all New Zealand Yak-52 owners to advise them of this finding and recommended a visual inspection of any foreign objects before flying.

 

The CAA hoped to have a preliminary report on the investigation out within three weeks.