Air Charter crashes at Essendon

[red750]

Premier Andrews (I'm not a supporter - he should not have cancelled the east-west link) has said Essendon is a key freight and passenger hub for Tasmania and King Island, as well as the base for the Police Air Wing, Air Ambulance and regional operators such as Sharp Airlines.

 

 

[Skyline90]

17 won't give you many options to get down without damage if you lose an engine. The best chance you've got is if you can make a left turn onto 08 or the grass alongside it at worst, if you have the alt.

 

Landing on Citilink probably wasn't an option, usually backed up right around Essendon at 9am.

 

What a horror situation to be in.

 

 

[kgwilson]

Absolute insanity to put that shopping centre there. It was never a matter of if but when and that has just happened. That shopping centre can't have been there that long but I'll bet every local politician originally involved will now be working frantically on their get out of jail free cards. You'd think that here must have been some graft or tradeoffs within the upper echelon to get it done.

 

 

[turboplanner]

This very sad accident will affect many more people than just those directly involved.The encroachment on the airport by non-aviation development is criminal in my view. And it's occurring at all secondary and many regional airports. Have a look at YMEN on Google Earth if you don't fly in there, and you will see the problem for anyone taking off to the south.

Standby for an "inquiry" and the closure of Essendon.

 

Kaz

At Essendon and Moorabbin, while there has ben encroachment on land surrounding the airports, the issue here is commercial development, (which would be prohibited under local Council zoning ),WITHIN the airport boundary, not only towards the sides of runways, but across the end of some.

On the other thread I posted the Zoning around Essendon Airport, and it appears the Airport is zoned Commonwealth of Australia, so the State Government and local Council have no authority.

 

If that is the case, then the AD hoc decision to issue 99 year leases to several commonwealth owned airports was the start of it, and the lessees, an their sub lessees and their sub lessees appear to have been conducting their own Planning safeguards.

 

 

[dsam]

If CASA was truly interested in safety, why wouldn't they have stepped in to limit unsuitable development so close to an aerodrome. Surely they have a safety mandate for all such airports under threat of inappropriate development.

 

Let's not forget, in most cases the airport was there first, by many years.

 

 

[red750]

Another consideration for Essendon is that it is the base for firebombers including the Skycranes during the bushfire season.

 

For those not familiar with it, here is the development at the northern end of 17.

 

 

 

[turboplanner]

This very sad accident will affect many more people than just those directly involved.The encroachment on the airport by non-aviation development is criminal in my view. And it's occurring at all secondary and many regional airports. Have a look at YMEN on Google Earth if you don't fly in there, and you will see the problem for anyone taking off to the south.

Standby for an "inquiry" and the closure of Essendon.

 

Kaz

From a photo/diagramme in The Age it appears the aircraft had turned and was gliding for a landing on Tullamarine Freeway, when it caught the corner of the Essendon Airport DFO.

If so the argument may well be that if the DFO had not been built there a successful EFATO possibly could have been conducted.

 

 

[Akromaster]

From a photo/diagramme in The Age it appears the aircraft had turned and was gliding for a landing on Tullamarine Freeway, when it caught the corner of the Essendon Airport DFO.If so the argument may well be that if the DFO had not been built there a successful EFATO possibly could have been conducted.

At time of day, as mentioned above, a landing on the freeway would have been into bumper-to-bumper traffic...I was there a couple of minutes before and there would not have been any room for a landing without taking out a few cars.

 

 

[red750]

Channel 7 have named the pilot and shown a photo of him. He is identified as Max Quartermaine.

 

 

[turboplanner]

At time of day, as mentioned above, a landing on the freeway would have been into bumper-to-bumper traffic...I was there a couple of minutes before and there would not have been any room for a landing without taking out a few cars.

That could be; you would normally expect traffic going away from you at 80<100 km/hr lessening the collision impact, but certainly could have been problematic.

However, the pilot was denied any chance of that by the people who allowed buildings on the airport grounds.

 

 

[BLA82]

There's a video now showing the plane coming back towards the dfo then hitting the building I'm confused

 

 

[BLA82]

Twitter

[red750]

3D view showing where that twitter dashcam was shot from.

 

 

 

[frank marriott]

The investigation of this matter as to the cause will be interesting.

 

You don't crash in a twin with a "single engine failure" in normal operations - obviously more to come in due course.

 

(Surrounding buildings more related to SE aircraft)

 

 

[BLA82]

3D view showing where that twitter dashcam was shot from.[ATTACH=full]48682[/ATTACH]

Thanks that makes sense

 

 

[bexrbetter]

If CASA was truly interested in safety, why wouldn't they have stepped in to limit unsuitable development so close to an aerodrome. Surely they have a safety mandate for all such airports under threat of inappropriate development.Let's not forget, in most cases the airport was there first, by many years.

I'm posting this for historic reasons, not political comment...

