B17G Crash

[BackcountryAeropup]

A Collings foundation B17G crashed during a joy flight. The B17 had number 4 engine troubles after takeoff but made it back to the airport and crashed just after touching down. There was 10 plus 3 crew. The crew were highly experienced with the B17. Big shame nevertheless... ?

 

 

[kasper]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49909735

 

And bbc news are reporting deaths. 

 

 

[Thruster88]

Flightaware shows the aircraft in an increasingly tight turn towards the dead engine, why why why

 

 

[Downunder]

I would have thought 3 engines on a relatively light airframe (no bomb load, etc) would not have been too difficult to handle? 

 

They seem to have a large rudder.

 

 

[red750]

Original reports claimed 5 dead. Later reports now say 7 dead.

 

 

[Phil Perry]

I would have thought 3 engines on a relatively light airframe (no bomb load, etc) would not have been too difficult to handle? 

 

They seem to have a large rudder.

 

Yeah but with so little information at the moment, ANY speculation is probably pointless.  Statements from NON- Flying witnesses some distance away are not much value, although the press always like to print them. . . 

 

Very sad event indeed. . .thoughts are with the families of those deceased.

 

 

[facthunter]

 If the engine could not be feathered you would have problems.  Mechanical issues can't be ruled out. It's a complex old plane and don't just assume they mucked up the flying, as is generally the case. Nev

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

People often forget that these warbirds were designed to last, at best, a few month of combat.

 

Eighty years later a few them are still being flown.

 

 

[facthunter]

Just to correct the ambiguity in my post above it's the "assumption" of the crew mucking things up, that I assert is generally the case.. It's just great that these old plane are active again but think oif the issued when there's no factory back up with parts or expertise and what you are building it up from is a total  wreck in most cases, though it might still look like THE plane superficially, EVERYTHING, (every bit) has to be inspected or remanufactured or made from new. Nev

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

People often forget that these warbirds were designed to last, at best, a few month of combat.

 

Eighty years later a few them are still being flown.

 

...and to clarify my post: it's an incredible feat of restoration to get these warbirds into the air again, but among the thousands of components might be one with hidden faults related to age.

 

The Mitsubishi Zero was largely built from a light and strong alloy recently developed by Sumitomo.

 

Decades later it was found to be prone to inter-cellular corrosion. I'm surprised any of them are still flying.

 

 

[facthunter]

There's an "as crashed" one at Darwin Museum The workmanship is unequalled . The alloy probably had a lot of magnesium in it. They were a quite small aircraft.  Nev

 

 

[440032]

Oshkosh 2018, B29 and two (I think it was two?) B17's doing laps of the campground at about 500 feet on Friday evening. Cooooooool.

 

 

[BackcountryAeropup]

Lucky to have looked threw one at the lyon's air museum when they had a open day in may.

 

 

[onetrack]

The NTSB has held an information briefing for the media and did quite a good job of providing as much useful information as is available at this early stage, whilst diplomatically fielding the normal dumb questions from the assembled media.

 

https://www.wfsb.com/news-conference-ntsb-gives-update-on-investigation-into-b-/video_ba0e6c8e-67c3-5cb0-a918-9c07e26d0643.html

 

Interesting points revealed from media reports, and the NTSB interview were:

 

1. The Pilot and Co pilot are amongst the deceased.

 

2. The Pilot had 7300 hours on the B-17 and was the highest hour B-17 pilot in the U.S.

 

3. The aircraft was certified for 87 octane fuel and NTSB initial tests on remaining fuel indicated it had been fuelled with 100 octane LL fuel.

 

4. The aircraft initially struck landing lights attached to breakaway poles around 1000 feet out from the runway threshold.

 

5. The aircraft showed signs of being slightly right wing down at that point.

 

6. The pilot reported "engine problem" to ATC, and investigations are continuing to try and determine if more than one engine wasn't producing power (or full power).

 

7. There have been 21 crash incidents involving WW2 aircraft since 1982, the date when the NTSB started to collate records involving WW2 aircraft crashes. Of those 21 incidents, 3 involved B-17's.

 

8. There does not appear, at this stage, to be any single factor that is a standout repeat factor in those WW2 aircraft crashes.

 

No doubt the NTSB will be looking at whether the aircrafts impact with the landing lights affected its controllability from that point on.

 

 

[BackcountryAeropup]

They have done fuel testing and it all checks out there. The B17 can remain in the pattern with three engines and continue flight operations I can only speculate losing more then one engine would be quite difficult. It looks like now they are turning there attention to the radio conversations with the ground and aircraft and weather the engine was on fire going by what was said during radio calls.

 

 

[BackcountryAeropup]

Unbelievable. The B17 my son and I was looking through in may this year at the lyon's air museum open day was 909. 

 

 

[facthunter]

Yes a plane like this can fly well on 3 engines once it's cleaned up and trimmed out. Being cleaned up means the dud engine (if there was one) is feathered successfully, Flaps up, wheels up and the cowl gills etc closed. IF an engine can't be feathered due  some condition in the feathering system or the prop has fined off and really creating drag all bets are off regarding ability to continue flying.. Most of these Big round engines have fire extinguishing systems that are reasonably effective. One would have though there would be some "filming" of the plane in flight, but perhaps not. Sad outcome for all affected and it ended up some distance from the runway and hitting something heavy and solid quite hard. Nev

 

 

[dsam]

Yes a plane like this can fly well on 3 engines once it's cleaned up and trimmed out. Being cleaned up means the dud engine (if there was one) is feathered successfully, Flaps up, wheels up and the cowl gills etc closed. IF an engine can't be feathered due  some condition in the feathering system or the prop has fined off and really creating drag all bets are off regarding ability to continue flying.. Most of these Big round engines have fire extinguishing systems that are reasonably effective. One would have though there would be some "filming" of the plane in flight, but perhaps not. Sad outcome for all affected and it ended up some distance from the runway and hitting something heavy and solid quite hard. Nev

 

Hypothetical question for multi-engine pilots - I'm certainly not one ?.  I accept that EFATO often leads to dangerous asymmetrical thrust, quite possibly beyond rudder control to correct it at low airspeed while attempting to climb.

