Swan river incident

[Guest FlyingPhil]

Heart goes out to the families. Tragic.

 

 

[cscotthendry]

I've just had an email confirming that the Mallard lost was the one that has been recently based at Watts Bridge and the pilot was the Evans Head developer. Very sad to hear this. We wish to pass on our heartfelt condolences to his family and also to the family of the passenger who was with him.

 

 

[Downunder]

Looks to me all the holes in the cheese lined up......

 

Hot weather, gusting tail wind, low speed, low level turn and bank......

 

Take out one of them and it might never have happened and no one would be the wiser as to how close it came......

 

 

[Camel]

Recorded from a different locationhttps://u.nya.is/laczkw.mp4

Thanks for posting this video as it shows clearly the point where it goes wrong, very sad indeed. I can't believe that things like this happen to experienced pilots ! Truely sad indeed and condolences to all family and friends.

 

 

[WayneL]

Photo of aircraft taken at the Great Eastern Flyin at Evans Head on January the 7th this year.

 

Wayne.

 

 

 

 

[Downunder]

Very nice...aircraft, boat and caravan all rolled into one....

 

 

[dutchroll]

The wind direction shouldn't really make a difference (unless you enter shear, but that's not going to happen when you're maintaining approximately level flight), but a slight lapse in concentration is all it takes when you have no height to recover in.

 

When we did multi-engine low flying in the military, vigorous manoeuvring was done with a large margin above the stall speed for the configuration, bearing in mind that a 60 deg bank level turn is going to shoot your stall speed up x 1.4. A 45 deg bank level turn will increase it by x 1.2. That's almost instantaneous (as soon as the g comes on). When we were very low and slow (like when dropping life rafts at 200ft above the water right back towards approach speed), manoeuvring was kept to a minimum.

 

Banked stall speed = level stall speed / √cos(bank angle)

 

 

[SSCBD]

Very sad.

 

He was empty I am told, and the Mallard has plenty of power in that config, Could have been a false sense of security being empty and aircraft feeling light. Have flown them many times loaded with pax and empty. Its like us flying RAA two seats for example one up instead of two. I can only say not enough power for some reason, or loss of power and too slow. How or why he got into this no one will really know. Could have been mechanical failure, structural, or control, as they are getting pretty old these days with lots of salt water corrosion problems. Nightmare for LAME's to keep up.

 

But we are all guessing at this point of time.

 

 

[Icarus]

That was my favourite aircraft at the fly in the other week.

 

Seems like the guy was a real aviation lover. Helped pay for aircraft museum restore at Evans head, negotiated with the council to develop the airfield.

 

A sad event indeed.

 

Condolences to friends and family of both people.

 

 

[BoxFat]

The amount of video (from different angles) plus the availability of minute by minute ADS-B readout of position, speed, altitude (via FlightAware) and a PDF of the flight manual on-line could make for a very detailed analysis of this accident. The nerd in me wants to do it but - I find myself with zero enthusiasm for it. Two people are dead and a beautiful aeroplane is gone. F*ck the people who complained about the cancellation of the SkyShow - not realistic to expect the very careful and immediate investigation that's necessary to happen in the middle of a bloody fireworks display. Let ATSB do it.

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

Very sad indeed! My condolences to the family; a dreadful thing for his children. Each of us are always but a breath away from eternity...

 

 

[facthunter]

Aeroplanes are very unforgiving of inattention or error at critical times. It goes from OK to disaster in a few seconds. This is how it has been in the past and will always be. It's the nature of flying. Nev

 

 

[alf jessup]

Aeroplanes are very unforgiving of inattention or error at critical times. It goes from OK to disaster in a few seconds. This is how it has been in the past and will always be. It's the nature of flying. Nev

Spot on Nev

And we as humans are and always will be the weakest link

 

 

[Happyflyer]

Hi Dutch...Just one comment... could be wrong, but I recall stall speed at 60* bank is 2x, not 1.4. Also, stall speed at 45* is close to 1.4x...not to be picky, but it is important.

Cheers

You are confusing 'G' force with stall speed.

 

 

[Harro]

You are confusing 'G' force with stall speed.

I stand corrected.. you are right. Thanks.

 

 

[Jabiru7252]

The Mallard looks as strong as a bull - I'm surprised it smashed up so much.

 

 

[storchy neil]

going by the vids the angle off impact with the water no hope in hell remember water has two impacts neil

 

 

[Montymagic]

The swan river was very shallow. The impact was comparable to hitting land in my view.

 

 

[dutchroll]

The Mallard looks as strong as a bull - I'm surprised it smashed up so much.

Most likely a consequence of this......

 

The swan river was very shallow.

One other thing I didn't mention previously was that in a wing-drop stall situation like this appears to be, the instinctive reaction is to apply opposite aileron, which will generally make the situation rapidly worsen. It's good to practice stalls like this at a safe altitude in aircraft prone to it so you learn to quickly recognise it (the Winjeel could violently drop a wing in a turning stall). On aircraft not prone to it, it's good to see the resistance of that aircraft to wing drop too. Obviously with an instructor until you're proficient and confident enough to practice yourself (if you want to do that).

 

 

[facthunter]

Distraction is a frequent factor in this kind of accident. However good you are at the practicing of the skill, if something takes your full attention away, you might easily stuff it up at the critical time. Tight manoeuvring at slow speed and height leaves no margin for error. If your airspeed is bleeding off, it's particularly critical it be managed precisely. If the height is minimal that can only be done by adding power, and/or reconfiguring the flaps in what may be a tight turn onto final. That's fairly normal for someone who flys most days but the workload gets high for someone who doesn't do that sort of thing all the time. Not saying this has a direct bearing on this event but I'm trying to paint a picture of a scenario/ possibility. Nev

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Spot on NevAnd we as humans are and always will be the weakest link

...which is why car designers are bypassing human control. We're next.

 

 

[facthunter]

Sport Aviators are exempt, for obvious reasons. ( Only the ones without autopilots and glass cockpits. The others are too far gone to rehabilitate) Nev

 

 

[alf jessup]

...which is why car designers are bypassing human control. We're next.

Hey Old Koreelah,

If you look at the Anastasia plane that hit the rock wall In SFO the automation for the ILS which wasn't working and the pilots couldn't recognise the undershoot and the both had 10000hrs command time of automation and about 300 hrs of actual hands on flying

 

You will never automate stick and rudder pilots we will always find a way to kill ourselves

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Hey Old Koreelah,If you look at the Anastasia plane that hit the rock wall In SFO the automation for the ILS which wasn't working and the pilots couldn't recognise the undershoot...

I believe the second officer could see things were not right, but for cultural reasons declined to challenge his senior.

I've never seen a bird crash. They seem to have developed a pretty good automatic landing system.

 

 

[Admin]

we will always find a way to kill ourselves

Let's hope we can find ways to minimize them but then there are those that are just simply out of our control plus we can do the same thing thousands of times but then just once we do it slightly different for no apparent reason and it bites us