 

 

 

[facthunter]

Pretty much all airports get development right up to their boundaries. Essendon is no different to most of them in that regard. Air Ambulance uses it and that's a plus for the community. It was the Major Airport for the Airlines till 1970, and was built up on all sides except the northern end even then. There's been a constant push by real estate entities to get it closed for years. The signs erected and development there should never have been allowed to happen though I doubt it would have made any difference to this occurrence which was a charter company with engines in a plane that have one of the best safety records of any engine built. You can fill an airport up with development but you will rarely remove development to establish an airport. Everyone wants cheap airfares and access to planes but no one wants an aerodrome near them. We as users of airports should understand that principle. Nev

 

 

[Icarus]

A few weeks ago I was discussing EFATO in a Twin with a guy going for his twin rating.

 

He told me that if one engine fails and the other is at full power at take off , the procedure is to shut down / throttle back the running engine and glide to a landing site.

 

This is because the yaw and roll created by one engine at full power, and the other non working engine creating drag pulling the wing slower and less lift creates a situation that quickly turns nasty. ie steep bank and dive

 

From the video that I saw the wings look fairly level ,, so I assume the pilot shut down /throttle back the engine for flight control .

 

Obviously to get back to the airstrip from which you came take a certain minimum altitude

 

Looks like no options for the pilot straight ahead.

 

As soon as that plane left the ground he had few options if any, his 40 odd years of flying was never going to get him out of trouble here in my opinion.

 

Altitude was needed and he simply didn't have it.

 

Its just so sad

 

 

[turboplanner]

There's plenty of technical discussion on the B200 EFATO performance on prune

 

 

[facthunter]

If you have blueline speed and wings level the rudder should be adequate to stop roll, caused by yaw. These engines operate with AUTO feathering to meet the climb performance criteria. If the engine was damaged that function might not work. A non feathered turboprop can cause a drag figure way above the thrust it can deliver. The talk of retarding an engine is valid to retain control but speed makes the rudder effective. VMC (a). Probably about 120 knots but I'm guessing. IF the failed motor doesn't feather all those figures are meaningless. It's over .Nev

 

 

[Icarus]

If you have blueline speed and wings level the rudder should be adequate to stop roll, caused by yaw. These engines operate with AUTO feathering to meet the climb performance criteria. If the engine was damaged that function might not work. A non feathered turboprop can cause a drag figure way above the thrust it can deliver. The talk of retarding an engine is valid to retain control but speed makes the rudder effective. VMC (a). Probably about 120 knots but I'm guessing. IF the failed motor doesn't feather all those figures are meaningless. It's over .Nev

Might be possibe this one was not in feather mode, or was disabled interesting discussion on PRune. Might be why he didn't climb out.

.

 

I'm sure ATSB will get to the truth . .

 

Edited due to incorrect info

 

 

[facthunter]

They might be able to operate with auto feather disarmed. I would be surprised if that's the case but manual feathering would still be an option. It's the time delay that is the issue. I don't wish to speculate either. It works off the torque reading usually. I've had a torquemeter indication fail and disarmed the auto feather for landing as a precaution. I don't know what's in the manual. People on Prune will (some of them) Nev

 

 

[Icarus]

They might be able to operate with auto feather disarmed. I would be surprised if that's the case but manual feathering would still be an option. It's the time delay that is the issue. I don't wish to speculate either. It works off the torque reading usually. I've had a torquemeter indication fail and disarmed the auto feather for landing as a precaution. I don't know what's in the manual. People on Prune will (some of them) Nev

according to one guy:

Retarding the power lever will deactivate the auto feather, both power levers need to be

 

in the take off power range (I cant recall the exact number but around 88%Ng) for auto

 

feather to arm, then if Tq falls (once again I forget the exact number) to around

 

200ft/lbs the system will feather.

 

 

[Icarus]

according to one guy:Retarding the power lever will deactivate the auto feather, both power levers need to be

in the take off power range (I cant recall the exact number but around 88%Ng) for auto

 

feather to arm, then if Tq falls (once again I forget the exact number) to around

 

200ft/lbs the system will feather.

And one more copy and paste that may be of interest:

Remembering back 15 years: B200 normal takeoff is with 0 flap. Rotate is @ 95kts, 5kts below the power-off stall speed. V2 is (from memory) 121kts. Once it gets to 121kts it is a rocket and will handle fine engine-out at all weights. An engine failure close to V1 is a handfull. It can take about 5000-8000ft of ground distance to accelerate to V2 in that condition and it is difficult to control the roll (noting the now non-blown wing is close to stall speed) and yaw tendancies. Have practiced V1<V2 cuts at high DA (Colorado Springs) in the sim and ended up flying through the tower on a number of them. Obviously the only place you can be exposed to it is in the sim. It's certified under FAR/CAR Part 21, so no requirement for an accelerate/go option. Again, it will make most gradients at V2 but you'll blow through the obstacle clear plane before you get to V2 on a lot of runways if you have a V1 cut; can make planning night/IMC departures tricky if you want to keep a 'go'option. Approach (40) flap takeoff brings the rotate down to 94kts, can't remeber the power-off stall in that configuration but it reduces the climb-out gradient and (again because of FAR/CAR21) there is no published 2nd segment that I can recall

 

 

[bexrbetter]

As soon as that plane left the ground he had few options if any,

We can never know of course, but it appears that he was trying to make the Tulla Freeway, it would be 6 lanes + wide road where he was possibly aiming and within reach, just couldn't clear the last roof.