 

Does it ever get recommended that in this scenario, the best option might be to reduce thrust from good engine(s) to minimise asymmetry effects, and stabilise for a (possibly inevitable) off-field forced landing with much-improved controllability/survivability.  Granted, reducing power from a good engine is counter-intuitive, but you might just manipulate things to get a better outcome... just some musings from a former glider pilot that practiced winch-break exercises....

 

 

[facthunter]

 It's often the only option one has or the plane usually just rolls over and goes in often near vertically.  The action of reducing power on the good engine(s) is accepted  and recommended in circumstances where no other option will be available as likely to enable control to be maintained but the plane may not be able to climb or accelerate or even remain in the air for long..

 

       Always FLY the plane as far as possible into the crash. Once you lose control it's in the lap of the gods, and usually not much good will come of it and these kinds of occurrences are nearly always fatal.  Piston twins have a pretty notorious accident history and mostly during training and some got the name of Doctor killers. People died training how not to die. Thankfully the modern full motion simulator has taken over and that's where a lot of the training is done, but not all. A lot of the things I was made/ forced (well I could have resigned, but you'd never get another job in the Industry) to do would not be permitted today. thankfully.  Nev

 

 

[BackcountryAeropup]

Hypothetical question for multi-engine pilots - I'm certainly not one ?.  I accept that EFATO often leads to dangerous asymmetrical thrust, quite possibly beyond rudder control to correct it at low airspeed while attempting to climb.

 

Does it ever get recommended that in this scenario, the best option might be to reduce thrust from good engine(s) to minimise asymmetry effects, and stabilise for a (possibly inevitable) off-field forced landing with much-improved controllability/survivability.  Granted, reducing power from a good engine is counter-intuitive, but you might just manipulate things to get a better outcome... just some musings from a former glider pilot that practiced winch-break exercises....

 

The Runway clearance lights before the threshold.

 

 

[BackcountryAeropup]

The NTSB preliminary report is out and what they are looking out is the bad mags and if the weather (Rain) the night before contributed to that. For the go around the problem engines hat to be turned into the wind. The start on final the aircraft was only 300ft up with gear down and flaps up to limit drag. The aircraft struck the approach lights 1000ft before the runway then contacted the ground 500ft before the runway then veered towards parked cars and deice tanks.

 

 

[BackcountryAeropup]

They have also noted that engines 1,2,3 are 0 time engines and #4 has 800 hrs. What ever the course they clearly had there hands full towards the end unfortunately.

 

 

[dsam]

The Runway clearance lights before the threshold.

 

Yes, I deliberately posed my question as a hypothetical, - it wasn't intended to directly relate to the actual cause of this crash,  just as a way for me to clarify what training & procedures are considered with EFATO in multi-engined aircraft.  Facthunter was able to provide me with the answer I sought.

 

 

[kgwilson]

It has also been found that on the recovery of the engines from the deicing centre all 3 blades of No 4 engine were feathered but only 1 blade of No 3 engine was feathered indicating a possible problem with No 3 engine as well. The circuit was right hand so they had to turn at very low altitude into the bad engine(s). I wonder what the total weight was? The B17 had a pretty poor bomb payload at 4000 lb as it was heavily armoured & bristling with guns as the "Flying Fortress" name suggests. Wartime crew was 10. If, as it now appears, there were problems with 2 engines on the same side, even though it would have been nowhere near fully laden it is a big heavy aircraft & could hardly maintain 300 feet downwind in the attempt to get back to the runway and as we now know struck the approach lights 300 metres from the runway & then the ground 150 metres from the runway.

 

 

[facthunter]

  The plane would NOT be overloaded. It didn't get very high so it had a significant  power loss problem. #4 was reported mag problems by one of the crew by radio (more on that later). Flap was not extended Refer (power loss problem) makes sense. #3 PART feathered (post impact different blade angle on one blade). I'd put that down to impact forces as all blades are linked together mechanically.. The plane contacted the ground 1,000 feet short of the runway initially, and at the second contact changed direction eventually hitting a solid vehicle .

 

     It was reported engine(s) were being worked on just prior to flight. Since it had been raining during the night it would be NORMAL to blow out the Magnetos with dry nitrogen and in any case they are fully tested prior to every flight at the engine run up point as are the pitch control and feathering systems. Like all engines if the rev drop is outside the accepted figures you don't go.

 

 Normally when making engines out approaches you get  a fair bit of height to enable yourself to manage the configuring of the plane and after a certain point you are committed to land .You will have been easing the rudder pressure by trimming and when you take the power off to flare that trim should be wound off or you will turn sharply  under it's effect when the power is cut on the GOOD motors . No doubt they would have been full chat trying to hold/maintain height. They were always too low. The plane never achieved a height to make anything like a proper engine(s) out approach. Maybe the wheels were never retracted.

 

  Comment: These planes are not BIG at 55,000 -65,000 lbs AUW and 1200 HP /engines are nowhere near the bigger radial engine size.  nor are they very fast. They have plenty of wing and rudder. Nev