Light plane crash The Oaks, 30 March 2023 (edited)

[red750]

A report of a light plane crash, with the location given as 'near Sydney' today. From the screenprint from Ch 7 News below, it appears to be a Jabiru. The pilot is reported to have driven himself to hospital, his passenger was uninjured. No further details on the 4.00 pm news.

 

[yampy]

The Jabiru came down within the circuit area of The Oaks airfield . I understand that one of the occupants has a hand injury and was transported to hospital by ambulance . The other occupant escaped with little or no injury .

Dave C

[trailer]

Looks like an early model jab. Did well to get out.

Edited March 30, 2023 by trailer

[kgwilson]

The aerial shot from the ABC News showed the crash site right next the the end of the runway. That may be the runway in the upper right of the photo.  Another excellent example of the strenght of the Jabiru cabin. It will be intersting to find out what happened.

Edited March 30, 2023 by kgwilson

[planedriver]

That's so sad!. Here's a photo I took recently when it was in better shape.

Unfortunately this is the 2nd time this little Jabby has met up with a tree, but fortunately all on board survived pretty much unscathed, which is yet another testimonial of the strength of Jabiru airframes.

The other occasion was an EFTO at Wedderburn in 2001 when it wound up in the trees that surround the airport.

 

 

[kgwilson]

The latest damage has seen its flying days over I think. Maybe it's an optical illusion but the prop looks bigger than it should be.

[facthunter]

They don't have a lot of ground clearance. Nev

[spacesailor]

T V news ! .

" Engine out on take off"  , according  to trainee pilot , on his second lesson . The tree caught the tail & flipped it upside-down. 

spacesailor

[old man emu]

I'm more concerned about John Taru, the instructor from Dave's Flying School. Sounds like he got hurt bad. And that would have been one of John's early model Jabs.

 

Saw the student interviewed on TV. Young bloke with too much money. He'd already bought himself a plane before learning to fly. If he ever gets his licence I can see him joining the fatal statistics through showing off. That's the way he came across to me.

 

After lunch on the 30th, the wind was calm to light and variable. They would have taken off to the north and I reckon came down within the circled area.

[BrendAn]

1 hour ago, old man emu said:

I'm more concerned about John Taru, the instructor from Dave's Flying School. Sounds like he got hurt bad. And that would have been one of John's early model Jabs.

 

Saw the student interviewed on TV. Young bloke with too much money. He'd already bought himself a plane before learning to fly. If he ever gets his licence I can see him joining the fatal statistics through showing off. That's the way he came across to me.

 

After lunch on the 30th, the wind was calm to light and variable. They would have taken off to the north and I reckon came down within the circled area.

Your having a go at a student that was with an instructor. 

 

[BrendAn]

6 hours ago, kgwilson said:

The latest damage has seen its flying days over I think. Maybe it's an optical illusion but the prop looks bigger than it should be.

It's jabiruted now.

[onetrack]

The Jab is apparently virtually indestructible. According to the latest meedja article, it "fell from 2000M". What a dismal level of journalistic claptrap. But not to worry - the headlines read, "BLOOD, MESS!" 

 

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/1/?sourceCode=DTWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&dest

 

Edited March 31, 2023 by onetrack

[old man emu]

9 hours ago, BrendAn said:

Your having a go at a student that was with an instructor. 

Yes, BrendAn, I was.  I'm sure that if you had seen the report on the news you might be inclined to agree with my opinion of him. You'll notice that virtually nothing was said of the instructor, John Taru who was the one with serious injury. Of course the report also uses all the cliches, but at least they didn't call it a Cessna.

 

 

[old man emu]

I got it wrong. From the video it appears that they came down at the other end

 

[yampy]

13 hours ago, spacesailor said:

T V news ! .

" Engine out on take off"  , according  to trainee pilot , on his second lesson . The tree caught the tail & flipped it upside-down. 

spacesailor

He also said it came down from 1500’ .. would be quite a climb rate on departure ! .. Ive heard from a good authority they were in the landing stage … one thing we know is that the stories are changing .

[BrendAn]

The instructor should have taken over and put it down in the paddock straight ahead of the runway.

[yampy]

20 minutes ago, BrendAn said:

The instructor should have taken over and put it down in the paddock straight ahead of the runway.

 I know the instructor very well . He’s an accomplished instructor of many years . The students claims don’t add up , any one who drives over 1 hr with “ bits coming out and blood coming out “ in my book has a loose interpretation of responsibilities and should reassess his suitability for pilot training . I hope John Taru makes a quick and full recovery , there’s not much focus on his welfare in the media .

