Small plane take off mishap NT

[Happyflyer]

Small plane crashes on Stuart Highway at Dunmarra

[Happyflyer]

No Cookies | NT News

 

Looks like a Jab. There appears to be an air strip parallel to the highway at Dunmarra. Occupants ok.

 

 

[Steve L]

No Cookies | NT NewsLooks like a Jab. There appears to be an air strip parallel to the highway at Dunmarra. Occupants ok.

There prolly wasnt a fuel bouser on the airstrip

 

 

[turboplanner]

Refuelled at the Wayside Inn..........tried to take off on a Road Of National Importance.......the book's been thrown at a few people before him, so at least to do eared corners may soften the blow.

 

 

[kaz3g]

Turbs...where does it say he took off on the highway?

 

Kaz

 

 

[red750]

[turboplanner]

Turbs...where does it say he took off on the highway?Kaz

It says he refuelled AT the Wayside Inn which is on the Stuart Highway. If you zoom in on the overhead view, you'll see the Shell fuel pumps are on the highway side of the Inn.

 

 

[red750]

Nothing to say he didn't jerry-can it to the back. If he took off from the strip and had efato, only place to put down safely would be the highway.

 

 

[turboplanner]

The report says he refuelled at the Wayside Inn, but yes, he could have filled a jerry can at the Wayside in and walked back to the aircraft on the strip.

 

 

[storchy neil]

I think you can taxi to the fuel pumps if I remember correctly parked a road train there neil

 

 

[Happyflyer]

From the police statement below it appears it may not have taken off from the airstrip. Sounds like it never got into the air so must have taken off very close to the road.

 

Duty Superintendent Robert Harrison said the ultra light plane was still on the ground when it flipped just after 3pm Tuesday.

 

“It was attempting to take off on the grass area when a gust of wind hit it and it flipped over,” he said.

 

No Cookies | NT News

 

 

[kaz3g]

From the police statement below it appears it may not have taken off from the airstrip. Sounds like it never got into the air so must have taken off very close to the road.Duty Superintendent Robert Harrison said the ultra light plane was still on the ground when it flipped just after 3pm Tuesday.

 

“It was attempting to take off on the grass area when a gust of wind hit it and it flipped over,” he said.

 

No Cookies | NT News

There is next to no grass alongside the highway there but there is a strip of grass about 100 metres northeast of the roadhouse and more along the airstrip proper. Check it out on Google Earth.

 

Kaz

 

 

[Steve L]

He may have landed on the airstrip and taxied to the bowser which is possible at Dunmarra, I would probably do that myself. Here we go speculating again, hopefully it will come out in the wash.

 

 

[Steve L]

Actually he could have been sitting on the side of the highway waiting for traffic to clear, then a road train comes hurdling along at 100ks +

 

 

[Cooda]

I've stopped at Dunmarra many times over the past 40 years and never realized the strip was there.

 

There's plenty of space around the bowsers to accommodate a taxying Jab. Ditto between the roadhouse and the strip from the look of the aerial photo.

 

From the news photo, it looks like they're on the highway verge. You can see a thin strip of sealed surface beyond the starboard wing root. The highway is the only sealed surface in the vicinity.

 

There's miles of visibility in both directions on the highway, so it's not infeasible to see it as an attractive runway, in a practical sense. Save the 10 minute taxi back to the far end of the strip etc. Not sure what effect the camber would have on a Jab's tendency to swing left. But I note that it is the port wing that's dug in.

 

Winds this time of the year are strong, variable and gusting.

 

I was caught out at Tindal in a Jab a couple of years ago taking off on 14. ATIS had winds at 8kts from 110. Got to 30kts on the take off run and the port wing lifted and kept lifting against full left stick. Son in RHS later said the ASI had briefly swung to 70kts + as the fun started.

