Canadair CL-415 fire-bomber down • Sicily 27-10-22

[Garfly]

 

 

 

https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20221027-0

 

https://fireaviation.com/2022/10/27/air-tanker-crash-in-italy-kills-two/

[RossK]

remarkably similar to this one

 

https://youtu.be/thyAJivXsPg

[onetrack]

Another graduate from the "Bud" Holland school of flying training? As Blanco Lirio says, where was the need to fly so recklessly in pursuit of a small fire in rugged terrain, in gusty conditions, where that fire didn't really pose a major threat to life and limb? He banked nearly vertical at a very low altitude, and obviously right near stall speed. The outcome is completely predictable, when there's only 300-400 feet between you and the terrain.

[plugga]

Difficult to tell from the video, but I'd be inclined to put my money on him underestimating his turn radius in the wind and trying to tighten it up when the brown bits started filling the windscreen. There's a horrible sense of inevitability when that inside wing stops flying and no amount of rudder and/or throttle is going to fix things. Shades of the Mallard in Perth a few years back. 

[Student Pilot]

I disagree with the commentator that the pilot would have been using full right rudder, rudder is used to balance the turn not to make it. A long span usually needs to lead with rudder but not turn with rudder. An overshot turn is bad news, a high angle of bank worse. Overshot the turn and tried to recover by steepening the turn.

[facthunter]

Full rudder at a wing high angle of attack (near stall) is near certain to result in a bad outcome compounded by low height and steep bank in this case. The tragic outcome was inevitable. Nev

Edited October 29, 2022 by facthunter

[Garfly]

In the video, Juan Browne talks about the typical pilot error of ruddering the nose around, hoping to increase turn rate in tight situations. 

But I don't think he's saying, for sure, that that's what happened here, though he seems to come close.

[facthunter]

I consider there's a vague possibility that he's attempting a stall turn.  Nev

[rgmwa]

He's comes around in an almost vertical bank to attack the fire and then appears to tighten the turn even further to avoid the terrain just before the inevitable stall.  Tragic miscalculation and loss of life.

[Student Pilot]

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

I consider there's a vague possibility that he's attempting a stall turn.  Nev

Don't think so Nev, he'd have pulled the nose way up first. The aircraft has kept the nose down and steepened the turn to try and make the target. With a tailwind, slowing airspeed and high angle of bank it's in a dangerous position with not enough height to recover. Also a lot of flap out seems to slow the roll rate in most aircraft. At extreme angles of bank and slow airspeed the roll rate is virtually non existent. 

[facthunter]

Yes .  Without the nose being a lot higher it would not work. That is the only "vague possibility" and "attempting" to explain the bank angle and any rudder input I thought was being alleged by the commentator. Otherwise he's too slow without enough room. Dumping the whole load should have produced a fair bit of extra performance and surely he'd have full power on. Wind shear as you say not helping.  Nev

[Student Pilot]

At a slow near stall speed dumping all the load does not give the performance jump you would expect, you have to look ahead and dump while the aircraft performance is still at a reasonable level. In hills/mountains at high density altitude, (which is most bad fire days) the aircraft performance is degraded severely anyway. 

[Old Koreelah]

A tragic outcome, but criticism that this small fire was not posing a big risk assumes we should wait until it does. Perhaps the area was a tinderbox and the wind conditions convinced them of the urgency of putting out the fire while they could.