 

[BrendAn]

5 minutes ago, yampy said:

 I know the instructor very well . He’s an accomplished instructor of many years . The students claims don’t add up , any one who drives over 1 hr with “ bits coming out and blood coming out “ in my book has a loose interpretation of responsibilities and should reassess his suitability for pilot training . I hope John Taru makes a quick and full recovery , there’s not much focus on his welfare in the media .

 

The student was a cocky little sh#t which is pretty normal for a lot of young men. But at the end of the day the instructor is in charge not the student. Both the instructors I train with have somewhere to land in all phases of the training flight. But we may have a better training area being in the country. 

Sometimes I watch the training at Moorabbin and wonder what happens if the fan stops when they take off to the east. It's all houses.

[kgwilson]

Too much money and a gung ho attitude is not a good combination for a budding pilot. And Yes the PIC is the Instructor.

 

From Google Earth there seems to be a tree that overhangs the runway near the threshold on 18 L where the crash occurred. ERSA states "Tall trees in close proximity to THR of RWY 36 L/R and 18L" How they managed to drift to the right and hit the tree about 50 metres from the end of the runway should come out in the report. Straight ahead and off the end of the runway there are also trees but they appear not to be too tall & aiming between a couple (if possible) would be the best option to rip the wings off & absorb a lot of the energy.

[facthunter]

You might find a freezing on the controls or a fight for them. We will see..   Nev

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

You might find a freezing on the controls or a fight for them. We will see..   Nev

That was my thought, too. 

 

2 hours ago, BrendAn said:

The student was a cocky little sh#t

Exactly!!!!!

 

Those of us who know John would know that he would be capable of putting that Jab down anywhere he wanted to. Going by the attitude of the shit in the left seat, I'd say the argument was, 'My money. My plane." 

 

Geez I've messed up my reporting here. This is the weather at Camden on the 30th. Looks like there had been consistent generally westerly winds all day, so they would have been taking off in a generally southerly direction with a crosswind from the right. 

 

No doubt the truth of the matter will come out in Court when this bloke is suing John and Dave's Flying School. He'd be just the sort to do it.

[skippydiesel]

On the day of the accident, this aircraft had completed a flying lesson, .

A second (very low hours) student got in & commenced circuit training, with instructor John.

Active runway was 180

At The Oaks, wind was from the south west, variable & gusting (The Oaks frequently has weather conditions that differ to that of the nearest BOM/Camden)

Don't know if it was the first touch & go, or after several but engine started to loose power on climb out . 

It appears likely that it just/almost made circuit altitude, prior to engine quitting.

Speculation:

I have no idea about the time span between loosing power/failing however it is known that John took over and attempted a, tail wind, return to the field (he must have judged he has sufficient height to do so).

At the time of the accident, he would have been low and on late base, presumably going to make a low turn onto final,  for a mid field touch down.

lt is likely a gust (tail wind) hit just prior to turning final, effectively reducing air speed and increasing rate of decent  - what could have been a successful landing, ended in the small tree on the western edge of the runway 360 threshold.

 

I understand:

No one knew of the accident, until John & student were spotted (by a pilot doing circuits) walking down the strip.

John suffered injury to his nose & thumb - he has had an operation to "fix" the damage. His wife (not the ambulance) drove him to hospital - I wish him a speedy recovery.

Student sustained a minor injury to one leg & declined medical assistance.

 

Its awful when an accident occurs and it would have been better that the aircraft was not so badly damaged, however pilot & student literally walked away, which in my book is a good outcome.

 

 

[kgwilson]

He must have managed to get it round as it looks like it was facing South on impact. I guess he just ran out of altitude.

[facthunter]

You can REPLACE PLANES. Many who try to save them do the wrong thing in the process.. Normally with a downwind landing, you gain a bit of airspeed as the tailwind reduces near the surface but you get an illusion of being too fast as you're not used to landing with the wind behind you. Who ever practices it in light aircraft?.  Nev

[old man emu]

John is probably the most experienced pilot who uses The Oaks. He flies there in all sorts of weather, and a sou'wester is pretty much the prevailing wind. Anyone who learns to fly at The Oaks can soon gets to be able to land into a crosswind tornado. If he attained circuit height he would have the ability to turn around. The Jab he was flying was one of the very early ones and aren't they very light with good glide performance?

 

KG, according to the student, the plane clipped a tree and rotated to end up facing south.