 

There couldn't have been much of a gap between the ground and the starboard wing tip before I got the nose into wind and recovered. Tindal 14 is a lot wider than the Stuart Highway at Dunmarra, so I had room to move (just.....those runway lights were looking pretty big at the end.).

 

I'm guessing old mate got caught out in similar fashion but with more limited options.

 

 

[onetrack]

I fail to understand why anyone would choose to take off from a road (if the information reported is true), when a highly satisfactory strip is right adjacent to the highway.

 

The problems with taking off from a road (particularly a heavily-trafficked, major highway) are not immediately obvious, but here's some considerations;

 

1. Unless you have total control of the traffic on the road, via police or other traffic control, you are sharing the airstrip with road vehicles, who would be unaware of aircraft using the road. Dangerous conflict would very likely result.

 

This includes vehicle drivers who can possibly enter the road at any point along the section the aircraft is planning to use.

 

2. Road signs are set at height and are close to the road shoulders, providing very dangerous aviation hazards. Many of these signs can blend in with vegetation, particularly if you are approaching them from the back side.

 

3. The pavement width of a road (and even a highway) is barely adequate for airstrip purposes, and for allowing for drift.

 

All sections of highway set up for emergency landing purposes are specifically engineered as airstrips, with road signs eliminated, no cattle grids, no undulations, and with no obstacles in each direction of flight for at least 2500M.

 

Often, the highway has additional widening added.

 

4. A proper airstrip with a wide cleared area would most likely suffer less from wind eddies and gusts than a highway with adjoining heavy/high vegetation. In addition, airstrips have windsocks, roads don't.

 

This is a fine example of a properly-engineered highway emergency airstrip.

 

 

 

[Downunder]

Call me ignorant, but I've never heard of emergency airstrip highways....... interesting pic.

 

 

[derekliston]

Just drove over one of those highway strips today on the Stuart highway somewhere around Coober Pedy and saw several on the Nullabor in the past!

 

 

[storchy neil]

could be wrong but I have this thought 3 on null 4 Adelaide Darwin neil

 

 

[turboplanner]

could be wrong but I have this thought 3 on null 4 Adelaide Darwin neil

That sounds about right.

They are quite highly specified; some information on it at Department of Main Roads, WA who have a specification for building them

 

 

[facthunter]

I noticed more on the Nullarbor. They were using them in Sweden? I think, years before anyone else. The Swedish ones are for defence, the Australian ones for road emergencies mainly.. Air Ambulance..Be slow any other way. Both of those roads are long drives. What a jet covers in an hour takes a day on the road (Rough equivalent) Used to make me a very impatient driver on a long trip.. Nev

 

 

[alf jessup]

Seen designated RFDS strips along the Nullarbor, Birdsville development road near where the Arrubury road comes out and a few other places in my time

 

 

[cooperplace]

I noticed more on the Nullarbor. They were using them in Sweden? I think, years before anyone else. The Swedish ones are for defence, the Australian ones for road emergencies mainly.. Air Ambulance..Be slow any other way. Both of those roads are long drives. What a jet covers in an hour takes a day on the road (Rough equivalent) Used to make me a very impatient driver on a long trip.. Nev

the Swiss used to use ordinary roads with widened sections as strips. I saw this near Lake Neuchatel about 30yrs ago: traffic lights block traffic, a Kombi van with a big bubble in the roof appears -it's ATC- and a jet fighter lands, taxis off the road, and the lights go green. Amazing. I don't know if they still do this; the strip I saw is now defunct for aviation.

 

 

[kaz3g]

Yes well...the Germans were using the autobahn for the Me 262 when the pinch was on towards the end of WWII but I very much doubt that the little black duck in this story took off from the highway even though he crashed onto it.

 

Kaz

 

 

[turboplanner]

Yes well...the Germans were using the autobahn for the Me 262 when the pinch was on towards the end of WWII but I very much doubt that the little black duck in this story took off from the highway even though he crashed onto it.Kaz

Doesn't really matter; if he taxied up to the pumps he's gone anyway.